Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 90

Chapter 90: The Bravest Knock In Drakencrest (He Hated It)

There should be an alarm. A horn. A concerned third party. Something to alert a man that he is about to ruin a perfectly functional personality. There wasn’t.

One moment Kael Ashenvale was a handsome, emotionally unavailable, intelligent, morally flexible, carefree war criminal. The next he wanted to be something else.

Better.

The desire was revolting. He examined it the way one examines a rash. With suspicion, mild horror, and the hope that it would go away on its own.

It didn’t.

He actually wanted to be a better man. Gross.

Kael Ashenvale had never wanted to be a better man. He had wanted to be the smartest man in the room, the most dangerous, the most useful, and occasionally the most attractive, depending on the room.

Better had never made the list because better implied a standard he was measuring himself against, and measuring implied he cared what the measurement said, and caring implied vulnerability, and vulnerability was a door he had welded shut at sixteen and had been standing in front of ever since with his arms crossed and a sarcastic remark loaded.

He rubbed his hand down his face.

OPTION ONE: do nothing. Continue being the man he had been. Brilliant, isolated, lethal, and entirely allergic to accountability. It was a comfortable life. He had excellent taste in wine and no one to disappoint.

OPTION TWO: walk into his brother’s tent and do the bravest, stupidest, most un-Kael thing he had ever done in his life.

"Absolutely insufferable," he muttered. He was referring to himself. He was also referring to the wolf princess who had caused this, and the brother he was about to face, and the entire concept of growth as a philosophical proposition.

Growth was for goddamn plants.

✦✦✦

Kael knocked once on the tent post, then entered without waiting for a response.

Maddox’s hand was on his blade. Kael clocked it. Appreciated it, even.

"Kael. I didn’t expect you inside my tent voluntarily." The tone suggested that of all the ways Maddox expected this evening to go, ’Kael walks into my tent voluntarily’ ranked somewhere between ’Ryker taking a vow of celibacy’ and ’Sterling telling a joke.’

"I didn’t expect to be here voluntarily." Kael let the flap close behind him. "And yet."

The two men looked at each other in silence. The distance between them was eight feet, a father, and a throne that only one could sit on.

"I need a word, Maddox."

The use of the first name was intentional. Kael called him little brother when he was performing. He called him Maddox when he meant it. The distinction was one of approximately four tells Kael possessed, all of which he was fully aware of.

Maddox reached for the crate behind his chair that Ryker had labeled "medical supplies." Two glasses. One bottle. He poured and slid one to Kael without a word.

Kael took it. He sat in the chair across from Maddox like a civilized person, which was new territory for both of them and neither acknowledged it.

Maddox set his glass down first. He treated every shared drink as a pacing contest he didn’t know he was competing in. Kael had been exploiting this since they were teenagers, and was choosing not to exploit it now. Growth. Disgusting.

Maddox waited. Kael noticed. His little brother had gotten smarter since the last time they’d sat across a table.

"The offer you extended," Kael began. "Restoring House Ashenvale. Granting lordship. If it’s still on the table, I will take it."

"You held eighteen houses, Kael. Conquered, from what I’ve been briefed. Dark magic, compulsion networks, fae alliance. That is a continent’s worth of enemies and a war crime portfolio that would take my council six months to adjudicate."

When Maddox spoke, his face gave nothing. The boy had turned into a statue. An armed statue. With whiskey. The improvement was noted.

"That is partially accurate." Kael rolled his glass between his fingers. "Twelve of those houses I released. The remaining six I held through the transition period, then released in the same manner."

Maddox’s brow moved a fraction. "Released."

"The eighteen were held through fae compulsion, which broke mid-battle after a mutiny. I had the means to rebuild it. I chose not to. I withdrew from twelve leaving the garrisons intact and infrastructure undamaged."

His iron eyes held Maddox’s gold. "The six I kept controlled choke points, supply routes, or resources I needed for the fae war that I could see coming twelve months before your scouts started filing reports about it."

"And the six?"

"Released in the same manner, once the fae intelligence I needed was extracted." He paused. "I am many things, Maddox. Stupid is rarely one of them. Holding territory through dark compulsion is expensive, unstable, and morally repulsive even by my standards, which I will be the first to admit have been flexible."

Maddox refilled his glass. The motion was unhurried.

"You want your mother’s seat. The council wants your head. Convince me they’re wrong."

Kael’s jaw tightened. The micro-expression was the second visible tell he had given in five minutes.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify