Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 108

Chapter 108: Effective Immediately, Sterling

"What the hell." Kael’s voice was low, stripped bare, empty of every performance he’d ever given in a room full of people.

He examined the parchment.

"To start with, the wax is the wrong shade of red. Mine is darker. And this border has twelve points. Mine has thirteen." His jaw shifted. "But the bigger issue is my letters never stay on parchment. They usually dissolve into smoke."

"Oh, I am aware. We all are. They always explode or do something annoying," Ryker said. "The writing is in a language I’ve never seen, so I did not have due cause, Commander. It landed at my feet for a reason. Your flame hurt him and only him. So I went with my gut and ordered the arrest."

His High General had covered the seal for a reason when he ordered the arrest. He’d already arrived at the conclusion that the seal was a weapon aimed at Kael as much as it was aimed at Guinevere. Hiding it prevented the room from turning on a man who they had every reason to believe was behind it.

Kael opened the parchment and scanned. "This is an Ashenvale encrypted language that died when the house did before I was born."

Griffin squinted at the parchment from across the table. "Is that... cursive?"

"It’s an extinct cipher, Griffin."

"So... fancy cursive."

"Yes." Kael looked away from the letter, meeting Maddox’s eyes. "Father has more like this in his vault. I took a few when I left, but I’ve never been able to decode it."

"So you stole encrypted documents from father’s royal vault," Blair said flatly.

"Borrowed," Kael corrected. "Without permission. Permanently."

"Can I see?" Lux asked, speaking for the first time.

Everyone turned to her. Griffin turned too, half a second late, like a man who’d been watching someone else turn and decided to join.

Kael slid the letter down the table.

She held her hand over the parchment. Dark smoke came out of it and dissolved.

"The dark magic is identical to what I pulled from her." She opened the letter and scanned. Then glanced back up at Kael.

"You are part Fae, correct?"

The question landed on the table and blew a hole through decades of polite silence, surviving court politics, elder gossip, and Griffin. Lux killed it in five words.

Ryker reached for the whiskey bottle without looking, like a man whose evening had just added a fourth act.

"Quarter fae." Kael drank. "My mother was the bastard daughter of a fae and a dragon. So if anyone is keeping score, I’m a bastard twice over. Three times if you count my personality."

Neither sibling flinched. Kael’s mother was not a secret in the Drakencrest household. She was fae-blooded. Died in childbirth after giving their father a son. Before their mother carried Maddox.

Griffin raised his glass to Kael. "Respect."

Ryker closed his eyes. The system was not working.

Sterling looked at him. "You’re toasting his bastard count? And where did you get that whiskey?"

Griffin didn’t seem to hear the question. Instead he raised his free hand. "Question. You’re dark fae?"

Kael looked at him the way a chess master looks at someone eating the pieces.

"No. And after hearing dark fae throw the word ’vessel’ around, I want that line drawn in permanent ink."

He took another drink of his whiskey.

"Light Fae. Originated from a continent now uninhabitable, covered in ice. Migrated to Eldoria thousands of years ago. Some explorer lumped them in with dark fae. Different species."

Griffin nodded slowly. The nod of a man who had absorbed roughly forty percent of the information.

Kael set his glass down. "Also thought to be extinct. Turns out, just avoiding us." He gestured around the table. "Can’t imagine why."

"You’ve been in this room for ten minutes and Griffin has already raised his hand," Blair said, voice dry as sand. "Imagine centuries of you. I’d fake extinction too."

Kael ignored her. "I believed them to be extinct too. Until we watched a few of them walk out of a portal during a disgusting ritual."

Griffin gagged. Actually gagged. Sterling’s jaw locked. Ryker took a long sip of whiskey like a man washing a taste out of his mouth.

"What ritual?" Maddox and Blair said at the same time.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify