"No, you have not!"

"I think we have." His fingers moved up and down her sides, making Dagmar squeal like a child. Although even as a child, she was never one to squeal. Or laugh. Or giggle. A chuckle now and then, but that was the most she could manage on a good day.

It didn't help that Gwenvael seemed quite entertained at the moment, swinging her around like a tiny kitten while his fingers kept up the pressure.

He suddenly stopped and ordered, "Apologize."

"Never."

He began again, whirling her around. They were both laughing, Dagmar trying desperately to get his hands off her when she saw Saamik standing in the doorway. She knew Gwenvael saw her, too, when Dagmar's feet suddenly landed on the floor with a thump.

"I can come back, my lady," Saamik said, not even bothering to hide her smile.

"No, no. Don't be silly."

"Actually," Gwenvael cut in. "Five more minutes-ow!"

Bercelak the Great, Consort to the Dragon Queen, Dragonwarrior Supreme of the Old Guard, Supreme Commander of the Dragon Queen's Armies, and All Around Kicker of a.s.s of the Dragon Queen's Royal Brats, landed near the blood-covered battlefield. His youngest son, eibhear, had accompanied him and hadn't shut up in hours.

He loved all his offspring. He truly did. But they each had personality traits that wore the edges off his nerves on his best day. This was not one of his best days. Far from it. Running errands for his queen and love was nothing new and normally he didn't mind.

Yet this particular errand galled him more than any of the others because he knew it was too dangerous a move. But would she listen? Of course not. Instead she followed the dictates of her idiot hatchlings. His idiot hatchlings.

But to involve the Cadwaladrs was foolish. Bercelak had always considered his kin a last resort.

If one wanted to raze an entire city to the ground-followed by one of his cousins saying, "Ohhh ... didn't mean to do all that, now did I?"-then one called in the Cadwaladrs.

Originally Rhiannon had wanted him to put out a call to all his kin, but that was simply too horrifying a prospect because he knew, without one iota of doubt, they'd come. Instead, he promised to secure his more rational sister and brother. They'd been fighting in the west for months with most of their offspring plus quite a few others of the Cadwaladr bloodline. That would be more than enough to protect one human queen and his son's sp.a.w.n.

"I don't understand," his youngest blathered on. "How am I supposed to become a great warrior if you won't send me into real battles?"

"You'll get there eventually. Just stop whining about it."

"I'm not whining. It's a fair question. You're holding me back."

"Is that what you think?"

"It's true, isn't it? Fearghus, Briec, and Gwenvael had all been sent off to fight long before they were in their nineties. Yet here I am, running errands and being treated like I'm newly hatched."

eibhear really didn't understand, did he? He couldn't compare himself to his older and much more devious brothers. Unlike that lot, eibhear cared. Not merely about himself, the acceptable selfish att.i.tude of most dragons, but about everyone. He cared if humans were safe, if they were happy. If dragons were happy! When were dragons ever happy-at least in that ridiculous human sense of the word? And why would he care if they were or not?

"I just think it's unfair you're not giving me a chance like you gave the others. What makes them so b.l.o.o.d.y special?"

As Bercelak turned to his son, he sensed the air moving and vibrating behind him. Acting on instinct and more years of what his own father had considered "training" than he cared to think about, Bercelak shoved his son to the side as a dragon's broadsword-the length of a human soldier's battle lance, the width of a middle-aged tree trunk-landed in the spot eibhear had stood.

His son's silver eyes widened, his gaze locked at where the tip of that mighty blade met eibhear's claw prints.

"And that, boy, is the difference between you and your brothers," Bercelak snapped, fear for his youngest son making his words hard. "They would have seen that blade coming."

His son flinched at the truth of Bercelak's words as the sword was yanked from the ground.

Ghleanna the Decimator grinned at Bercelak. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, brother. Seems you haven't trained your offspring well enough. Father would be horribly disappointed, Bercelak the Black."

"That'll keep me up nights," he shot back.

"Aaaah. My baby brother is still as charming as the day he was hatched." She slid the blade back in the scabbard tied to her back before throwing herself into Bercelak's arms. "You old b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You never change."

"Nor you." He gave a brief but hard hug to his beloved sister before holding her at arm's length and motioning to the blood-covered field of battle that lay before them. "Is this all your work?"

"Not all mine." She turned and smiled. "Little eibhear?" she asked with a huge laugh.

"I was." The pair hugged. "I'm much bigger now."

"That you are." Her arm around eibhear's shoulder, her tail scratching the top of his head affectionately, Ghleanna asked, "Well, brother, what brings you out to the west? And don't p.u.s.s.yfoot; you know how much I hate that."

"It's a long story, and I'm tired. Got a cave we can-"

"Tents. We've been living among the human warriors."

Bercelak's head fell back against his shoulders and he sighed. "You're living as humans ... again?"

"You know how it entertains us. But there's food, a warm place to sleep, and your family to help you, brother. Truly, what more could a dragon want?"

"A b.l.o.o.d.y cave."

"Growl, growl. Snarl, snarl." She motioned to him as she headed through the recent field of battle, her strong arm still around eibhear. "Come on, Lord Angry."

Bercelak muttered under his breath and followed his sister down to the camp. Once a few feet away, father and son shifted to human and changed into the clothes they'd brought with them. Ghleanna slammed her broadsword and sheath into the ground beside several rows of dragon weapons. She shifted, grabbed clothes from a hanging line, and clothed herself.

They entered the camp and Bercelak immediately saw his older brother Addolgar wrestling with one of his six sons. One of Addolgar's seven daughters was trying to bring her father down, and doing a p.i.s.s-poor job of it from what Bercelak could tell. Like most of the Cadwaladrs, his kin never seemed to know when they'd had enough hatchlings. Thirteen for Addolgar, eight for Ghleanna, and a horrifying eighteen for his sister Maelona. And Bercelak himself came from a group of fifteen, what Rhiannon's mother used to refer to as "Shalin's litter of offspring." An insult Shalin, Bercelak's much-loved and much-missed mother always took with a smile because she'd won the prize. She'd won Bercelak's father, Ailean.

Now, with only six offspring of his own, Bercelak was often pitied by his siblings. Yet that had been a conscious choice between him and Rhiannon. And if his kin knew how much trouble six royal pains in the a.s.s could be, they'd pity him for other reasons.

"Ho, Addolgar!" Ghleanna stopped by the cooking fire and grabbed a well-roasted chicken. "Look who has come to call." She tossed the whole bird to eibhear.

"Aw, thanks. I'm starving."

"I figured. Could hear that stomach of yours growling from here. Sounds like mountains shifting."

Addolgar knocked his son in the dirt and walked over to Bercelak. "Ho, brother!" They clasped hands and Addolgar smiled. Bercelak didn't glare, which he'd always considered similar to a smile.

Glancing over his shoulder, Addolgar asked, "Are you done?"

"Oh!" The young dragoness released her father and dropped to the ground. Her human form was not very large and Bercelak guessed it must frustrate her. "This isn't over!" She stormed off and Addolgar laughed.

"Just like her mum, that one." Addolgar eyed his brother. "So, what brings you here, Queen's Consort?"

"That idiot son of mine and his human mate."

Addolgar crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't you have two hatchlings with that flaw now?"

Bercelak bared a fang while his siblings' laughter rang out through the camp.

"Where are we going now?" Gwenvael asked, looking around the alley they'd stepped into.

"To the Great Library." Dagmar closed the back door to the seamstress's shop behind her. "There's someone I need to find."

"Who?"

"A friend."

"Does he have a name?"

"Why wouldn't he?"

"You plan to tell me?"

"Why would you need to know?"

"Why wouldn't I need to know?"

Dagmar held her hands up to stop him and herself. "Reason knows, we could do this all day." Very true. He could ask her questions until her weak little eyes bled. "But we're wasting time. I have a grand library to visit, and you have to get back to your precious queen."

"True, but you still have information to provide me."

"Which you will get once I'm done here and you take me to Gestur's." She raised her skirts a bit and walked off, her haughtiness wrapped around her like her cloak.

"Sn.o.bby cow," he muttered, thinking she couldn't hear him.

He quickly realized that what her eyes lacked, she'd made up for with her hearing when she spun on her heel, raised her middle and forefinger, and flicked him off before spinning back. She never missed a step and was out of the alley before Gwenvael realized it.

"And quite surly, too," he called after her.

Chapter 12.

The Great Library of Spikenhammer was beyond Dagmar's imaginings, with its marble columns and floors, plus the rows and rows of exquisitely made floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Nearly all the shelf s.p.a.ce was filled with tomes from all over the Northlands, Southlands, and the west. The east was less represented since a vast and temperamental sea separated them.

"You all right?"

"Isn't this amazing?" she sighed.

Gwenvael shrugged. "It's just books."

"It's not just books, you cretin. It's knowledge."

"Not the knowledge you can use every day. You get that from talking to people. Chatting them up in the pubs and the market."

"Are you being contrary on purpose?"

"I didn't know I was being contrary. I thought we were having a discussion."

"Not really." She stepped away from him, her fingers gliding along the big marble tables that had oversized books open for anyone to peruse at their leisure. "If I'd been born a man ... This would have been the dream life for me. All day, all night with nothing but books."

He shook his head. "You are such a liar."

Insulted he spat that out so quickly, she faced him. "I beg your pardon?"

"You want me to believe you'd be happy trapped here? With all these quiet, boring library monks and their vows of suffering? My Lady Dagmar, we both know that is not the life for you."

"Is that right? And what is?"

He took a step and was barely an inch or two from her body. "Plotting, planning, negotiating, and, very often, lying."

Dagmar opened her mouth to argue, but he stopped her with a raised hand. "I'm not talking about the kind of lying your sister-in-law does. She wouldn't know truth if it slammed into that recently abused a.s.s of hers." Dagmar laughed but immediately stopped when one of the monks gave her a vicious warning glare. "I'm talking about the ability to successfully manage truth and facts to get what you need. Now that, my Lady Reason, is a gift."

"I have to say I've never been so beautifully insulted before."

He beamed. "And that's my gift."

They laughed together now, ignoring the glares of the monks until one of the much older ones stormed over and banged the flat of his hand against the marble table, startling them both.

"Perhaps," Gwenvael cheerfully explained to the monk, "you wouldn't be so tense, Brother, if you managed to get a good fu-"

Dagmar slammed her foot down on his instep before Gwenvael could finish that particular sentence and bowed her head at the monk. "Ever so sorry, Brother. We'll be quiet."

With a sniff, the monk stormed off, and Dagmar watched Gwenvael holding his foot and rubbing it. It was an odd physical position for such a large male to be in, but it fit him somehow.

"Do you mind not getting us thrown out of here until I get what I need?"

"What you need?" He dropped his foot to the floor. "You should have said something."

"Said something about what?"

His answer was to grab her hand and pull her deep into the stacks. "Where are we going?" she demanded. "I don't need any books at the moment."

"Neither do I," he growled before turning and pushing her back into a corner.

Dagmar's hands flew up and braced against his shoulders. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Helping you get what you need." Gwenvael took hold of her hands and pinned her arms behind her back, forcing her up onto her toes, her chest lifted and pressed against him. "And I'm seeing if I dreamed that d.a.m.n kiss last night."