Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Some performances deserve applause. Some deserve Oscars. Damon’s deserved a funeral, because he was killing it.

Renwick Lunaris thought he was watching a briefing, but he was actually front-row of a magic show so good he still hadn’t realized the rabbit was fucking him.

”We don’t have wards in Greyhall so my assumption is she arrived via portal, but I will keep you updated as we get more information on how. Alpha Shadowfell stood in between her and Stonehowl. The Dark Fae hit him with a concentrated blast of dark magic and his heart stopped.”

Damon reported it like a weather forecast. Clear skies, slight chance of attempted murder, 100% chance of political fallout.

The temperature dropped like someone opened a freezer door. Neither Maddox nor Kael moved a muscle. Which, for these two, was the equivalent of a standing ovation for Damon’s delivery.

PLAY 5: THE COMMUNITY CARD

”That’s when Alpha Lunaris arrived.” Damon gave a nod towards Renwick. ”And that’s when something odd happened that I don’t have an explanation for. Guinevere started broadcasting commentary to every wolf but it wasn’t on a mindlink. A male voice was doing it. Commenting on the whole thing.”

Damon knew it was Kael’s voice obviously. But Renwick had no fucking clue if Damon even knew who Kael was beyond this exact moment. Kael had stayed silent since entering, so the logical conclusion was Damon wouldn’t recognize the voice if it bit him on the ass.

Damon also knew Renwick had heard the broadcast, pretended it didn’t exist, and likely hadn’t figured out every wolf heard it too. Otherwise it would have been mentioned in their last negotiation. That meant Renwick was almost certainly stashing it in his back pocket for leverage.

POOF.

Damon pulled the classic magician move and made that shit evaporate.

One card. Center of the table. Visible to everyone.

To add salt to the wound, Renwick’s Trust Jar gained another coin because Damon was just being transparent. And Kael was now aware of the fact he’d been broadcasting live, a fact Damon strongly suspected he hadn’t known.

Translation: That information tipped off an ally, disarmed an enemy, and deposited trust in two different jars.

Kael’s blank face gave nothing. That man either hadn’t figured out it was him or this was class-A cock-and-bull composure.

The shot that mattered was the dragon next to him.

Had Maddox read the table or was he going to flip it? Everything Damon had built tonight came down to the next sentence out of the Dragon King’s mouth, which was exhilarating or stupid, depending on how much you trusted Maddox Drakencrest’s reading comprehension of subtext under pressure.

If there was one thing Damon knew, it was Maddox Drakencrest was protective as hell over Guinevere Lunaris. And saying she was projecting another man’s voice was poking the dragon.

If he read the table, he would ask a clean question that sold this as normal conversation for the audience. Which meant calm. No exploding or digging into it like a dragon-husband.

”That’s a new one,” Maddox said. ”Are you sure it was her?”

DING. DING. DING.

Drakencrest is playing ball. The question was so perfectly surface-level it should have come with a wax seal.

Perfect score.

GOAT KING STATUS: Confirmed.

In the common-tongue, that meant, ’I understand everything you’re doing and I will play along.’

PLAY 6: THE THREE-LAYER BLUFF

”Her voice was on the first broadcast, which is why I think it was her,” Damon replied. ”But I’m not certain. She was also in warded cuffs. The voice was running commentary on the whole situation. He called Stonehowl Sir-Screams-A-Lot.”

There it was. An underhand slow-pitch to Kael just in case he was thinking, ’that couldn’t have been me, right?’ No, Kael, it was not some random motherfucker.

But the delivery was Olympic-level compartmentalization by Damon. Quoting Sir-Screams-A-Lot with a straight face in front of the genius who coined it without laughing was a brass-balled, stone-cold son-of-a-bitch move and nobody in the room could applaud it.

Damon understood Renwick knew exactly who that voice belonged to. He also knew Renwick was watching him like a goddamn hawk for any flicker of bullshit. Damon just nailed it by quoting the guy’s own words with zero recognition. Renwick saw a Beta too dumb to figure out who the hell was behind the voice.

Translation: Damon deserved a trophy and a drink, in that order.

”I don’t know who or why,” he continued. ”It could have been dark magic. I’m not sure. But just so you are aware of it. The commentary cut off mid-negotiation. Later, Stonehowl said he would scar her face for every comment said.”

”Is that son of a bitch still alive?” Maddox asked.

”Yes,” Renwick jumped into the conversation. ”Guinevere thoroughly burned him. But he’s alive. We have him in custody for questioning due to his involvement with the same Dark Fae attacking every pack in Nyros. He has not been cooperative. But I did inform him that you would be making a visit.”

”You’ll take me to him when we’re done here,” Maddox stated.

Renwick nodded once. The nod of a man who just realized he’d volunteered to chaperone a murder and couldn’t take it back.

Maddox turned back to Damon. ”Continue.”

PLAY 7: THE PIT BOSS CHECK

”She saw Nicholas get hit and die, and understandably was in significant distress.” Damon’s voice stayed level. ”Her cuffs were silver but also warded with other things that affected her. One cuff broke. I’m not sure how. That’s the hand she used to burn Stonehowl. She ran to Alpha Shadowfell’s body and refused to leave his side. But he was already gone at that point.”

In a casino, the dealer periodically glances at the pit boss to confirm the game is running clean. The pit boss nods. The game continues. Damon just checked in with his pit boss in front of Maddox the card counter. Renwick returned the gaze with the steady confidence of a man who had no idea he was the least informed person at the table.

Translation: Renwick saw loyalty, Maddox saw the leash, and both reads were exactly what Damon needed.

”The grief was preventing her from making rational decisions,” Damon continued. ”Alpha Lunaris attempted to remove her from the situation so she could get medical attention. Multiple times but she was not responsive. He eventually gave an Alpha command which should have worked immediately. But she somehow fought it and that made the silver poisoning from her remaining cuff rapidly accelerate.”

The Alpha command debacle, delivered by Damon Tavian like a defense attorney turning assault into a wellness check while defusing a bomb labeled ’PARENTING CHOICES OF A SOCIOPATH.’

Technically true was this table’s love language.

”Then white light flashed from her multiple times. There were two Dark Fae portals open. Both collapsed at that time. The windows blew out. She vanished in the light and Nicholas’s body vanished too.”

Damon delivered the supernatural apocalypse kill shot with the cadence of a man reading a restaurant menu.

White light. Exploding windows. Vanishing bodies. The usual shit.

”So to summarize,” Maddox said. ”My wife was kidnapped, cuffed, chased through a corridor by a psychopath, watched Nicholas Shadowfell die, had silver poisoning, and then vanished in an explosion of light.”