Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Between noon and nightfall, the dominoes fell in an order that looked random and wasn’t. One by one, kings and fathers and princes made decisions that afternoon. Each decision pushed the next.

By evening, someone was going to die in Lunaris Keep. The only question was who, and the answer was already walking towards it.

Tile one landed at three o’clock.

DOMINO 1: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR WARDS

LUNARIS KEEP - 3:00 PM

DISTANCE FROM GUINEVERE - 400 MILES

DISTANCE FROM THE DRAGONS - 688 miles

Landon hit the ground running.

Eight hundred and fifty miles in nine hours with a Luminari formation that had pushed pace the entire way. His reserves were empty. His body was running on fury and the fading echo of a connection he’d felt for three seconds at dawn and had been chasing ever since.

The Keep was a disaster.

Shattered windows. Ash on the walls. Scorch marks on the stone that smelled like burned copper and something worse.

Wolves were everywhere. Against walls. In doorways. Some were conscious, sitting upright with bandaged limbs and the thousand-yard stare of men who had fought all night and won. Others were horizontal, breathing shallow, skin grey.

Then he saw the veins.

Three wolves on stretchers had black lines crawling from stab wounds across their chests. The veins pulsed with a rhythm that belonged to dark magic.

His jaw tightened.

Dark fae magic eating men alive and the best this Keep had was herbs and hope. Where the fuck were their mages? Where the fuck were their wards?

”Who is in charge?” he asked the nearest conscious wolf.

”Tyler Draven, the Beta, sir.”

”Take me to him.”

The wolf didn’t argue. The wolf didn’t ask follow-up questions. The wolf took one look at the glowing king who had just landed in his courtyard with a squadron of healers and decided that obedience was the only career move that didn’t end in unemployment or death. Smart goddamn wolf.

DOMINO 2: THE BETA’S VERY BAD AFTERNOON

LUNARIS INFIRMARY - 3:30 PM

Tyler Draven looked worse than the men in the great hall. Propped on a cot, bandages around his chest, dark veins crawling from the stab wound toward his collarbone. His lips were turning blue at the edges. His breathing was shallow, labored, and getting worse.

The healer was beside him, inspecting the spread of the dark magic. He had tried every tool in his arsenal and nothing was working.

Landon crossed the room in three strides. ”How long has he been like this?”

”The blue started an hour ago,” the healer said. ”The dark veins have been spreading since—”

Tyler seized.

His back arched off the cot. His eyes rolled. His body locked rigid, every muscle contracting simultaneously, and the sound that came from his throat was the sound of a man whose heart had just received a visitor it was trying to kill.

Maria screamed from the doorway. She lunged forward but Landon’s arm caught her.

”STAY BACK.”

He turned to the two Luminari healers who had followed him in. ”NOW. Both of you. Purge the dark magic first, stabilize the heart second. If his rhythm drops, I hold it manually. Go.”

Both healers dropped beside the cot. White light poured from their hands into Tyler’s chest. The dark veins recoiled from the contact like worms from sunlight, retreating toward the wound, pulling back from his heart inch by agonizing inch.

Tyler’s body convulsed twice more. His lips went from blue to purple.

”We’re losing him,” the first healer said.

”Not on my watch,” Landon replied, calm and certain, pressing his palm flat against Tyler’s sternum. A pulse of Luminari light, the last meaningful reserve he had, went directly into the Beta’s heart.

Tyler’s back arched one final time. His mouth opened. A breath went in. Then another. His color shifted, purple retreating to blue retreating to something closer to living.

The dark veins were gone. Purged. The wound was still there, still ugly, still deep, but the magic had been ripped out of it by two healers who knew exactly what they were doing.

Tyler’s eyes opened. Unfocused. Found Landon.

”Who...” Tyler’s voice was wrecked.

”Landon Solveil, King of the Luminari. Your princess is in danger. Where is she?”

Tyler blinked. Processing. The man had been dead thirty seconds ago and was being asked for a status report.

In defense of Landon’s bedside manner, he had flown eight hundred and fifty miles without stopping.

DOMINO 3: DRAGON KING FLIES DIRECTLY OVER HIS WIFE

IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE - 4:00 PM

DISTANCE FROM LUNARIS - 500 MILES

You read it correctly. In his defense, she was in human form and under a tree. In her defense, the only dragon she knew was Kael Ashenvale, who was in her bed.

Why is this a domino?

If he had looked down, every domino after this one stays standing.

He didn’t. They didn’t.

DOMINO 4: KING OF LIGHT DEPARTS (AGAIN)

LUNARIS KEEP - 4:00 PM

DISTANCE TO GREYHALL - 800 MILES

SOLO SPEED - 130 MPH

The woman he’d flown eight hundred and fifty miles to find had left four hours ago to attend a meeting. A meeting. Landon almost laughed. He didn’t.

”Set up wards for them,” he ordered his men. ”Every injured wolf gets healed. Start with the infected.”

”Yes, Your Grace.”

Tyler opened his mouth to say something, a warning, advice, context, thank you, anything that might help. Landon was already through the door.

Eight hundred miles. Solo. On empty light reserves and the last fumes of a connection that kept flickering like a candle in a storm.

He launched from the eastern wall and didn’t look back.

DOMINO 5: DADDY IS HOME

LUNARIS HARBOR: 5:30 PM

Renwick Lunaris’s ship had docked and boy, was this Alpha King in for a BIG surprise.

Broken windows. Ash on everything. Glowing foreign soldiers. His son in a dungeon. A dragon he thought was dead in his daughter’s bed. A Luminari unit camped in his great hall. And a pregnant wife in tears who had been holding this shitstorm together because his daughter had given her a pep talk.

Welcome home, Renwick. The briefing is going to be a bitch.