Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Water shot from her mouth in a brutal, body-racking convulsion.

She gasped. Coughed. Gasped again.

Kael twisted her onto her side as far as she could go with his leg still anchored in between hers.

One strong hand rubbed steady circles on her back as she choked and wheezed, fighting to breathe.

Kael: I have her. I am half dead on a rock and need immediate assistance.

”Breathe, Guinevere. I’ve got you.”

Her eyes fluttered open in the midst of the coughing, finding his.

Her hair was frozen.

He frowned, noticing the gold surrounding him was not surrounding her and she was shaking from the cold.

He shoved flame into her, something he’d never done. Different than calling it.

Her body answered, then flickered. So he pulled her against his chest, arm locking around her.

Her arms went around his neck, her head buried in the crook of his throat, and her legs wrapped around him with the desperate grip of a woman whose body had decided it was never letting go of the first solid thing it found.

He held her tight.

She tried to speak. What came out was another cough, then a sob, then a sound that lived between the two that she couldn’t control.

”Th-thank—” Another cough stole it.

”Hey, don’t talk. Breathing is your only job right now. You can thank me later. I accept cash, compliments, and staring at me like I’m your personal hero.”

A sob broke out of her that might have been a laugh if her lungs had been working.

”For the record,” he said into her hair, ”this is at least rescue number ten. You’re a certified trouble magnet. We’re absolutely negotiating my compensation package.”

She shook against him, and the sound she made was definitely a laugh this time.

Griffin:I have your visual, Kael. Incoming.

Griffin dove for them. Water snaked upward like a hook and yanked. His dragon hit the river chest-first and the current swallowed him whole.

Kael’s gaze locked on the spot where Griffin had disappeared.

”The kid wasn’t even close enough for that. That’s my guy in there. GRIFFIN!”

No answer. No surface break.

Kael: The river just took Griffin’s dragon out of the air. I can’t get to him.

Ryker: The river did WHAT?

Kael: Took. Griffin. Out of the air. Which word confused you, Ryker?

Ryker: The part where a river has arms, Kael. That’s not natural.

Kael: I’m on a rock, half dead, holding a woman, missing a soldier, and arguing with a river. Get me Lux Nash before I lose my goddamn mind.

✦✦✦

Sterling dropped towards the wide stretch of river with three kings on his back.

Kael was visible from three hundred yards. He was glowing gold, holding a white-haired woman against a rock in the middle of the river.

Maddox: I see them.

All three dropped.

Maddox hit the water first. Nicholas second. Landon third. They cut through the water towards the rock with the combined force of three kings who had called dibs and never heard of taking turns.

The gold flame stayed around all three.

They were thirty yards out when it happened.

Her head was resting in the crook of Kael’s neck. Her eyes were closed and her grip was weakening around him.

The shaking stopped. All of it at once.

Then her body ignited.

White runes blazed across every inch of her skin, erupting from underneath in a cascade that turned her into a blinding signal fire on the rock.

She jolted back from Kael as her hands flew to her head.

”Guinevere. Stay with me. STAY WITH ME.”

Water crashed over the rock Kael had them pinned on. Then again taller and the rock wasn’t a rock anymore, it was a speed bump the river was done tolerating.

”What the...”

Kael’s grip on the stone slipped. He had half a second to choose between the rock and the girl. He chose the girl. Both arms locked around her and the current ripped them off the boulder like they weighed nothing.

His blood ran cold. That wasn’t a fucked-river current. A literal goddamn whirlpool had formed. Water was spinning into a funnel that was widening by the second.

And they were circling the outer edge. Kael kicked against the pull and lost ground immediately.

”KAEL! WE’RE COMING,” Maddox called.

A portal cracked open, and Lux Nash ran through. She knelt at the river’s edge. Both palms touched the water that could easily pull her in. Zero hesitation.

”Vor ahkethis dra thessuul, ka rethaan vol’sumaere.”

Her eyes lit dark purple.

The river and whirlpool went still, like time had stopped.

”You have forty-five seconds, Commander,” she yelled across the bank. Blood poured from her nose.

Maddox heard, swimming towards Kael, Nicholas and Landon behind him.

For a second it looked like they were going to get there in time.

Then Kael felt her body grow heavy, like she was being sucked somewhere. She jerked, fighting it, her arms flying back to her head.

”Something is trying to pull her under—”

Kael was cut off mid-sentence, yanked under the surface with her.

Three kings dove.

Underwater, the current had stopped. Completely. The silt hung motionless. The debris froze mid-tumble. For one grotesque second, time was frozen except for Kael and Guinevere being pulled downward towards something that glowed faintly at the bottom.

Kael’s arms were still locked around her. His legs were kicking against the pull. His face was a mask of effort and fury and the absolute refusal to let go of a woman the river had just decided it wanted more than he did.

Maddox swam harder than he had ever swum in his life. The gold flame around his body blazed so bright it turned the water around him amber.

Twenty feet from them.

Fifteen.

Nicholas was to his left, broken shoulder forgotten, his body powered by wolf instinct and Drakencrest flame and the singular, consuming need to reach her before whatever was pulling her took her.

Landon came from above, driving himself downward with a burst of light that lit the entire frozen column of water. He could see what was pulling her now. A circle of light at the bottom, a ring of runes that matched the ones blazing across her skin, spinning slowly.

Griffin’s body floated, unconscious in the stillness, blood gashing from his head.

Kael’s arms tightened around Guinevere as he continued to kick against whatever was pulling them. He locked eyes with Maddox through the impossible water.

Maddox’s hand stretched towards his brother and wife.

Just as his fingers made contact, the stillness broke.

The river snapped back to full speed like a rubber band, the current slamming into all of them at once, and the pull inverted, accelerating downward with a force that yanked Kael and her towards the glowing circle.

Kael didn’t loosen his grip for a second. If she was going, he was going with her and the gods themselves couldn’t have stopped him.

The light swallowed them both.

The river closed over the spot where they’d been, and the current resumed as if nothing had happened, cold and black and indifferent, carrying debris south towards a harbor where an unmarked ship set sail with an Alpha King below deck.

Maddox’s arm locked around Griffin who was tumbling in the water as he swam for air.

Three kings and one unconscious warrior surfaced in the dark.

She was gone.