"Madam!"
It wasn’t every day that Arkai pronounced the ’d’ in that word. The crisp, mortified ’Madam’, not the usual rumbling Ma’am that rolled off his tongue, escaped him before he could stop it, before he could catch it between his teeth and shove it back down his throat where it belonged.
His Johnny.
The na of his tool. His equipnt. His most private of private assets, now casually discussed in the middle of a garden.
In front of a Crown Prince.
In front of the Saintess.
In front of a foreign Princess.
He, a hundred-year-old wolf, a grandpa by any reasonable standard, old and dignified and supposed to be above such earthly embarrassnts, just stood there, his face burning like a signal fire visible from three kingdoms away, and wished for death.
Ivy Cassia’s jaw went slack.
Her mouth hung open, undignifiedly gaping. Normally, she would have covered it with her hand. Muscle mory. Instinct. The reflexive modesty of a princess who had been taught that an open mouth was an open invitation for criticism.
She did not cover it now.
She couldn’t. Her hand had apparently forgotten how to move. All she could do was stare at Arkai Dawnoro, the Black Wolf King of the North, turning the approximate color of a sunset viewed through a blood-red lens.
Transparent too. Every thought written across that crimson face in letters large enough for the entire garden to read.
I want to die.
I want the ground to open up and swallow whole.
I want to shift into my wolf form and flee into the northern wilderness and never, ever, under any circumstances, return to civilized society.
Ivy’s gaze drifted, almost against her will, to Damon.
The Crown Prince had gone very still.
Not the still of composure she had seen the version of it a hundred tis, this was different. His cheek still bore the faint red mark where Cecilia had pinched it, but it was his eyes that caught her.
Burning darkness. A hatred so deep, so pure, so consuming that Ivy felt sothing rise in her chest in response.
This idio—she wanted to lau—
No.
No. No. No. This is still a funeral. This is still a funeral. This is still a fune—
She held it inside.
Every ounce of willpower she possessed, every lesson in composure and decorum that had been drilled into her since childhood, every shred of self-preservation that reminded her she was standing in a garden surrounded by mourners and dignitaries and people who would very much like an excuse to destroy her... she marshaled all of it and held.
The barking, snorting laugh stayed trapped in her chest and she passed away standing.
Her soul departed her body and ascended to a higher plane where she no longer had to witness Arkai Dawnoro’s facial journey and Damon Iondora’s heavens-burning hatred.
anwhile, Arkai saw Damon’s expression and sothing shifted.
The embarrassnt was still there and would probably be there for the next century, but it was joined now by sothing that blood warm and irrational in his chest.
Pride.
Yes. Yes, that was it. His dick was thick. His wife had announced it to the world and she had announced it casually confidently like a woman stating an immutable fact. The sky was blue. Water was wet. Arkai Dawnoro’s Johnny was very, very thick.
Being a grandpa aside, it was still a point of pride.
And this little-brat-Crown-Prince hated him with every fiber of his existence for it.
He wasn’t imagining it. Damon truly was burning in hell right now.
If only this were not a public space, Damon would have words. Many words. A veritable lecture that would stretch from this mont until the sun rose and set and rose again. He would drill exactly how inappropriate it was for a lady to—
How dare she.
How dare sweet little Angela’s friend let sothing like that slip from her mouth? Sweet, gentle, pure Angela’s friend, the baby sister he had watched over from the mont she could walk but couldn’t fully protect and ended up corrupting herself. Her friend. Her dear friend Cecilia, who had once been—
Damon’s thoughts screeched to a halt.
No.
No, wait.
Cecilia was pure and gentle and bright and holy before. Before the supposed death and the disappearance.
Could it be...
The thought landed in Damon’s mind.
Could it be that ANGELA CORRUPTED HER?
His sweet little baby sister—
Could she have been the bad influence all along?
Irrational anger burned in Damon’s chest. This was not the first ti, either. At the announcent banquet not long ago, Cecilia, or rather, Lady Sees, had said sothing outrageous then, too.
This ’Lady Sees’ had such a bold and brazen-without-sha persona attached to it!
Co to think of it...
Angela was never a sweet baby angel either, was she?
wAIT.
Damon’s internal monologue slamd into a wall of denial. His brain supplied him with information he had been happily ignoring for the better part of a decade.
Arkai Dawnoro had never been rumored to be seriously looking for a Luna before ’Lady Sees’.
But.
But.
The man had been rumored to have many ladies in his bed before. Many.
A revolving door of northern beauties who had ward the wolf king’s sheets and erged with nothing but fond mories and a strange reluctance to speak ill of him afterward. Which was sohow more infuriating than if they had hated him.
What kind of man could bed that many won and leave none of them bitter? A dangerous one, that was what. A man who knew exactly what he was doing.
And Cecilia.
Sweet, forrly innocent Cecilia had just announced to a garden full of people that this experienced, bed-hopping, century-old wolf had a thick Johnny and that she was very, very happy with it.
Of course.
Of course it was not his sweet baby corrupted angel sister’s fault.
RIGHT?!
Damon nodded to himself. Angela was innocent in this.
This was entirely Arkai’s fault. The wolf had corrupted her. Sohow. Through... experience. And technique. And his stupid, thick—
aaaaaAAAAAHHH!
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