Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 76

Chapter 76: Pantsed (Emotionally)

The hardest part of the worst night of her life wasn’t the throne room. It was after.

When the hostages were safely en route through the passage, and the elders had settled, Ryker entered the antechamber to get Maddox.

Nicholas and Kael entered behind him with the spatial awareness of two cats who had both decided the same box was theirs. Neither yielded the doorframe. Both entered sideways. The compromise pleased no one.

Kael was mid-sentence. "Take the wolves and get out through the passage with the others. Both girls and Maddox too. I’ll handle the ward nexus."

Ryker’s jaw tightened. He did not trust a single word of that, but he had arrived at the same conclusion independently, which was the infuriating thing about Kael Ashenvale: his plans were usually right, his motives were always suspect, and the two facts existed in a space that made every tactical decision feel like swallowing a fishhook.

Then all three men froze at the sight.

Guinevere was crouching in front of Maddox. Blair had an arm around her shoulders.

"Maddox?" She’d whispered his name ten times already.

His head was propped against the wall. Eyes closed. Jaw slack. The gashes from his ribs to his hip had stopped bleeding, which should have been reassuring and was the opposite, because the skin around them was grey in a way that living skin was never supposed to be.

She couldn’t feel him through their matebond.

He was burning up, which for a dragon should have been impossible, because dragons ran hot the way the ocean ran deep. She had fallen asleep against this man’s chest enough times to know his temperature by touch. This wasn’t it.

Renwick’s rules had no Chapter on what to do after the room cleared and the mask came off. When she spoke, her voice was level and she didn’t turn to look at them.

"He won’t wake up."

Three men smelled the salt from her tears at the same moment. Each one had the same involuntary response: a tightening behind the ribs, a lock in the jaw, and the specific helplessness of a male body confronted with a woman’s grief and possessing zero tools to fix it.

"Don’t cry, Gwen." Ryker kept his voice light. The delivery was practiced. The steadiness underneath it was earned. "He’s hard to kill. Trust me, I’ve considered it."

The joke was six years old and it always landed. Tonight it barely survived the delivery.

Kael glanced at him with a look that resembled indigestion. He stepped past Ryker towards Maddox with the clinical focus of a man who had seen enough dark magic casualties to recognize the signs. Ryker’s blade came up, blocking his path, the steel catching the torchlight.

The blade said explain yourself. Kael’s response to the blade was to pretend it was not there. He pushed past it. The blade scraped across his shoulder guard and he gave it the same attention he would give a tree branch in his path. His knees hit the stone beside Guinevere. He leaned in and inhaled.

His nostrils flared. Then his head pulled back.

"What the hell..." He leaned in again, scenting the air above Maddox’s gashes. "Dark magic. The bad kind. It’s suppressing his healing. The longer it sits in his blood, the deeper it roots."

He looked at Ryker. "Get him to Aldric immediately. Every minute you wait reduces Aldric’s odds of reversing it."

Ryker did not need to be told twice. He did not enjoy being told once. The fact that the telling had come from Kael Ashenvale added a flavor to the urgency that he would describe later, over drinks, as ’the emotional equivalent of being pantsed.’

Ryker sheathed his blade without ceremony and moved to Maddox’s right side, hooking an arm under his shoulder.

Guinevere was already on the left, pulling Maddox’s other arm across her shoulders, trying to take his weight while her legs shook beneath her.

Three men exchanged a look. The look said: who’s going to tell her?

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