Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Some corridors lead to freedom. Some lead to answers. This one led to blood, a dagger, and the one person Guinevere Lunaris never saw coming.

She eased the door open with the kind of care usually reserved for infants and live explosives, in that order.

The hallway was empty.

She had legs and was going to goddamn use them and get herself out of this. The crybaby ready to tap out on the cloud was six feet under. What remained was a bitch powered by pure, high-octane fuck-you energy.

And this bad bitch was off to the races.

One stairwell. Left turn. Right turn. Up a flight. This place was a maze but at least it was pretty.

Déjà vu slammed into her mid-step so hard she stopped moving. Her hand went to the wall on instinct, palm flat against the obsidian.

Before she could examine it, voices drifted down the corridor from the opposite direction. She flattened herself against an alcove and stopped breathing like it was a crime.

”The cure requires the cipher from a vault cleaned out months ago under his nose. The half-breed bastard will chase his dead mother’s translations. Let the clock bleed them dry.”

”Quiet. Walls have ears.”

Thank fuck she wasn’t lighting up like a goddamn beacon. They walked by without noticing a thing.

As soon as they rounded the corner she pushed off and bolted in the opposite direction like the building was on fire. She had zero idea where she was going, but she knew damn well it wasn’t wherever those two sketchy fucks were headed.

The further she went, the more the obsidian felt like she’d been here before, long enough that she actually considered for half a second whether this was brown-bachelor-pad’s Keep. She shook that thought off immediately.

No. Dark obsidian didn’t automatically make it that Keep. Her mind was on Kael because she was hearing his voice earlier. That was why she kept thinking that. Besides, as far as she knew, that Keep was a handful of corridors and a gold-lit tunnel that ejected her outside. This one seemed much larger and she hadn’t seen a tunnel yet.

She was mid-stride and mid-plan when the universe threw a curveball that stopped her dead.

At the far end of the corridor, lit by moonlight like a bad joke, was Luna Maria. Her father’s wife. But she didn’t look like Luna Maria at all. She was shaking hard. One hand hidden behind her. Crown nowhere to be found. Staring at the wall like a broken doll, just standing there and absolutely drenched in blood.

Maria was in Lunaris and this wasn’t home. That much was certain. So only three possibilities held water. It was either a sister who looked identical, a hallucination, or a goddamn ghost.

Guinevere didn’t move, staring for a solid ten seconds and Maria didn’t even seem to notice her.

”Luna Maria?”

Maria’s head turned slowly and stared straight through Guinevere for a second like she wasn’t there. Then the focus slammed in all at once and recognition hit her face.

When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. ”Cassian was cruel at times, but he did not deserve that ending, murdered out in the open on the stairs to your tower. His face was smiling even dead.”

Guinevere’s stomach dropped.

Every word of that statement felt wrong in a way that went deeper than factual, wrong in the way that dreams are wrong, where the details are close enough to real that your brain accepts them for three seconds before the seams start showing.

Yes, Cassian was a cruel bastard, but she didn’t want him dead. She wanted him to learn how to shut the fuck up and work on his empathy. But dead? No.

Her brother was alive, sitting in a dungeon cell. No one would murder an Alpha in cold blood. There were guards on the stairs of her tower.

The only person who even could would be Kael and he wouldn’t do that.

Kael throwing him in the dungeon? Yes. Made sense. A time-out for the baby tyrant.

Kael giving him a handprint? Yes. He ordered lashes on his sister and was a giant dick.

Kael murdering her brother? No. He wouldn’t do that. Right?

Her mind went back to the table lighting up for her in that council chamber. The Alphas were asking if Cassian was dead. But Gavyn said there was no way, and Guinevere trusted her Beta.

No, Cassian was still breathing. That spiral was over. Luna Maria was mistaken.

There were a million questions Guinevere could have asked. But what came out was: ”Are you alright, Luna?”

A tear slipped down Maria’s cheek. ”They haven’t moved him yet. He’s still on the stairs. Someone should move him.”

”I’ll tell them,” Guinevere whispered, her eyes burning. She didn’t know who or what she would tell, but she wanted this ghost-hallucination to know she would because her heart was breaking.

”Are you here to send me back to Lunaris? If you are, I understand. I deserve it.” Maria’s voice broke into a sob.

”What do you mean? Lunaris needs their Luna—”

The hand Maria had behind her back moved just enough to reveal something that made Guinevere stop mid-sentence.

A dagger. Wet blood on the blade. Every alarm in her body lit up like the goddamn plaza she’d just fled.

Real or not, that wasn’t normal.

”Luna Maria, why do you have that? What happened?” Instinct took over and the voice that came out of Guinevere Lunaris was the voice she used with children who were frightened. Calmer, warmer, and more confident than she felt.

More tears ran down Maria’s face.

”I’m so sorry, Guinevere. I was never a good Luna.” She shook her head. ”I never knew your mother, but I wish I could have met her.”

”That’s kind of you, Maria.” Guinevere swallowed, then sucked in a breath. ”I promise you are a good Luna. It’s not an easy job.”

Maria’s shoulders hitched once, the dagger fully showing now.

”You never blamed me for taking your mother’s spot. You were always so kind to me, Guinevere. One of the only people in Lunaris who treated me like I belonged there and he sold you. I felt so alone.”

Tears fell out of Guinevere’s eyes before she could stop them because Maria’s words hit her in a place that she kept locked. The words reminded her of sadder days when her mother passed.

Every second she spent feeling for Maria was a second she wasn’t watching the blade, and the blade was the thing that mattered right now, the blade was the variable, but Maria’s voice was cracking apart in front of her and the girl underneath the princess couldn’t watch a woman as kind as Maria shatter.

Hands trembling, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and took a deep breath.

”I promise, you are not alone,” Guinevere whispered. ”I know for a fact that Beta Draven and Tyler are in your corner—”

The dagger moved.

Time slowed the way it only slows when the body knows something the brain hasn’t caught up to yet.