"Commander."

Every man on the field saluted with a fist to the chest.

"Captain Sparrow. I see you have met my wife."

Without a care in the world, Maddox kissed Guinevere on the lips. The kiss was not a gentle polite one. It was entirely too long.

When he drew back, her face was on fire.

He moved behind her, casually, and pulled her against his chest, arms wrapping around her.

No soldier on the field could look away. This was Maddox Drakencrest, and none of them could reconcile what they were watching.

"How did she do?"

"She just passed the first trial," the captain answered.

Maddox stiffened behind her. He turned his head to Ryker. "On her first day."

Ryker was not fazed. "Perfect score." He tipped his chin towards the field. "Forty-five seconds on her third lap."

Maddox blinked a few times, taking it all in. Then he looked back down at Guinevere tucked under his arm.

He went still behind her again.

She pulled out of his grip and turned to face him, her brows knit.

He shook his head, then he laughed, and he kissed her forehead.

"You wanted a frame of reference, Gwen," Ryker said, without looking at her. "To be combat-cleared, the course must be completed within ten minutes at an eighty percent accuracy."

He paused.

"The fastest time that has ever been completed at one hundred percent accuracy is three minutes by the man currently standing behind you. And not on his first attempt."

This time, Guinevere was speechless.

The captain glanced at her. "A wolf-dragon combination. Who would’ve thought..." He shook his head.

Maddox looked at the split arrows on the targets, then down at Guinevere.

"Of course you did that." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"If I were to place her now, she would be a Skyrunner," Ryker noted.

Of course Ryker would put her in the most dangerous position the Drakencrest army had on its roster.

"And I would veto that."

Ryker let out a dark laugh. "I do not think you would, Commander."

"I have twenty dragons that have been mindlinking me as volunteers," Captain Sparrow added.

Maddox glanced behind him, to find that none of his warriors were doing what they should be doing.

Every one of them was frozen, watching. Then they began to move as one, in sudden unified stretches and workouts that they had absolutely not been doing until the moment he turned his head.

Guinevere waited for more context. None came.

"One more round in you?" Ryker asked.

She had barely broken a sweat. She had been expecting this to be considerably harder, and she was beginning to wonder if she was missing something.

Ryker did not wait for her to answer. "You do."

Maddox’s eyes darkened.

Ryker: You wanted me to train her on her first day. The condition was that you would not intervene.

Maddox: She is still bruised. Her ribs are not healed.

Ryker: This is a skills assessment. Go back to being king and I will handle her dragon training.

"Skyrunner. Lethal simulation. Captain, give me your four fastest dragons that have dropped fewer than twenty riders in their careers."

He winked at Gwen, who shook her head. Hopefully he was kidding. She was going to pretend he was.

Maddox did not move. His jaw was tight. There was no version of this simulation that he was going to allow to run without him present on this field. None.

"Are you going to tell me what this one is beforehand?" Gwen asked.

"No."

Maddox pinched the bridge of his nose.

Maddox: Ryker.

Ryker: Trust the process.

Five warriors moved to the field. One by one, they shifted and launched into the air. No introductions were given.

Ryker handed Gwen a bow and quiver, then ran out onto the field.

Gwen looked down at the bow and quiver and then blinked up at the dragon waiting for her. She pulled out of Maddox’s arms, and she moved to the field in a blur of motion, jumping onto Ryker’s back.

Maddox blinked.

"Oh, that is the tip of the iceberg, Commander," Sparrow said next to him.

Ryker vaulted into the air. Gwen stood waiting for arrows or targets to appear. He went full speed.

Arrows flew. She caught them, her wolf instincts on alert. This part of the exercise she understood.

Then came the gold orbs. Same as before, exact same spots in the air. She did not understand why five dragons were flying alongside them this time.

She jumped for the first orb.

Unbeknownst to her, Maddox’s soul left his literal body.

"She did that on her first run too, Commander," Sparrow called calmly, beside him.

"What does that mean." Maddox’s voice carried the specific weight of an apex predator who had decided Ryker was now his next target.

"Watch this part," Sparrow said, nodding toward Ryker, who dropped her from a height that was entirely too high.

White light flashed. She shifted midair and landed as a wolf, hitting the ground orbs in a clean run.

"Forty seconds, Captain," a warrior called out from behind them.

Maddox felt zero fear from her through their matebond, which was precisely the problem. What he felt instead was the opposite. She was having fun. This was not fun. This was horrible. She was getting a permanent helmet and she was never training with Ryker again.

He watched her climb up Ryker’s leg like she had done it a thousand times.

In the air on Ryker’s back, she waited for more arrows and another loop, but they went a different direction this time.

She scanned for targets.

Gwen: What am I looking for here?

Ryker did not respond. Of course he did not.

Then she noticed another dragon approaching beneath them, with a gold orb on its back. It seemed too easy. She blinked and wondered if she was missing something.

She jumped to the dragon’s back and touched the orb. Then she glanced up at Ryker, who gave her no feedback. She scanned and saw another dragon, this one coming from the opposite direction.

She jumped, catching herself on its leg. Her timing was slightly off, but she corrected and climbed up to its back, touching the next gold orb.

She scanned again. Orbs were floating below her. She jumped, hitting three on the way down.

A green dragon caught her in his paw and dropped her onto the ground. She shifted before she hit the earth, hit the remaining orbs as her wolf, and changed back in time to catch Ryker’s leg and climb up his back.

Another dragon was flying in tandem above them.

She ran across Ryker and jumped to catch its leg. She assumed that was what she was supposed to do, because she had zero instructions to the contrary.

When she climbed up its leg, the dragon stopped completely, and she wondered if she had messed up the order. He resumed after a few seconds.

Another dragon was flying above. She repeated the same move and touched an orb.

She made eye contact with Ryker, who was approaching from the opposite direction at an altitude that she realized midair was entirely too far away. A miscalculation on her end.

He surged forward, catching her in his paw.

All five dragons in the simulation stopped including Ryker.

Whoops.

She pulled out of Ryker’s claw and moved to his back in a blur.

As soon as she did that, they all started moving again.

Gwen: I have no idea what this is supposed to look like.

Ryker: No shit.

She actually laughed out loud.

She scanned again, saw another dragon, made the jump. Climbed legs. Startled a few more dragons mid-air. Shifted into her wolf on top of one of them because of the height of her landing on his back, then shifted back to human. That one was an accident that ended up looking badass and she knew it.

Then it hit her.

She could use her wolf’s running momentum. Shift into her wolf to run, shift to human at the jump, gain more distance.

She shifted into her wolf running off a dragon’s back, and shifted back into human on the jump. She ran across a startled green dragon’s back, touched an orb, shifted into her wolf, ran, jumped, landed on a brown dragon who jolted, shifted back to human, jumped, ran, caught a leg, found another orb.

She didn’t know any of these dragons names or how their mindlink system worked, or if she should. So instead out loud she said, "Apologies for scaring you."

She had no clue if they could hear her, but hey, she tried.

Now she understood what she was supposed to be doing. Or at least, she had finally seen the pattern, and she could replicate it.

On the next lap, the dragons did not stop. So either they anticipated her royal fuck ups in the wrong order or she was getting it right.

Ryker caught her in his claw. But before she could climb, he tossed her. She flew in the air, then landed on his back standing. It saved energy and a good five seconds, they’d clip off this round.

She ran shifting, jumping from dragon to dragon. When the brown one caught her in its claw, he copied Ryker, tossing her up so she didn’t have to climb.

Then they all started doing it.

By the fifth lap, they were a well oiled machine of whatever debauchery Gwen had turned this into. Because she was absolutely positive this was supposed to look different.

It was almost as fun as the arrows.

The green one lazily dropped her from its claw, and she landed standing on Ryker’s back.

Maddox: Ryker. Land her now.

Ryker: No can do, Commander. We are on lap six and she is not done.

Maddox: I am cutting this short.

Ryker: You told me to tell you no if you tried to intervene. Dragons don’t train their bondeds for a reason.

Maddox: That was before my wife became a flying target. Land her, Ryker.

Ryker: Relax. I’ll send her back to you in one piece.

Maddox rubbed his temples.

He had two choices. Stand here and watch his wife rewrite his army. Or go up there. He started walking toward the field.