Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

There are moments that change everything. Life doesn’t warn you when it’s about to split in half. It just does it and it leaves you standing on the line holding a before and after.

This was one of those moments for Guinevere Lunaris.

Boots hit stone from both ends of the corridor. Reed and Damon rounded the corner at a full sprint with Shadowfell’s other men behind them, armed, awake, and operating at a speed that said the Alpha’s roar had reached every floor of this building.

Reed dropped to his knees beside Nicholas without a word, two fingers pressing into his neck, his other hand already checking the back of his skull where it had hit the wall. His face told the story before his mouth did.

Guinevere couldn’t look away from Nicholas. Her body was glowing so bright the corridor had turned white at the edges, and the light was pulsing in time with something that wasn’t her heartbeat because her heartbeat had relocated to her throat and was no longer keeping reliable time.

”Move the goddamn blade, boy,” Tharos snarled at Gavyn, whose sword hadn’t moved a millimeter from his throat. Tharos shook her as he spoke. ”Move it or your Dark Fae friends light up every wolf in this hallway. Starting with you.”

Gavyn didn’t flinch. The sword stayed exactly where it was because Gavyn had received a direct threat to his princess and the part of his brain that processed self-preservation had clocked out for the evening.

”Gavyn.” Guinevere’s voice came through the gag, muffled, broken, barely a word. But he heard it. His eyes flicked to hers and she shook her head once.

His jaw locked. His knuckles went white around the hilt. The sword lowered by an inch. Then two. Then it dropped to his side, and the cost of that decision lived in every line of his face.

Tharos exhaled.

Damon Tavian did not.

”Let me make sure I understand the evening correctly, Stonehowl. You killed your own Beta in our building during a summit you were invited to as a guest. Then you abducted a woman under our protection. And now you’ve just harmed our Alpha.”

He paused. Let the list breathe.

”That’s two declarations of war, Tharos.”

Damon looked at Nicholas’s body on the floor. Then back at Tharos.

”His wolves will want justice. His allies will want blood.”

He took one more step forward.

”You’re fucked, Stonehowl.”

Guinevere’s light was still pulsing. Her eyes were still locked on Nicholas. And somewhere underneath the silver and the gag and the blade on her throat, her wolf was still reaching for his, still throwing itself against the walls that wouldn’t let her through, still fighting for a connection that the dark magic had severed.

She was glowing white in a corridor full of wolves who wanted blood, held by a man who had run out of moves, staring at the body of a king she couldn’t reach.

”Dead Beta, what the fuck are you talking about?” Tharos snapped.

”Your Beta was murdered and shoved into a closet,” Gavyn answered.

”Bullshit,” Tharos snapped. ”Korrin is twice the size of anyone in this building. Nobody in this summit could touch him.”

Behind him, the demons exchanged a pointed glance.

”This way, Alpha.”

”VESSEL ON HER KNEES, VESSEL ON HER BACK—”

None of it mattered in the next second.

The static in her chest that had replaced the warmth moments ago, the same static that delivered fragments of his wolf howling, went completely silent, leaving a void that felt like grief and a severed limb.

Every instinct she had, wolf, woman, whatever the white light was, fired in the same direction.

Go to him. Get to him. Now. Now. NOW.

She screamed into the gag so hard her throat tore. Her body lunged forward with everything it had left, which was nothing and everything at the same time, because her muscles had quit but her bones hadn’t gotten the message and her wolf was burning itself alive against the silver trying to drag her body those last ten steps.

Tharos had her hooked around the waist. His arm was iron. His blade was still at her throat and she didn’t care anymore, didn’t register the blood running down her neck in a warm line that soaked into her collar and kept going.

There was only one thing in this corridor that mattered and it was on the floor and it wasn’t moving and something inside her knew that was wrong even if she didn’t understand it. Something inside of her was screaming for him.

Imaginary Kael was trying to talk to her in her mind. It didn’t register. Reed was shouting orders. Tharos was screaming, dragging her backwards. But she heard none of it. She was surrounded by voices and she was completely alone because the only voice she wanted to hear was silent and the silence was eating her from the inside out.

Every inch he dragged her was an inch further from Nicholas. Her boots scraped against the stone trying to find purchase that didn’t exist.

The white light wasn’t responding to her anymore. It was responding to the absence of him. Pulsing brighter every time her wolf reached through the severed connection and found nothing. Brighter with every second he didn’t move. Her body was a distress signal broadcasting at full volume and the man in front of her couldn’t receive it.

That’s when heat surged in her hands, still cuffed behind her back.

The light controlled her head, turning to look at Stonehowl’s face, ignoring the blade completely.

What came out of her mouth was something the gag should have swallowed, but it was heard by every wolf in Greyhall Crossing through something ancient, deeper than a mindlink that no one had a name for but everyone innately understood.

”Strike another king’s wife, and you strike the king himself. His answer will come in fire, and it will come for your house.”