Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Maddox Drakencrest didn’t know it yet, but he was about to learn what his matebond felt like for the first time-ish.

He resisted the urge to kill the King of Light who had his forehead pressed to Guinevere’s.

Blinding white light poured from him and into her, turning the row back to noon-bright.

Dark magic rose out of her chest like strands of black smoke, dissolving in the light. All of it but one thread of it. But that was future Maddox’s problem, and future Maddox could go fuck himself. Present Maddox had bigger fires.

Then one drunk genius asked, ”Is she good?”

When no one answered, the peanut gallery shitstorm began.

”If she’s dead, I start looting. That’s the deal.”

”He shoulda taken the fuckin’ gold.”

”She’s breathing, I think. Look!”

”Nice work, boys! Sent one evil package away and kept the hot one. Absolute professionals.”

For the second time that evening, Diplomat Row erupted into a standing ovation. No one was entirely sure who they were cheering for. At this point they were mostly clapping for themselves.

One Luminari soldier got swept up and started clapping along. His buddy gave him the most judgmental side-eye in recorded history. He stopped mid-clap and tried to play it off as a very awkward stretch.

The King of Light lifted his head, panting, then did something no one on that row expected. He reached for the Dragon King, placing a hand on his shoulder.

White light pulsed into Maddox in a rush of warmth, foreign, clean and entirely uninvited. More blood fell from Maddox’s nose.

Ryker’s voice cut across the row as he stormed over. ”What the hell are you doing? Don’t touch him.”

Landon was already finished and removed his hand, paying Ryker no mind.

Maddox shook his head once before his ears popped. Whatever the hell Landon just did removed a pain that he hadn’t noticed until now. Like a splinter jammed deep. But the person who yanked it free was some glowing prick he’d been threatening thirty minutes ago.

Maddox did not know how to feel about owing that guy. He decided to feel nothing about it and add it to the pile of things he’d deal with never.

His pulse pounded in his ears as electricity shot through him so hard he jolted. Everywhere they touched sparks flared, even through her cloak. Then their matebond detonated through his veins like liquid lightning.

His dragon roared with it.

Mate. Finally.

”The memories will return over time as she heals,” Landon said, voice low just for Maddox.

Maddox didn’t give a fuck about memories. All he knew was there was a matebond flooding through him and with it, a sudden, terrifying certainty that he would level kingdoms before he let anyone take her again.

Blood roared south to his cock while his dragon kept screaming mate on repeat. His hands flexed on her body. He wanted to pin her to the ground right here in the wreckage and fuck, suck, mark, and claim her.

Gold bled into his sight as his dragon shoved at the door trying to take control.

Maddox had thought it was bad earlier. Listening to demons argue about cumming inside his wife while his officers physically restrained him. He thought that was as loud as the possessive mine-mine-fucking-mine drumbeat got.

Wrong. So wrong it was almost funny.

What tore through him now was ten times louder. This was not a drum beat. It was a goddamn war drum the size of a hurricane.

He closed his eyes, swallowing down his dragon and the instinct to burn anyone within a ten foot radius of her.

”Solveil. You saved my wife’s life. I won’t forget that. Thank you.” Maddox kept his voice level, and meant every word. Man to man, nothing else under it.

Landon’s jaw tightened. He looked down at Guinevere in Maddox’s arms, and a pained look crossed his radiant face, there and gone. Then his eyes came back up to Maddox’s.

”Now that he has her location, he will come back. Let my men layer Luminari light over your wards. For her safety. Please.”

A king on his knees saying please. The same one who had been trying to buy his wife.

Before Maddox could respond, she stirred against his chest, murmuring three words in a language he didn’t recognize.

Landon went rigid. Maddox felt it and looked up.

”What did she just say?”

”My healer will need to look at her and your brother. And at you, since you’re bleeding from your face,” Landon replied.

The bastard changed the subject. But the new subject was also important. Gratitude was real. Suspicion was also real. Maddox had built an entire reign on holding both in the same hand without dropping either.

”Let’s make sure we understand each other,” he said, voice firm. ”She isn’t for sale.”

”We’re clear. I’m willing to table that conversation, Drakencrest, because it’s smaller than what happened here tonight.”

Landon rose slowly to his feet, and the light bent around him as he did.

”What just occurred on this row showed me one thing plainly. Neither of us wins this alone. My people have hidden for thousands of years because of those creatures.” His gaze swept the ash still drifting across the row. ”Your wards let a fae army portal into a war summit. Ours would not have. Let me give that to you, and protect her.”

Maddox stood with her in his arms, letting the applause around them fill the silence.

An offer with no hook wasn’t the absence of one. It was one he hadn’t found yet. Maddox’s jaw tightened. The instinct to rip Landon’s throat out warred with the cold logic that the man had just saved her. He swallowed both urges down like broken glass.

His wards let the Eclipse King do the impossible and walk in. That was a hole he could not afford to leave open, and pride would not stop him from being a good king.

”Fine. My master mage supervises. If he doesn’t like something, they stop and they explain it until he does. That’s the deal.”

”Agreed,” Landon replied with zero hesitation.

From the edge of the wreckage, Lord Solandris straightened his cuffs and stepped forward, opening his mouth to make another run at the word granddaughter.

”Solandris.” Landon didn’t raise his voice. ”On my order. Leave the girl be. This is not the hour, and you know it isn’t.”

The lord closed his mouth. Beside him, Marek and Eron, who had spent an entire evening bitch-clapping and hurling demons, discovered silence. All three shut the hell up in unison, muzzled. Maddox filed it and did not comment. Good to know exactly whose leash worked on whom.

Off to the side, standing in the wreckage of a dice game, Renwick Lunaris tipped his head back, stared at the stars, and moved his lips in what was almost certainly a prayer.

Maddox couldn’t make out the words, but if he were to guess: ”Dear gods, please let me keep my seven hundred fifty million. I am begging you.”

What the Dragon King failed to notice was, next to Renwick, Beta Draven stood frozen. Then he rubbed his eyes, staring hard at something on Guinevere. Whatever it was, the Beta kept his mouth shut.