Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Kael had both hands in his hair and was circling his chambers in a loop that tightened every lap. The crash was inevitable unless the ground opened up and did him a favor.

Then he stopped dead, because the floor had a visual aid that killed the metaphor for him, and what he saw made saying goodbye to Gerald look like a walk in the park.

Blood.

He hadn’t noticed it until now. It had dried on the dark obsidian floor. There was definitely a trail of drops that led to the bathing chamber door.

Three men who should have been paying attention didn’t spare him a glance. The first hadn’t looked up from Guinevere in four minutes. The second was mentally drafting a letter to Blair complimenting the curtains and thanking her for the entertainment.

The third was studying the room with more interest than he had shown in any room in his military career. He told himself it was professional curiosity. He told himself that twice. By the third time, he had stopped believing himself and started wondering when the Commander’s sister had become the most interesting person in this Keep.

Kael’s jaw was locked so tight the muscle jumped twice. His eyes were full dragon, gold with black slits, and the fire that had been building in his chest all morning almost volcanoed.

Without a word, he followed the blood trail to the bathing chamber.

His hand found the door handle. He opened it.

For one second, the world was still.

Then.

”Oh come on. You’ve got to be kidding me. Who the fuck swaps soaps too. What is this shit.”

A single bar of soap, that smelled like a nursing home had an affair with a flower shop, sat in a navy dish. The towels were folded in thirds instead of whatever Kael-shaped configuration they had been in before. And there was a fucking plant on the counter.

”There’s a live plant in my bathing chamber.”

For one full second, Kael Ashenvale stood in the doorway of a room he used every day and did not recognize a single goddamn thing in it.

White marble countertops where grey stone used to be. Polished brass fixtures that caught the light like jewelry. Towels folded into thirds and stacked by color gradient, lightest on top, darkest on bottom, because apparently his bathing chamber had been enrolled in finishing school while he was busy getting stabbed.

Bath salts.

There were glass jars arranged by color on a marble ledge like a rainbow apothecary designed by a woman who thought a dragon warrior needed aromatherapy. He did not need aromatherapy. He needed his shit back.

Lavender. Eucalyptus. Something called Moonlit. The name alone was an act of war. Whatever the fuck Moonlit smelled like, it was going to smell like fire when Kael was done with it.

”This is a WOMAN’S bathing chamber.”

The accusation echoed off the new marble and came back sounding expensive.

”There are SALTS in here, Maddox. COLORED SALTS. In GLASS. On a SHELF.”

Kael Ashenvale had lost Gerald, his books, his walls, his chalk line, and his dignity. The bathing chamber was where he lost his will to live.

”Nobody wants to watch you bathe, Kael,” Maddox called from the bedroom.

Without a word, Ryker closed the bathing chamber door.

In the main room, Maddox Drakencrest, whose own chambers had been subjected to the exact same Blair-grade renovation, was sitting in one of Kael’s new armchairs with Guinevere cradled against his chest and his legs crossed like a man who had discovered comfortable furniture for the first time in his life and was choosing this moment to appreciate it.

He shifted his weight once. The chair received him like it had been built for it. The cushioning was correct. The lumbar support was, and he would never say this out loud, better than anything in his study.

He settled deeper.

His hand found the back of Guinevere’s head and resumed the slow circles that were half comfort and half territory marking because every second Kael spent screaming about bath salts was a second Maddox got to finally hold his wife without an audience.

She would wake up to him and only him. Not Kael.

The silence was beautiful. It died young.

From behind the bathing chamber door, Kael’s voice erupted with renewed fury.

”There is a LOOFAH hanging from my SHOWER HEAD. A LOOFAH. In the shape of a starfish. I have never owned a loofah in my life. I am a DRAGON. I breathe FIRE.”

A dragon. A fire-breathing, continent-crossing, neck-snapping apex predator was standing in a marble bathroom screaming about a starfish-shaped loofah like it was the final boss. The fern was the warm-up. Bath salts were the mid-level challenge. But the loofah was the end of the game and Kael had lost.

One brother was down. The other was about to join him, courtesy of a High General.

Ryker looked at Maddox in the chair. Looked at the room. Looked at the white paneling. Looked at the navy accents. Looked at the bookshelves. Then his face lit up like a man who had just solved a riddle that had been nagging him for fifteen minutes.

”I’ve got it.” He snapped his fingers. ”You and Kael have matching rooms now. Am I right?”

The smile vanished off Maddox’s face so fast it left a skid mark.

His jaw locked. His nostrils flared. The comfortable chair beneath him suddenly felt like a trap. Blair hadn’t just redecorated two rooms. She had redecorated two rooms the SAME. His chambers and Kael’s chambers were now matching sets, coordinated like nursery furniture for twin babies.

”No,” Maddox said flatly.

”You have that chair too, Commander,” Ryker continued, fully committed to the archaeological dig he had just started in Maddox’s dignity. ”Same white walls. Matching throw pillows too. That’s cute.”

The word cute landed on Maddox the way an asteroid lands on a planet. The planet survives. The dinosaurs don’t.

”If you say the word matching one more time I will have Blair do YOUR room next and I will personally pick the color.”

”So you DO see it.”

”I see nothing. There is nothing to see. Move on, Ryker.”

Sterling tilted his head at the curtains. Then at the wall. Then back at the curtains. The gears turned once behind his eyes.

”Don’t,” Maddox said without looking at him.

Ryker’s flask went up. Sterling’s eyes went with it. Then he gave a nod that said, pour me one when we talk about this shit behind a door. Ryker gave a nod back that said, I am going to recreate the entire loofah speech with hand gestures.