Chapter 272: Hallelujah, It’s Raining Gwen

In Lunaris, the universe had stopped making sense around domino forty, hit the FUCK-IT button, and was now just showing off.

But the Greyhall side of the chain still made sense if you squinted at it like you’d just taken a shot to the balls.

Betas in closets. Breeding hymns. Busted walls. Blade bull-fuckery.

Standard shit.

That is, right up until this diabolical dumpster fire of a domino: factory-stamped, notarized, and declared a Guinevere Lunaris special by the Gods.

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DOMINO 57: THE GODS SAY CATCH

ONE HOUR FROM GREYHALL CROSSING — 4:45 AM

Every king on this continent had been chasing Guinevere Lunaris for days and missing her by minutes, by miles, and by the width of one particularly dickish pillow.

Maddox Drakencrest was finally done chasing. He was about to have his wife back in his arms because she was safe and Nicholas Shadowfell was one of the only bastards he actually trusted not to fuck it up.

That trust was based on the fact that he had watched Nicholas Shadowfell operate with the kind of precision that made other kings look like they were running their kingdoms with a blindfold and a stick.

The man was competent as hell. Trustworthy. He had defended Drakencrest Keep like it was his own and traveled an ocean to protect Guinevere. And this was in his summit, so she would be inside his fortress, surrounded by his wolves who didn’t know the meaning of ’almost.’

She was safe.

Because of that, he was doing this trip differently. He was airborne with his Master Mage and two anchor stops already in the rearview, after learning the hard way. Traveling without portals on this continent was less journey and more slow-motion fuck-you from the universe and was worth the extra fifteen minutes.

One hour from Greyhall Crossing, flying low over the coastline, the cliff face below him triggered déjà vu.

He knew this cliff.

He had seen it during a dream hours ago from this exact angle. The memory was wrapped in that thick, dream-drugged haze that felt less like remembering and more like waking up from something he wasn’t supposed to survive.

Most people would shrug and say coincidence or imagination running its mouth. The subconscious glues landscapes together from broken pieces of real places. This continent was wall-to-wall cliffs, and the odds of flying over the exact one his sleep-deprived brain had cooked up was zero.

But his gut said otherwise. He had learned early on that when it came to Guinevere Lunaris, trusting his instincts was always the correct answer.

And right now, his gut said something was off.

The memories that had been stolen from him had been filtering back in fragments over the last few days, each piece clicking into place like a traumatized jigsaw that refused to hurry the fuck up.

One of those memories was what he had dreamed weeks ago that led him to Nyros in the first place. That dream was how he knew exactly where to find her and in which forest.

Maddox banked hard, then landed.

Maddox: Anchor point here. There’s something I need to check.

Jaxon: Copy.

The Master Mage hit the ground, palms down, and blue light carved into the stone before Maddox’s wings finished folding.

Maddox dropped into human form and tore through the treeline still carrying dragon-level speed, because physics could go fuck itself.

His boots tore through everything in their path as he scanned the cliff with the systematic, slightly dead-eyed sweep only a commander of armies or a career war criminal would have.

He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. A sign. A scent. A thread of the matebond that had been flickering like a dying signal fire since she’d fallen into that river. Anything that confirmed the dream was more than a dream and the cliff was more than a cliff.

He called for his flame a few times and got nothing.

The forest was empty. The cliff was empty. The clearing was empty. None of that was acceptable.

For thirty seconds, he stood at the edge and waited. For what, he still wasn’t sure.

CRACK.

White light flashed in the sky so bright his vision whited out and his hand flew up to shield his eyes. The sound was wrong, the acoustic signature of something punching through a barrier that wasn’t supposed to break.

He squinted into the glare and saw it.

Something was tumbling through the air in a cascade of white light that trailed behind it like the tail of a comet with no trajectory and no control. It was high and dropping fast as hell.

Without a thought, he ran off the cliff at full speed. As soon as his boots cleared the edge, he shifted in a flash of white light that he couldn’t turn off.

The white and gold dragon that replaced the man carved upward through the wind and closed the distance.

Finally, he could see what was falling.

Guinevere Lunaris was spinning through the sky like a ragdoll someone’s god had gotten tired of playing with.

He adjusted his angle and matched her velocity, positioning himself beneath her trajectory. As soon as she made contact, he pulled up with her. The catch was gentle because he made it gentle, absorbing her momentum.

Years of aerial combat and flight drills had given his dragon the kind of body control that could catch a wine glass falling off a table at terminal velocity without cracking the stem.

His dragon glowed gold immediately. The matebond that had been silent flickered back to life. Static still clogged the connection, but he could feel her now and something was wrong.

This wasn’t new information. He obviously knew that. But knowing it and feeling it firsthand were two different things.

Maddox dove, closing the distance back to Jaxon.

In a blur, his wings dissolved mid-air, his body crushed itself back into man-shape, his hands caught her before gravity could make it personal, and his boots slammed into the forest floor already running, dumping every leftover ounce of dragon momentum into pure forward motion.