Chapter 480: Your Dragon Has Spirit For Its Size

Nicholas’s wolf blinked a few times, clearly disoriented by the flash of white. Maddox’s shift inherited the same white flash after Guinevere had marked him, so he clocked it right away.

The giant black wolf shook his head once, twice, then moved towards Guinevere’s wolf with its teeth bared and hackles up. The wolf’s eyes were locked onto the dark tendrils around the white one’s neck.

His plan was simple: bite the dark thing off his mate’s neck with his goddamn jaws. The plan did not account for the dark thing being magical, volatile, or dangerous to bite. The plan accounted for teeth and proximity and the conviction that anything on his mate’s body that was not his mate needed removing.

Landon’s wolf surfaced again, his eyes changing to molten gold.

"Don’t touch that, Shadowfell."

Landon’s layered voice hit the black wolf like a leash yanked mid-lunge.

The wolf froze. The freezing was compliance. He did not move his head, remaining inches from the dark construction around her neck, communicating through body language alone that Landon had purchased approximately ten seconds because the white wolf was whimpering on the stone and that was unacceptable.

Landon and Octavian struck at the same instant.

Two streams of white light hit the dark rope where it cinched around the white wolf, converging on the black tendril wrapped around her neck first.

The construct crackled before dissolving.

The white wolf lay flat on her side, chest heaving, the whimpering stopped.

Nicholas’s black wolf crouched over her, a wall of dark fur between her and the rest of the courtyard, and lowered its head. It licked the blood matting her flank where the constructs had cut in, slow and steady, a sound low in its chest that had no threat left in it, only an animal tending its own.

Kael had been face-down on the stone this whole time, legs gone, forgotten in the chaos of the wolf. Now his body seized.

Maddox caught the movement in his periphery and turned, and the sight of it pulled him off the ground.

In a blur, he was at Kael’s side, rolling him to his back.

"I almost said something important tonight." Kael’s body jerked. "Before Brennan ruined it."

"Kael." Maddox’s voice came out sharp enough to carry over everything. "What the hell..."

"I had her in my arms," Kael gritted. "And I was about to say it and Brennan walked in announcing his sexual relations."

"Solveil," Maddox called.

Landon looked over from Guinevere. In a blur of white, he was at Kael’s side.

White light flared in both of his palms, surging into Kael.

"Tell anyone about this and the candle burns your kingdom down," Kael ground out as his muscles locked up.

"Your dragon has spirit. It is fighting hard for its size." Landon’s face was focused on the light. Completely sincere.

"You’re fucking with me." Kael rasped. "He’s fucking with me, Maddox. My dragon is very large. The largest one here."

"The Young Light Bearer’s dragon is having the same issue she did." Landon looked over his shoulder to Octavian. "Portal to Starbloom Fields."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"My dragon says hello, Maddox." Kael’s back arched. "Fuck. He’s trapped. But he wanted you to know that he is the bigger one of us."

"Kael, stop talking," Maddox ordered.

A portal cracked open across the courtyard, the air splitting into a ring of light that opened onto a field of glowing grass and flowers, and open night sky.

Octavian threw both hands out before Maddox could reach his brother.

White light scooped under Kael’s seizing body and lifted him off the stone, cradling him on a bed of pure radiance, a thin gasping sound tearing out of him between the spasms like he couldn’t pull air in around whatever was wringing him out.

"Is this the sun’s best?" Kael’s muscles went rigid for a split second. "—my stretcher would glow harder than this. This is a two out of ten."

"Kael, stop talking," Maddox repeated, knowing the odds of that were very low.

"Maddox." The name came out broken by another spasm because Kael Ashenvale did not simply ’stop talking.’ "When she asks, will you tell Guinevere I walked through this portal?"

Maddox’s jaw tightened. His brother was convulsing on a bed of light, being carried through a courtyard towards a portal, and still running his mouth. Of course he was.

"Also, if I die on a bed of Solveil’s light, do not put that in my eulogy."

"Nobody is dying," Maddox snapped, keeping pace with the stretcher. "And nobody is getting a eulogy."

"Mine would be longer than Solveil’s."

"Kael."

"No candles at the funeral."

The healers exchanged a look over Kael’s seizing body. The look said: is he always like this? Maddox’s face answered: yes. Always. Even now. Especially now.

"I went to prison today."

"KAEL."

The light carried him level and steady towards the portal.

Behind them, three healers began to move towards Guinevere, hands lit, then froze because Nicholas’s wolf looked up at them. The look was a warning that transcended species.

Brennan ran towards Nicholas’s wolf without a fear or care in the world, completely confident that Nicholas’s wolf would never harm him. He was right on that, but the courtyard didn’t know that. Brennan had been initiated into Shadowfell’s pack and Nicholas’s wolf recognized the mage as one of his own.

"Incoming, Alpha," Brennan said as his palms flared black.

Nicholas’s wolf growled.

Brennan looked down at his hands. "Right, thank you for the reminder, Alpha." He looked at the white wolf. "No dark magic for you, Luna. You do not have the immune system for that."

The dark magic in his palms bled out, turning blue in both of his hands. Octavian stared at Brennan.

"You are dual?"

"Oh yes. Azure is my core," Brennan explained, as if they were exchanging information over the fence like they were neighbors.

Blue light moved across her fur in waves, the magic healing the wounds in real time.

"They are going to heal her too, Alpha," Brennan explained to the black wolf.

The black wolf grunted then it lay down on its stomach, still licking Guinevere’s wounds.

The three healers moved forward cautiously, eyeing the apex predator that could tear them in half with the full understanding that the permission to approach could be revoked at any moment for any reason or no reason at all.

They began to pour white magic into the wolf’s torn skin.

Then Sterling moved towards Guinevere’s wolf, his eyes locked on her wounds. Nicholas’s wolf raised its head, teeth visible, the instinct flaring.