She'd told him he'd be killed and he was entering into the Viper's nest. The caveman she'd told to run, entering. Caveman being what she named him in her mind. She had also briefly considered Cave Hugger and The Warm One. None of them had aged well in the last twelve seconds.
He was actually very clean cut, bigger than most alphas. Very young, maybe only a few years older than her. He was flanked by six men.
Six. Not two. Not three. Six. The kind of numbers that meant the man in the middle was either very loved or very expensive to replace.
Then she noticed a crown on his head. Unexpected.
Unexpected was a generous word. Catastrophic was a more honest one. Catastrophic in the way that meant she was going to be replaying their cave conversation in her head for the next forty years.
The crown she had absolutely not noticed in a dark cave because she had been busy trying not to die. The crown that, in retrospect, would have answered several of her questions had she had the presence of mind to look up and actually see it.
"High King Drakencrest of Velkaris," Renwick announced. "Thank you for joining us."
Guinevere almost spit out her wine, but she did not. Thank the gods.
That was the king of dragon shifters and an entire damn continent. The one she told to run because she couldn't tell if he had a wolf or was human was a literal dragon shifter.
KING. A fucking king. Of Velkaris. The continent. The whole damn continent. She had told a king to hide in a hole.
Shock didn't begin to cover it. His golden eyes locked onto hers. The hold was not casual. Heat moved up the back of her neck. The kind of heat that started somewhere lower than her face and traveled the wrong direction. Her pulse picked up at the base of her throat where the dress did not cover, and his eyes dropped to it for one beat before lifting back to hers.
She looked away first. He looked away second. Then he sat with the six who entered with him.
Cassian, beside her, had not noticed a thing. Though he'd never noticed a thing in his life unless their father told him to. Small mercies.
Tyler, however, stiffened, looking like he'd just noticed the temperature of the room change by ten degrees and was trying to calculate why. His nostrils flared but he stayed silent.
She picked up her goblet to drink. Whoops. Gods the damn dress was making this hard.
The moment her arm extended, half the room's attention snapped to the way the silk pulled tight across her chest. Shadowfell's pupils dilated again. Drakencrest's head snapped to her, eyes tracking the movement like a predator.
The entire hall felt the shift in temperature.
Then she drank. Slowly. Like a woman with no thoughts in her head. Like a woman who had not just made eye contact with the king of an entire continent who she had personally instructed to hide in a hole.
She looked again. Gods help her. He was openly staring at her. His hand tightened around his own goblet.
His eyes found her swollen lower lip and stopped there. How lovely, another noticed. He did not look away when she did.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his goblet finally moved. She snuck another glance. He raised it to his own mouth, mirroring her without seeming to know he was doing it, and the second the rim touched his lips, his eyes flicked back up to hers.
Gwen forgot how to swallow.
Next to her, Tyler shifted uncomfortably.
King Lunaris stood.
"Thank you to all the honored guests for coming. Tonight, Lunaris remembers two acts of courage. First, my daughter, who placed her life before her pack."
He paused. "An impossible ultimatum was given. A life would be taken, and she stepped forward saving the life of my love." He nodded down to Maria. "And every woman and child in Lunaris."
Officers raised a fist to their chest, which was not what she was expecting, but then again, she did save all of their mates. She kept forgetting that part. Probably because no one in this room had thanked her for it until eight seconds ago.
She blinked surprised. Then she realized she was supposed to be speaking.
"Thank you father, you honor me. I did what any daughter of Lunaris would do."
Drakencrest stare never wavered. She could feel it on her like heat from a furnace.
Shadowfell's hand tightened around his goblet until his knuckles went white, eyes also not leaving her.
King Lunaris continued, "And the bigger honor goes to my son Cassian who saved her."
The laugh wanted out. It was going to ruin her entire life if she let it past her lips, so she swallowed it and chased it with wine.
She held her composure. She deserved a medal after tonight for keeping it.
Next to her, Tyler was a statue. He actually stopped breathing. She made a note to ask him later if he had been on board with this revisionist history or if he had found out the same time she did.
Cassian tipped his goblet up at his father.
"What are big brothers for. I've been pulling her out of trouble since she could walk."
He looked at her for the first time. "She'd have done the same for me. Eventually. Probably."
There were chuckles in the room.
Guinevere knew the game. "Thank you, Cassian. Few brothers would have gone to such lengths." She tipped her glass at him. "I owe you a debt I intend to repay in full."
It landed. Too many stifled laughs in the room. Whoops again. She didn't say it for a laugh.
Tyler, beside her, took a sudden, very interested sip of wine. Maybe he was redeemable. Probably not.
King Drakencrest stilled. It dawned on her then that he also would be aware that her brother did absolutely nothing but bind and backhand her.
Her father continued speaking. She was vaguely aware that half of the room was watching her at any given time.
Gwen felt the shift in the room a second before she identified the source. Drakencrest's whole body had angled, almost imperceptibly, toward Raventhorn. Territorial. The kind of stillness that meant a predator had just clocked another predator looking at something that was not theirs to look at.
Except she was not his. And surely she was misreading that. The room stared between them.
Tyler kept sneaking glances, his expression conflicted. If her father weren't in middle of a speech, she'd have turned to him by now and asked 'Can I fucking help you?'
Cassian even noticed at one point, and shot him a warning glare. Which seemed to make the tension thicken if that were possible in the throne hall because people noticed.
She tuned back into her father's words. She had missed roughly two minutes.
"Tonight we celebrate the fact my daughter found her wolf," Her father paused, giving her a stare that she read loud and clear. "Better late than never."
There were laughs.
"And not just any wolf. A white wolf."
Five years of hiding it. Blown in one sentence.