Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Saving Her Life, Dipshit

The pain hit him just as he dozed and footsteps echoed down the dungeon.

It came while his body was drifting toward something resembling sleep, a low burn that started in his chest and spread outward through his ribs and down his arms and into his fingers.

A heat that had no source and no logic and sat behind his sternum.

His eyes opened. "What the..."

The dungeon ceiling was black stone. The chains on his wrists clinked when he moved, iron scraping iron, and the sound bounced off the walls of a room built to make men feel small.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Measured. Unhurried. The walk of a man who owned the ground beneath his boots and wanted the listener to know it.

"I really was hoping for a better fight from you, little brother."

Kael’s voice arrived before his shadow did. The torchlight from the corridor carved his silhouette against the far wall, and Maddox watched it grow larger without lifting his head.

He did not answer.

"I will say, the timing here is impeccable. Holding someone to keep them alive is not ideal. Fun at first. I liked it even. But I’m over that. And here you are. I have kingdoms to conquer. Babies to kiss. You know the drill."

The cell door opened, hinges screaming.

Kael stepped inside carrying something in his arms. Maddox’s eyes had been in darkness long enough that the sudden light burned. He squinted. Blinked. Tried to make out the shape in Kael’s arms.

Kael dumped the thing onto Maddox’s lap without ceremony.

Dead weight. Limp. Her head rolled against his chained wrists and her body folded across his legs, and the heat that came off her skin hit him like opening a furnace door.

"Keep her alive. I will be back for her."

Maddox’s hands moved before his mind caught up. The chains pulled taut. His fingers found her arm and the contact sent a jolt through his chest that restarted something he had believed was dead.

"What the hell did you do to her?"

Kael paused in the doorway. Half-turned. The torchlight caught his profile and the faint ghost of something complicated on his face. It disappeared before it could be named.

"Saved her life, dipshit."

The cell door slammed, deadbolt sliding into place.

His footsteps faded. The corridor went dark. The dungeon went silent.

The first thing he registered was that she was burning. The worst he had ever felt from her. Heat seared off her skin into him, his own energy reflecting back from her core.

Whatever had happened to her had happened at a temperature that laughed at fireproof fabric.

Hers looked like it had been through a volcano and lost the argument. It was burned through in patches, charred edges curling away from skin that was flushed deep red and radiating a temperature that made his dragon blood feel cool by comparison.

She was in a sports bra and the remnants of fabric that had once been functional clothing and was now evidence of something catastrophic.

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