Last Dragon Standing (27 page)

Branwen released her brother’s hair and stepped over the log he sat on. “Izzy?”

Izzy stopped, faced her cousin. “Did you know?”

“Did I know what?”

“You mean about your mother?” Fal asked, looking all sorts of bored.

He shrugged. “I knew.”

“You knew what?” Branwen demanded of her brother, but he never got a chance to answer. Izzy picked up one of the logs they used for sitting and with one good swing, knocked Fal up and back into their brother Celyn, who’d come up behind him to find out what was going on. Both dragons hit the ground hard, and Izzy tossed the log down, the ground shaking a bit from the weight of it.

“Can you take me back to Dark Plains?” Izzy asked her.

“Aye, but—”

“General Ghleanna wants me to give something to my queen as soon as possible, so it’ll be faster this way.”

“Anything, Iz, but—”

“Five minutes then?” And not bothering to wait for Branwen’s answer, Izzy walked off.

Celyn stood next to Branwen now, both ignoring their groaning brother with the broken jaw. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”

“I’ll take her back to Dark Plains,” Celyn offered.

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“Like hell you will.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered and motioned to poor Fal. “Take care of our brother. I think his jaw’s broken.”

“Then maybe he should have kept his mouth shut for once.”

“There she is!” Briec walked into the room, and for a moment, Keita actually believed he spoke of her. She was wrong. “There’s my perfect, perfect daughter.” He removed the child from Keita’s arms without asking permission. As always, her brother was rude!

“Isn’t she perfect, Keita?” He motioned to Fearghus and his offspring.

“Unlike those two.”

In response, Fearghus’s little girl pulled back her arm to toss her wooden blade at her uncle’s head, but Fearghus yanked it away from her before she could carry through.

The baby clung to Briec, small arms wrapped around his neck. But, for the first time, Keita noticed that she didn’t smile.

“Does she not smile?” Keita asked, and she knew it was the wrong question when both Talaith and Fearghus winced and Briec snapped, “She’ll smile when she’s gods-damn ready!”

“Don’t bark at me!” Keita snapped back. “It was a simple question.”

“Well, if you’d been here, you wouldn’t have to ask those bloody questions!”

“Bring that up one more time, Briec, and I’m—”

“Flouncing back to your cave?” Fearghus asked.

“Oh, shut up!”

“You know what we haven’t told her?” Talaith suddenly asked, a big grin on her face as she jumped to her feet. “The children’s names.” Talaith stroked her hand down Fearghus’s girl’s black hair. “This is Talwyn.” Then she tickled the boy’s cheek. “This is Talan.” She held up her hands and, as if she were offering something for sale, she announced, “And this…this is Rhianwen.”

Keita’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped away from her safe window, barely noticing Fearghus’s twins were crawling away from her until they again hid behind their father’s shoulders. “Rhianwen?” Keita all but roared.

“You named her Rhianwen?”

Briec raised a silver brow. “Is there a problem with that, sister?”

“Why not just curse her with the name Despair? Or Bringer of Misery?”

“I happen to
like
the name Rhianwen. And before you say it, 178

Rhianwen is not
that
similar to Mother’s name.”

“You’re pathetic!” Keita accused her brother. “Always sucking up to that she-cow! At least Fearghus had some backbone with his naming!” Briec turned on her. “Well, when you breed some hatchlings of your own, Mistress Whine, you can name them what you’d like! But as far as I’m concerned, any perfect offspring that are sprung from
my
loins deserves a majestic name—
and that majestic name is Rhianwen!
” Disgusted beyond all reckoning, Keita stormed out of the room and down the hallway to the stairs. She was cutting through the Great Hall when Ren caught up to her.

“You look ready to roast an entire town. What’s wrong?”

“Rhianwen!” she exclaimed. “That suck-up named his daughter Rhianwen!”

“Rhianwen?” Ren exclaimed back. “Why not just call her Misery or She Who Despairs?”

Keita stopped, turned, and threw her arms around Ren, hugging him tight. “This is why I’ll always love you, my friend.” Laughing, he patted her back. “I know, old friend. I know.” Talaith shook her head. “That went well.”

“She started it,” Briec stated before holding his “perfect” daughter out to Talaith and announcing, “She looks to need nourishment. Unleash your breasts for her.”

“Would you stop saying that!” she yelped over Fearghus’s laugh. “I hate when you say that!”

“Do you? I hadn’t noticed.”

Talaith snatched her child from her mate. “You do realize that when I’m finally forced to kill you, no one will blame me for it?”

“I know I won’t,” Fearghus tossed in, busy holding his children upside down by one leg each, grinning when they laughed and squealed.

Although neither of his children spoke. They never spoke. Except to each other and only in whispers…and in a language no one understood. The family had finally admitted it to each other when the twins were about one and the truth could no longer be avoided. But again, there were worse things that could happen with them, but it was still strange. The twins were strange.

Talaith walked across the room and sat in a rocking chair Briec had made for her right before Rhianwen had been born.

“Whatever you two do, please don’t scare off your sister before Izzy arrives in a few days. You know she’ll want to see Keita.” And, Talaith hoped, Keita might be the one being who could defuse Izzy’s rage when she 179

found out the truth about Rhianwen.

Talaith hadn’t been lying to Keita when she’d told her no moment seemed to be right to tell Izzy about her sister. There was so much going on in the west, and the last thing Talaith wanted was for Izzy’s mind not being on her task. She didn’t want to send a letter with all the information, only to find out her daughter was ambushed a day later by barbarians because she wasn’t paying attention. Because she was worrying about her mum. That was how it felt in the beginning; then after the baby was born, it just seemed wrong to tell her in a letter. But Talaith had thought Izzy would have been home by now. That she would have told her by now.

But when Izzy got home in the next few days, it would be the first thing Talaith did. She’d make sure of that.

“We’re not going to scare her off,” Briec informed Talaith. “We’re simply making it clear that what she did was unacceptable and will not be tolerated again.”

“And how well that has worked for you in the past, eh?”

“Don’t try to tell me how to raise my baby sister.”

“Raise her? She’s nearly two hundred years old.”

“Not yet she’s not.”

“Och!” Keita barked, stepping out of the Great Hall and into the late-day suns. “I simply can’t believe Briec named his poor hatchling after that slithering pond scum!”

“Shouldn’t you just call her Mum when we’re on her territory?”

“Only when she’s directly in earshot.”

Keita watched as Ragnar returned with Gwenvael and some servant.

“There you are! You can’t just go wandering off, warlord. Unless, of course, you were hoping for a haircut so you can match your brother.”

“Is it my imagination or is that concern in your voice?” the warlord asked.

“Hardly. More like annoyance.” She continued down the steps and grabbed Ragnar’s forearm. “Come. We need to talk.”

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t question me, Gwenvael.”

“But Keita—”

“Later. I need to talk to Ragnar.” Keita stopped by the servant.

“Please ensure our Northland guests have all they need. I believe they were taken to the third floor. Make sure they have food. My sister has a tendency to forget that sort of thing.” She glanced at what stood behind the servant, a large bone held in its mouth. She’d seen a lot of those around the territory.

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More than she’d seen before.
Must be an overpopulation issue.
Something she could help with. “Dog might do. Roasted. Not heavy on the salt.” She sighed longingly. “Roasted dog. Yum.” She pressed her hand to her stomach and realized how hungry she was. “Send some up to my room as well. We’ll be back in a bit.”

Keita hopped off the last step and looked back at Ragnar. Shocked at the warlord, she could only ask over his laughter, “What’s so funny?”

“Keita—” her brother said.

“What?”

Gwenvael put his arm around the servant, and Keita sighed softly in exasperation. Why her brother felt the need to protect every female, especially now when he had some barbarian warlord mate of his own, was beyond Keita’s reckoning. It wasn’t as if she’d battered the female into submission or something. She’d given her simple orders to follow. That was her job, wasn’t it?

“I’d like you to meet Dagmar Reinholdt,” Gwenvael said.

Really? Now there had to be proper introductions to servants? But Keita didn’t want to argue any more with her siblings. Even Gwenvael.

“Nice to meet you, Dagmar. You can call me Lady Keita.” That seemed to make Ragnar laugh harder, when the dragon rarely laughed at all. He especially didn’t laugh like this.

“
What
is so funny?” she demanded.

“Dagmar Reinholdt,” her brother said again, as if she hadn’t understood him the first damn time. “Thirteenth Offspring of The Reinholdt, Only Daughter of The Reinholdt, Chief Battle Lord of Dark Plains, Adviser to Queen Annwyl, Human Liaison to the Southland Dragon Elders, and my
mate.
”

Oh.

Shit.

Oh, shit!

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

Pulling from nearly two centuries of royal training, Keita broke out her most dazzling smile. “Of course she is!” she said with a laugh. “I was merely teasing.”

She went back up several steps until she was close enough to the Northland warlord’s daughter. Keita grasped one of the human’s tiny hands between her own. “I am so glad to meet you, my Lady Dagmar! It’s taken far too long for us to meet.”

“It has,” the human said. For the first time, Keita noticed that the female wore little round pieces of glass held between two wires that she had 181

perched on her nose. Whatever for? Was she blind? “I’ve heard so much about you and have longed to meet you. You are truly as beautiful as all the
many
men throughout the land have said.” Another laugh escaped the barbarian dragon, and Keita briefly thought about flipping him over the stair banister. “And you are,” Keita said in return, “well…
you
. And I’m sure you’re the best you that you can be.” At this point, Ren now headed back into the castle and Gwenvael forced the two females’ hands apart.

“All right then!” her brother said with an obscene amount of forced cheer. “That’s enough greeting, don’t you think?” He turned his mate toward the doors and shoved Keita back down the stairs. Keita barely kept her snarl in—and on her feet—but before she could stomp away, the human maneuvered around Gwenvael and said, “Oh, my Lady Keita, one other thing.”

Keita stopped and faced her, keeping that cheery smile on her face.

“Aye?”

“Dogs…off limits.”

“Are they now?”

“If you hadn’t heard, it’s a rule of the land. And I’d hate to see you get into trouble over it with your mother.”

“My mother?” Keita asked, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. “My mother agreed to a law banning the eating of dogs?” The same dragoness who wouldn’t even agree to a written ban on the eating of humans? Instead she felt it was something her dragon subjects should simply know not to do “unless they can get away with it.”

“In fact, she agreed happily.”

Knowing when she was beat, at least in one area, Keita said, “Of course. The gods know I wouldn’t want to go against my mother.”

“Then I’m sure we won’t have any problems.”

Normally Keita would argue the point, but she was starting to feel terrible about the whole thing and decided it was best to simply walk away.

Reaching up, she caught hold of Ragnar’s hand and pulled him off toward the gate’s east-side exit. And it wasn’t until they’d gone about twenty feet or so that Keita heard the warlord’s daughter snap, “Canute!” She and Ragnar stopped walking and looked behind them. The dog that had been with Lady Dagmar now stood behind them. He dropped his bone and pushed it toward Keita with his snout. Lifting his massive head, his tongue hanging out, he grinned at her.

“Ohhh,” Keita exclaimed. “Aren’t you sweet?” But before she could pat the dog’s head, Ragnar yanked her away, sniffing in disgust.

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“Well, don’t get mad at me,” she argued. “Is it my fault males always want to give me things?”

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Ragnar got as far as a copse of trees outside the fortress walls before he decided to stop and face the princess. She gazed up at him with those brown eyes and asked, “That went badly, didn’t it?” And that’s when the laughter started all over again. So bad, he couldn’t stop. He just sat down in the grass and let the laughter roll right through him.

“It’s not funny!” Keita yelled, stamping her bare foot. “You could have bloody warned me!”

“You didn’t give me or anyone else a chance! I don’t know which was better. The look on your face or the look on hers!” Keita paced away from him, her hands twisting against each other.

“How was I supposed to know
that
was Dagmar Reinholdt? A warlord’s daughter? I thought she’d be huge! A snarling, snapping hound beast!” Ragnar pushed himself up on his elbows and studied her. She gave a small shrug. “My brother has…interesting tastes.”

She continued to pace. “I feel horrible!”

That surprised him. “You do?”

“Of course I do. I never wanted to hurt her feelings. But with that headscarf, those pieces of glass on her face, and all that grey…how was I to know?”

“Those pieces of glass on her face are spectacles.” Keita, appearing horrified, briefly covered her mouth before asking in a desperate whisper, “She’s blind, isn’t she? I mocked a blind woman!” Laughing again, Ragnar fell back on the ground.