Chapter 178: A Fourth WHAT

Maddox sat in a leather chair holding Guinevere in his lap.

He looked at Landon. Without breaking eye contact, he leaned down and pressed a long kiss to his unconscious wife’s lips. Something that could easily be misconstrued as sexual tension towards Landon if one didn’t know the situation. Maddox wasn’t thinking along those lines.

Kael, however, absolutely was and the look on his face suggested he would be holding that over Maddox’s head for the rest of their natural lives and into hell for eternity.

When Maddox noticed Kael watching, he moved to the mark on Guinevere’s neck. First kissing it, then sucking it.

Immediately, Nicholas’s wolf growled under his ribs, Landon’s glow brightened, and the smug look on Kael’s face evaporated.

Ryker watched with the expression of a best friend who was imprinting the scene to memory so he could have it painted and hung in the war room.

Blair observed for exactly two seconds and decided she’d rather gouge her own eyes out. "Nope. Fuck this. Fuck all of you. I’m leaving," she said as the door closed behind her.

This went on for another ten minutes before the mindlinks started coming in. Maddox, who was usually very good about hiding that, was not today. Whatever was being said, he was losing.

His jaw worked, then worked again.

"Fine," he snapped out loud.

He crossed to Kael and lowered Guinevere into his brother’s arms with the excruciating tenderness of a man handing his newborn to a drunk babysitter.

His hands lingered for a full second after the transfer was complete, his fingers on her shoulder, her arm, the hem of her robe, touching anything he could justify touching until there was nothing left to justify and his hands returned to his sides empty.

Kael received her without commentary. He’d been holding this woman through crises for weeks and didn’t need instructions.

"Kael is in charge while I’m gone." Maddox aimed the sentence at the room at large, but his eyes landed on Landon first and Nicholas second. "I have to deal with something. I’ll be back."

"No killing anyone when I’m not there," Kael said, settling Guinevere’s head against his shoulder.

Maddox pointed at Kael. "Only let Landon touch her if she starts burning again and no more than five minutes." Then at Landon. "Don’t touch her." Then at Nicholas. "Don’t touch her either." Then at the old healer who was asleep. "You’re the only person in this room I trust."

The old healer opened his eyes and raised his wine glass as if he’d been awake the entire time. Lux had procured the wine for him at some point during the chaos. He’d earned it, conscious or not.

Griffin entered Kael’s chambers at that moment.

Maddox looked at him. "No one enters unless they are one of us. If she wakes up, you mindlink me before she finishes blinking."

"Understood, Commander."

"If either of those two," he gestured at Landon and Nicholas without looking at them, "moves within three feet of her, you mindlink me, Ryker, Sterling, Aldric, and every guard in the corridor. In that order."

Griffin nodded with an intensity that was dead serious and entirely disproportional.

The door closed.

The room settled into silence.

Landon and Nicholas stared at one another.

The stare carried no warmth, no curiosity, no professional courtesy, and absolutely no interest in finding common ground. It was the stare of two men from opposite ends of the world who had come for the same woman, only to discover upon arrival that the other existed.

Kael’s eyes began to droop, choosing to ignore the cold war going on around him.

Griffin cleared his throat.

"Can I get anyone anything? Water? Tea? More pillows?"

Both kings declined without looking at him.

Griffin, undeterred, studied the chalk line on the bed. The M. The L. The system Kael had built for two.

"I could redraw the boundaries," he said. "Add an N section. For, you know, fairness."

Landon’s head turned towards Griffin. "Did you just suggest adding a section for the wolf?"

Griffin’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "Is that a trick question, Your Majesty?"

"I’ll take the section," Nicholas said.

Landon’s head rotated back to Nicholas, who received the look in the unbothered way an iceberg receives a warm hug.

From the bed, Kael had fully passed out sitting upright against the headboard with Guinevere in his lap. His arms were draped loosely around her and his chin rested on top of her head.

Guinevere looked uncomfortable as hell. Her head lolled forward as she sat upright against Kael.

Neither king could tolerate the visual.

Landon moved first, crossing to Kael’s side of the bed, lowering himself onto the mattress next to the sleeping man. He gently moved her sideways, sliding a brown pillow under Kael’s arm so Guinevere could also rest on it.

As soon as he made contact, the heat boiling under her skin went down. Landon’s jaw was tight. His nostrils flared, staring at Kael. For a second, it looked like he was going to rip Guinevere out of the sleeping half-dead dragon’s lap. But he didn’t.

Nicholas observed, then moved to Kael’s other side with zero fucks for the fact that he was on another man’s bed.

Damon blinked from his chair across the chambers. Two kings now flanking an unconscious dragon. Shoulder to shoulder.

Nicholas gently moved her torso away from Landon to his side of Kael, letting her head rest in his lap. Then he brushed her hair aside.

Landon’s nostrils flared again. Before he could retaliate, Kael shifted in his sleep. His arms tightened around Guinevere, pulling her back vertical in his lap.

"If there’s a fourth mark... I’m next... " he mumbled with the satisfied smile of a subconscious living its best life.

Both kings stiffened. For one second, both kings were unified in their mutual hatred of those words. It evaporated as fast as it arrived and the hostility returned like it had never left.

Nicholas leaned over her, trying to move her back to his side. Kael’s arms tightened, keeping her exactly where she was. Nicholas leaned closer than that. Landon matched. Nicholas raised. They inched forward in tandem, two kings in a slow-motion headbutt trajectory and fully aware of it with enough possessive energy to power a small city.

Griffin looked at Brennan. Brennan looked at Damon. All three wore I-just-walked-in-on-my-parents-having-sex expressions on their faces, unable to unsee it and unable to look away.

That’s when she opened her eyes. Green. Disoriented. Terrified.

A high-pitched scream erupted from her mouth.

CRACK.

The windows, mirrors, wine bottle, and water pitcher cracked in unison. Every oil lamp in the room exploded.

Landon and Nicholas both jumped, clutching their chests like they’d been hit by lightning. Brennan’s arms shot up in the air like he was under arrest. Damon’s soul left his body. Griffin jump-yelped, managing to headbutt a torch sconce. The old healer didn’t stir, still fast asleep.

Kael yelled awake, jolting behind her. "WHAT THE FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. STOP SCREAMING! FUCK!"

Across the Keep, in front of thirty-nine dragon lords, every high-ranking officer, and every elder who mattered on the continent, Maddox Drakencrest was mid-oath swearing in House Ocandia’s new Dragon Lord when his body lit up like the goddamn sun.