Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

She looked down at him. His hand on her wrist. His eyes on her face. The cloth in her other hand, damp and folded and ready for a forehead that was burning because of something she had done and could not remember doing.

”Of course, King Solveil,” she replied, her voice warm and immediate, carrying zero hesitation because the answer had existed before the question and the question was a formality. ”I will stay. I will need to send word to my husband so he does not worry.”

She placed the cloth on his forehead. His eyes closed at the contact. The tension in his face eased by a degree and his grip on her wrist loosened by a fraction but did not release.

”GRRRRR.”

A growl came from beneath his ribs. The vibration traveled through his chest and into the hand holding her wrist and she felt it against her palm.

Guinevere’s lips parted.

Then her wolf surged.

The sensation slammed through her chest like a door being kicked open from the inside. Her wolf threw itself against her ribs with a force and an urgency that surprised her.

She blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. She swallowed the surge down with the concentrated effort of a woman shoving a beast back behind a door that the beast had no interest in staying behind.

Her hand stayed on the cloth. Her knees stayed on the stone. Her face gave the room nothing because the room was occupied by two healers and a king and none of them needed to see what had just detonated inside her chest.

Landon closed his eyes. His head fell back against the couch cushion and the cloth on his forehead shifted but stayed. The pounding behind his temples was vicious, rhythmic, a drumline performing inside his skull without an invitation and with zero plans to stop.

The chamber door opened.

Kael entered the room the way Kael entered every room, like he owned it and was choosing to let the current occupants stay. His grey eyes swept the scene. King on a couch. Guinevere on her knees. Cloth on his forehead. Her hand still in his grip. Two healers flanking.

Guinevere turned to look at him.

”Kael, would it be possible to send word to Maddox to update him on the events that have transpired?” Her voice was steady and formal and carried the careful tone of a woman making a request she already knew was going to cause problems on the receiving end. ”I am going to stay until King Solveil is rested.”

Kael looked at her. Looked at Landon. Looked at her hand in Landon’s grip. Looked at the ceiling.

”Yeah, I can do that,” he replied. ”But I want you to understand that Maddox is going to lose his shit. And Nicholas is going to lose his shit. They’re going to lose their shit in different ways and at different volumes but the net result is going to be two kings losing their shit simultaneously across two continents and I am going to be the messenger, which historically is a job with a very short life expectancy.”

”I understand that and I would like to send them my sincerest apologies.”

Kael dragged a hand down his face. The drag started at his hairline and ended at his chin and covered every emotion between frustration and surrender. He knew exactly how well sincerest apologies was going to land on a dragon whose wife had been arrested, rescued, and was now voluntarily staying in the kingdom that arrested her. The apology was going to land like a feather on a forest fire.

Nicholas was going to be worse.

”Thank you, Kael.” The gratitude in her voice was genuine and warm and aimed at him with the full force of a woman who understood what she was asking him to do and appreciated that he was going to do it anyway.

His jaw softened by a fraction. The fraction was involuntary.

Then his eyes dropped.

Landon’s hand was still wrapped around Guinevere’s wrist. The grip had loosened from the white-knuckle desperation of ten minutes ago but it was still there, still holding, still refusing to open.

Kael could feel Guinevere’s worry bleeding through their matebond. The worry was warm and deep and aimed at the man on the couch and the direction of it made his dragon groan beneath his ribs, a low, sustained sound that sat in his chest like an engine idling on fumes.

He forced his voice into something that resembled nice. The nice was borrowed. The nice was wearing a costume. Underneath the nice was a dragon who wanted to pry a king’s fingers off his mate’s wrist and the nice was the only thing preventing it.

”What happened?” he asked.

Guinevere’s face flushed. ”I am unsure. But my wolf just responded to King Solveil.”

The sentence landed on the room and kept going, traveling through Kael’s chest and into his dragon and the dragon stopped groaning and started paying attention.

”There is a burning sensation beneath his sternum that feels like something I have experienced once before. Only once,” she added.

Landon was looking up at her. His eyes were open again. The molten gold was cycling at a slower pace now, the tonic doing its job, but his breathing was still labored and his chest was still rising in the shallow, controlled rhythm of a body managing something it could not identify.

”King Solveil, do you have a wolf?”

Landon blinked. The blink was slow. Confused. The blink of a man who had just been asked whether he possessed something he had never possessed and could not conceive of possessing.

”No, I am Luminari,” he answered.

Guinevere’s brow furrowed.

”Then, I think I may have given you one along with the runes. I am deeply sorry about both of those things.”

The Master Healer’s spectacles slid to the tip of his nose and stayed there. The old healer’s warm eyes widened by a full centimeter. Landon stared up at her.

Kael’s arms crossed over his chest. ”You can’t give other people wolves from biting them, Guinevere. That is not how it works.”