Chapter 386: Biscuit Already Does That

Imagine falling asleep next to your husband like a functional adult only to wake up mid-duel in a throne room you have zero recollection of walking to.

Guinevere Lunaris doesn’t do normal. She does "again?"

A shaft of white light rammed a shaft of black right in the middle of the ring. The collision point crackled and sparked, two forces pushing against each other.

Guinevere was holding the line. Ish. Some ancient light parasite was holding it through her.

Her eyes flickered green.

Maddox caught it. A flash. Half a second. The gold washed out and the green surfaced long enough for her to take in the magical firefight and dark mage in front of her.

The emotion that cut through three of her matebonds translated to: sounds about right. It would have been funny under normal circumstances.

Before any of them could say her name, the green vanished. Gold flooded back. Brief trip. Terrible view. Possessed Guinevere took the wheel with the seamless authority of a driver who had let the passenger peek at the road and decided that was enough sightseeing.

The column of white surged forward another inch. Emma was losing ground with the kind of slow defeat that would drive a perfectionist insane. Emma was a perfectionist. Emma was losing her shit.

Behind Guinevere, behind the column, behind the ring of light that separated the fight from the rest of the throne room, Lux Nash dropped.

She went to her knees first. Then her palms hit the obsidian. Blood ran from her nose in a thin line that hit the floor. Mother-daughter bonding, except the bonding was one-directional and the daughter was hemorrhaging on the floor. Her magic was being yanked from her body and the person doing the yanking had decided the laws of magical physics could go to hell.

Everyone’s legs broke free at that moment. The realization moved through the room like a current.

Guinevere’s gold eyes moved to Griffin. The motion was sharp, a commander issuing orders mid-battle.

"Get your master mage out of this throne room. Now."

Griffin blinked. "Jaxon isn’t—"

His eyes went to Lux.

Light bulb.

"Yes, Your Highness."

He scooped Lux off the obsidian. The woman who had walked into every room in this Keep like she owned the oxygen in it was on the floor losing a war.

On the other side of the room, Damon Tavian grabbed a princess and moved. The Beta instinct was faster than the permission request. He pulled Blair through the door behind the throne.

"Stay here, Princess."

"What? No."

He was already out of the room before she got the word ’no’ out.

He dove. Low. Fast. His hand closed around the pendant necklace. The bracelet was three feet away from that. He grabbed it, and in one fluid motion, turned and launched it across the room.

"Kael."

The throw was perfect. The bracelet spun through the air in a clean arc and Kael caught it one-handed without looking up from Sterling’s chest, because Kael Ashenvale caught things the way other people blinked. Automatically. Arrogantly. And with the absolute minimum admission that he’d even noticed.

He snapped it onto Sterling’s wrist. Done. No ceremony. No hesitation. That’s where it went.

It flashed white once, and something in Sterling’s breathing shifted, deepened, steadied. The instinct was correct. The bracelet seemed to be doing something that Kael’s magic had only been managing halfway.

"Move him," Kael ordered.

Damon was already in place. He slotted under Sterling’s left arm. Kael grabbed the right. Between a wolf Beta and a half-dead dragon, they peeled the Third in Command off the obsidian and hauled him toward the room behind the throne with the grim competence of two people who had worked together before, but always indirectly, and were learning in real time that they were an effective unit. Fine.

Ryker was behind them. Walking backward. Eyes on the ring. Covering the retreat like a High General: last man still looking at the problem while everyone else retreated, and making peace with the view.

The door to the back chamber closed behind them.

The throne room was on the other side of it. Everyone who could be moved had been moved. The people still inside that ring were beyond the team’s reach.

Kael knelt beside Sterling, still attempting to heal him.

Damon moved towards Blair with her mother’s necklace in his fist. Her eyes fell to it.

"You ran into a magical war zone for my necklace," she stated, voice steady. Her pulse was a different story.

"You would have gone back for it yourself. I’m faster."

"You don’t know that."

"Princess, I have been watching you all day. I know exactly what you would have done."

Damon stepped behind her, gathered her hair to one side. His fingers brushed the red line Emma’s magic had left on her skin. The touch lingered one second longer.

She looked over her shoulder at him.

Kael Ashenvale had been looking down at Sterling for ten seconds. When he lifted his head, this was what he saw.

The Beta behind his sister touching her.

"NOT HAPPENING." Kael was up so fast Sterling’s head bounced off the obsidian.

CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.

With glowing hands, he clapped loud enough to scare Satan away and closed the distance. Upon arrival, he snatched the necklace from Damon’s grip like he was pulling a weed.

"Absolutely not. There is a dark mage on the other side of that door. And I left a dying man." Kael clasped the necklace shut in one second. Done. "I want everyone to hear that. A DYING MAN. To walk over here and stop my sister from having sex in a storage closet."

Blair whirled around on him, eyes blazing. "KAEL!"

Kael ignored her, his focus squarely on the Beta. "Door. Now. Yesterday. Go."

"I was just—"

"You were just nothing. She was pretending she didn’t know how to put on the necklace. You were pretending that was the first time you have ever done that move on a girl and that you didn’t know how to clasp a necklace, when we both know that is a lie. You’re a Beta who can field-strip a weapon in four seconds but suddenly can’t work a necklace hook. Door. NOW."

Damon’s nostrils flared. A growl rumbled under his ribs.

Kael was unimpressed. "Biscuit already does that for the group. Old news. Next."