Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

There’s a spectrum of bad ways to wake up. Confused is bad. Lost is worse. Waking up naked with some random already on top of you is the championship belt. Guinevere was about to sweep the category.

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DOMINO 55: NAKED STRANGER BINGO

SOLVEIL CITADEL - ROYAL CHAMBERS 3:47 AM

The first thing that registered was the pulsing warmth deep inside her, doing something she didn’t understand but definitely felt.

Next came the all-over tingle, similar to what she experienced with Kael, but the scent was not Kael’s, and that’s what made the alarm bells in her head turn into a full fucking air-raid.

Consciousness hit like ice water. Her eyes snapped open. Strange ceiling. The entire room was lit gold and white. A glowing, completely nude man was on top of her, face buried in her hair, full weight pinning her into a mattress she had never seen before in her life.

The scream made it to her throat. Her hand caught it and pressed so hard against her mouth she could feel her pulse in her palm.

WHUMP.

Every light in the room died. Her skin. His skin. The stone. The air itself. One second the room was gold. The next it was pitch-black.

She didn’t move for ten seconds. Ten full seconds of lying beneath a stranger, shaking, counting his breaths, calculating if she could get out from under him without waking him.

Her breathing went shallow and fast. Too fast. The dark room was spinning. She needed him off her. She needed him off her right now.

She slid out from under him the way a hostage slides out of a sleeping captor’s grip: slow, shaking, one inch at a time, every muscle screaming to bolt but her brain saying don’t wake him, don’t wake him, you don’t know what he’ll do.

Finally, her feet hit cold stone. The nude glowing man was still out cold, now face-down in the exact pillow she’d escaped. She couldn’t see his face but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to.

How did she end up here? She was at Greyhall Crossing. What the hell happened? Why was she naked with him?

For a moment, she couldn’t move, too overwhelmed to focus. The naked part is what she kept coming back to.

Hot tears welled in her eyes and fell down her face.

Crying wasn’t going to get her out of this situation so she forced herself to breathe and scanned the room. Her clothes were folded neatly on the chaise and her boots were there as well.

That was one positive. It could be worse and she was a tough bitch. This was nothing.

That’s what she repeated to herself as she dressed silently.

Clothes couldn’t solve this but they helped her feel less exposed.

She moved to the door and listened. Voices. Low. Professional. At least two. Most likely his men or guards.

The alternative was already waiting, doors open, curtains billowing in the breeze. She crossed the room and stepped out onto the balcony. One foot outside and her lungs pulled the emergency brake.

Whatever she was looking at felt like a fever dream. A humming city spanned as far as she could see. White stone columns that reflected the moonlight. Gardens and glowing pools. Waterfalls pouring into open space, hitting the clouds below.

That’s when she noticed the balcony was lit bright as hell, much brighter than the other stone she could see.

Her eyes snapped to the man in the bed. He was where she left him and thankfully a heavy sleeper.

One problem down.

When she turned back around, soft orbs of warm light were gathering around her, like oversized fireflies. When she reached out to touch one, it pressed against her fingertip and held there, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. Then it lifted and returned to the others like it had gotten what it came for.

For a second she wondered if Dark Fae blood had somehow ended up in her mouth, because this had to be a fucking hallucination.

It wasn’t. She was awake, she was sober, and she needed to leave right now.

She peered over the railing to find a garden terrace below. Perfect. In a blur she cleared the ledge and dropped to it. The second her boots made contact, the whole surface lit up like it was showing off.

Was the light reacting to her?

Yes. She knew it was yes. Obviously. She was mid-escape and this had to be their security system.

Three terraces down, it dawned on her that it was going to keep lighting up for her and she was still a long fucking way from the bottom. Level after level after level, this city was either built into a mountain or hovering on clouds. She couldn’t tell which and it didn’t matter because she needed a way out and right now it looked like there wasn’t one.

Her hands were shaking so badly she had to press them flat against the stone to stop them. Breathe. Just breathe. But breathing wasn’t fixing the fact that she was alone in a city she couldn’t name, fleeing a bed she couldn’t explain, leaving a trail of light she couldn’t stop, with no weapon, no pack, and no idea which direction home was.

After another few floors, she found herself standing on glowing pink flowers in someone’s garden that she was currently trampling.

”Oh shoot, really sorry,” she said quietly to no one.

As careful as a thief trying to not ruin someone’s hard work, she stepped out of the garden. The flowers dimmed the instant her boots cleared them.

She blinked a few times.

Were they leaning towards her?

Before she could examine further, a voice cut across the courtyard.

”Who goes there?”

A guard dressed in the oddest armor she had ever seen was storming towards her with murder in his eyes.

Far away on another continent, Kael Ashenvale’s eyes snapped open as her terror hit him like a wall.