Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

CRACK.

More white light flashed above her, so bright the afterimage branded itself onto her retinas.

She hit stone on her side with her full weight and no warning. Shoulder first, then hip, then skull bouncing off the surface that turned the world into static and ringing.

The angle of the fall drove the dagger into her side before she could adjust her grip. She felt the edge slice through fabric, through skin, through the thin layer of nothing between her and a wound that announced itself with white-hot fury.

”Oh, you STUPID—” she gasped through clenched teeth because she had literally stabbed herself with a weapon she’d confiscated from a hallucinated pregnant woman in a corridor.

This was somehow the dumbest thing she’d done all week, which was really fucking saying something.

She pulled the blade free. White-hot pain lanced through her side with such violence her vision went grey at the edges. Blood bloomed through her shirt in a dark, spreading flower that had no business being poetic and was going to be her problem for the foreseeable future.

She slid the blade across the black stone like she was divorcing the bastard mid-argument. The steel skittered, spun, and quit six feet away, painting a messy red trail behind it.

Her hand pressed against her side. Wet. Warm. Deep enough to be a real goddamn issue and shallow enough that she probably wouldn’t die from it.

That’s when she noticed her shirt was on backwards. In her defense, she got dressed in a hurry.

All down the front were dried blood spots from her lashes.

This was what Draven had been looking at. This was why those two men were on high alert. They thought she killed someone and were probably wondering where the body was.

”Outstanding optics, Guinevere. Really peak shit.”

She pushed herself upright and took in the room.

”What the hell?”

This room was the brown room.

Same layout. Same proportions. Slightly different furniture.

But the colors were wrong.

White paneled walls and bookshelves. Navy accents. No brown or tan in sight.

Her brain stalled hard, kicked over once, then quit. Either the room was wearing a good looking decor disguise or she was straight-up tripping balls.

She sniffed. Deep. Searching.

No scents she recognized. It smelled brand new, never lived in and that brown room had seven men living in it.

”The room is not Kael’s room, Guinevere. You have verbally processed that. Now you are going to focus.”

A mirror caught her eye. More accurately, the disaster staring back did. She looked like absolute hell. Worse than hell. She looked like the before painting in a ’don’t do drugs’ campaign that went too far.

Red-rimmed eyes swollen from obvious crying. The bruises on her face had healed enough to go green instead of purple. Green was uglier by a mile. The purple at least carried her face.

The rest of her body looked worse than she felt, which was a genuine accomplishment considering she felt like she’d been a piñata at a child’s birthday party with Cassian’s temperament.

The only net positive was her hair somehow looked good. The last holdout.

Then she did a double take so violent her neck cracked.

For one split second, the room was brown with glass on the floor.

She spun around.

White shelves. Navy accents. The room she was standing in.

She turned back to the mirror.

Navy.

She stared at her own reflection for ten full seconds.

It didn’t happen again.

But the trust was gone.

”Focus, Guinevere. It was a trick of the light that happened to change the furniture.”

Bandages. She needed one for her accidental gash that was bleeding faster than she could ignore.

The bathing chamber smelled clean, floral, and distinctly feminine.

”Oh it smells good,” she said to no one.

Bath salts were lined up along a marble ledge in colored glass bottles. Colorful lotions. Bubble baths. Everything was immaculate and organized. This was a bathing chamber built for a goddess.

Some things you just knew with your whole chest. The odds of Kael Ashenvale owning a collection of bath salts was zero. That was a hill she would die on.

No man she had ever met in her entire life would have a bathing chamber stocked like this. This was excellence not achievable by the male species. Whoever owned this bathing chamber would be an insta-best friend of Guinevere Lunaris without question.

She pulled her backwards shirt up and assessed the damage.

The gash ran along her right side, four inches long, following the curve of her lowest rib.

She rummaged through the counters, leaving bloody fingerprints on every surface she touched.

”Shoot, I’m sorry.”

The bathing chamber declined to comment. A drawer beneath the basin held gauze, linen bandages, and a small tin of something that smelled medicinal enough to qualify.

Her hands shook so badly the first attempt looked like it had been done by a shitfaced toddler mid-tantrum. The second attempt was marginally better. The third held.

She tied it off and turned her shirt around. At least blood would be on the back of it if she ran into anyone else.

”You are a bad bitch, Guinevere,” she said to the mirror. ”New plan. Stop bleeding. Stop falling. You are going to ask the first hallucination you see where the fuck you are.”

She splashed water on her face. Cold water. Stinging eyes. The brief, merciful reset of a brain being told to get its shit together by its own nervous system.

Should she keep the dagger?

On one hand, she had zero weapons. On the other hand, she had stabbed herself with it less than ten minutes ago.

The evidence was damning. Her qualification to wield a blade had been tested by the universe and the results were in. Fail. But that aside, if someone did attack her, would she realistically stab them? Probably not.

She looked up at the mirror to check her face one last time.

A jester was standing behind her.

The scream that left her throat was high-pitched. The glass jars and oil lamps shattered instantly.

CRACK.

White light flashed. She winced, already prepared for a hard landing.

CRACK.

She landed on her side again and gasped because it fucking hurt her newly bandaged wound.

Her hands flew to it as she let out a shallow breath.

Thank fuck she didn’t bring that dagger.

The world settled into her room in Lunaris.

She blinked a few times. Was this real?

Yes. It was real.

A reset from the universe.

Then she noticed the dried blood on her floor.

”Guinevere?”