Chapter 27
There were times in Gaius Lucius Domitus’s life when he’d wished things were different. That he was different. That he could simply sit back and accept his uncle’s completely brutal and vicious rule like everyone else in their bloodline. Or that he could overlook the way his kind abused the humans they shared their lives with. Or that keeping someone, anyone, enslaved was something he could completely overlook. If he was different, none of these things would bother him in the least.
And, as he’d stared into the crazed green eyes of a human queen with absolutely no boundaries or sense, he realized this was one of those times he wished he was that kind of dragon.
Gaius had heard about Annwyl the Bloody. Hell,
everyone
had heard about her. She was the half-dead queen who fucked dragons and somehow managed to have offspring with them. Something that, as far as anyone knew, had never been possible between dragons and humans before. There were those who said that on top of being crazy, Annwyl the Bloody was cruel, violent, cold, murderous, nasty, whorish, and a host of other things that made her one of the most reprehensible beings on the planet.
And yet she’d come here herself, risking an unbelievable amount of danger to reach him. She could have sent a messenger, or one of her soldiers. All of whom Gaius would have sent back to her in pieces. Instead she’d come with three dragons and a girl, all of them sneaking through the tunnels under the mountains. Tunnels that most Sovereigns and Irons would never attempt to travel through, which was why Gaius and his troops used them.
“What are you thinking, old friend?”
Varro Marius Parthenius was the son of Laudaricus Parthenius, Thracius’s human leader-representative. Although father and son had never gotten along, Varro had given up much to fight by Gaius’s side. They weren’t merely friends or comrades in arms. They were brothers, species differences be damned.
“I’m thinking the Southlander is right. About Agrippina.”
“She’s insane, Gaius. How can you believe anything that woman says?”
“Because Aggie’s my sister. We came from the same egg. And every day I feel her dying. Bit by bit. Inside. So that even if she walks out of our uncle’s dungeon one day, she’ll just be a walking corpse. She won’t be my Aggie.”
“Then we attack. Now. Tonight.”
“And we never get past the front gates and Vateria will crucify Aggie in front of us. The gods know Vateria’s been waiting to. But she also knows keeping Aggie alive is the only reason I haven’t made a move while Thracius has been gone for five years.” Gaius shifted to human and, after pulling on leggings and boots, sat down beside his friend.
“There is another option,” Varro said, his voice nearly a whisper from the shame of the words he was forcing himself to speak. “We now have something Vateria wants. Needs, even.”
Gaius shook his head. “I’m a bastard, Varro. But I’m not that big a bastard.”
“Yes, but—”
“To turn Annwyl over to Vateria will be giving that snake exactly what she wants. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
“Not even for Aggie?”
“I’m doing it for Aggie. There are some things she simply won’t forgive me for. Giving Vateria
anything
is definitely one of them.”
“Then what do we do, old friend? The mad queen is not leaving.”
The pair stared at each other. Then they leaned far over so they could see past the cave wall and into the cavern in which the queen and her guards were waiting. They watched the royal as she sat quietly, staring off at nothing in particular. Around her, her guards chatted, looked worried, concerned, anxious. But the queen didn’t seem to have any of those emotions. She just sat there.
Then, all of a sudden, she slowly turned just her head and looked at Gaius and Varro. All Gaius could see were vibrant green eyes scowling at him from behind a stringy mass of light brown hair. The friends immediately sat back.
“She’s what we’ve always heard, Gaius,” Varro warned. “She’s crazed.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“She’s coming in here.”
And she did, forcing her way past Gaius’s guards and into his private chamber. “Well?” she demanded, folding her arms over her chest.
“Well what?”
“It’s a simple enough deal, Rebel King. I get your sister.... You help me stop Thracius. What are you not grasping? Gods, are you slow? No one warned me that you were slow.”
Gaius gripped the sword lying next to him, but Varro caught his hand and held it.
The queen looked at their joined hands, then them. “You two together then?”
“Together? What?”
She focused on Varro. “Can’t you talk to your mate? Get him to see reason?”
Gaius snatched his hand back and jumped to his feet. “Out!” he roared.
Annwyl pursed her lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Gaius—”
Ignoring the warning in Varro’s voice, Gaius stalked up to the queen. “Get out. Now.”
She stared up at him, then asked, “How did you lose that eye?” Startled by the question and then by Annwyl reaching up to lift his eye patch, Gaius slapped her hands away. So she slapped him back. They were slapping and kicking and shoving each other until Varro got between them.
“Stop it! Both of you!”
Fed up, Gaius headed toward the exit, pushing past his own troops and the queen’s guard. Behind him Annwyl followed.
“I’m not leaving!” she yelled at his back. “I’m staying right here until I get what I want!”
“Then I guess you’re going to die here, female. Because you’ll get
nothing
from me!”
“You handled that well,” Izzy muttered, and Annwyl turned on her, pointing her finger in her face.
“Don’t start with me, little girl.”
“Not starting. Simply making an observation, my liege.”
“Just like your mum with that
tone
.”
“So what are we going to do now?” Rhona asked, proving she was the sanest of the group in Vigholf’s estimation.
“I’m not leaving.” Then Annwyl screamed at where the king had walked out, “
Ever!
”
“Gods deliver us,” Rhona muttered, walking away from the queen.
“So we’re just going to stand here?” Vigholf asked. “Until the king you just pissed off comes back in here and changes his mind? That dragon’s never changing his mind.”
“Why not?”
Vigholf frowned and replied, “He hates you.”
“Everyone hates me at some point or another. They get over it.”
“I haven’t,” Rhona snapped.
“Annwyl,” Vigholf cut in. “We have to get back to Euphrasia. We have to help our troops, our kin.”
“If we leave now . . . we lose. Don’t you understand that?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Do not question me, foreigner!”
Annwyl bellowed, but just as quickly it seemed the fight went out of her. She rubbed at her eyes with her fists. “I can’t talk about this now.”
The queen walked off, and Izzy motioned to Branwen. “Keep an eye on her.”
The She-dragon followed after the royal and Rhona’s pretty human face turned red. “Why is my cousin taking orders from
you
?”
“That wasn’t really an order, but if it was, she’d
still
have to listen to me. I’m the Queen’s Squire.”
“In what world does a squire outrank a private?”
“In Annwyl’s world. Now do me a favor and get off my back.” Izzy stepped away.
“Don’t walk away from me, little girl.”
Izzy spun back to face Rhona, her finger pointed at her. “I am
not
a little girl. And I don’t report to you, cousin.”
“Not my cousin. Not by blood you’re not.”
Vigholf flinched at that direct hit, and he wasn’t surprised that Izzy’s laugh was bitter.
“Good to know,” the girl sneered.
“Where are you going, Izzy?” Vigholf asked her as she walked away.
“To get us a place to sleep and some food. And, if we’re lucky, a lake to bathe in.”
“I don’t think we should separate.”
“Well, you can’t expect me to stay here,” Izzy snapped before she disappeared down an alcove.
“What the hells are you doing?” Vigholf demanded.
“You’re blaming me for this?”
“You attacked her!”
“She seems to think she’s a Cadwaladr. Then she should be raised the Cadwaladr way and be given a good thrashing for being such a pain in the ass!”
Vigholf pulled Rhona around until she faced him. “Nothing you do or say is going to change what happened between Izzy and Celyn. In fact the only thing you really have to worry about is pissing off Annwyl because clearly she’s protective of Izzy on this. And, personally, I’d really like to avoid pissing off Annwyl if we can.”
“You think I’m being unreasonable.”
“No. I think you’re being the Babysitter. But blaming Izzy for what happened . . . it just doesn’t seem fair to me.”
“She shouldn’t have gotten between cousins.”
“She didn’t. What she did is get laid. Good and proper from the sound of it.”
Gasping, Rhona thumped him on the chest. “Vigholf!”
“What? Can you tell me I’m wrong?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point? I mean other than you holding a grudge against something a nineteen-year-old
human
girl did with your nearly hundred-year-old cousin that pissed off another nearly hundred-year-old cousin because he didn’t have the balls to go after what he wanted in the first place.”
“You’ve never liked Éibhear.”
“That’s not it. I just know what I saw. And Izzy was the long-legged bone caught between two pit dogs. Don’t blame her for that.”
“So you want me to blame them instead?”
“I don’t want you to blame anyone. In fact . . . I think you should mind your own gods-damn business.”
“Oy!”
He tightened his grip around her waist so she couldn’t walk away from him. “Just hear me out. In order to grow up in this world, you sometimes have to do really dumb shit. Some of us do dumber shit than others.” He pointed at himself, making Rhona chuckle. “Some of us never have a chance to do really dumb shit.” He pointed at Rhona. “And some of us wallow in dumb shit until it blows up in our face.”
“And that would be Éibhear and Celyn?”
“And Izzy. But they’ll have to learn the hard way because they’re so bloody hardheaded. Trust me when I say there’s nothing you can do about that. But what you can do is not treat Izzy like some treacherous whore out to destroy those two idiots. If for no other reason than we need her focused and ready for whatever ends up coming our way. Not worrying that all her kin have turned against her.”
Rhona closed her eyes and let out a breath. “You’re right.” After dealing with Éibhear and Celyn for five long years, it had been easier to blame it all on Izzy—since the girl wasn’t there and Rhona had to live with the other two—than it was to simply chalk it up to bad decisions on all their parts.
“Hey.” Vigholf tilted her chin up with his finger. “Look at me.” She did. “There’s no blame here. None. Let’s just try to make it out of this alive.”
“You can’t really think we’re going to—”
“Positive. You must think
positive.
Like me.”
Vigholf winked at her and Rhona went up on her toes, her hand around the back of his neck, bringing him in for a kiss. She was beginning to adore this dragon and she had no idea what to do with that. Then again . . . if they got killed tomorrow, it wouldn’t really matter.
Their lips touched and that’s when they heard, “Ooops. Sorry!”
Rhona pulled away from Vigholf and watched Branwen back out of the cavern. A moment later, they heard her announce, “Oy! Iz! You owe me that ale. Told you these two were fuckin’.”
“See?” Vigholf teased. “Positive.”
“Yeah, positive. I’m positive every one of my kin is insane.”
Chapter 28
Briec the Mighty felt like he’d been stuck in this boring place for
years
. Nothing to read. Nothing to do but sit. Gods, he was so bored!
He looked off and he could see land, but he could never reach it. Under one sun, he could see dragons enjoying themselves. Eating and drinking and, from the looks of it, fucking.
And here he sat . . . trapped.
“And bored!” he yelled out. “I am so
bored
! ”
The parchment floated from the sky and landed right by him. Briec picked it up. It wasn’t, as he’d hoped, a letter with instructions telling him exactly how to get out of here or, at the very least, directions that led over to the more funlooking place with all the dragons having a good time. But it did have something at the top he recognized.
Written very carefully was:
For My Daddy.
Briec smiled. When posts were still getting through, he’d often get sweet little drawings from Rhian with always the same message at the top. Yet this . . . this was different. She usually drew horses or birds or the castle she lived in. But this was just . . . symbols.
Why was she drawing him symbols? Symbols that he vaguely—very vaguely—remembered.
He smoothed out the parchment on the ground. Yes. He did recognize at least one of the symbols. From his Dragonmage training days, when he thought that immersing himself in books and Magicks would be his entire life. But the call of the Dragonwarrior had overshadowed it and that was the way he’d headed. Yet he still remembered things. Like this symbol. It was incredibly old. And, if memory served, incredibly powerful.
“Where? Where do I know this from?”
Briec took his talon and followed the patterns on the parchment. The drawings looped and swirled around the page, and as Briec’s talon moved over the images, they began to lift off the parchment. They came alive, growing in size and swirling around him. He watched in fascination, the images moving faster and faster while growing brighter and brighter until Briec could no longer stand to look at them. Until he could no longer see. Until the screaming had him sitting up straight with a roar.
Panting, he opened his eyes and looked straight at his brother.
“Fearghus?”
“Briec?”
Briec looked around. He was no longer on that lonely piece of land. He was in the cave, the sounds of an ongoing assault from siege weapons a welcome sound to his bored ears.
“Thank the gods. What a shit dream.” He smiled, but his brother just kept staring at him, saying nothing. Then Ragnar ran in, several of the healers behind him. And then they all stared at him, too.
“What? Why are you all looking at me?” When no one answered, he stood, which made them all gawk at him more. “
What?
” When they
still
didn’t answer, he shook his head.
“I’m getting something to eat. I’m hungry.” He eased past them, not sure why they were all gawking, not sure he even wanted to ask. He could find out later . . . when they all regained the power of speech.
Fearghus pointed at where his brother had laid, near death, and then at where he’d just walked out. “How . . . ?”
Ragnar shook his head. “I don’t know. You saw him, Fearghus. His back was . . . was . . .”
“Fucked. That’s the terminology we use among our kin. His back was fucked.”
“Yes. I didn’t think he’d survive, much less . . .”
“Walk. But then how . . . ?”
“I don’t know,” Ragnar told him gravely. “And perhaps we don’t want to know what dark forces have your brother healed and walking as if nothing had happened.”
Rhian released her cousins’ hands and smiled. “That was fun!”
“That was boring,” Tally complained. Then she glared at her cousin. “And we still don’t have our swords.”
“I said I was sorry!”
“But that doesn’t bring back our swords!” Tally pointed a warning finger. “And don’t you cry, ya big baby!”
“I am
not
a baby!”
The door to the small room they were in on the top floor of the castle opened and Ebba walked in. She scowled down at them. “How . . . when did you . . .” She stamped her foot and whispered, “How do you keep getting away from me?”
Rhian and Tally just stared at Ebba, and Talan . . . well, Talan yawned and was asleep before his head landed comfortably in Rhian’s lap. Either someone’s lap or some dog’s back were usually his favorite places for naps.
Annwyl didn’t sleep that night. Then again, she didn’t sleep much anymore. No matter how exhausted she was, the task of closing her eyes and sleeping was lost to her.
She missed sleeping. She missed shutting everything in her mind off for a few hours. Yet somehow her body kept going, though she didn’t understand how that was possible. She should be dead on her feet, but she kept going.
Then again, she was being pushed, wasn’t she? Always pushed.
When she heard people and dragons moving about, she guessed it was morning and went in search of some place to bathe. Izzy, after handing her some bread and cheese, told her she’d found an underground lake, but Annwyl had just nodded at that. She hadn’t been in the mood to find it. She hadn’t been in the mood to feel water on her skin. Instead she stood in the middle of that big cavern and waited. Waited for the Rebel King to do what she needed him to do.
Yet when morning finally came she still hadn’t gotten her way. So with time quickly running down, Annwyl searched out that lake. She was vaguely aware that, as she walked along, human and dragon alike moved out of her way. No one wanted to get near the “crazed queen.”
There was a time Annwyl would laugh at that kind of reaction. She was only as crazy as she needed to be to get the job done, she’d often tell her mate. But these days, Annwyl was beginning to feel as crazy as everyone thought she was.
Probably the loss of sleep. She was pretty sure one needed sleep, a good sleep, to function properly. How could she expect to function properly when she couldn’t sleep? When they wouldn’t let her sleep. Why wouldn’t they let her sleep?
Annwyl found the lake and stripped off her clothes and dived in. She scrubbed her scalp, realizing she still had bits and pieces of the Sovereign soldiers who’d taken her stuck in her hair and on her body. Her original plan had been to kidnap the commander of one of the Sovereign units and find out the information she needed to track down Gaius, but she had to allow herself to be taken instead. That’s what she’d been told to do.
She was tired of being told to do things.
Dragging her body out of the water, Annwyl sat on the edge of the lake naked and soaking wet, her arms wrapped around her raised legs, her forehead resting on her knees. She began to rock back and forth. She tried not to do that—it seemed to upset everyone when she did—but it felt soothing to her somehow. So she rocked and she tried to think. But her mind . . . it was so tired.
It was usually when it got this bad that he showed up. He did what he always did. Laid down next to her, pressed his head against her.
“He won’t help,” she told him. “Your Rebel King that you were so sure about. He won’t help.” She began to rock more, harder. “I could just go there myself without him.” And she knew she was babbling—again. But she couldn’t stop. “I could just go there and kill everyone. Everyone in the Provinces. I could kill them. The soldiers, the guards, the women, the children. I could kill them all until I get what you want. Until I kill the one you want. You just want the head, right? I could bring that to you. I could stab and stab until I get the gods-damn head! I could—”
He licked her. Giant, wet, disgusting tongue, slathering across her forehead.
She leaned away from him, but then she blinked, and everything sort of came into focus. She stopped rocking. She stopped babbling.
Annwyl looked at what sat next to her. “You should have come sooner,” she said, calmly. “I’m relatively certain I’ve destroyed any hope we had he was going to help.”
She took a breath. It felt so good to think again without all the screaming that went on inside her poor brain. “Look, if all you need is for me to kill—”
He pressed his snout against her cheek and that’s when Annwyl heard that voice in her head. He only talked to her like this. Probably because he was a big, shaggy wolf-god. The one time he’d softly “moofed” around her, Annwyl’s ears had bled for days. She thought for sure she’d be deaf forever. So he did this instead. Told her things in her mind and she listened. She had no choice.
Because Thracius had a god on his side, too. Helping him fight and win, unless Annwyl did something. Unless Annwyl went against everything she believed in and gave her soul to a god. At least she liked dogs. That helped.
“All right,” she told him when he’d finished telling her what to do. “I’ll suggest it. But when this is over”—she looked at the god lying beside her—“I want my life back.”
He nodded, then pushed his body into hers.
“Is that really necessary?” she demanded. “I’m not some whore who will just do things on command. I’m a bloody queen!”
But her protests were ignored and he pushed her again.
Sighing, Annwyl got to her knees. “I’m doing this,” she said, “But if you ever tell Fearghus—I’ll find a way to destroy you.”
With a quick glance around to make sure they were alone, Annwyl gripped the wolf-god, Nannulf was his name, on either side of his head behind his ears and proceeded to dig her fingers in and scratch and scratch and scratch.
The wolf-god rolled to his side, Annwyl’s hands still on him, his tongue hanging out, his eyes closed, and a low growl rumbling from his chest that managed to shake the cave walls.
“Shameless, ya are,” Annwyl told him, even as she couldn’t help but smile a little. “Bloody shameless!”
Rhona was getting dressed when the cave walls shook a bit. She glanced over at Vigholf. “Earthquake?” she asked.
“Sounds like it. But minor.” Finished pulling on his boots, he stood. “I’m—”
“Yes. I know. You’re starving.” She laughed, shook her head. “Go, find food. I’ll be along in a minute.”
Vigholf left and Rhona closed her eyes and sent out her thoughts to her sisters. Any of them. Then her brothers. She still heard nothing back and she tried hard not to panic.
But gods, how could she not? Annwyl told them the siege had begun—and Rhona didn’t really want to think much on how the royal had known that when she’d been off in the Western Mountains before they had—and yet here Rhona was. In the Septima Mountains with a bunch of worthless rebels—hiding! A Cadwaladr hiding! Gods, what she’d come to.
“Have you seen Annwyl?”
Rhona opened her eyes and looked up. Izzy, freshly bathed and with clean clothes on, stood in the entrance to the private alcove Rhona and Vigholf had made their temporary home. The Rebels hadn’t seemed to care what they did. It was like they didn’t exist for them because their king was ignoring Annwyl.
“No,” Rhona replied. “I haven’t.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Izzy turned to go.
“Izzy.”
She stopped, faced Rhona again.
“What I said to you last night about not being my cousin . . . I’m sorry. You are kin and like most of them you’ve really pissed me off. But that was an unfair hit, even for me.” She cleared her throat. “I sounded like me mum.”
Izzy let out a breath and stepped farther into the alcove. “You were just trying to protect your own and . . . I understand that. I still don’t think it’s your business,” she felt the need to add. “But I do understand it. And I’m sorry if I snapped.”
Rhona got to her feet, picking up the chain-mail shirt her father had made for her. “Now you see, Izzy, that’s what makes you stick out in this family. You actually apologize. You
feel
real regret. How can you fit in with the Cadwaladrs when you do all that?”
Izzy chuckled.
“I can assure you that those two idiots ain’t apologizing for a gods-damn thing. Instead they just fight. Constantly.”
Shaking her head, Izzy said, “I didn’t mean for them to.... I was never going to tell.... I was just going to . . .”
“Enjoy?”
She flinched. “Yeah. I guess.”
Rhona pulled her shirt over her head. “I will say that you shouldn’t have expected any Cadwaladr male to keep his mouth shut about a conquest. That was, I think, your only real mistake here.”
“No one told Éibhear. He sort of... saw us.”
“Oh. Well, that’s awkward.”
“And then he went round the bend. Beating up poor Celyn.”
Rhona snorted. “Poor Celyn, my tail. I don’t feel sorry for either one of them. And you shouldn’t either.” She stood in front of Izzy. The girl was as tall as any She-dragon in human form, as wide too. A powerfully built female with a pretty smile.
Gods. Those two idiots don’t stand a chance.
“Do you love Celyn?”
“I love him . . .”