Chapter 342: The Mark Of The Bastard

Kael Ashenvale was currently sitting on a secret the size of Velkaris. But starting shit with his brother’s wife’s third mate while said brother sat four feet away was so stupid even Kael’s legendary self-destruction said, ’Nah, I’m good.’

So he held his tongue. Regardless, there was zero chance that Brennan would be going anywhere near Guinevere. Kael would make sure of that.

"My Master Mage and Lux are working on it as well," Maddox said.

Nicholas gave a nod. "Good. The sooner we understand what’s triggering the surges and her memory issues, the better."

Kael looked down at Guinevere. Her breathing was steady. Her temperature was insane. Her face was peaceful in a way that felt personally insulting given the amount of chaos she had distributed to every man currently touching her.

He pressed his lips to the top of her head.

Maddox’s nostrils flared.

Nicholas didn’t even blink.

Kael clocked the lack of reaction immediately. The Wolf King had just watched a new man kiss his mate’s hair. No tension in the jaw. No shift in posture. No territorial flicker behind the eyes.

It turns out, Nicholas might know about me after all.

Kael filed that under confirmed and moved on.

Meanwhile, while Nicholas’s face gave the room nothing, his brain gave him everything. She was closer to Kael than he’d realized.

Kael had been transported with her to Lunaris and saved her life more than once, memories or no memories.

He’d assumed that was the shape of it.

This was deeper.

The runes told the story Nicholas hadn’t been reading. Guinevere had mentioned the skin contact spread. But no one else had the runes. Just them.

Nicholas had runes crawling across his own skin from the moment her teeth had broken his neck on that corridor floor. They came from her saving his life. She had marked him and now he could feel her light inside of him along with their matebond.

Kael had the same runes. Maddox magically caught them in the last twelve hours too.

This was simple.

Guinevere had marked Kael and Guinevere had recently marked Maddox. Kael was another goddamn mate. Fated mate most likely. Hindsight was a bitch. It had been blatantly obvious in every interaction, even before the memory loss.

Nicholas’s gaze shifted to Maddox. The Dragon King was staring at Kael with the contained fury of a bull who had identified the red flag.

The matebond had already told on everybody twice today. Nicholas knew Drakencrest and Kael had a threesome with Guinevere. So Drakencrest was aware that his brother was off the "friends" list.

It didn’t seem like Drakencrest had connected that Guinevere had also marked his brother.

Maddox seemed fine with the fact that she had marked Nicholas. Nicholas was under the impression that they had just discussed it. So this was a thing between brothers that Nicholas wouldn’t touch with a ten foot broomstick.

He looked up at the ceiling like he was checking if the Gods were watching their own work. If so, this was a level of fucked that circled back to funny. Credit where it was due.

✦✦✦

BLAIR-O-METER: Pleasant

Blair Drakencrest was supposed to be dreaming another nautical room she was planning for Sterling’s quarters whether he liked it or not. Sterling didn’t know about the navy accent wall yet.

Sterling also didn’t know that Blair had already ordered the paint, sourced the trim, and scheduled the installation. The man thought he lived in a room he controlled. Precious. His opinion on the accent wall would be overruled.

Democracy was adorable. Blair was a monarchy. One who was two area rugs and one headboard away from total domestic conquest. He would thank her. Eventually.

But tonight, Blair wasn’t in her chambers. Instead she was in a corridor at an hour that had no business existing, pressed against a stone column, holding her breath because two voices she could barely hear were saying things she absolutely needed to.

Nobody plans to become a spy at two in the morning. It just happens. One minute you’re mentally debating whether Sterling’s throw pillows should be navy or white. The next you’re pressed against freezing stone committing treason-adjacent espionage. Life came at you fast when you were a Drakencrest.

"...half-blood’s mark is what we did not anticipate..."

Blair’s brain was a furnace-fired, fury-fueled intelligence machine, and every synapse was earning its keep. Kael had marked Guinevere. She assumed so. This confirmed that.

She had connected the dots it was Kael they were discussing. But the term half-blood gave away exactly who was speaking and it confirmed everything Blair already knew. She mentally put that information in the drawer labeled CALLED THAT SHIT.

The second voice was lower, harder to catch. She shifted her weight forward by one inch.

"...won’t survive extraction if that..."

Her blood was ice. Her brain was hellfire. And somewhere between the two, Blair Drakencrest’s bullshit detector was screaming like a damn smoke alarm.

She cat-burglared forward one inch at a time, redistributing her weight like a woman disarming a pressure plate, filtering the ambient noise of a sleeping Keep from the conversation happening around the next bend.

The voices were coming from the eastern corridor, the one that connected the guest wing to the main hall, and they were moving. Of course they were moving. Conspirators never had the common decency to stand still and monologue.

"...matebond severed before..."

Blair’s stomach dropped. As in cutting a matebond like a goddamn rope, and whoever was on the other end of that rope was fucked six ways to Sunday.

"...told Solandris the vessel has three now. But the attempted murder on Solveil..."

Footsteps sounded behind her.

She turned to see Damon Tavian rounding the corner.

His mouth opened. She grabbed his hand before it could become a problem. The grab was firm, fast, and said don’t even think about it. She pressed a finger to her lips anyway, because hope was not a strategy.

His mouth closed.

Good man.

Damon Tavian had just passed the test.

"...trigger the kill switch..."

A third voice cut in, louder than the other two.

"Didn’t you hear the mating roars? The entire goddamn keep did. If the wolf king arrives, it’ll be three."

"...doesn’t mean it happened. There is zero chance..."

Damon’s eyes sharpened. The transition from polite greeting to operational silence took him less than a second, which told Blair everything she needed to know about how quickly this man processed a room.

He believed her. He believed her without a single word of explanation, and the relief of that cracked through Blair’s composure like a fissure through ice.

The world was divided into two categories: people who required instructions and people who read the room. Blair had no patience for the first group.

Keep up or jump off a bridge.