Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Behind them, Eron Solandris spilled out of the tent.

”Get Ashenvale. NOW.” He hurled the command at his men, and twenty-odd Solandris soldiers broke into a grid sweep, boots hammering the frozen mud in a fan of practiced, pointless violence.

Kael ran.

He ran the way a man runs when he has a glowing woman tucked under one arm while her father’s Alpha commands tried to yank her backwards. The pair of them moved through Diplomat Row like a lit torch dragged through a fireworks warehouse.

They blew past a dice game mid-throw. Six lords on their knees in the mud, a fortune in gold between them, and every last one of them looked up at the exact wrong second to watch a glowing wolf princess get carried past by a dragon.

”Sixes,” Kael called over his shoulder without breaking stride. ”Trust me. I’ve got a feeling.”

Guinevere’s body jolted in his arms as her father’s command hauled at her hips. ”Kael, my legs keep trying to go the other way.”

”Yeah, I noticed. Your dad’s got a leash on you and it’s tugging. Ignore it. We’re improvising.”

”If I could ignore it, I would,” she snapped.

They blew straight through the flap of a tent that turned out to be hosting a structural miracle of a group encounter, a tangle of limbs and enthusiasm that no fewer than five people had committed to fully.

Every participant froze mid-endeavor to stare at the glowing woman and the dragon who had just used their orgy as a hallway.

”So sorry. Wrong tent. Beautiful work, though, truly. The one in the middle is carrying the whole thing.” Kael was already out the other flap. ”Don’t stop on our account.”

”Oh gods,” Guinevere started.

”Yes. Some things you don’t unsee.”

They vaulted a passed-out baron. They knocked over a cauldron of something that had once been soup.

Kael snatched a bottle of wine off a stunned soldier’s table without slowing, took a swig, decided it was garbage, and handed it back to him. ”Brother, who hurt you.”

”KAEL. WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL.”

”Working on it.”

Then, the row closed like a fist.

They came out of everywhere. Tents. Shadows. Alleys. Gaps between carts that shouldn’t have fit a man but apparently did. A dozen blades. A dozen palms. The entire row pivoted from fuck-fest to kill-zone in under three seconds.

Kael stopped. Nowhere left to run that did not end on a blade.

Guinevere pulled out of Kael’s hold, planting herself in front of him and the ring of steel.

Kael gave the back of her head a look so loud it had subtitles. The subtitle was: this again? The back of her head said: yes, this again.

”Always for the dramatics, Daughter.” Renwick strode into the ring with his cloak thrown over one shoulder, unbothered, like he owned the frozen ground and everyone shivering on it. ”None of this needed to be so difficult.”

”Your move, Ashenvale.” Eron came up beside the Wolf King, his ruined-evening face curdled into something genuinely mean. ”No little brother around to help you. No tent to hide in. You, the girl, and forty men who would love to end their night on a dragon.”

Marek raised both hands, one healed and one whole, and the air behind them started to blacken.

Guinevere flexed her flame muscle with the same fury-driven focus that had cracked four hundred dragon iron cuffs.

Gold erupted from the ground beneath them in a perfect circle.

FWOOOOOSH.

The flame detonated upward in a cylinder of fire that climbed hundreds of feet into the night sky and turned Diplomat Row into noon.

The shockwave sent Solandris’s soldiers tumbling like dice rolled by a drunk god. Half hit the dirt. The other half hit each other. Eron hit a tent pole. Marek hit Eron. Renwick didn’t fall because he would never fall. He did, however, slide backwards far enough that Draven had to catch his elbow, and neither of them would ever speak of it.

Inside the gold, Kael leaned close and dropped his voice into the shell of her ear, low and steady, the one calm thing in chaos.

”Maddox has them surrounded, Guinevere. They’ve been listening in to gather information. I need ninety more seconds and I need you to trust me. Nobody lays a hand on you. On my brother’s life.”

Before Guinevere could respond, Kael pitched forward, his hand clutching his chest, then collapsed on his stomach.

”Kael.” She dropped to her knees. ”Kael. What’s happening?”

Silence.

”KAEL.”

She rolled him over to his back.

His body started seizing, every muscle firing out of sequence, his eyes rolling white.

”Kael, fuck.”

The seizing stopped. His hand found her wrist. The grip was iron for one second, then nothing. Then his fingers slid off her skin.

”Relax wolf girl,” he managed, blood on his teeth. ”Had a whole speech planned.”

”Shut up, Kael. Breathe. What is happening?”

”Gwen.” His hand found hers on his chest and held it there. ”Tell my brother. Tell him.” His jaw worked. ”Tell him his wife is a pain in the ass and I.” He swallowed. ”Enjoyed every second of it. Also, tell him, fuck me, I’m thirsty.”

”Tell him yourself.”

”I’m trying to have a moment here and you’re ruining it.”

She laughed. The laugh was a sob. Both came out at the same time and neither was the right sound for watching a man die in a cylinder of her own fire.

His grip loosened, but his eyes stayed on hers, blood filling his irises. The gold was almost gone, then his lids closed.

”Kael.”

His chest rose once. Fell. Did not rise again.

”No. That was too fast.”

She shook her head. He was talking three seconds ago. It was too quick. Too casual. Death was supposed to take longer than a punchline. He was supposed to fight it the way he fought everything: loudly, badly, and with a drink in his hand.

She checked his pulse three times. Moved her fingers each time because the first spot must have been wrong and the second spot must have been wrong and the third spot was not wrong and she checked it again anyway.

Nothing.

Gold erupted from her palms and she drove it into his chest like she was trying to restart a heart by hand, instinct taking over. The light spread across his body in veins of white and gold that pulsed once, twice, and died.

The gold cylinder of flame around them held. She held. The world held. And Kael Ashenvale, who had talked his way into a tent, past six demons and a divine king, was not talking his way out of this.

”No, no, no,” she sobbed.

More. She pushed more. The gold brightened. His body absorbed it and gave nothing back. She pushed again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Her hands were shaking so hard the light was stuttering and she couldn’t steady them because steadying them required a version of her brain that wasn’t screaming.

Gold light pooled across his chest and sat there, doing nothing, going nowhere, waiting for a heartbeat that wasn’t coming to tell it where to go.

”Please, Kael. You promised. On your brother’s life. You promised me ninety seconds.”