Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 74

Chapter 74: All Part Of The Plan. Keep Up.

The room erupted into chaos.

More of Draven’s soldiers poured through the portals, weapons drawn.

The mothers organized an evacuation faster than Ryker could have ordered one. Children were scooped, carried, and redistributed among women with zero regard for whose kid belonged to whom.

"Move. Someone carry that little girl." Blair stood at the passage entrance directing traffic, still holding the candle box with the grip of a woman who had lost her goddamn mind two hours ago and was not getting it back tonight.

Kael kicked Draven’s body off of Guinevere.

Immediately, a blade came down from her right. One of Draven’s reinforcements, already committed to the swing before his commander’s skull had finished accepting the steel.

Guinevere felt it. Rolled. From the ground, she kicked the attacker across the shins, clotheslining him, and he went down beside her with a confused expression on his face.

Kael finished him from above with one stroke.

She turned away when the head came off, which luckily went the opposite direction of her lap.

Her stomach turned. She locked her jaw until it passed. She exhaled once, then moved before the rest of her body could vote on the decision.

On the first attempt to stand, her palms slipped in her own blood and she went back down. On the second, her arms shook so badly the motion looked like it belonged to a different woman entirely.

Still on her hands and knees, she glanced up at Kael.

"Thanks," she panted.

He blinked at her. Opened his mouth. Shut it.

"Unless you’re here for the same reason," she said. "If that’s the case, your timing could not be more terrible."

Kael shook his head once. The motion was small, involuntary, the equivalent of a hard restart.

"You saw a throne room full of hostages and armed soldiers and your first thought was ’I should go in there.’"

"I had it covered."

"Covered." He crouched to her level. "Your hands are bleeding, your legs don’t work, and I pulled a corpse off you."

"All part of the plan, Kael. This is my second time doing this." Her position on the floor undermined the statement somewhat, but if Draven were less dead, he’d have said the delivery was phenomenal.

"Second time," Kael repeated flatly. His jaw worked once, then he stood. "Bullshit. I almost bought it. A concubine-mistress has not done this before."

"And yet."

In the front of the throne room, Ryker hooked an arm under Maddox’s shoulder, and hauled him upright. His head lolled forward, chin to chest. He didn’t wake.

"Come on, Commander. Work with me." Maddox did not work with him. "You are the heaviest unconscious person I have ever carried. And I am absolutely holding this over your head for the next decade."

He pulled the king toward the corridor behind the dais. King first. Protocol. The word sat wrong in every part of him, because the woman who had just saved four hundred people was bleeding from both palms in the center of a kill zone, and he was walking the other direction.

She was a tier below the crown in the chain of priority, and the chain of priority did not care about his feelings.

As soon as Guinevere was standing, a blade flew. She caught it wincing on the turn because her palms stung.

"Honey, what did I tell you about touching things." Kael cut down a soldier without looking. "If you bring dark magic home again, I will turn this siege around."

Another attacker was in pursuit. Blade up.

She reached for her flame again. Found it. Flexed. Her sword lit gold. Not as bright as before, but it lit.

"That’s a new one," Kael commented.

The attacker moved faster than she was ready for. She ducked. His blade missed by inches.

Then she shut her eyes and swung. A head came off. She screamed high-pitched before she could muffle it, dropping her flaming sword in the process. It clattered to the ground, flame dying with it.

"Did you just close your eyes?" Kael killed another. "Did you close your eyes and swing? Is that what just happened?"

"No. I aimed."

"You didn’t aim. You can light swords on fire and you have no clue how to use them."

The look she shot him could have peeled paint.

Behind her, the elders rose slowly. Fourteen men and one woman who had been bound in dragon iron for hours.

Elder Varro straightened his robes, picked up a length of broken chain, and struck the nearest soldier. "Unacceptable."

"My hip will never recover from that floor, and I am sending you the invoice." Elder Cassia stormed to one of the soldiers and slapped him. She then picked up his sword and swung it with an enthusiasm that compensated for her technique. "That’s for my knees, too."

Varro glanced at Cassia mid-swing. "Your form is atrocious. That’s not how you hold a sword."

"That’s not how you hold a council either, but here we are. I have a body count. Where are yours?"

Varro looked at the two men already unconscious at his feet. Then back up at her. "You’re hitting him in the shoulder. Aim for the neck."

"I’m hitting him where I want to hit him, Varro. Go take a nap."

Drystan stood behind a column watching. He would emerge when it was safe and take credit for it. This was his process.

Across the throne room, Nicholas and his wolves met the wave pouring through the portals head-on.

He could see Guinevere through the chaos. Twenty feet away. He watched her catch another sword out of the air with bleeding hands and throw it. His jaw worked once.

"Fuck that’s hot."

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