Chapter 313: Pillow Talk, Brotherfucker

The walk to Maddox’s chambers was the longest corridor of Guinevere Lunaris’s life and the competition for that title had been Olympic.

Maddox had his arm around her with a grip that said he was not letting go.

Kael was behind her. She could feel his gaze on the back of her head like a sunburn.

Her father said her brother was dead. Was that because of Kael?

Her eyes drifted to Kael for one second. The timeline was right there and the question forming behind it was ugly and she didn’t want to ask it and she definitely didn’t want the answer.

Did Kael kill her brother?

She hoped not. She genuinely, desperately hoped not. Because if Kael killed Cassian, then the man walking behind her had murdered her brother while she slept, and she would have to carry that alongside everything else and the pile was already taller than she was.

Kael opened his mouth.

She looked away.

Whatever he was going to say, she couldn’t hear it right now. Her capacity for new information had been exceeded sometime around the third kingdom and she was operating on overflow. One more revelation and the entire system was going to blue-screen.

She and Kael had sex and she was married to his brother. That fact sat in her chest like a stone she couldn’t swallow. She had marked Nicholas. She had been naked in a tree pool with Nicholas. And she was married to Maddox, the man currently holding her hand, who had called her his wife, who had flown hours to find her.

The rule-follower in her was composing a confession. The princess in her was thinking about the political implications.

If she told Maddox about Nicholas, would that put Shadowfell in danger? Nicholas said they knew each other. Respected each other.

If she told Maddox about Kael, what happened? They were brothers. She had processed that fact intellectually without processing it emotionally because the emotional processing would require acknowledging that she had potentially slept with two brothers, married one of them, and marked a third man, and that sequence of events belonged in a cautionary tale, not her actual life.

Would it ruin their relationship? Kael and Maddox clearly loved each other. They argued like siblings and protected each other like soldiers. She had been around them for maybe thirty minutes total and could tell that immediately. If she confessed that she and Kael had been in her bed together, did that fracture something between them that couldn’t be repaired?

The silence in the group was suffocating. Seven people were walking through a corridor and not one of them speaking. The tension was so thick it had texture, every footstep echoing.

"So now that we’re out of wolf territory and nobody’s glowing." Ryker looked around. "Breakfast? Anyone? The offer’s been on the table since the corridor and frankly I’m hurt nobody’s taken me up on it."

Nobody responded.

"We could lighten up just a bit. Everyone thinks better on a full stomach. That’s science."

Silence.

"Or orange juice. Mimosas. Kingslayer looks like she could use one with Blair."

More silence.

"Breakfast. Final offer. Going once."

Nope.

"I’ll stop talking."

Guinevere’s eyes moved to the man walking beside Ryker. The one who had told her to drop the weapon in these halls. He walked with the rigid efficiency of a man who took his job seriously and had feelings about nothing.

He must not like her.

That was her conclusion. Based on the weapon incident, the shouting, and his expression right now, she could tell.

The formation was escort-shaped. House arrest. That’s what this was.

She was being placed in a room until Maddox decided what to do with her. The man who had called her his wife was walking her to his chambers the way a warden walks an inmate to a cell, and she was going willingly.

They reached the door. Maddox pushed it open.

Guinevere stepped inside and inhaled sharply.

Nautical. White paneling. Navy accents. It was almost identical to the brown-room lookalike that she had accidentally stabbed herself in. The room looked like a ship captain’s quarters had an affair with a castle and this was the offspring.

Déjà vu hit her so hard she stumbled.

Kael’s head turned to her, like he was hoping something would happen.

She blinked.

Next to her, Maddox had stopped mid-step. His entire body went rigid with the sudden, absolute stillness of a man who had walked into his own chambers and found them completely different from how he’d left them.

"What the actual fuck."

His voice came out like a whip, jolting her. Her hand flew to her mouth. Her shoulders hit her ears and her heart rate spiked into triple digits because the Dragon King’s voice had just detonated beside her at a volume that suggested she had done something catastrophically wrong and the house arrest was about to be upgraded to a formal sentencing.

Maddox sniffed the room, not looking at her.

"Who the fuck—" There were no words. He let go of Guinevere and spun towards Kael. "Did you have someone do this?"

Kael tore his eyes away from Guinevere.

"What?"

"What do you MEAN what?" Maddox snapped.

Kael scanned the room. Something about it looked different but he couldn’t pin why.

Then he spotted the pillows. Six of them.

Kael gave a single nod of approval.

He had experienced pillows firsthand in Guinevere’s chambers in Lunaris. The woman had a system.

He saw the value.

"Nice pillows." Kael approved of the pillows like a sommelier approving of a vintage. Quietly. Confidently. With the authority of a man who had been converted.

Maddox stared at him. He had left his chambers two days ago and come back to a showroom. "Nice PILLOWS? I’ve been gone for TWO goddamn days."

"I’ve been gone too," Kael commented. "Relax. The pillows look fine."

"Fine? FINE? There are six pillows on my bed. I left with two."

"She likes pillows." Kael gestured at Guinevere.

"She likes— how do you know she likes pillows?"

Kael gave Maddox an unimpressed look. "Because I slept in her bed for the last two days, Dipshit."

Sterling and Ryker exchanged a glance. Ryker offered a shrug. Neither of them noticed anything different because neither of them had ever paid attention to what it looked like before.

"Has this room always been white?" Sterling asked, squinting.

"Yes," Kael answered with zero hesitation.

"No," Maddox said.

Ryker picked up the bolster pillow on the window seat. "This is nice. Have you always had this?"

"NO, I HAVEN’T ALWAYS HAD THAT," Maddox snapped. "WHY IS IT LONG?"

"Lumbar support." Kael clapped Maddox on the back.

Maddox looked at him like he’d been stabbed.

Sterling noticed the reorganized surfaces, and gave a single approving nod that Maddox caught from across the room.

"Don’t you DARE nod at this," Maddox said.

Maddox stormed across the room. He picked up one of the accent pillows, held it at arm’s length, and stared at it like it was ugly.

He opened a drawer next. Found his things reorganized. Slammed it closed with the controlled fury of a man who has been alphabetized without consent.

Kael sat on the bed. Pushing down on the mattress. It was soft.

"This one is better than mine."

"GET OFF MY BED."

Kael was already stretched out on it. "It really is comfortable."

Maddox was having a breakdown about soft furnishings and Kael was having an awakening about them, Sterling and Ryker were trying to figure out what was different, and Guinevere was standing between them trying to figure out what was happening.

The double doors opened at that moment.