Chapter 64: Betrayed Six Goddamn Ways To Sunday

Maddox’s dragon, which had been purring two seconds ago, went silent. The kind of silent that preceded forest fires and regime changes.

"Repeat that."

Two words. Delivered with the temperature of a man who had heard exactly what she said and was giving her one chance to tell him he was wrong.

She opened her mouth, trying to find the right words that didn’t include brother and orgasm in the same sentence.

"I s-saw him in here."

The conclusion was already on his face, and the damage was already spreading through the matebond in both directions. He pulled out of her without a word and not gently. She winced, her body hurting.

Without looking at her, he stood, water running down his body. He stepped out of the tub, grabbed a cloth, and wrapped it around his waist.

Then he walked towards the door.

"Maddox, wait. I saw him in the d-d-doorway. He was standing right there."

He stopped. His hand was on the doorframe. He didn’t turn around.

"The door has been closed since I carried you in here, Guinevere. No one has opened it."

The sentence sat between them. Either she had hallucinated his half-brother mid-orgasm, or Kael Ashenvale had breached Drakencrest Keep’s wards for the second time and was watching her in the king’s private chambers.

Neither option was good.

Guinevere rubbed her face with her hands, the tears falling on their own. The amount of self-directed frustration she had at the moment was unhealthy and probably irrational and she knew it. But it was still there.

She got out of the marble tub, her entire body trembling because she was dehydrated and gods know what else.

Maddox had already left the room.

The moon was in the sky and she wasn’t sure how many days she’d been unconscious.

But she knew one thing for certain, she couldn’t stand being in this room a second longer. She put on a zip suit, letting her hair fall in damp waves.

Her reflection in the mirror looked like a ghost who’d been crying in a bathtub. Which was, unfortunately, accurate.

Then she noticed a faint mark on her neck. Maddox’s was there, but there was a silver one layered on top of it.

She blinked a few times studying it. It was still bruised and fresh.

Then she remembered Maddox had marked her when she woke up the first time having sex.

Maybe marking twice leaves a second one. Wolves don’t typically do that but dragons must be different.

Noted.

She was on her way out when she noticed the door of Maddox’s personal study was open. It was attached to their chambers and always closed.

Curiosity won before common sense.

Snooping was wrong. It was also the only productive thing she’d done since waking up, so she was going to lean into it.

LETTER ONE:

Your Majesty. The council has prepared a shortlist of eligible high-blood women. All three candidates carry confirmed dragon bloodlines, established house backing, and rider certification. Per our discussion, the introduction dinner can be arranged at your—

Guinevere stopped reading mid-sentence. She knew it was coming, but seeing it in writing was something else. She had known since the night her father sold her to dragons that the cards would be stacked in this direction. That was the math.

"I still hoped..." her voice cracked. She wiped her eyes.

Hope was a cruel word to say out loud in an empty room.

Sold to dragons. Found letters about replacement women because she wasn’t queen material. Moaned the wrong name during sex. If this wasn’t a fairy tale, then she didn’t know what was.

That’s when she caught the Lunaris seal.

LETTER TWO:

Drakencrest. Where is my daughter. This is my second letter. There won’t be a third.

Lunaris writing "where is my daughter" didn’t mean he cared. It meant someone had moved a piece on his board without asking. Her breath caught.

Why hadn’t Maddox mentioned this?

LETTER THREE:

Maddox.

My thighs are bruised in the best way. Are you sore? Good. You should be after what you did to me.

But I’ve heard rumors about a girl from Nyros. I’m going to assume that’s political and not personal, because the alternative would mean you replaced me without a conversation. You told me you loved me, Maddox. We have history. The kind that doesn’t disappear overnight.

If I’m wrong, come tell me yourself. I’ll wear the red one. You know which. If I’m right, you owe me a goodbye, and you know how I like those.

- Emma 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Guinevere read the first line three times, but her brain kept actively trying to reject the information.

Her heart was pounding. The blood in her veins felt like ice water. Of course Maddox had women. He was six-five with a throne and a jawline. Not a monk.

"I still hoped..." She spoke the same words aloud that she said two letters ago and her voice cracked in the exact same way.

For gods’ sake, he was a king. Was she that naive? Apparently. She just fell for the facade too hard and now was paying for it.

Her eyes burned still.

She had taken this man’s flame. That meant he did love her, right?

It didn’t feel very convincing.

The flame said love. Emma’s letter said bruised thighs. Somewhere between the two, the truth was probably wearing red and laughing at her.

Footsteps. Two sets. Heavy enough to be male, quiet enough to be practiced.

Guinevere froze. The study door was cracked three inches, and those three inches were the only thing between her and whoever had just entered the king’s private chambers.

Panic was an old friend. It showed up, she acknowledged it, and then she shoved it behind the part of her brain that made decisions.

Two men were in Maddox’s chambers. She was behind a cracked study door with stolen letters on a desk and a body that had been dying for three days. The math was ugly. She did it anyway.

She catalogued what she could. Boots: military issue, Drakencrest standard. Voices: male, mid-rank, no accent that placed them outside the Keep. They knew the guard rotation well enough to buy time inside it, which meant they were inside the system, not outside it.

"She couldn’t have gone far. She wasn’t even conscious."

"Find her. We don’t get a second pass at this."

"What if she fights?"

A low laugh. "She’s bones and half dead. Subdue and deliver. If she breaks, that’s his problem, not ours."

His. Not a name. A pronoun that could belong to anyone: Kael, Nyxar, an elder, a house lord. The ambiguity was deliberate, which told her they were trained, which told her this wasn’t improvised.

They checked the bed, the wardrobe, the bath. They did not check the study.

Thank the gods for incompetent kidnappers. The bar was underground and they still tripped over it.

When the chamber door closed behind them, she slid to the floor and pressed her forehead to her knees. Her hands were trembling. Her ribs ached.

She couldn’t see their faces. The crack gave her angles, boots, shadows. Nothing useful in a lineup.

But their scents were locked inside her skull with the permanence of a wolf who had been prey enough times to know that the nose never lies and the memory never fades.

Two scents. Filed. Permanent. Ready for the moment she stood close enough to match them to faces.

She didn’t move for ten minutes at least. But she needed fresh air. Answers.

Mindlinking Maddox crossed her mind. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. She’d rather be kidnapped than have that conversation right now. Or worse, Maddox not respond back to her. And she was fully aware of how unhinged that sounded.

Guinevere: Ryker, are you awake?

Nothing.

Her plan: find a guard, tell them, get fresh air without being abducted or killed.

Simple steps.

She opened the double doors and two guards were both stationed on either side at parade rest.

The devil was in the details and Guinevere’s senses were already on alert. Both men stood three inches from the correct position. Neither had scents she recognized.

Both armed. She was not. Brilliant thinking Guinevere, really.

Neither moved from their post. Both turned their heads as she stood in the door frame.

Guinevere tried Maddox, Blair, and Sterling at the same time because she had about half a second before things got ugly.

Still silence. Mindlinks were either down or Maddox told everyone she moaned a war criminal’s name during sex and now everyone hated her. Definitely the latter.

Her options were to rush back into the room and grab Maddox’s blade.

Or bluff her way until she can figure out how to channel Maddox’s flame or shift.

"Evening, gentlemen. We can do this the easy or the hard way. Your choice. This is your one and only warning."

Her tone came out with calm confidence that she absolutely didn’t feel.

Underneath the voice, her body was a controlled disaster. Heart rate too high, vision tunneling at the edges, fingers numb from fists she’d been making since the study floor.

But Guinevere Lunaris had been abducted now too many times to count and she was over it.