Chapter 469: A Matter Of Life And Virginity

"MARKING?"

"Yes, cousin." Phaedra nodded, bright and helpful. "Dragons perform the marking ritual all the time, and it is not nearly as significant as one would think. Once a dragon marks the woman, the woman can summon the dragon for protection, and then we would get to see the outside—"

One look from Aurora and Phaedra stopped talking mid-sentence, her mouth closing around the rest of it.

Ryker saw the look. No one else seemed to notice the look.

"My point is, dragons do this all the time, cousin. It’s like a handshake," Phaedra concluded.

"A handshake."

"Yes. It’s basically how they say hello."

Landon stared at her. The stare contained the full weight of a Luminari education system that had apparently failed his cousin at the most fundamental level.

"That is not correct." Landon’s voice was flat and cold and climbing. "Marking is how a matebond is formed. A dragon does it once in his life. Once. Who told you that?"

Phaedra’s eyes flicked sideways. "Aurora."

Landon turned to his cousin, and his brow drew together with something that wasn’t quite suspicion yet but was standing very close to it. "Aurora. That doesn’t sound like you. That is foolish, and you are not foolish."

"My apologies, cousin." Aurora dipped her head, demure, the picture of contrition. "That is what I learned from the old scrolls. I misunderstood."

Her sincerity seemed so genuine that Ryker almost believed it for a moment there. The head dip. The soft voice. The apology that sounded like a woman who had made an innocent mistake with old texts.

Landon let it go because he had a bigger fire and the bigger fire was a dragon cock that had been inside his sister. The scrolls would need to be investigated later.

Maddox was responsible for bringing his men into his kingdom.

"Just because dragons treat this as recreation does not mean the Luminari do," Landon gritted. "Your men have taken advantage of innocent women under my own roof."

Maddox’s eyes went flat. "Repeat that, Solveil."

"I was there, Drakencrest. I saw the place the dragons call Diplomat Row. The depravity. I assumed that was not your house, but it appears I gave you too much—"

"I’m going to stop you right there, before you insult my house." Maddox’s voice didn’t rise. It dropped, which was worse. "Neither of these two men have ever done this before. They were outnumbered three and two to one. And from where I’m standing, they are the ones who were taken advantage of, to get a mark out of them. In dragon culture, a mark is sacred. You’d know that if you weren’t so busy being wrong at me."

Maddox machine-gunned facts out like a goddamn professional. Three women on Brennan. Two on Sterling. One very aggressive one on Ryker plus support staff. His men were outmanned and the outmanning was done by women who had a plan and drinks and numerical superiority.

The reframe put the violation on the Luminari side of the ledger and Landon’s light flickered because the argument had weight.

Then Landon’s light flared again.

"My sister was being violated by your Third." The words came out ragged, the new wolf under his ribs feeding fury into a voice that was already made of it. "My virgin sister. Promised since her birth to Edward Solandris the Second, heir to House Solandris." His eyes snapped to Sterling, pinned against the wall. "You took her virginity. You drugged her. That is punishable by death in Solveil without trial."

White light gathered at his hands, bright and lethal, a king one breath from execution.

Maddox’s runes blazed to life across his skin. Nicholas’s did the same.

Out in the courtyard, Kael and Guinevere lit up like emergency beacons because the matebond had decided that whatever was happening several rooms away was everyone’s goddamn business.

Thirty seconds ago she’d been chasing the ball across the courtyard like a kid at a festival while Kael pretended he wasn’t smiling.

They both looked down. Then went back to what they were doing. Just the runes at it again.

"All I’m asking," Kael said, tossing the ball between his hands, "is would your wolf catch it. Mid-air. If I threw it."

"You want to throw a ball and watch my wolf chase it."

"I want to assess her tracking capabilities in a controlled environment."

"Kael."

"A simple question."

Kael threw the ball to her. She caught it.

"That is FETCH."

She threw it back at him. He caught it without looking.

"Show off."

"Your wolf could do that too probably. As a field exercise."

"You want to play fetch with my wolf."

"...Would she catch it though?"

Guinevere stared at him. "We do this once. Only once. And you give me your word that we never speak of it again."

Kael put a hand on his heart. "On my life."

White light flashed as Guinevere shifted into her wolf.

Kael threw the ball far. In a blur, Guinevere’s wolf sprinted at full speed, catching it in mid air with her mouth.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Sterling Emberfell stood pinned against a wall by a king whose hands were gathering enough light to execute him and chose this moment to deliver the most diplomatically careful sentence of his career. The sentence was about virginity. The diplomacy was holding by a thread and the thread was on fire.

"King Solveil, I assure you she was not drugged." Sterling’s voice came out level, the composure of a man who had three concussions and a mark on his hands and no remaining margin for error. "And I apologize. I was not aware she was your sister, or a princess. She did not mention it."

Electra had not mentioned any of that. She had mentioned ’cum in my cousin while you watch me.’ The information she withheld was significant. The information she provided was not helpful to Sterling’s current situation.

"They were serving us drinks, and we—" Sterling chose the next words with the care of a man walking a wire over the exact topic he could not touch. "I assure you I did not steal her virginity."

He was not going to tell a furious king with lethal magic in his hands that his virgin sister had, in fact, not been a virgin. There are truths that save your life and truths that end it, and the truth about Electra’s virginity was standing on the wrong side of that line.