Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Time folded in on itself the way it always does when the worst thing has already happened but no one can bring themselves to say it out loud yet.

The corners of her mouth were bleeding. Someone had untied the gag at some point but she hadn’t noticed because Nicholas’s head was in her hands, his chest was still, and red was spreading across the stone beneath them.

Through a blur of tears that she shut down, she was memorizing the architecture of a man she hadn’t known long enough and was learning too late.

”Guinevere.” Her father’s voice came from behind her. ”It’s time to go, Daughter.”

The words hit home. Panic fluttered in her chest, then her body rejected it. No, she was not leaving him.

Renwick placed a hand on her shoulder.

”I’m sorry, Daughter. I truly am. But there’s nothing you can do for him and you are not safe here.”

She managed to shake her head once but didn’t fucking move outside of that. Walking away meant she’d accepted this, and she’d be damned before she ever let go of him. She stayed glued in place as the red kept spreading on the floor beneath them.

A door slammed somewhere. Voices sounded. All of it was just noise that had turned into a single hum, like a thunderstorm in the distance, present but sealed off from wherever she had gone.

”Don’t make me ask again, daughter.”

Those words are what did it.

Her wolf surged, zeroing in on the only thing that mattered.

Her fangs were in Nicholas’s neck with venom flowing before she knew what she was doing. The bite was instinct and it was choice. Both at the same time. Her wolf had started it and she was going to hold the line.

Marking was the most intimate thing a wolf could do. And here she was, doing it to a corpse of a king in front of her own father and a corridor full of people. They would survive.

TZZZT.

The remaining cuff around her wrist made its presence known. Her wolf howled and thrashed against her ribs like it was being electrocuted. Black veins began to crawl along her skin.

Silver poisoning.

She could taste it in her mouth and knew what it was without needing to look.

”The cuff! Get the fucking cuff off her! Key, bolt cutters, I don’t care, MOVE!” Gavyn roared behind her.

Every wolf scrambled at once. Footsteps. Scuffling. Something heavy slammed against the wall.

A frantic metallic clatter sounded behind her, followed by, ”Not that one!” like they were defusing a bomb, which, given the circumstances, was pretty fucking understandable.

What a shitshow.

”GUINEVERE. RELEASE AND RISE. NOW.”

Her father’s Alpha command avalanched her from the outside while the silver continued to firebomb her from within. Her body was a war zone and her wolf was prepared to die before yielding.

Somewhere, the gods looked down, decided this situation was still somehow under-fucked, and the Luminari light cracked its knuckles and said, watch this shit.

White runes started etching into her again, faster and brighter, like it had been simmering under the surface for too long and was about to supernova.

Those glowing tattoos were going to run wild and do whatever the fuck they wanted, her opinion be damned. Fine. Two could tango. She was going to ignore them right back and shove the entire problem under the rug like a goddamn professional.

Renwick seized her by the shoulders and tried to haul her up more forcefully now.

”Guinevere, the Dragon King will consider this a breach. The man that turned down billions to keep you. Do you understand what you are doing?”

She didn’t let go.

Steel sang somewhere above her.

”I am asking with respect, Alpha Lunaris, that you let go of her.”

Renwick didn’t move.

”She is my daughter, my jurisdiction, and this does not concern you. You are a Beta with a temporary title. Know the difference.”

”She is my king’s mate which makes her Shadowfell. As the acting Alpha that very much makes her my concern whether you recognize my title or not.”

”Very well then.” Renwick let out a long breath like he didn’t have time for this shit. ”EVERYONE STAND DOWN. GUINEVERE. RELEASE. NOW.”

The Alpha command hit every ribcage in the corridor at once.

Power like that didn’t stop at pack lines. Not when the Alpha on the other side wasn’t strong enough to shield his wolves from it. And Shadowfell didn’t have an Alpha standing in that corridor.

They had Damon Tavian, a Beta powerful enough to stand toe-to-toe with most Alphas. But Renwick Lunaris was not most Alphas.

The Shadowfell wolves dropped as one, knees cracking against stone.

Damon stayed standing.

One second.

Two.

His entire body locked against the command, muscles shaking with the effort of refusing it.

Three.

Every wolf in the corridor who saw it was thinking the same thing: Damon was built different and Renwick was a scary son of a bitch.

Then Renwick’s power won and Damon hit his knees.

Four.

Guinevere still had her fangs anchored in Nicholas’s neck.

The lone wolf holding the damn line.

She had never once resisted an Alpha command, but she was now, using something that had nothing to do with muscle and everything to do with perseverance and loyalty to the Alpha under her.

Consequences could go fuck a cactus.

Five.

Pressure built behind her left eye until something gave. Red smeared across her vision as wet heat spilled down her cheek.

Six.

Blood was in her mouth, hers and his, mixed together, and the taste of it was what she focused on because it meant her body was still fighting and his blood was still warm and both of those things meant this wasn’t over yet.

Seven.

The pressure stopped.

”Listen to me carefully, Daughter. You just put every card on the table in front of an audience that is growing. Resistance to a direct Alpha command. Light symbols branding on your skin. There are Alphas in this building who would kill you on principle for less.”

Those words landed and if she wasn’t marking someone, she would have laughed.

Kill her on principle? Fine. They could get in line because she was already fucking dying.

She knew it with the kind of certainty that lived beneath thought. Her body had crossed a threshold it had never been built to come back from.

The silver was in her veins now, chasing her wolf through her bloodstream, and her wolf was burning through reserves it didn’t have.

She had already made her choice.