Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Courage is not a moment. It’s a muscle used every day, and with or without her memory, Guinevere Lunaris had that goddamn muscle.

But unfortunately, this was one of those times where courage didn’t get a prize or credit. Context and timing are the difference between hero and villain, and ten seconds was the exact margin that fucked her over.

In a blur, Guinevere closed the distance and knocked the blade out of Maria’s hand.

The blade hit the stone with a sharp clang that bounced off every obsidian wall. Guinevere didn’t wait, scooping it off the ground before Maria could reach for it, backpedaling three steps with the dagger gripped in her fist because it looked like Maria was aiming that blade at herself and that was not happening on Guinevere’s watch.

The steel was warm. The blood on it was warmer. But it wasn’t just Maria’s blood.

She stared at Guinevere, chest heaving.

But before Guinevere could say anything, another person materialized in the corridor behind Maria and of all people, it was Beta Draven. But he was limping and had blood all over him as well. His face was grey and pained with each step.

He looked like death’s rough draft.

”Am I hallucinating?” she asked. It was a question that had been eating her for over an hour and she needed someone not inside her head, someone solid to tell her no.

Two armored men came out of the corridor behind Draven. They froze mid-step with matching stunned faces and both pairs of eyes snapped to her side. She followed their line of sight and realized they were looking at the bloody dagger in her hand. Something she had momentarily forgotten she was holding.

”I was about to ask myself that. Hallucinating would require your night to be worse than mine, and I assure you, that competition is closed,” Beta Draven answered.

Guinevere let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob.

Beta Draven watched her calmly, probably wondering what the hell was wrong with her.

”You’re trembling, you’re covered in blood, and white-knuckling a dagger. That’s a new one for you.” He paused. ”Around a pregnant woman, so if you could point that away from her that would be ideal.”

Guinevere blinked a few times. Then dazedly looked over at Maria.

”Oh, I wouldn’t— I wasn’t—”

The stutter turned into a full-blown stammer, each word tripping over the one before it. She didn’t know what she was trying to say. That she would never, ever, hurt Maria. That the dagger wasn’t hers. She glanced at Maria, whose hands were shaking, and went with her gut, she would not be outing this woman for anything. Not like this.

Then the word pregnant fully registered like a delayed grenade.

”Oh. You’re pregnant.” She blinked again. ”Congratulations, Maria.”

She genuinely, completely, meant it.

One of the men behind Draven had stepped forward.

”Drop the weapon,” he ordered. ”Now. This is your only warning.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

He took another step forward. She instinctively stepped away from him.

”Sterling, shut the hell up,” the second man snapped.

Something was off. Something bigger than Maria’s blood, bigger than Draven’s limp, bigger than hallucinations and obsidian. Something structural. The entire situation was tilted, and her brain kept trying to force it upright and failing every single time.

The man took another step towards her.

She took another shaking step backwards. Then another. The dagger was still in her fist because her hand had locked around it and her fingers were refusing orders.

”Hold a second,” Beta Draven said to the man. ”Guinevere? What’s wrong?”

Her heart was pounding so loud she could hear it in her goddamn teeth. The corridor felt narrower. The moonlight felt staged. Maria and Draven looked real, smelled real, breathed real, but neither of them were real because they couldn’t be wherever the hell this was.

She opened her mouth and no words came out. Swallowed. The answer to his question was everything. She was missing her memories and had gone through hell and back.

”I am turned around. Do you know where the exit of this keep is?”

Her voice cracked.

This time Beta Draven opened his mouth, then closed it, as if her question was the furthest thing he had expected. Then his eyes went wide. The two armored men exchanged a glance.

Draven was quick on his feet. If what she said was alarming, he was doing a good job making her feel better about it.

”No,” he answered. ”Not yet. I’ve only been here for a few hours. Weren’t you in Greyhall Crossing? When did you get to Drakencrest?”

This time Guinevere’s eyes blew wide. She had been frolicking around in a dragon’s fortress and not just any dragon, the goddamn Dragon King. What the actual fuck was this.

”D-D-Drakencrest,” she repeated. The stutter coming out because of course it did.

”Did you make it to Greyhall?” Draven asked, brows knitting together.

Guinevere gave a single nod.

”That’s a long run from Lunaris. How did you get here?”

The question was simple. The answer was a minefield. She felt her throat tighten around the truth because the truth was absurd.

”You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

”Oh, I think I might surprise you. You could tell me you fell out of the sky and I’d nod.”

She opened her mouth to say something. What came out was not strategic and sounded like a clusterfuck on drugs.

”I was trying to leave Greyhall and woke up in a glowing city that I thought was a hallucination. Then ran from their police, d-dropped through the sky, thought I was going to die, landed on water vapor, they shot at me and then white light flashed and I ended up h-here and I have been trying to f-figure out where here is.”

Footsteps sounded from the opposite end of the corridor. Rapid. Coordinated.

CRACK.

White light split the corridor like a fissure in the goddamn sky. She flinched so hard her balance failed and the floor disappeared under her for the second time tonight.