Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Maddox’s wife was a dragon. His High General was running a gambling operation during an extraction. And his ex-High Marshal had just made a joke, which meant either the apocalypse was starting or Sterling had been body-snatched.

Ryker: Annulment. You married a Solandris. Gross. I feel like I need a shower just thinking about it.

Ryker said ”annulment” with the confidence of a best friend who knew he was funny and was fully prepared to die on that burning hill.

Sterling: A dragon queen for a dragon throne who happens to have a wolf too. I called that weeks ago. You’re welcome for the genius foresight.

Ryker turned his whole body toward Sterling, slowly, the way a man turns toward a noise he doesn’t believe he actually heard.

Ryker: Did you just make another joke?

Ryker was grinning at Sterling the way a man grins at a friend who just accidentally revealed a personality. Sterling’s unimpressed stare was trying to put the personality back in the box. The box was broken.

Ryker: The look doesn’t undo the jokes, Sterling. Both happened. We all heard them.

Maddox’s eyes moved between the two of them with the patience of a commander watching his officers flirt during a hostage crisis.

Maddox: Solandris’s silence in that council meeting. What long game is the old bastard playing where he wouldn’t want his own blood on the throne? Because I’m not buying the ’wise grandfather’ act for a second.

Ryker: He was silent during the first Council meeting today too. You weren’t there for that one, Maddox. Really missed out.

Maddox: Yeah. I was a little busy fighting a demon and getting my ribs broken. You know, normal shit.

Ryker: For three hours the lords took turns shitting on her qualifications and for three hours I took a shit on their qualifications right back.

Ryker looked entirely too pleased with himself as he mindlinked.

Before Maddox could respond to the image of Ryker enthusiastically shitting, Kael’s voice carried through the wall. ”Fine, I’ll take your creepy blood oath. Say please next time.”

Ryker’s face went from ”proudest moment of my career” to ”what the fuck” in under a second.

Ryker: He is taking a blood oath, knowing full well that we are listening. That’s the exact thing that kills you.

Ryker looked at Sterling. Sterling looked at Ryker. Both men shared the same silent question: is Kael suicidal or genius? The answer, historically, was both, and both were currently performing at peak capacity.

Maddox never moved his eyes off the tent flap.

Maddox: Kael knows something we don’t. All he had to do was say four words and I bring the whole tent down around him.

Trusting his brother was like trusting a tornado to clean your house. It might work.

Ryker: ’Fuck me, I’m thirsty.’ Poetry, really.

Kael’s voice rang out again. ”If I die, tell my brother I died doing something stupid for a pretty girl. He’ll understand and hate that in equal measure.”

Ryker looked at Maddox. Maddox’s face was doing something complicated.

Ryker: He’s not wrong though. You do understand. And you hate it.

Maddox: Ryker.

Ryker: In equal measure. His words. Accurate words.

Next to him, Maddox closed his eyes.

Ryker: If that’s how he goes, that’s a hell of a line to go out on.

Maddox: He’s not going out on anything. He’s coming out of that tent alive and then I’m going to make his life miserable for calling my wife pretty.

Ryker: Priorities. Love that for you.

Sterling looked at Ryker. Ryker looked at Sterling. Both men arrived at the same conclusion at the same time: the Dragon King was going to rescue his brother, save his wife, and then start a fight about an adjective.

Sterling: No dragon swears a blood oath he’s actively breaking. So to every man behind that canvas, Kael just proved, that to his knowledge, there are no ears outside this tent.

Ryker: That arrogant, beautiful bastard.

Sterling: Very likely that’s why they’re still—

Sterling’s mindlink cut off mid-sentence because a column of gold and white fire erupted through the tent ceiling.

Every person in diplomat row stopped drinking, fucking, and gambling at the same time. The fire was more interesting than all three, which on diplomat row was unprecedented.

The THWUMP that followed sucked the fire back into the tent so fast the air pressure changed and all of their ears popped.

Ryker: I said it once, and I’ll say it again, she is the most accidentally disruptive person I ever met.

Sterling: Seconded.

Maddox exhaled through his teeth. The exhale carried the specific frustration of a man who wanted to disagree with ”accidentally disruptive” and couldn’t because the sky was literally just glowing.

Ryker: Oh come on, are we even going to debate who the fuck that belonged to?

✦✦✦

INSIDE THE TENT

Seven people sat at a table being taught magical genetics by a dragon lord, processing it the way they’d been processing everything that night: badly.

”Six thousand years ago, the world had two kinds of magic that could touch the dark fae,” Lord Solandris began, ”Fire and light. The Luminari carried that light.”

”Let me guess.” Kael leaned back. ”Flame stopped working and both were surrendered.”

”Nobody is asking for your goddamn commentary,” Eron snapped.

”And yet here I am. Commenting. Freely. In your tent. Drinking your whiskey.” Kael raised the glass. ”Life is full of surprises, Eron.”

”Shut your damn trap, dragon,” Eron fired back. ”No one gives a crap about the bullshit spewing from your mouth.”

”I care about the bullshit being spewed,” Guinevere cut in. ”He’s allowed to have opinions. If everyone could lighten up, that would be great.”

She surprised herself when she said it.

Kael swirled his stolen whiskey. ”Wolf Girl, don’t talk back to your cousin.” He looked at Lord Solandris. ”Continue, Grandfather. Your other grandson was saying something.”

”I am not his grandson or her cousin,” Eron snapped through his teeth.

”Brother, grandson, cousin, whatever. You’re all inbred enough that the distinction is academic.”

Eron’s nostrils flared. ”I will burn you where you fucking sit.”

”You’ve threatened to cook me four times tonight,” Kael said. ”To quote Wolfey the Cum-Chanting-Demon-Slayer, ’threats are just jerking off at the negotiation table. If you could finish, you would have done it.’”

A vein in Eron’s neck surfaced for the second time tonight.

”Call me that again, Kael, and I will light you on fire,” Guinevere said without looking at him.

”Must run in the family. You Solandrises are all batting zero with that threat. All bark and no bite.” Kael glanced at Renwick. ”I said it. Don’t hate it.”

Kael had just insulted a dragon house, three wolves, and one kidnapping operation in a single statement, then looked at the Wolf King for confirmation. The Wolf King dragged a hand down his face. The hand drag was Renwick’s version of a standing ovation he would never admit to giving.

Lord Solandris continued as if none of them had spoken.

”Males carried shift. Females carried flame. But when a dragon male sired children on a Luminari woman, the daughters also shifted. And when a dragon female bore sons to a Luminari male, those sons inherited both shift and the light. That distinction matters for what comes next.”

Beta Draven looked down into his glass as if it had answers.

”Well, shit,” he muttered.

”She was translating scrolls of this earlier,” Marek commented as if she wasn’t there.

”How do you know that?” Guinevere asked.

📈 PROFANITY LEADERBOARD

😈 Kael: 34 ▲▲

👑 Guinevere: 24 ▲

🃏 Demons: 15

🛡️ Eron: 8 ▲

🐺 Renwick: 2

🔮 Marek: 2 ▲

📜 Lord Solandris (Edward): 0

🥃 Beta Draven: 1