Last Dragon Standing (34 page)

“Now go.”

224

“Keita…”

“What?”

Ragnar motioned to Annwyl and Dagmar, and Keita glanced over.

Instead of grinning, as she had done a few years back when Annwyl had caught Danelin, Brastias’s second in command, trying to sneak out of Keita’s room, the She-dragon’s eyes grew wide. She looked almost panicked. Strange, since Annwyl couldn’t remember a time Keita had panicked over anything.

“Uh…Annwyl. Dagmar. Good morn to you both.” Her smile was forced, brittle. She nudged Ragnar, and, reluctantly, he walked off.

Once he was gone, Keita whispered, “You won’t tell anyone…about that…will you?”

Now Annwyl was truly confused because Keita usually suggested,

“Make sure to give all the details to my sister. Let me know if you need drawings!”

Was she really hiding this? And if she was…why?

“We won’t tell,” Annwyl said, since she had her own secrets.

“Thank you.” Then Keita slipped back into her room and closed the door.

“Is no one safe from that female?” Dagmar asked.

Annwyl shrugged since she had no answer and left Dagmar staring at Keita’s closed doorway. She headed down to the Great Hall where she found food already out and the other two Northland dragons eating at the table.

She walked over and dropped into a chair across from them. She said nothing until she’d filled her own plate and begun to eat. Then she asked,

“Did you both sleep well?”

They nodded while they kept eating. A few years ago she might have been insulted by that. But after the Northland battle in which she’d fought beside the mighty Reinholdt and his sons, she knew this to be the way of things when Northland warriors ate.

“And how’s your leg, uh…”

“Meinhard, my lady,” one of them answered while still managing to chew his food. If she was going to remember their names, she’d have to find something distinctive about them, especially since the other one’s hair would eventually grow back.

“Call me Annwyl.”

“As you like.”

“And your leg?” she prompted.

“Better. Healed up nice during the night.”

“That’s perfect.” She loved how dragons could heal quickly with a 225

little help from a witch or mage. “I was going to get some training in—you both can train with me.”

They paused in their feeding and lifted their heads. Just like two oxen at a watering hole that had sniffed out a predator nearby.

What could Annwyl say? They weren’t too far off.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,
Queen
Annwyl,” the one with short hair answered, and Annwyl had to laugh. She loathed when people used that stupid title, but she knew he was doing it for one simple reason: to point out that perhaps fighting with a queen who’d already tried to take his head might not be the smartest decision. Normally he’d be right, but they were under Éibhear’s protection and their brother was—secretly at least—

fucking Keita. So unless Annwyl heard otherwise, she wouldn’t bother killing them.

“We’ll use the training ring right around the corner of this building.

And I promise I’ll not hold anything that happens in the ring against either of you, your brother, or your people.”

“Why us?” the other ox asked. He bore a scar from his hairline to below his eye. It had faded with time, but it was clear enough to remind her that “eye scar” was Meinhard, meaning the other was…uh…
shit. What’s his
bloody name again?

Rather than ask him that—she’d tried to take his head, but she couldn’t be bothered to remember his name…tacky—she admitted, “No one else will train with me these days. Even the Southland dragons. Unless, of course, Northland dragons are too afraid of me to take the risk as well…” Meinhard sneered around his food while the other’s purple brows peaked.

Knowing how to close this deal, she added, “Besides, wouldn’t you like a chance to get even over your hair?”

When she saw fang, she knew she had them both.

Keita skipped down the stairs to the Great Hall and hopped off the last step. So far only Gwenvael, Dagmar, Morfyd, and Talaith had made it down to breakfast. Keita, making sure her smile was exceedingly happy and bright, threw her arms wide, and said with no small amount of cheer, “Good morn, my lovely family!”

“You’re fucking Ragnar the Cunning?” Gwenvael barked at her.

Keita dropped her arms to her sides and glared at Dagmar, hoping to look appropriately betrayed. “You promised me you wouldn’t say anything.” Gwenvael refocused his scowl onto his mate. “You knew?”

“I know lots of things.”

226

“
You knew?
”

“Don’t yell at me, Defiler.”

Keita was surprised the warlord’s daughter hadn’t said anything. But this was good. The rumor was spreading even faster than she’d thought it would, and Dagmar apparently could be trusted.
Excellent
.

“Is it beyond you”—Morfyd pushed her chair back and stood, stalking around the table—“to keep your legs closed, sister?”

“Beyond me? No. But why would I? He’s gorgeous.”

“He’s a Lightning,” Gwenvael reminded her. And Keita had to admit she was a little shocked. Of those she’d thought would be upset about this, she’d never imagined it would be Gwenvael. Who she fucked was not something her golden brother had ever cared much about unless a problem arose.

“Yes. He is. And so were those slags you fucked during the war that got you the name Defiler.”

“It’s
Ruiner
! And I never tried to hide what I’d done. Why are you?”

“I don’t have time for this.” Keita headed toward the Great Hall doors, which stood open, giving her a glimpse of early-morning freedom. But just as she stepped outside, Gwenvael caught her arm and swung her around.

At least, she
thought
it was Gwenvael. Gwenvael, who was much taller than Keita, so that when she swung her arm at him and slapped him with her hand, she would really only hit his side and do very little damage.

Too bad, though, it wasn’t Gwenvael but Morfyd who’d grabbed her.

And Morfyd’s face was right in line with Keita’s open palm.

The sound ricocheted around the courtyard, and Morfyd’s cheek turned red where Keita’s hand had collided with it.

A moment of stunned silence from both of them followed, poor Dagmar rushing up to them yelling, “
No, no, no
—” But it was too late. Much too late. Screeching, they grabbed onto each other’s hair and stumbled down the steps while trying to kick the other while trying to yank every strand from the other’s head.

Dagmar tried desperately to separate them, the human guards wisely deciding not to intervene between two She-dragons who could shift at a moment’s thought and crush them in the process.

“Stop it!” Dagmar yelled, her tiny little human hands trying to pry them apart. “Stop it right now!”

It was strange, in the middle of a sister free-for-all as Gwenvael always called it, that Keita could hear anything but her own yells and Morfyd’s, but she did hear it. A familiar voice coming from across the courtyard and heading their way.

227

“Wait!” that voice begged. “Would you just wait? Please!” Keita wanted to pull away from her sister to see what was going on, but Morfyd wasn’t letting go.

But then they had no choice in the matter because something incredibly strong—and, she was guessing, incredibly pissed off—yanked the pair apart with one pull and shoved them in opposite directions before walking on through.

Keita looked down at the strands of white hair she still had in her fists, then she gazed up, mouth dropping open, when she saw all the red ones in Morfyd’s.

Raging, Keita yelled, “You big-handed—”

“Izzy! Please wait!”

The plea cut off Keita’s words, and she could only stare as Keita’s young cousin Branwen shot past them while desperately pulling clothes over her human form.

“By all reason—” Dagmar began.

“—
that
was Izzy?” Keita finished.

“It’s been two years since we’ve last seen her,” Morfyd said, “but…” The trio gazed at each other a moment longer before Keita and Morfyd dropped each other’s hair and charged up the stairs, Dagmar Reinholdt pushing past them both and beating them inside.

228

Talaith had heard all the yelling and screeching, but she’d learned not to get into the middle of a Morfyd–Keita fight long ago. Even Gwenvael—

surprisingly annoyed since he didn’t seem to get annoyed by much, but especially not by anything Keita did, or who she fucked for that matter—had walked out the back door of the hall.

“Aren’t you going to help?” she’d asked him as he passed her.

“They’ll wear themselves out eventually,” he’d replied and was gone.

Perhaps they would, too. Yet unlike Dagmar, Talaith wasn’t about to abandon her breakfast to find out the truth of that. She would stop the brothers from fighting when necessary, but she wasn’t about to get between sisters. She’d grown up with women, and she above all knew exactly how mean they could be.

Talaith heard someone coming down the steps and smiled when she saw her mate. He might be able to get his sisters to stop fighting without her getting a black eye in the process. Yet he stopped midway down, his gaze locked on the entrance to the Great Hall. His mouth dropped open, his eyes widened, and a look of shock crossed that perpetually bored dragon’s face.

Concerned his sisters had finally really harmed themselves, Talaith followed his gaze. But those angry light brown eyes glaring at her from across the hall belonged to no dragon.

“By the gods…” Talaith breathed out, slowly pushing herself to her feet. “Izzy?”

Her daughter. Iseabail. Back, alive and well, among her own after two very long years, and with all her important parts still attached. But Talaith’s Izzy had…matured. She’d developed curvy hips, and breasts that had nearly doubled in size, proving Izzy was a late bloomer like her mother. But that was only part of what had happened to Izzy since Talaith had last seen her.

There also wasn’t an ounce of fat on Talaith’s daughter, but she was far from skinny. Instead Izzy was layered in hard-edged muscles rippling powerfully under a short-sleeve tunic and brown leggings. She was also taller—even taller than Annwyl—and her shoulders were strong, wide, and powerful, making Talaith feel puny and weak. It seemed that Izzy had taken after her birth father’s people more than Talaith would have ever thought.

Now Izzy was built like the warrior women of Alsandair. Tall and broad and oh-so-very strong.

229

Even more dangerous, Izzy had become quite beautiful. Beautiful and, if Talaith was a gambling woman, she’d say completely oblivious to it. Izzy got that from her father, too. He’d been stunningly handsome but had no idea about it and to the day of his death always seemed shocked Talaith could love him as much as she did. He had never believed himself worthy.

“Forgot me already then?” Izzy slammed her hands flat on the table, leaned in, and with a bellow that rocked the castle walls, accused, “
Because
you’ve replaced me with another?
”

That bellow snapped Talaith out of her shock. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You didn’t even bother telling me! Do I mean so little to this family?”

Talaith cringed when she realized why her daughter was so angry, and looked to her mate. But he’d turned around and was heading back up the stairs.

Deserting bastard!

“You never said a word,” Izzy went on, ranting and pacing, her cousin Branwen standing behind her, looking unusually distraught. “You all conspired to lie to me!”

“Izzy, you don’t understand—”

“Don’t interrupt me!”

Insulted—she was still this ungrateful brat’s mother—Talaith stormed around the table and over to her daughter. “Don’t you
dare
talk to me like that! I’m still your mother!”

“Barely!” Izzy crossed her arms over her chest. “Were you hoping I wouldn’t come back?” Izzy asked, haughty. “So you could pretend you never had me? Was I such a burden?”

Enraged the brat would even suggest such a thing, Talaith exploded.

“How dare you say such a thing to me!”

“How dare
you
not tell me the truth!”

“
I see being away hasn’t made you any less impossible!
” Talaith screamed.

“
Like mother, like daughter, it seems!
” Izzy screamed back.

“Izzy?” Briec said from the bottom of the stairs, Rhianwen in his arms. “Don’t you want to say hello to your sister before you say good-bye to us all?”

Izzy faced her father, cleared her throat. “No. I don’t.”

“You’re being impossible,” Talaith snapped.

“
I’m
being impossible?”

Briec had walked around until he stood beside Izzy and Talaith.

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And for the first time that Talaith could ever remember, their younger daughter didn’t seem to be content in her father’s arms. Instead she reached for Izzy with both hands, fighting to be held by her.

“I don’t think it’s me she wants,” he said softly.

Izzy rubbed the palms of her hands against her thighs and took a step back. As stubborn as always—Talaith had no idea where her daughter got that from—Izzy silently refused to touch her own sister. And if the surprise and hurt on her father’s face didn’t knock some sense into her, Talaith was at a loss as to what would.

“Tell her the name,” Keita suddenly piped in.

Briec scowled at his sister. “Are you still on that?”

“I’ll be on
that
until the end of time. You might as well have cursed the poor child. Rhianwen he named her. Can you believe it, Izzy? Trying to get in your grandmum’s good graces by selling the babe’s soul.”

“The names aren’t even that close,” he argued. “And leave off, already.”

“Leave off?” Keita came forward, yanking Rhianwen out of her brother’s arms and shoving her at Izzy, giving the stubborn girl no choice but to grab hold of her sister or let her drop to the floor. “I’ll not ‘leave off,’

as you so eloquently put it. But what I will do is call you the suck-up that you truly are. It’s like you have no shame.”