by G. A. Aiken
“You were naked and alone in a dungeon. I knew I couldn’t leave you there.”
“How did you know that? You were only twelve.”
Annwyl’s far-off gaze spoke volumes. “I knew I couldn’t leave you there.”
Bríghid nodded. “If she hadn’t released me,” she explained to the others, “they would have tried to use me for hunting.” Releasing Annwyl’s chin, Bríghid moved back and held her hand out. Her daughter placed her hand in her mother’s, and Bríghid said, “Queen Annwyl, I present my daughter Eadburga. She would be honored to raise the twins of the one who once rescued a lone woman in a dungeon.”
Annwyl cleared her throat. At first, Keita thought maybe Annwyl was embarrassed by such praise, but another part of her wondered if Annwyl’s father had found out what she’d done. If she had suffered for her betrayal. Quite a few of the scars that covered Annwyl’s body were not from her battles against men with swords.
“Talaith’s daughter, too,” Annwyl added. “If that’s all right with you? The three of them don’t like to be separated.”
Ebba nodded. “That’s fine with me.”
“Then go.” Bríghid released her daughter’s hand. “With my blessing and my heart.”
Ebba hugged her mother, and the small group of humans, dragons, and one centaur stood on the ridge as Bríghid and her herd returned to the canyon. When they were gone, Ebba faced them and, sounding much like her mother, said, “Let’s get started then.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Ragnar heard gasps, and someone dropped plates on the floor. Then he heard his brother and cousin growl in appreciation.
“Now that’s a fine-looking woman,” Meinhard muttered around his fourth serving of porridge.
Curious, Ragnar looked over his shoulder. His breath caught, and he immediately rose from his chair. He reached back and grabbed his brother and cousin, forcing them both to their knees. He went down on one, too, his head bowed out of respect but also necessity. He’d be able to look at her over time, but for now, her Magick shone too brightly, blinding him.
“Uh…cousin?” Meinhard whispered. “A little much for a naked woman, isn’t it?”
“She’s not a naked woman, you idiot.”
“Anyone else smell horse?” Vigholf asked, earning himself a punch to the head.
“Horde dragons,” the naked female said. “How interesting this place is.”
A soft hand reached out and stroked Ragnar’s head. He felt Magick flow through him that was as old as time, as powerful as the ocean. “Don’t worry, Lord Ragnar,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.”
And, she said in his head, you are nothing like your father. So you can let that fear go.
She took her hand away, and he immediately felt the loss of her power. She touched Meinhard’s chin and Vigholf’s head, where he’d had a very nice lump growing. “The honor of you three astounds me. You’ve chosen your allies well, Queen Annwyl.”
“Just Annwyl.”
“Whatever you choose to be called, you are still queen.” With that, she headed toward the stairs. “I’ll see the children alone.” Then she was up the steps and gone.
A dirty bare foot tapped in front of him now, and Ragnar slowly raised his head. Keita had her arms crossed over her chest, her lips pursed. “I think you still have some drool hanging from your lips there, warlord.”
“She’s a centaur.”
“I know.”
“But she’s a centaur.”
“And I am a dragoness.”
“But she’s a centaur.”
“Perhaps I should just slap the drool from your mouth.”
“Or we can eat!” Annwyl grabbed Keita’s arm and pulled her to the table.
“That wasn’t subtle, cousin,” Meinhard chastised as the three got to their feet.
“But she’s a centaur.”
“We know!” the entire room yelled at him, so he decided to let it go.
Ebba opened the door and stepped into the room. A babe stood on wobbly legs in her crib, her tiny hands holding on to the bars.
“Hello, beautiful,” Ebba said as she reached for the child and lifted her up out of the crib.
“Her name’s Rhianwen.”
“I know. And you’re Iseabail.” She smiled at Rhianwen’s sister, who stood in the doorway, keeping an eye out for trouble. “But you call her Rhi.”
“How did you know that?”
“I know lots of things.”
Iseabail stepped farther into the room. “You’re the new nanny.”
“I am.”
“And you’re kind of naked.”
She laughed. “I’m that too.” She shifted back to her natural form and heard the girl gasp, felt her swell of excitement and curiosity, her eagerness to know more, to know everything about Ebba’s kind. And, more importantly—more impressively—her immediate acceptance of something that was vastly different from herself.
“Oh, by the gods! You’re a centaur!”
Ebba laughed. “I am.”
“Oh…no, no, no.” Ebba didn’t even have to turn around to know that poor Izzy was now making a mad dash across the room, trying to stop the twins who’d eased from their hiding place and crawled onto the closest side table so they could leap from it to Ebba’s back. The girl with her sword drawn, aimed right for Ebba’s neck.
Amused more than she had been in an age, Ebba clicked her tongue against her teeth. She heard Izzy slide to a stop, and Ebba looked over her shoulder at the two toddlers hanging from midair behind her.
Nuzzling the affectionate babe in her arms, the two of them understanding each other more than any would ever know, even these twins, Ebba slowly turned toward the siblings, making sure not to knock anything over with her horse’s hindquarters.
“So,” she said, “this is them? The infamous twins of the Blood Queen.”
She smirked at them, and the boy, Talan, burst into pathetic fake tears. A skill she could only imagine his Uncle Gwenvael had taught him, based on what her mother had always said about “the hatchling I loved and loathed in equal parts.” While the girl, Talwyn, snarled and snapped like she had a mouth full of fangs rather than baby teeth and kept stabbing her tiny wooden sword in Ebba’s direction.
“I’m sorry,” Izzy said. “I’ve been told they’re like that with, uh, new people.”
“That’s all right. No need to apologize. They were only protecting your sister, and I’d be awfully miserable if they were like everyone else’s children.”
“They’re definitely not that.”
“No. They’re definitely not.”
Leaning in, Ebba waved one finger in the girl’s face before plucking the sword from her. “Now let me make this clear, little ones. There will be none of this sort of thing from now on. No silent attacks, no screaming attacks, no assaults of any kind. While you’re under my care you will learn to read and write and the proper care of those you’ll one day lead. We will be very good friends, and you will learn to adore me, for I fear your other options will not be as amenable to you.” She walked around the bed, and suddenly the children were falling and screaming.
Izzy again dashed across the floor, her arms outstretched to catch the babes, but Ebba had no intention of letting them actually hit the floor. At least not until they were much sturdier.
Izzy’s hands slid under her cousins, but the toddlers hovered inches over them. And Ebba kept them there.
Shifting back to human, she sat on the edge of one of the small beds, adjusting Rhi so she was cradled in the crook of her arm, and said to Izzy, “I think this position will suit me well. Don’t you?”
Her grin wide and quite beautiful, Izzy nodded. “Oh, yes, I think this position is perfect for you.”
Keita watched her baby brother closely. He’d come down to first meal and, without his usual greeting, sat at the full table and stared at the food sitting in front of him. He didn’t eat. He didn’t talk. He didn’t do anything but stare at his food.
Éibhear’s reaction was so strange that Keita even stopped glaring at Ragnar over his reaction to Ebba. Considering she didn’t understand what this strange, new, and quite unpleasant feeling was, the fact that her brother could distract her from it said much.
First, thinking her brothers were behind Éibhear’s mood, Keita looked to them. But, as usual, they were oblivious. Then she looked to Morfyd, who watched their brother as Keita did. When Keita looked around the table, it was her sisters—those by blood and those by mating—who saw the difference in Éibhear the Blue. And, to her surprise, the Northlanders.
Ragnar caught her attention and motioned to Éibhear. She could only shrug, unsure of what was wrong or what she could do to fix it. Keita would admit it, she liked to fix things. Especially when it involved her baby brother. Yet she’d never seen him like this. Not once in almost a century.
“Morning, all!” Izzy said, tearing down the stairs. She stopped at the table long enough to grab a loaf of bread, glancing around. “Anyone seen my puppy?”
“If you got him from my kennel, brat, he’s not your anything,” Dagmar reminded their niece.
“Oops,” Izzy laughed. Then she gushed. “I love the new nanny! She’s a centaur!”
Keita ignored the pointed look she received from Ragnar.
“All right. I’m off to run up Flower Hill with Branwen.”
Keita frowned and briefly re-focused her attention on her young niece. “Whatever for?”
“Have you seen that hill?” she demanded. “Go up that thing a few times a day, I’ll have legs like iron.”
“You already have legs like iron.”
“All right. Steel then. Steel’s harder than iron, I think.”
“Come on, ya fat sow,” Branwen called from outside. “Move that shiftless ass!”
“Fat?” Izzy screamed back. Then she took off running, and Keita heard her cousin squeal in a very non dragonesslike manner before, Keita was sure, running for her life.
Giving a little giggle, Keita began to eat again, only to stop when she saw that her brother’s gaze was locked on the door through which Izzy had run out.
Now, of course, it was all making more sense. Had Izzy teased him? Insulted him? What had Mistress Brat done now to Lord Sensitive?
As if in answer, and without a word, Éibhear pushed back from the table, stood, and walked out.
By now, her dim-witted elder brothers had caught on that something was amiss, and as one group all at the table stood and silently followed. Izzy and Branwen had run off to the left toward Flower Hill. Éibhear, however, turned right. Together, and from a distance, the group followed her brother as he walked out the east exit and down the worn path leading to the lakes.
His pace was steady and calm, his body relaxed. But something was terribly wrong, and they all knew it. But it seemed no one knew what to do about it.
They followed him over the small hills and past several small lakes and a stream until he reached the big lake where most of the Cadwaladr Clan made their temporary and occasional home.
“Éibhear! Wonderful morning to you!” Ghleanna greeted him. She and Addolgar must have arrived that morning or the night before. They looked tired but happy to see their kin. But Ghleanna’s cheerful greeting received nothing more than a nod from Éibhear while he walked right by her. She blinked in surprise and watched her nephew pass all his kin, each stopping what he or she was doing to watch him.
He continued on, passing uncles, aunts, cousins, distant cousins, those related only by mating—he ignored them all. Until he reached Celyn.
“Ho, cousin!” Celyn called out, looking quite chipper this morning, and Keita cringed because she had the distinct feeling she knew why. “What brings you down to—”
Éibhear had him by the throat, lifting Celyn off his big feet. Gasping in horror, Morfyd reached for her brother, but Keita caught her left arm and Briec caught her right, holding her back. Good thing, too. For Éibhear pulled his arm back and shot-putted Celyn into the closest tree.
Keita cringed, hearing something break, but since Celyn managed to get back to his feet, she didn’t worry it was his head.
Celyn twisted his neck, the bones cracking. “Wanna do this now, cousin? You sure?”
Éibhear glanced at the ground, picked up one of the training shields that Keita’s kin used when in their dragon form and chucked it at Celyn with such force, it shoved her cousin’s human body through the tree he’d been standing next to.
“Guess he’s sure then,” Fearghus muttered.
Annwyl knew none of the dragons would get in the middle of this. The Cadwaladrs wouldn’t because this was how they handled things. And Fearghus’s siblings wouldn’t because they knew this had to do with Izzy.
Did any of them, but especially Éibhear, really expect that girl to stay a virgin forever? They couldn’t compare Izzy to Annwyl. True, Fearghus had been her one and her only, but that came more down to twenty-three years under her father’s protection and two years of her troops’ fear of her. Had Fearghus made her wait worth it? Absolutely. Did that mean she would have waited if offered the chance with someone she truly liked before she’d met him? Probably not.
And Éibhear had made it perfectly clear he “didn’t think of Izzy like that.”
Perhaps not, but something told her that a beating from Izzy’s father wouldn’t be this bad and Briec was a mean bastard when it came to his women.
No. It looked like she’d have to do something about this on her own.
Still, as insane as Annwyl knew the world thought her, she wasn’t about to jump between two battling dragons. She might be insane, but she wasn’t stupid. True, both dragons seemed to be staying human for this fight, but that could change in a moment. And unless she was willing to fight to the death, she preferred strict rules of engagement when fighting her dragon kin. Otherwise she risked hurting something that even Morfyd couldn’t repair. And life staring out a window and drooling held no appeal to her. So Annwyl turned and ran the other way.
She hard-charged past the gates of her home, into the forest, past Dagmar’s little house, and straight through until she hit the western fields. She kept going until she saw Flower Hill. She charged toward it and up. Izzy was right about this hill, too. Annwyl ran it every day, several times, until her legs were screaming in pain. But then every night Fearghus ran his hands over them, growled a little, and muttered something like, “Your legs drive me wild.”
Thank the gods for dragon males. She was relatively certain there were few human males who’d feel the same about their women.
“Oy!” She dashed past the females and stopped.
“Annwyl!” Izzy cheered. “Come to join us?”
“I think you forgot to tell me something.”
“I did?”
“About Celyn?”
Scowling, Izzy looked at Branwen.
“It wasn’t me!”
“It wasn’t Branwen,” Annwyl confirmed. “It was Éibhear.” Izzy’s eyes grew wide. “Wha-what? But he doesn’t know.”
“He’s telling everyone right now—”
“What?”
“—by beating the life from his cousin.”
“Oh, gods.” Izzy’s hand went to her stomach. “Oh, gods!”
“Don’t just stand there!” Annwyl ordered. “Move!”
“How long have you known?” Briec asked his mate while keeping an eye on the damage his brother was doing to Celyn. Although Celyn had finally gotten back to his feet and was now putting up a fight.
“Since I saw them together when he arrived. They didn’t do anything,” she added. “But a mother knows.”
“And you said nothing to her?”
“Say what to her? I had her when I was sixteen. She’s nineteen, and as long as she’s careful—”
“You could have told me.”
Talaith smirked. “A beating is one thing, Lord Arrogance. Your family will forgive Éibhear that. Especially since the only ones who don’t seem to
know how he feels about my eldest daughter are Éibhear and Izzy. But a dead Celyn is something they’d never forgive you for.”
And gods-dammit if she wasn’t right.
“I had no idea,” Ragnar admitted.
“Nor I.” Vigholf leaned back against a tree trunk, his arms crossed over his chest. “Who knew the boy had it in him?”
“I knew.” And the brothers looked over at their cousin. “I knew it was waiting there to be released.”
Blood slashed across Meinhard’s face, and he wiped it off with the back of his hand. “He’s got a rage in him, that one. He just don’t know it yet.”
“He knows it now.”
“Nah. He has all sorts of excuses for this. But whatever set him off is only part of it.”
“Why didn’t we set him off earlier?” Vigholf asked. “We could have used this royal in a few battles to do more than clear trees.”
“Who would have taken that beating? Which of our kin would you have saddled with being beaten by Éibhear the Chivalrous? It’s better this way. A Southlander gets him started, and now, if he comes back with us, we can start to really hone that rage until he’s like a living, breathing weapon we can unleash at our whim.”
Ragnar tipped his head to his brother. “Told you the armies should report to Meinhard.”
“And report they shall.”
“You named him the Chivalrous?” Dagmar asked from behind them, and all three males winced.
“Dagmar—”
“That was rather petty of you.” To those who did not know her, those words probably didn’t sound nearly as harsh as they actually were.
Her mate’s gaze moved back and forth among the Northland group. “What’s wrong with chivalrous?”
“You get a name like that in the north, it just means you’re weak. Too nice to fight.” Dagmar shook her head. “And he has no idea, does he?”