Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Skin To Skin, Flame To Flame

The most expensive woman in recorded history was running a fever high enough for a dragon to notice.

He had prepared for many things tonight. An unconscious wolf princess burning alive from his own flame was not on the list.

He carried her through the obsidian halls of Drakencrest keep.

Guards straightened as he passed. Fists to their chests.

"Your Majesty."

By morning, the guards would tell their wives. By noon, their wives would tell the market. By dinner, he’d have kidnapped a fae queen from a volcano and she was carrying twins.

He didn’t spare them a glance. In his defense, he hadn’t acknowledged anything that wasn’t her in roughly twenty-four hours.

He shouldered open the door to the chamber across from his own. Enormous bed, stone hearth, arched windows overlooking the mountain range.

A room fit for royalty. He walked to the center of it, looked at the bed, looked at the door, and looked at the distance between this room and his.

"Yeah. No."

The fastest real estate decision in Drakencrest history. He turned around, walked back across the hall, and kicked open his own door.

Then he laid her on his large bed, which she occupied roughly twelve percent of.

"Guinevere."

She didn’t move.

"Guinevere." Louder. Direct. That voice worked on generals, diplomats, and even Ryker roughly forty percent of the time.

It did not work on her. She didn’t stir.

Her breathing was shallow, and the heat coming off her skin had increased since they’d landed.

"Fuck."

His dragon grumbled low in his chest. A sound that meant wrong. A sound that meant fix it.

Maddox: Get me Aldric. Now.

Aldric, the royal physician, arrived in under four minutes. The man was seventy, grey-haired, and moved with the unhurried efficiency of a healer who had treated dragon kings for two generations.

He asked zero questions when he saw the girl in the king’s bed. Then pressed two fingers to her wrist. His brow furrowed.

"Why isn’t she waking?" Maddox asked from the foot of the bed.

"She’s burning up. Which, in a dragon’s bed, is usually a compliment. This isn’t." He trailed off, and glanced up at Maddox. "Her energy reads like someone shuffled three decks together. What is she?"

A fair question that Maddox was also still working on. The running list included: white wolf, knife-catcher, cave-dweller, and princess.

"She’s a wolf. That information stays in this room."

"Understood, Your Majesty." Aldric paused, his fingers still resting on her wrist, "The short version: wolves can’t fever. The long version: she is ... One of those statements has to be wrong and I’m not comfortable with either option."

Everyone kept telling him what wolves don’t do. Guinevere kept doing all of it. He was starting to think she hadn’t read the manual.

Aldric moved his hand above her body without touching, tracing the air an inch from her skin.

"Traces of a flame signature. Your flame, Your Majesty." Aldric glanced at her neck. "This fever only happens after a full marking, which I don’t see. Either you marked her somewhere not visible or we have a new problem."

Maddox didn’t react.

"I didn’t mark her. But she’s my fated mate."

The healer’s look of genuine surprise was the first Maddox had generated in the last day that didn’t involve an urn.

"There’s no example in history of a fated mate without dragon blood. Ever."

"I am aware. Last night, I pushed my flame to her in front of two hundred witnesses. I’m not mistaken."

"That’s..." Aldric stopped himself. "Either she is running fire she was never built to carry or she has dragon blood."

"If she doesn’t have dragon blood, what will happen to her?"

"Humans die and fae die. That’s documented. Wolves have never been stupid enough to try. Present company excluded."

His dragon snarled low in his chest, impatient. She is ours. She burns because of us. Fix it.

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