Chapter 172: Down Boy, He’s Not Fingering Her

"ENOUGH. Both of y—"

White magic hit him from both directions simultaneously.

Maddox’s blast was accidental, the panicked discharge of a dragon who didn’t know he was producing white light and had zero control over it. Landon’s was the magical equivalent of swatting a fly that had wandered between him and the thing he was focused on.

Sterling flew backwards across the room and landed on Kael’s bed with a force that rattled the headboard. He bounced once and lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling.

That’s when Sterling’s bracelet lit up.

White light pulsed from the gold band on his wrist, bright and sudden.

Landon’s head snapped towards it and the fight left him in a single breath. His fists dropped. His posture changed. Everything about the King of Light pivoted from combat to something else.

"Where did you get that?"

"Guinevere gave it to me," Sterling replied from the bed, his voice flat. "It usually vibrates too. But it’s not right now."

Maddox swung again, still committed to the cause even if Landon had mentally left the building.

Landon dodged without looking at him, his eyes locked on Sterling’s bracelet, which was a level of multitasking that was simultaneously impressive and annoying.

Guinevere’s body erupted for the second time under the blanket. White runes blazed across her skin like someone had lit a fuse. They crawled up her arms, down her legs, across her forehead, geometric and ancient, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.

Kael, who was still holding her, glowed brighter with her. He looked down at the runes spreading under the blanket across every covered inch of her body.

Without a word, he pulled the blanket off of her. Maddox’s wife-covering-blanket-radar went off the second he did, and his head snapped towards them like a possessive dragon who just heard the word ’share.’

Kael rolled his eyes. "She’s burning up, Maddox. Please don’t ask me to cover her in a goddamn blanket."

Maddox was over in a flash, pulling her from Kael’s arms.

For a second, it genuinely looked like Kael wasn’t going to let her go. The room froze. But to everyone’s relief, Kael let go before the Dragon King lost what little sanity he had left.

Maddox looked at the old man. "Can you fix her?"

"I have to hold her to do that," Landon answered for his healer.

"No," Maddox and Kael both said at the same time. The word was absolute. Final.

The old healer stepped forward. "She is his bonded light. Think of it like merging with flame. The fever is the excess energy her body cannot yet regulate." He pointed one gnarled finger at Landon. "Let him drain the excess. He will absorb what she cannot hold."

"I was draining it," Kael said from the bed, his voice carrying the specific offense of a man whose contribution was being overlooked and who just had a glowing wolf princess ripped out of his arms because he dared to remove a goddamn blanket.

The old healer offered a warm smile to him, as if he were a competent student who had just answered a question nobody asked.

"Well done, young dragon. You are correct. I sensed that. You imprinted on her light through a soul anchor, and she already carries your family flame. But the rate at which you drain is a fraction of what the King of Light can process. You are a bucket. He is a river." The old man looked at Maddox. "Let him drain the excess to remove the danger of the fever. It’s interacting with her flame, and she will need one or both of you brothers within a few minutes, because the gold won’t settle until a Drakencrest holds her."

The healer paused, and the pause carried weight.

"To fully stabilize, she needs both the Dragon King and the King of Light. Unless the young dragon marks her himself, thus bonding with her light and flame. That would create a permanent channel and eliminate the need for both of—"

"Absolutely the fuck not." Maddox and Landon said in unison.

Kael rolled his eyes. "Noted. Guess I’ll just stay over here being the hottest fourth wheel in history."

The old healer didn’t react.

Silence settled over the room. Kael on the bed, grey and glowing. Landon standing with gold flame still flickering around his body. Sterling on the bed with a glowing bracelet. Jaxon and Lux at the zoo. Ryker against the wall, untouched, unbothered, outside the blast radius. Blair in her chair, witnessing everything and still not believing what she was seeing. And Maddox, holding his wife, his dragon roaring, his pride in ruins, the runes on her body pulsing against his chest like a countdown he couldn’t read.

"Please, Drakencrest. I’ll stand right here. She’s in pain. Let me help her," Landon said, voice raw.

Maddox looked down at Guinevere. At the fever eating her alive and the marks on her neck. At the runes crawling across her skin. At the woman who was unconscious and blameless and the center of a war being fought by men who all loved her in different ways and couldn’t agree on a single goddamn thing except that she mattered.

He handed his wife to the King of Light.

The transfer took two seconds. His arms released. Landon’s received. The Dragon King let go of the woman his entire body was built to hold, and the sound his dragon made when Guinevere left his chest was the sound of a beast being separated from its heart by choice and not by force, and the choice was worse than force because force he could fight and this he had volunteered for.

Landon took her carefully. Gently. With the reverence of a man receiving something sacred and the awareness that the man who had handed it to him was watching every millimeter of contact.

Even unconscious, she was in pain. Immediately it began to drain into Landon, her relief hitting Maddox through their matebond.

She made a noise in her sleep, somewhere between a groan and a sigh. Unintentional. Also identical to a noise she made in the bath earlier with Maddox. A noise only for him.

Maddox’s eyes turned solid gold with a black slit, his dragon at the surface.

Kael raised an eyebrow. "Down, boy. That was the sound of relief. It’s not like he’s fingering her in front of you."

"Kael," Sterling, Ryker, and Blair all said in unison. All three closed their eyes in exhaustion.

Kael raised both hands innocently. "Relax, everyone. All I am saying is it was just a relief groan. It’s not like she’s making the noise she makes when Maddox is trying to break the sound barrier with his hips."

This time, Landon’s head snapped up, eyes flashing dangerous white. The runes on Guinevere ignited again.