Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

It was close enough to touch.

Its mouth hinged wrong, like a broken doll’s jaw. Its grin was carved too wide. Black eyes locked on her like she was something that it had been waiting to play with.

Joints bent backwards. Tattered rags of what might once have been a jester’s outfit clung to its frame, bells jingling with every movement.

”Little vessel, built to break,

The dark king’s children need to wake.”

Her hand rose. She didn’t raise it. Maddox did, his flame moving through her. Gold fire erupted from her hand and slammed into the creature.

It started chanting in a child’s voice, even as its body burned.

”Play with me, little vessel... just like your mother did.”

The creature started tearing at its own face with manic delight, peeling off chunks of skin in wet sheets while giggling.

Then its face changed into her mother’s.

”You promised me you wouldn’t shift. Now your father sold you.”

Her mother started to scream as the fire burned her.

Guinevere knew it was a trick. She knew. But her mother’s scream tore through her and she couldn’t do it. She fought for control of her arm, shoving it to the floor.

Her mother’s voice persisted.

”Don’t trust him, Gwen! RUN. NOW. DON’T LOOK. GO.”

The tendrils let go. She scooted back rapidly, chest heaving.

Her mother’s voice cut off into a high, childish giggle.

Then it lunged at her with open arms.

”You always were weak,”it sneered in her half-brother’s mocking tone.

Then a little girl’s scream. Her own scream from years ago.

The floor beneath it suddenly gave way with a sickening crack. It floated in the blackness, as if the darkness was holding it up like a puppet.

”I’m in your head, little Gwen. I never left.”

Tendrils shot out, grabbing her again. It let out a piercing, nails-on-glass shriek. She slammed her hands over her ears, but the sound only grew louder, vibrating through her bones.

Then the collapse began in earnest.

Slabs of floor started dropping into darkness in the room.

”MOTHERFUCKER,” Maddox and Kael said at the exact same time, both changing direction mid-sprint as the ground between them and Guinevere disappeared.

Across the chamber, Sterling accelerated as a gap opened in front of him.

Three feet. Five. Widening.

He planted one foot on the last solid edge and launched himself across it.

The second he landed, he finally saw her: eyes shut and hands clamped over her ears, being pulled towards it.

He slid to his knees and locked both arms around her, digging his heels into the ground, refusing to let the thing pull her another inch.

As soon as he had a grip, he let go of her with one arm and hammered it with fire.

It shrieked. Recoiled. Then surged forward again, stronger, angrier, as if the flame had insulted it instead of hurt it.

A woman’s voice suddenly tore through the darkness, raw and heartbroken.

”Sterling, you are hurting me. I am your fiancée! We were supposed to be together forever! You promised! And you let me die!”

From behind Sterling, Kael just arrived. His flame hit the thing with both palms. Black. Not gold.

It shrieked. Thrashed. Tendrils whipped in every direction. But even as it writhed, it didn’t let go of Guinevere.

The flame wasn’t killing it. It was pissing it off.

Then Maddox landed, though he landed wrong. His ribs let him know it immediately.

The blade of the First Dragon King carved through the first tendril like it was smoke. The creature screamed. A real scream this time.

He slashed again. Two more tendrils severed. They didn’t grow back. His exhale tasted like copper.

”Both of my flames aren’t working,” Kael yelled.

Maddox didn’t need to be told twice. He cut through everything holding her, though the motion ground his broken ribs together, forcing his left arm to compensate for the agony in his chest.

He swung anyway.

The second the last tendril fell away from Guinevere, Sterling picked her up and launched across a gap with her in his arms.

Kael and Maddox jumped behind him.

The landing sent a crack through Maddox’s chest that whited out his vision for a full second. Kael grabbed his arm and pulled him forward before his legs decided whether they were done.

The ceiling was coming down in sheets now. Not pieces. Entire sections of stone were peeling away and crashing to the floor in walls of dust and debris.

More tendrils followed, shooting out from the darkness. They reached for Guinevere like they could smell her.

Kael hit them with flame. They recoiled, then came back bigger.

”Stop using fire,” Maddox roared over the collapse. The command cost him two ribs’ worth of air he didn’t have.

”THEN WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST?” Kael yelled back, dodging a slab of ceiling that shattered where he’d been standing.

”RUN FASTER.”

Maddox kept slashing. Every tendril the blade touched died screaming. He couldn’t rotate fully anymore and his vision was going white at the edges.

Lux stood at the entrance, both hands out, dark magic streaming from her palms to create a barrier. Tendrils began banging against it, trying to punch through. Blood was running freely from both nostrils and she hadn’t wiped it once.

Jaxon was pressed against her side. One hand flat on her spine, feeding healing magic into her. The other hand was aimed at the ceiling, firing concussive pulses of blue into the stone above them, holding thousands of tons of rock in place through sheer will.

His arms were shaking.

”The structure is going,” he called. ”Ten seconds. I cannot hold this ceiling beyond that. Every one of you needs to be through this door before I let go. That is not a request.”

Twelve feet. Eight.

Maddox was running on nothing. His ribs were grinding with every stride. The only thing still working was the part of him that refused to let her out of his sight.

Three. Two.

CRACK.