Chapter 412: That Pimp Picked The Wrong Princess

SOLVEIL - THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION

Damon Tavian was cool under pressure. Beta shit. Part of the job. That was up until the moment Blair Drakencrest told a pimp to go fuck himself and strolled through an alley like the surrounding carriages were gift shops.

And just like that, his Beta composure caught fire.

How did they get there? Excellent question. The answer, like many answers this week, started with Brennan Pike.

The mage had a talent for finding loopholes in wards.

Useful? Absolutely.

But the loopholes tended to lead him to back alleys where people got high, the elderly carried switchblades, and hepatitis thrived. Every civilization had them. It didn’t matter how advanced the architecture, enlightened the culture, or happy the people, behind all of it you’ll always find at least one place where civilization took off its clothes.

And Brennan Pike was the guy to find it.

This wasn’t the first time Damon Tavian had followed him through a portal into a sketchy location, so when he found himself standing in a narrow passage where three carriages sat, one for drugs, one for sex, and one for "he fell," the Beta of Shadowfell did not bat an eye.

Damon glanced over at Brennan. "Loophole?"

Brennan gave a nod. "The trace wouldn’t let me open one where they opened theirs. Their wards block mage-made portals, so this was the hole I found." He gestured at the alley walls like he was presenting real estate. "Cozy though. Good bones."

Next to them, Blair turned to look at Brennan. She studied him for a long moment, her gold eyes moving across his face, measuring the distance between his reputation and his results.

Then she gave a single nod of approval, which from Blair Drakencrest was a gold star.

Brennan puffed out his chest, beaming like she had knighted him.

Behind them, Beta Draven surveyed the alley with zero emotion. This was not his first rodeo and it showed. Briggs, the attorney, however, was clutching his satchel against his chest like it was a flotation device.

Then, in one of the carriages, a curtain parted. The window opened and a man leaned out with his eyes on Blair. He looked at another man against the wall.

"Bring her to me."

Damon stepped in between them, blocking her from view. "No one is touching her. Close that curtain. Now."

Blair didn’t see if the curtain closed or hear the rest because her focus was on what Brennan was pulling out of his cloak, something that, if she didn’t know any better, looked like a burglar mask.

"Put the mask away, Brennan," Damon said without looking at him because his eyes were still on the carriage.

"But I brought it for—"

Damon cut him off. "We’ve had this conversation, buddy. You walk around in a black mask and every guard in a six-block radius tackles you before we make it to the first intersection."

"Plausible deniability," Brennan countered, holding the mask up like that would help prove his point.

It did not help.

Blair yanked it away and stuffed it into his cloak.

"Let’s move. High ground to locate their citadel," she said, already turning on her heels and making her way through the alley.

Beta Draven blinked at the back of her head, visibly recalibrating his read on her and impressed by the recalibration. Briggs was still clutching his satchel for dear life.

An armed man leaning against a wall whistled at Blair.

Damon whipped around, and to his horror, Blair had already stopped, turned her head, and was currently glaring at the pimp.

"Can I help you?" she snapped.

Damon moved. "Blair, wait."

"Help me? Sweetheart, I was just figuring out what you’re worth." The pimp’s eyes moved down her body. "But I bet you’d sound real nice asking again on your knees—"

She held up her hand. "Absolutely disgusting. You are very annoying. Go fuck yourself." Then she started walking again, passing the pimp without sparing him a second glance.

The pimp pushed himself off the wall, his hand moving to the hilt of his blade at the same time.

Damon’s eyes surged wolf gold. "Take another step and I will kill you."

The pimp’s eyes went wide. "What are you?"

"Wrong question. Move along. There is nothing to see here."

Blair didn’t wait for the pimp to finish retreating. She was already ten feet ahead, boots hitting stone, pace set, direction chosen. Damon was now beginning to understand how Nicholas kept losing Guinevere because fuck.

He moved at full speed, caught her arm gently, and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head.

She stopped for him.

"You are the princess of Drakencrest," he stated without looking at her as his fingers tucked her hair beneath the fabric.

Briggs stared with his mouth open. His satchel slipped three inches down his arm because the hand holding it had gone slack. The attorney had been briefed on the delegation’s composition, the legal strategy, the diplomatic framework, and the approximate travel time. Nobody had briefed him on the wolf Beta touching the Dragon Princess.

Blair’s face gave nothing. The hood sat where Damon put it.

Damon grabbed her hand. Her fingers closed around his because she had decided the same thing three seconds before he had and was letting him think he got there first.

Then they started moving again.

Damon leading. Sort of. Blair was letting him think he was leading. Beta Draven fell into step behind them with the instinct of a man whose default position was two paces behind power and one step ahead of trouble. Briggs flanked his right. Brennan brought up the rear, already looking at every glowing surface like a kid in a candy store who had been told to behave and was failing.

"I have a question," Beta Draven said. "And I want it understood that I am asking because I am brand new to the magical arts and have zero frame of reference for what I am about to ask." He glanced at Brennan. "Can they sense your energy, Master Mage?"

Brennan blinked. His spine straightened by two full inches. His chin lifted. His chest expanded.

"Yes, they absolutely can," Brennan answered, and the voice that came out was the voice of a man who had just been addressed by his title for the first time and was going to ride that high until the sun burned out. "But I have cloaking on, so they cannot detect my signature. You learn that quick when taking contracts. First thing they teach you. Well, second thing. First thing is how to run."

Beta Draven did not ask for further detail. His mouth stayed shut and his eyes stayed forward and his pace stayed steady because the man had survived two decades under the most dangerous Alpha on the wolf continent by knowing exactly when a question had been answered and when the answer was all he needed.

The alley opened into a street that glowed.