Chapter 474: Careful, I’ll Think You Like Me

SOLVEIL- KING’S PRIVATE COURTYARD

It started with one throw. Guinevere shifted to stretch her wolf’s legs and Kael tossed the ball once. The wolf caught it mid-air.

Guinevere shifted back to human form. Then she threw the ball back to Kael, who was staring at her with his jaw dropped.

She flashed a grin at him. "Careful, I’ll think you like me."

He shook his head once. Twice. Then moved at dragon speed and picked her up, throwing her in the air like she was a ball.

She squealed in surprise. Dragons sure enjoyed the element of surprise.

He caught her on the way down and her legs wrapped around his waist on instinct. Then he kissed her like a man who had been waiting for an excuse all day and a mid-air catch was as good as any.

The glowing ball rolled across the stone, chiming, completely forgotten.

"Like," he repeated, his forehead against hers. "That’s not the word. I lo—"

"I did have sexual relations though," Brennan stated, his voice carrying across the courtyard loudly. "Here she is!"

He bounced his ball. DING.

Ryker and Sterling rounded the corner.

Guinevere straightened out of Kael’s grip. Kael looked down at his arms that were holding air and then at the wolf princess who had removed herself from them so fast even his dragon was confused by it.

This was the second worst thing that had happened to Kael tonight, the first being Landon’s candle and the third being whatever was about to come out of Brennan’s mouth next.

"Hello, Guinevere," Brennan called over to her, waving. "My name is Brennan. We haven’t officially met outside of the time you woke up screaming and shattered glass in the room with only brown furniture. But I know all about you. I’m Shadowfell’s Master Mage."

Guinevere’s lips parted for a moment, as recognition flickered.

Brennan didn’t wait for a response. He threw the ball fast and hard.

Her wolf surged forward so violently that Guinevere shifted mid-step in a flash of white before her brain consented to the change. That had never happened before. Her wolf had never just taken over like that, unprompted, mid-conversation. All for that ball.

The wolf launched off the stone, in a blur, and caught the ball mid-air, landing on top of a boulder. Guinevere shifted back to human form, still standing on the large boulder and threw it back to him. "Pleasure to meet you, Brennan. My wolf appears to enjoy catching these."

Ryker blinked. Then blinked again. He looked at Sterling. Sterling looked back at him.

"No." Kael stepped between Brennan and Guinevere. "We are not doing that. Hand it over, Brennan."

Brennan looked at the ball in his hand. Looked at Kael. Looked at the wolf princess on the boulder. "But it’s my ball."

"I don’t give a shit. It’s mine now," Kael snapped, moving towards Brennan.

"Throw it again, Brennan," Guinevere called from the boulder.

Brennan threw it with zero hesitation.

White flashed. Guinevere’s wolf launched off the boulder, catching it mid-air again.

She trotted past Kael over to Brennan with the ball in her mouth. Brennan took it, grinning ear to ear.

"Hold on." Kael held up a hand. "I threw that ball first. Before anyone. I threw it and she caught it and I was told, explicitly, that we do not speak of it. That it was between us. That the word fetch was banned." He pointed at Brennan, who was scratching behind the wolf’s ears. "What is THAT."

???

SOLVEIL - KING’S PRIVATE NON-ORGY LOUNGE

While three dragons and a mage played fetch with a wolf princess, three kings were having a negotiation that they were pretending wasn’t a negotiation.

But the negotiation took a quick detour because Maddox had asked Landon to explain how the safest kingdom in the world fired at his unarmed wife, and Nicholas informed Landon that Guinevere thought she deserved her arrest and incarceration due to her accidental destruction of fountains and flora.

"She did apologize to me for the flowers and the fountains," Landon admitted after a long moment. "At the time, I took that at face value and told her not to worry about it. I was not aware she believed that was the reason for her arrest. That is on me. I will speak with her again, and I will make it clear that no part of what happened to her was warranted."

He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his jaw. Once. The way a man touches his own face when he’s disappointed in himself and doesn’t intend to say so out loud.

"To set the record straight: the fountains respond to her because the architecture recognizes her power. It is because she is the prophesied queen of our people. So no infrastructure was damaged due to her. And the flower bed she believed she destroyed belongs to my sister. She had jumped off a balcony and landed on it. But the flowers were not damaged. We have it on security crystal. I will make sure she is aware of this."

His eyes moved to Maddox.

"Drakencrest, my men entered your throne room after you forbade it. That is inexcusable regardless of what they believed she had done and I will not dress it up as anything else. I am sorry."

The room was quiet after he spoke and Landon let the quiet stay. He didn’t fill it. A man who fills silence after an apology is a man who doesn’t trust the apology to stand on its own. Landon trusted it.

Maddox studied him for a long moment. Then he lifted his glass and drank. "Accepted. We move forward."

Landon gave a single nod. Then his posture shifted. The apology was behind him. The negotiation was in front of him.

"The offer remains, Drakencrest. Set aside the gold for a moment. Set aside the fleet and the alliance. I do not say this from a place of pride. I am saying it plainly out of respect to both of you. The Dark Fae are hunting her. We have all seen the reactions that they have when in proximity to her. Their attacks have spread to Nyros and Velkaris, wolves and dragons. The Eclipse court has stooped low enough to try to bribe dragon houses for her. They cannot breach Solveil. She would be safe here."