Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 84

Chapter 84: Hypothetically, What If You Got Married

Ryker tossed his coin. Caught it. "Hey, Maddox."

"No."

"I haven’t said anything yet."

"The tone said enough. Whatever it is, no."

Ryker leaned against a post in the tent. "Hypothetical. What if I were to tell you, that during the three weeks you blacked out, you got married."

Maddox took a sip of coffee. "I would say bullshit."

"Humor me."

"If, in some fever dream, I married a woman I can’t remember, that would be an impulse marriage. And I would annul it." He said it the way a man says something obvious, with the mild impatience of a king who had been asked whether water was wet.

"What if she’s a fated mate?"

Maddox gave him a flat look. "Dragons don’t get married because their nose told them to. That’s wolf behavior."

Ryker’s mouth curved at one corner. The curve contained things he was choosing to withhold, and the withholding was physically hurting him.

"What if you paid seven hundred and fifty million gold for her and gave a middle finger to twenty kings who were also trying to buy her?"

Maddox processed the number with detached interest. "I would ask about the refund policy."

"There is no refund policy. You also gave her a ring. You were very thorough about the whole thing."

Maddox stared at him. "That doesn’t sound like me."

Ryker laughed with his whole body, the way he laughed when the joke was funny and also devastating and also aimed at a man who had no idea why it was either of those things.

Sterling did not laugh. His jaw moved a fraction. The fraction contained an entire strategic assessment of how close Ryker had come to detonating a situation that was being held together with discipline and selective silence.

Maddox looked between them. The look on his face was the look of a man who knew he was missing context and had decided the context was Ryker being Ryker, which was usually an adequate explanation and was, in this case, catastrophically insufficient.

"What brought this on?"

"Nothing." Ryker collected himself. "Just thinking out loud. War summit topics. Marriage alliances. Hypotheticals. You know."

Maddox looked at Ryker the way he looked at bad intel. "I don’t know. That’s the problem."

"Quick poll. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, black hair, white hair. Rank them. Top to bottom."

Maddox stared at him. "Are you having a stroke?"

"No, Commander."

"Brunettes." He took another sip of coffee. "Why."

"No reason. Casual survey. Moving on," Ryker said casually. "Follow-up question. What if she was also very pretty?"

"Ryker."

"Extremely pretty. Like, historically pretty. Like, ’men start wars over this’ pretty."

"You’re describing a hypothetical wife I don’t have with details that are suspiciously specific."

"Am I? Weird. Anyway. Your answer?"

"Pass."

"You can’t pass. It’s a poll."

"I’m a king. I can pass on anything."

Ryker swallowed the next laugh before it formed. Sterling’s posture shifted a millimeter toward him, which was Sterling’s version of a physical threat.

The moment passed.

"I’ll be right back, Commander." Ryker straightened, rolling his shoulders. "Got a simulation to run."

"The day I see you running a simulation and training someone is the day Sterling smiles in public."

He would not be right back. He was about to run a lethal simulation with the woman who held the second fastest time on record.

Across the grounds, Guinevere stood inside a tent near the training field with Blair, Damon, and Nicholas.

Ryker entered through the flaps of the tent. Flipped his coin.

"Are your feelings about showing off flexible? Because I need you to show off."

She looked up and saw him grinning from ear to ear.

"Tell her, Blair. Humble settings off. We’re adding a new trick and I’m not telling you what it is until we’re airborne."

His hand waved once in a small circle. Keep up with me here.

A thought crossed his face. A terrible thought. The thought was: oh gods, this is why Kael uses tokens.

Blair’s look hit him from the left. Sharp enough to sever a sentence mid-word. Her gold eyes communicated, with zero ambiguity, that the next word out of his mouth would determine whether she forgave him this week or this century.

He closed his mouth. Pointed at Guinevere with two fingers, then turned them back toward himself. You and me. We’re getting through this.

Guinevere had already filled in the rest. The knowledge landed on a bruise that was already there. She swallowed it. Her face gave nothing away.

"Understood."

She was going to stay out of his way. Give him space. Give them whatever time they needed to explain to the man she loved that the woman he didn’t remember existed was real and the ring on his finger meant something even if his brain had decided it didn’t.

She would do the simulation. She would perform for the council. She would wear the crown and the suit and the gloves and the smile that cost her everything to produce.

Then she was going to find a bathing chamber with a lock on the door and turn the water on and cry until there was nothing left. She was fully okay with that being her day. It was the only plan she had that felt achievable.

"I’ll have servants move your things, Gwen." Blair’s voice was warm and certain in the way that only Blair could make a logistical statement sound. "You’ll stay in my chambers."

Guinevere nodded once. The motion was small.

"Thank you, Blair." Two words. Delivered with the same gratitude she always had.

Nicholas’s wolf was howling in his mind, wanting Guinevere to sleep in his bed with him. He could feel her heart cracking and knew exactly the toll this was taking on her.

His nostrils flared.

"You good, Nick?" Damon asked.

Nicholas looked down only to see he was starting to shift, his wolf pushing to the surface. He shoved the beast down again.

"Yeah," he answered, jaw tight.

Guinevere looked over at him with concerned eyes. Like she thought his frustration was aimed at her.

The matebond goes two ways.

He tried to relax his face. Overcorrected. Smiled. The smile was too big and completely wrong for the room and Damon stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

"Don’t do that," Damon whispered. "Whatever that is, stop."

Nicholas killed the smile and the look he gave her was: Not about you, I promise.

Her worry dissolved into something quiet and fond. Her cheeks heated, and she looked away.