"You forgot the best part," Gwenvael added. "She was playing Run and Jump with Celyn."

Briec buried his head back into the bedding while Fearghus sat up straight, scowling. "That dirty little b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"My thoughts exactly, brother. I say we go out there and kick the s.h.i.t out of him."

eibhear let out a bored sigh. "Who cares?"

Gwenvael looked at Fearghus, Fearghus looked at Briec, and Briec's head popped back up off the bed.

Leaning over the foot of the bed, Gwenvael asked, "What was that?"

"I said 'who cares?' "

"You don't?"

"No. I don't."

"He's such a liar," Gwenvael mouthed to Fearghus.

"I know!" Fearghus mouthed back.

eibhear slammed his book closed. "And whatever you two b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are doing, stop it."

Dagmar soaked in the tub, her hair and body scrubbed clean. And while she relaxed in the steaming water, Annwyl and Lady Morfyd ate from large platters of food placed on the table in front of them.

Morfyd, it turned out, was another b.l.o.o.d.y dragon in disguise, and Gwenvael's older sister. She was beautiful with long white hair and a long, lean body, easily seen once she pulled off the voluminous witches' robes she wore and relaxed at the table in a thin pale pink gown. She was nothing like Gwenvael, however; that was clear enough. Sweet, borderline shy, and soft-spoken, she didn't seem to have anything in common with her sibling.

"Here." Morfyd handed her a small plate piled with food easily eaten without utensils. "A little something while you relax."

"Thank you." Dagmar popped a round ball of fried dough into her mouth and sighed.

Oh, yes, she could definitely get used to this.

"Minotaurs?" Annwyl asked again. "I didn't think they existed."

"You said the same thing about Centaurs," Morfyd reminded the monarch, "until you got that hoof to the back of the head."

"She snuck up on me," Annwyl snarled between clenched teeth. And, just as quickly, her anger faded and she held up a bottle. "Wine, Dagmar?"

"Yes, please."

The queen poured a chalice of wine, and Dagmar asked what had been perplexing her for some time. "Why do they want you dead? It's the question I haven't been able to get answered."

"That's easy-" Annwyl began, but Morfyd quickly cut her off.

"It's very complicated. There's much that leads us to this point. So I will start from the beginning-"

"Fearghus knocked me up," Annwyl blurted out.

"G.o.ds dammit, Annwyl!" Morfyd exploded.

"That's the main part of the story."

"I'm not sure why it matters." Dagmar picked up another piece of baked something or other and nearly melted away in her bath it tasted so delicious.

"Gwenvael didn't tell you who Fearghus is, did he?"

"He's Annwyl's consort."

"And our brother."

Dagmar swallowed her food. "So he's a ..."

"Yes."

"But Annwyl is ..."

"Yes."

"How is that possible?"

"Again," Morfyd said patiently. "It gets very complex. If we look back at history and the beginning of-"

"The G.o.d Rhydderch Hael has been playing with my insides."

"G.o.ds dammit, Annwyl!"

"You're taking too b.l.o.o.d.y long!"

"Before this gets ugly," Dagmar easily coasted in, "perhaps we should discuss the tunnels I told you about?"

Morfyd studied her closely and asked, "Does it not bother you?"

She knew she didn't mean the tunnels. "Bothered by what?"

"The soon-to-happen unholy birth of Annwyl's sp.a.w.n?"

"Oy!" Annwyl objected.

"Pardon?" Dagmar asked before popping another delicious something in her mouth.

"No offense, Dagmar, but so far every human who's been told about Annwyl's pregnancy without the necessary backstory has been quick to label Annwyl a wh.o.r.e and her babes demons. Yet you don't seem to care."

"Am I carrying her children?" Dagmar inquired while licking her fingers.

Morfyd raised a white brow. "Not that I'm aware."

"Then to quote my father, 'I really don't give a battle-f.u.c.k.' "

Annwyl coughed up whatever she'd just put in her mouth, hitting Morfyd in the face.

"I do, however, have concerns over those tunnels, so we'll focus on that."

Gwenvael stretched his legs out and wiggled his toes. "I'm so exhausted. All that b.l.o.o.d.y flying."

"Don't sleep yet," Briec said, comfortably sitting next to him. "You have to come to the dinner tonight, or you'll never hear the end of if it from the aunts."

"Do I have to?"

"Don't whine," Fearghus snapped, sitting next to Briec. "And yes, you have to. At the very least you need to entertain your Northland guest. And I still haven't heard why you brought her here."

"Because that Lightning wants her here, and until I find out why he wants her here-here she stays."

"You just want to f.u.c.k her."

"Yes," he hissed at Briec's question. "But that's not all. She's extremely smart and has a delightful sense of evil that I truly appreciate."

"And you want to f.u.c.k her."

He sighed. "Is it too much to ask that my brothers take their minds from the gutter and into the fresh air?"

"Watch your back, Gwenvael," Fearghus warned. "She has been chumming around for twenty years with Olgeir's son."

"She didn't know."

"So she says. But at the end of the day, you have to remember, she is and always will be a Northlander. They live by a different set of rules than we do."

"I know. They have a Code. How come we don't have a code?"

"We can't get you to adhere to the general rules of decency ... how do we enforce a code?"

"Good point." Gwenvael looked between his brothers. "One more time?"

They nodded in agreement.

"All right. On three. One, two ... three!"

All three of them stood and as quickly dropped back down, slamming once more into eibhear's back. He let out a yelp of pain and tried again to straggle out from under them.

"You're all b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

"Don't whine!" Gwenvael chastised. "Just admit that you're crazy about Iz-"

"Shut up!"

Dagmar pulled on the much-too-large, but lusciously soft robe, belting it in the middle. She took another gla.s.s of wine from Morfyd and dropped into the chair Annwyl had vacated. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome." Morfyd again studied the maps Dagmar had given her. "I'll give these to Brastias. Perhaps he can figure out where all these lines go. Or my brother, eibhear. He's very good with maps."

"I'll help as much as I can," she promised.

Morfyd looked up from her notes. "Tell me, Dagmar, do you talk to Gwenvael?"

"Yes."

"Full conversations?"

"Yes."

"And he holds your interest?"

Annwyl laughed at that, but Dagmar didn't. "As a matter of fact, Lady Morfyd, I find your brother quite intelligent, with excellent ideas and thoughts on a range of topics. Perhaps you should find the time to have a full conversation with him before you judge what you don't know."

Morfyd stared at her with wide eyes and Dagmar felt a little guilty. But before she could apologize the bedroom door flew open and another woman marched in. She was a few inches taller than Dagmar and stunningly beautiful with brown skin just like the soldier-for-hire Dagmar had met. Now she'd seen two women of the desert lands in less than a week, when she'd seen none for the thirty years before that.

"I've been looking everywhere for you two," the woman snarled, slamming the door closed behind her. "And anyone like to explain what the h.e.l.l Run and Jump is?"

Annwyl slowly rolled onto her side, away from the woman glaring at everyone in the room.

"Waiting for an answer!" she bellowed, looking quite comfortable yet gorgeous in the plain black leggings she wore with black boots, a loose off-white linen shirt, and a thin leather tie that pulled back her long ma.s.s of black curly hair. Nothing else adorned her body except a silver chain necklace that disappeared under her shirt and a small sheathed dagger she had tied to her upper thigh.

It probably took her all of five minutes to dress every day, but Dagmar knew her brothers' wives spent hours attempting to look as effortlessly beautiful as this woman.

"Well ..." Morfyd gave a small shrug. "If you're talking about dragons, it's a little game hatchlings play with their parents. You know, before their wings can actually carry them, when the family's out flying. The hatchlings will run and jump from one parent to the next. I did it with mine. It was fun, but it also helps the hatchlings learn how to fly because very often you'll catch the wind and you learn to coast."

"Right," the woman said, her smile not fooling Dagmar at all, "fun and a learning experience." That's when she leaned down and screamed into poor Morfyd's face, "And that's why my daughter is doing it with your family!"

Morfyd's eyes grew wide. "Oh."

"Yeah! 'Oh'!" She turned toward Annwyl. "And I blame your fat a.s.s for this, you pregnant sow!"

"Me?" Rolling back to her other side, Annwyl faced them. "How is this my b.l.o.o.d.y fault?"

"She's out of control and it is your fault." The woman threw herself into a chair and said in a mocking, childlike voice, " 'They say I can go to war. They say I'm really good. I want to be the Queen's Champion one day.' Your fault!" she finished in her own healthy yell.

"I haven't watched training in three months, how is this my fault?"

"Brastias speaks for you now, does he not?"

Annwyl pursed her lips before slowly stating, "He is in complete charge of my armies until I can mount my war horse without him whinnying in terror, yes."

"Then it's your fault! Because he says she's ready to go to war and so she wants to go."

Morfyd leaned forward a bit, her hands clasped in front of her. "Perhaps-"

"Shut up, scaly!"

Morfyd leaned back in her chair. "All right then."