Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 38

Chapter 38: I’ll Even Do The Female Parts, Gwen.

Dragon necks lowered like dominoes in the sky.

Roughly a third of Kael’s force submitted.

The rest kept flying.

Kael stood on the back of one of his own dragons, arms crossed, watching his formation fracture with an expression that held zero surprise and moderate inconvenience.

His iron eyes found Maddox’s gold across three hundred yards of open sky, and the smirk that crossed his face said everything: he’d anticipated this move, planned around it, and was still mildly annoyed it worked as well as it did.

"Thirty percent, little brother." His voice carried across the distance, amplified by the draconic register. "I expected better from you. Or worse from them. Depending on perspective."

Maddox’s response was the smile Ryker called the murder smile. The one his dragon did when the math tilted in his favor and the other side had yet to notice.

Because thirty percent of Kael’s army had just obeyed him. In the middle of Kael’s formation. While flying Kael’s banner. While surrounded by Kael’s mages and Kael’s fae and whatever dark infrastructure Kael had spent months building.

Kael read the smile. His smirk thinned by a fraction.

Then a voice hit the mindlink.

Ryker: Need a hand?

Maddox felt them before he saw them. Three hundred dragons rising from the south, their formation tight and fast and led by a red dragon at the tip of the V who had apparently decided direct orders from his king were more suggestion than mandate.

Maddox: You are supposed to be in Drakencrest.

Ryker: I was in Drakencrest. Lovely place. Then I thought to myself, you know what would make this evening better? Flagrant insubordination.

Maddox: I gave you a direct command.

Ryker: You did. And I weighed it against my conscience.

The specific exhaustion of commanding Ryker Stormvale was a chronic condition with no known cure.

At that moment, Kael raised his hand. The dark fae on the flanking dragons mirrored the motion in unison. The dragons who had responded to Maddox’s command began to move.

Jerky. Mechanical. Stiff, puppet-like motion of bodies no longer theirs.

Their eyes bled black.

Maddox watched them rise. The fury that detonated inside his chest was the specific fury of a king watching his people be used as weapons.

Then her pain hit him like a fist to the chest. Five hundred yards below, the first seizure bowed her spine off Sterling’s scales. For two seconds Maddox could not tell if the seizing body was hers or his.

Sterling: Commander, she is seizing.

Sterling adjusted his pitch to keep her centered. The heat pouring off her was blistering his scales.

Maddox dove.

Black flame cut across his path before he made it halfway.

More streaked through after, hitting a dragon square in the chest. It roared in agony, before his eyes flooded black. Another hit the dragon next to him. Its eyes turned black, and movements jerky, joining the others.

Maddox: ALL WINGS FALL BACK FROM THE BLACK FLAME. Do not let it touch you. Defensive pair formation. No wing flies uncovered. Execute.

Half of the dragons across the Drakencrest line shifted in unison, landing on the dragon next to them, palms out.

Flame intercepted flame, while the dragons under them banked and dove.

Maddox: Ryker. Gwen is on Sterling.

Ryker: On it. Moving to retrieve.

Before he could get there, a second convulsion ripped through Guinevere. Harder. Foam gathered at the corners of her mouth, while pained grunts escaped her throat.

Sterling: Phoenix actual, send medic to High Commander immediately. Priority one casualty. Converge now.

Ryker: Copy, Jaxon and our mages are on their way. T minus forty.

Sterling: Get me a goddamn healer now.

Maddox: Sterling. Talk to me.

Sterling: It’s bad, commander.

Maddox: I’m coming, Sterling. Fight it.

Maddox: Sterling move. Take her out of here.

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