Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

The healer stood, grabbed scissors from his kit, and removed the gauze bandage without a word. The soaked linen peeled free with a slightly wet sound that communicated ’someone fucked this up.’

Kael’s dragon rumbled in his chest. A low, rolling vibration that Guinevere could feel through his legs where her head rested. It sounded like a foghorn trying to be intimidating from inside a pillow fort.

The healer didn’t react to it at all. He continued working with the same steady hands, same focused expression, same complete indifference to the apex predator growling a foot from his workspace. He had clearly been hearing that sound all day and it had become ambient background noise.

She almost smiled.

Kael looked down at her. "Whatever you’re thinking, I’m going to need you to stop."

"Your dragon is so cute."

Kael recoiled like she’d just open-palm slapped him across the face. He dropped her hand and jerked his head back in the same second.

"And very tough and scary too," she added quickly.

She meant it. A dragon that was scary and also cute. Both things were true and she would die on that hill.

Kael opened his mouth. The comeback was loading, she could see it building behind his eyes, and it was going to be devastating.

The healer stopped.

Whatever Kael had been about to say died on the launchpad. Guinevere glanced down at her side. The wound had stopped bleeding, progress she was immediately grateful for.

"Thank you," she said to the healer, attempting to sit up.

The healer held out his hand, stopping her mid-rise and Kael pulled her back down before she realized what happened.

"I am not finished. It stopped bleeding, but that is it. The tissue underneath is rejecting the repair. Were you stabbed with one of those dark fae blades?"

"No." She paused thinking back to it. "It looked ordinary, that is. Would the magic be visible like the blades in the battle or are there variations?"

"Usually visible," the healer replied. "What is the typical timeframe for a non-Alpha wolf to self-heal from a wound like this?"

Guinevere glanced down at her side and thought for a moment. The answer was straightforward. The problem was she didn’t want to say this in front of Kael.

Kael didn’t let the thought go further than that.

"Guinevere. I’m a big boy and can handle it. Answer his goddamn question."

She blinked a few times, genuinely thrown. It was like he’d been reading her mind, which, given that she could feel his emotions slamming through her chest like weather systems with anger issues, really shouldn’t have been a shock. But it still was.

"For something like this, probably a day to fully heal. Mine is slower because I received lashes from a silver-tipped whip, which affects my ability to heal until the silver is purged."

The words came out clean and dry and completely detached from the event they described. She had already moved on from the other night.

Kael’s body behind her gave nothing away. His breathing stayed even. His hand stayed steady on her side. His jaw stayed exactly where it was.

But the storm inside him slammed into her chest so hard she gasped. Then something wet trickled from her nose. Her free hand flew to her face and came away red.

The storm inside him died so fast it left a vacuum. One heartbeat it was a hurricane and the next it was horror, pure and freezing, the specific terror of a man who had just realized his own emotions had physically hurt her.

She gave the hand she was still holding a squeeze that said, I’m fine and please stop feeling guilty. It’s just a nosebleed.

His fingers tightened around hers once. The grip said he received the message and rejected every word of it but was choosing to comply for now.

The healer stood and dug out a clean white cloth, a fresh bandage, wrapping, and a jar of something that smelled like it could sterilize a war crime. He handed her the cloth without a word and she pressed it to her nose.

He began dressing the wound on her side with hands that moved like they’d done this ten thousand times and would do it ten thousand more. The fresh bandage was wrapped tightly and felt a million times better than her own attempt.

"It is more than silver," the healer said as he worked. "There is dark magic inside you that is significantly larger than this wound. It is affecting your healing ability and your light from what I can feel."

"Oh, well if it helps, I feel much better," Guinevere said immediately. Her voice was light and easy and deployed at a speed that had nothing to do with reassuring the healer and everything to do with her not wanting Kael to worry.

"Can you remove it?" Kael asked in a level voice.

The whiplash between what he sounded like and what she was feeling from him was fascinating and disorienting.

"Our Master Mage Octavian will need to examine the dark magic before I can answer that with any confidence," the healer replied. "And I would defer to our Master Healer as well for her light." He paused, and his tone softened. "The two of them combined are the best practitioners alive. Our Master Mage just finished installing the wards on this Keep and is on his way up as we speak."

Guinevere knew the concept of wards, but hadn’t heard them spoken in everyday conversation until right now. The same went for a master mage. Wolves didn’t have mages. But then again, a glowing man was treating her. His statement also made her wonder if they had a mindlink too. All things she wanted to learn more about but at a slightly more ideal time.

"Young Dragon," the healer continued. "Could you please lie back down as you were. You are almost finished with your treatment cycle, but you are actively undoing six hours of work and I would prefer to complete this before the sun rises."

Guinevere sat up so fast her side screamed and her vision went grey at the edges for a full second.

"Kael, where are you supposed to be?"

"I’m fine."

Kael’s irritation flooded into her chest, like he had been told this too many times and was not coping well with the experience.

"Where is he supposed to be?"

The healer gestured at the bed behind them with a long sigh.

She looked at the bed. Looked at Kael. Looked at the fresh red spotting through his bandages where holding her had reopened whatever wound he was supposed to be healing from.

"You are bleeding through your own bandages because you picked me up off the floor instead of staying where the healer put you."

"Guinevere. Stop worrying. You do realize I’m a literal dragon, right?"

She felt the fight building in his chest, a thick, immovable wall of I’m-staying-put energy that was very Kael and also very stupid.

"I’ll go with you," she said softly.

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