Chapter 390: Six Snakes And Counting

Guinevere hadn’t stopped blasting her with white magic. But this woman was still standing, triple chained, and talking.

"Triple chains. Three types of magic. And yet here we are," Emma commented. "None of you thought to chain my mouth." She paused. "I’m going to be honest. This is the least gifted duel I have ever been stuck in. You keep adding people and the standard keeps dying. This participation-trophy crew thinks mediocrity is acceptable."

Dark tendrils erupted from the gaps in the chains. They looked as solid as anacondas and sped towards Guinevere.

White crescents materialized behind Maddox and Nicholas. Small, curved, luminous blades that moved with the silent lethality of a scythe cutting wheat in moonlight. They sailed past both kings in paired arcs and met the tendrils mid-strike.

SNICK. SNICK. SNICK. SNICK. SNICK. SNICK.

Six heads. Six clean cuts. Six severed tendrils dissolving into smoke before they hit the stone.

Both kings felt the crescents leave. Both felt the aim. Both felt the release and the kill and the satisfaction of a weapon hitting its mark through hands that hadn’t thrown it.

The performance continued.

Maddox would tell this story at every social gathering for the rest of his life, and the snake count would triple each time like interest. Nicholas would be less direct about the bragging. Brennan would be obligated to retell this story at every social gathering for the rest of his life.

Jaxon raised his hands. A blue hurricane ball of magic formed between his palms.

"Neth’vora sul kaimere."

Emma’s eyes widened. "Where did you learn—"

The blast hit her forehead before the sentence finished. Her eyes rolled backward.

Her body went rigid. Then it went limp. Lights out for Emma.

Gravity made its claim and she crumpled inside her chains, falling sideways with a thud.

The ring of white light evaporated. The throne room opened up and the air rushed back in like a room exhaling after holding its breath for too long.

Guinevere fell to her knees. Both palms hit the obsidian. Her chest was heaving, her breathing ragged, her white hair curtaining her face as her body processed the departure of whatever had been steering it.

Gold faded from her eyes. Green returned. The green of a woman who had been a passenger in her own body and was only now getting the keys back.

Jaxon stood over Emma’s unconscious body, hands still crackling with blue residue. He turned his head towards Brennan.

The nod he gave was small. Controlled. A single downward motion of his chin that carried the weight of a man who had spent a career perfecting the art of withholding approval and was choosing, in this moment, to spend some.

Brennan received it the way a soldier receives a medal he wasn’t expecting. His back straightened. His bloody nose was still dripping. His face was still a mess from the barrier he had run into face-first. He looked like absolute hell and he had just earned a nod from the Master Mage of Drakencrest.

The last person to receive that nod had been Lux Nash. The person before her had been a decade prior, and that person was dead.

"Good work," Nicholas panted, one hand still on Guinevere’s shoulder. "How long will she stay down?"

"Five minutes. And I won’t be able to do it again until my magic recovers," Jaxon replied, also breathing hard.

The door behind the throne swung open.

Every head in the throne room turned as two bodies tumbled out of the closet.

Kael Ashenvale tackled Damon Tavian to the ground. One glowing fist cocked back, the other on Damon’s chest, pinning him to the stone.

Kael could not turn off the glowing in his palms. The hand on Damon’s chest was actively repairing his sore back. It was also clearing up a knot in his shoulder that had been bothering him since Tuesday.

Kael’s fist came down at Damon’s jaw with the committed fury of a man who had been building this punch since the necklace incident.

Damon moved his head in a blur.

Kael’s fist hit the floor.

The stone cracked. His knuckles didn’t.

"Kael, get a grip," Damon said.

"GET A GRIP? You want ME to get a grip? YOU are the one who needs gripping."

"I don’t want to hurt you, Ashenvale," Damon warned.

Kael’s entire face rearranged itself. The expression that formed was the expression of a man who had just been told by the person underneath him that the person underneath him was showing restraint, and the restraint was a mercy, and the mercy was being delivered upward at a man who was currently losing a fight he had started.

"You don’t want to hurt ME." Kael’s voice hit a pitch reserved for outrage that has nowhere left to go. "I am a literal dragon who can set you on fire. You understand that, correct? Scales. Wings. Flame. The whole goddamn package. I could cremate you right now and use the ashes to season my dinner."

"I understand," Damon said, still on the floor, still calm, still being healed.

Both men looked up at the same moment.

Through the open door, the throne room was visible. Emma was on the ground, wrapped in three colors of chains. Guinevere was on her knees, panting. Jaxon and Brennan were standing over the unconscious dark mage. Maddox and Nicholas were breathing hard with their hands still on Guinevere’s back.

The fight was over.

"Shadowfell. Delivery for you," Kael said.

He grabbed Damon by the collar and stood. Damon allowed himself to be hauled upright because the alternative involved setting a dragon on fire and the dragon was his Alpha’s mate’s mate’s half-brother, which made the political paperwork a nightmare he was unwilling to generate.

Kael dragged him across the throne room floor. Damon’s boots scraped the obsidian in two long lines that marked his route like tire tracks at a crime scene. He looked at the ceiling. He looked at the columns. He looked at the impaled portrait with the poker still sticking out of its forehead. He looked at everything except the woman behind him who he could feel watching and whose kiss was still on his mouth like a receipt he was never throwing away.

Kael delivered him directly to Nicholas Shadowfell with the ceremony of a man returning a defective product.

"YOUR Beta." He shoved Damon forward. "YOUR problem." He released the collar. "He tried to fornicate with MY sister in a CLOSET. In front of three witnesses. During a COMBAT SITUATION."

Nicholas looked at Damon.

Damon shook his head once. The shake was small, controlled, and contained an entire legal defense in a single lateral motion.

Nicholas looked at Kael. Looked at Damon. Looked at Kael again. His face maintained the diplomatic neutrality of a king who was choosing his next words with the care of a man defusing ordnance.