by G. A. Aiken
“Combine our powers!” Another zealot screamed. “Now!”
“No! Use something else. Kill her!”
While they were busy arguing, debating, Izzy kept moving forward. She swiped up a dragon’s short sword that lay on the floor. One of the soldier dragons ran at her, but she dodged his weapon and him, then dragged the blade she held against his back leg, severing the tendon. The dragon dropped to the ground with a scream and Izzy kept going.
Someone else threw more Magick at her. And this time Izzy didn’t even pause. Instead, she suddenly sped forward and right at the first zealot. When he saw her, he panicked and swiped at her with his claw. Izzy caught hold of it and went with it when the zealot’s arm swung up. Iz pulled back the dragon sword she held and rammed it forward, slamming it into the side of the zealot’s neck, bypassing his hard scale and tearing open a main artery. Izzy flipped her body up onto the zealot’s head, yanked out the blade, and charged across, leaping to the dragon beside him, seconds before the first zealot crashed to the ground, dead before his head hit the floor.
“Oh, that’s right,” Brannie said, laughing a little. “Iz doesn’t need my help.”
But, she realized, looking down at the humans Izzy was descended from, who threw themselves into the battle with a gusto any Cadwaladr would appreciate, Izzy’s kin did need her help. And with great pride, she gave it.
Using the hammer he was beginning to appreciate more and more, Éibhear battered at the tentacles that had hold of Vateria.
“Éibhear!” he heard Aidan bellow.
“Get Vateria!” he ordered. “Pull her out!”
A tentacle slapped across his snout, acid from it leeching past scale and into flesh. Snarling—because he knew that would scar—Éibhear battered the tentacle away.
“Éibhear! Axe!”
Éibhear lifted his claw and caught the axe Uther threw at him. He brought it down, cutting off three tentacles at once, but another three slithered out from . . . well, he didn’t want to think about where they slithered from.
“We’ve got Vateria!” Caswyn yelled.
“Get her out of here! Now!”
Knowing Caswyn would take care of Vateria, Éibhear moved forward. He needed to cut off something more important than a tentacle. But before he could get close enough to anything important, tentacles slipped around his throat and arms, pulling him away. Holding him tight while what he assumed was a really vile-looking tongue slithered out from what he was guessing was a mouth, across the floor, and headed right for him.
Éibhear struggled against the tentacles. But as soon as he yanked one forearm or leg free, another tentacle caught hold again, holding him in place. The tongue neared him, slithering across the floor, blood, slime, and shit spreading from it as it did.
Gods, the smell alone made him want to vomit.
Éibhear opened his mouth to unleash flame but the tentacle around his throat tightened, choked him. Still, he didn’t stop fighting. Uther dropped onto the thing’s back, raised his second axe above its head, and began hacking away, but still it didn’t release Éibhear. Aidan came at it from the side, using a broadsword to stab it through its thick skin. And still, nothing.
But Éibhear didn’t care. He only fought harder. As did his comrades. He knew they wouldn’t stop until they all took their last breath . . . which they might be very close to doing.
That tongue was close now, nearly under him. This Éibhear wasn’t looking forward to. Especially when the tip of the tongue slowly began to lift up, too close to the important parts of him. Blood, shit, and death dripping off it and onto the floor, the smell making Éibhear gag. But still he fought. Still he—
A bare foot rammed down on that tongue, holding it in place on the floor, and a sword lifted up and plunged into it, pinning it to the ground with one hit.
The thing screamed out and released Éibhear so that it could attack the new threat.
Éibhear hit the ground, his sword still in his front claw. He looked down at the one who’d pinned that disgusting tongue—and smiled.
“See how I have to protect you?” he demanded with a smirk. “What if I wasn’t here? To . . . you know . . . protect you?”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, you’re right. Don’t know what I’d do without ya.” She motioned to the thing with a tilt of her head. “Look, you lot kill . . whatever that is. Me and Bran will take care of the rest. And then I’ll see you after.”
“Aye,” Éibhear promised her. “You will.”
They smiled at each other, knew the truth in those smiles. And, with love in their hearts . . . they proceeded to kill absolutely everything in the chamber that wasn’t a loyal friend, kin, or Imperial Guard.
Chapter 42
“So I’m a prat?”
“No,” Eirianwen corrected her mate while she stepped over the bodies from the recent battle in Sefu’s sewers in search of souls she could use. “I said you were a bit of a prat. A bit.”
“It’s all about semantics with you, isn’t it?”
“Semantics, my darling mate, is what makes war gods’ lives full and wonderful. Destruction of entire territories has been based on semantics.”
Rhydderch Hael leaned against a wall. He was in his human form today. She didn’t mind. She loved seeing him in any form he chose. “You interfered again, Eir.”
“I didn’t go near Izzy. Not once.”
“You know what I mean.”
She faced him, waved her forefinger at him, only to realize she’d lost it at some point to someone’s battle axe. In fact, she’d lost half her hand.
It didn’t help when her mate chuckled.
Quickly lowering her hand, Eir said, “Éibhear is mine, Rhy. Mine. We agreed. The Mì-runach come to me upon their deaths. To me. So stop acting like I stepped over some boundaries only you can see.”
“First Annwyl,” he reminded her.
“You’d already given her up to the Minotaur. She was mine to take.”
“Then Talaith.”
“She wasn’t yours in the first place and her human gods had deserted her long ago.”
“Now Éibhear . . .”
“Also not yours. But Izzy . . . she’s all yours. I haven’t touched her.” Although Eir liked the human female and the clan she came from. A warrior breed Eir had begun before she’d been tossed from the human pantheon of gods. “She’ll serve you well.”
“Well, she’s clearly so open to that,” he said with great sarcasm.
“What do you expect when you’re a bit of a prat? She’s loyal and you keep fucking with those she’s loyal to.”
“Whatever.”
Seeing that her mate was about to fly off in a pouty dragon rage, Eir walked toward Rhydderch Hael, crushing a few skulls beneath her feet. Using her unmarred hand, she pressed her palm to his cheek. “Don’t ever think for a moment, my love, that the games we play change how I feel for you. How I’ll always feel. I love you with all of my hardened warrior heart.”
“You’d best. My feelings for you, Eirianwen, have not and never will change. If I thought any of this truly angered you, that I might lose you—”
She pressed her body against his, kissed his chin. “Never. Haven’t you realized that yet? Besides, what we do now dictates what happens with Chramnesind later.”
“I’ve noticed he hasn’t been around.”
“He starts things, then flitters away,” she said off-handedly. “His lack of vision has always bored me.”
Rhy gazed down at her, one eyebrow raised in that oh-so-handsome face—and Eir gasped. “No, no! I mean his lack of creative vision and how it affects the universes we rule. Not his lack of actual . . . vision. I don’t mean that! I’d never say that!”
Rhy laughed. Not a chuckle or a mocking laugh, but a true laugh, from his gut. It was so very good to hear because he did it so rarely. And although horrified at what she’d just said, Eir joined in, hugging her mate tightly while she laughed into his neck.
Éibhear glanced up at t
he ceiling. “Thunder?” he asked Aidan.
“I don’t know. Do they have thunder here? Do they have rain?” He looked at Maskini. “Do you lot get rain?”
“We have a rainy season. It makes the rivers overflow.”
“Oh. That’s unfortunate.”
Éibhear stepped around his friend, watching Izzy mount Brannie’s back, his cousin taking to the air.
“Oy!” he called after them. “Where are you two off to?”
“We’ll be back in a bit,” Izzy promised.
“Is it me or does Izzy always sound like she’s up to something no good when it involves your cousin?” Aidan said.
“No,” Éibhear admitted. “It’s not just you.”
Vateria tore across the Desert Lands, ignoring the growing heat from the suns above her head. She wanted to put as much distance between her and this cursed territory as she could manage.
Gods! Could no one be trusted these days? Damn zealots and their damn gods!
But this setback wouldn’t stop Vateria. She would get her birthright back if she had to destroy the damn world to do it! Nothing would stop her. Not Southlanders. Not zealots. Not gods. No one.
Vateria heard the flap of wings behind her and she sped up, trying to get away. She’d slipped away from that dragon who’d freed her from that . . . that thing back in the sewers but he’d been a big bastard. No way he’d be faster than she in open skies like this.
Yet no matter how much faster Vateria went, she couldn’t seem to outpace the dragon following her. She didn’t stop, though. She kept moving, kept dodging. Even when the dragon was over her.
Vateria was about to dive again, hoping to get the dragon to smash face first into the hard ground, but before she did, something light landed on her back.
“Hello, Vateria. Remember me?”
Vateria looked back. That human female from earlier? The one whose sister she had coveted?
“What do you want, human?”
“Didn’t think we were done.”
“Thought you were to rescue me. I’ve been rescued. Now go.”
And to help her along, Vateria spun three hundred and sixty degrees. But the human clamped her thighs down around Vateria’s neck and easily held on. Dammit!
“Is this about your sister?” Vateria wanted to know when she realized the human wasn’t going to give up easily.
“No. This is about your cousin.”
“My . . .”
Of course. Agrippina. That bitch.
“Well, you can tell my cousin to go fu—”
“Why don’t you pass that sentiment on to her when you see her again? Here,” the human offered, “I’ll help you with that.”
And that’s when a blade rammed between the scales on her back, severing the muscle that controlled her wings. Like that, her wings stopped in mid-flap and suddenly Vateria was heading fast toward the ground with no way to stop.
She fought for control, tried to keep herself up. It helped, but barely. She landed hard on the ground, her belly skidding across the harsh sand, scraping away some of the protection of her scales.
When Vateria’s body finally stopped, the human on her back easily slid off and walked around until she was face to face with her.
Panting, Vateria asked. “You’re going to finish me off now?’
“No, no. I have no intention of finishing you off. That’s not why I’m here. Just like I wasn’t the one who finished off your father. But I did stop him from running. Like I just stopped you. Now . . . when Agrippina’s ready it’ll be much easier for her to track you down and finish what you began in your dungeons with her.”
“Your cousin,” some low-born black dragon appeared, sighing dramatically and shaking her head. “Your own bloody cousin. Sick bitch,” she hissed before she spat at Vateria’s claws. “Let’s go, Iz. I can’t stand to look at the twat a second more.”
“Good luck to you, Vateria,” the human said. “May Agrippina have mercy on your worthless soul. I certainly wouldn’t.”
The human mounted the low-born dragon and the pair flew off, heading back toward Sefu.
At that point, Vateria dropped her head to the ground and tried to cry. But, to be quite honest, she just didn’t have that kind of weakness in her.
So, instead, she plotted and made plans while she waited for the bleeding in her back to stop. And that plotting . . . gods, that plotting felt so very good.
Izzy found her Desert Land family back at their house, a healer helping with any wounds that had been sustained during the battle in the sewers. When Izzy and Branwen walked into the yard at the back of the house, Zachariah immediately came to her side.
“There you are. You all right?”
“I’m fine. Just had to take care of something.”
“Well, that uncle of yours seemed awfully worried when you didn’t come right back.”
Brannie snorted and Izzy elbowed her cousin in the side.
“Um, Zachariah, about Éibhear and me—”
“There you are.” Éibhear strode across the yard until he was in front of Izzy, and her grandfather was forced to move quickly out of the dragon’s way. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Why did everyone keep asking her that?
“I thought you were coming right back.”
“I told you I had something to do.”
“With Vateria? Because if you killed her—”
“I didn’t, but I don’t report to you, Squad Leader.”
“Could you say that with any more disdain?”
“Actually I could.”
“I see our spoiled-brat side has not changed in the last two decades.”
“And I see that our know-it-all, thinks-the-world-should-bow-at-his-feet side is still a bit of a bastard!”
“Fine! I won’t bother worrying about your tight ass again!”
“Good! Because my tight ass doesn’t need your tight ass doing anything!” Izzy stopped, thought a moment. “Now we’re just flinging compliments at each other.”
“It’s not my fault we’re amazing.”
They laughed and Éibhear stepped a little closer, his hands reaching up and gently sliding across her jaw, his gaze locking with hers. “I’m just glad you’re all right, Izzy,” he admitted. “You had me worried.”
“I’m fine. Now just kiss me.”
Éibhear leaned in, big fingers framing Izzy’s face, and he whispered, “When we get back, Iseabail, we have much to discuss.”
“Gods, more conversation?”
“You can’t avoid it forever.”
“No. But I can try.” Then she leaned up and kissed him instead. But as soon as she did, Éibhear’s hands tightened on her jaw, his tongue slid boldly into her mouth; teasing, playing. Izzy wrapped her arms around his waist, gripped the back of his shirt tight. Gods, she was tempted to rip it off right here and now!
Izzy had no idea how long they stood there, kissing like that, lost in each other, but Zachariah roaring, “What the hell kind of uncle are you?” snapped them right out of it.
They stepped away from each other, both of them looking around at the group of people, kin, who were staring at them. That’s when Izzy knew she and Éibhear were in deep. Too deep. One did not start passionately kissing someone in front of their entire family unless they were just rude, and Izzy considered herself a very polite person. But Éibhear had her all confused and desperate and, to be blunt, damn horny.
The bastard.
Zarah, standing near several of her daughters, shook her head at the embarrassed couple and chastised with a smile, “Someone’s a very dirty uncle.”
“And a very naughty niece,” Maskini added.
Éibhear’s head snapped around, and he glowered at Izzy, his jaw tense, his hands in fists, and Izzy immediately jumped back before black smoke poured out of his nose. She hated when that happened.
When the dragon kept glaring at her, Izzy demanded, “What are you looking at me for? I didn’t tell them to say that!”
Chapter 43
Rhi hummed to herself and sketched a beautiful tree several hundred yards away. She was in a very good mood. Her sister and uncle, both quite safe, were heading home. Should be back any time now. What Izzy would have to say, though, Rhi still didn’t know. And if her mother knew, she wasn’t telling her yet.
That was okay, though. She could wait. Because right now, all that mattered was that her sister and uncle were safe. And, she was guessing, very much in love.
Rhi stopped humming so she could smile.
“Lady Rhianwen?”
Rhi looked up, her grin growing wider. “Hello, Frederik! And please, call me Rhi. Everyone else does.”
“When I do your father glares at me.”
“Don’t take it personally. My father glares at everyone except me and Izzy. Even my mother. Although she thinks it’s cute.” She studied the Northland male. “That’s a rather large stack of books you have.”
“Oh, yes. Auntie Dagmar has given me reading assignments.”
“How much time do you have to read all that?”
“Quite a while. Until dinner.”
Rhi blinked. “Oh. All right.” She gestured to a corner of the fur covering she sat on. “Would you like to join me? I’m just drawing, and I promise not to bother you while you read.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to interrupt you.”
“No, no. Not at all. We’re kind of family now, so we should be acting like it. Please. Sit.”
With a nod, he placed his books down on the grass and sat on the far corner of the fur covering. He didn’t have to sit so far away, but she didn’t blame him either. Her father had been saying things in front of poor Frederik to make it clear that his daughter was off limits.
Rhi went back to her sketch, enjoying how it was working out while appreciating the quiet company of the male with her. They worked like that for nearly thirty minutes when a shadow fell over her. Using her hand to shield her eyes from the two suns high in the sky, she looked up and immediately smiled at Albrecht. Their time in the village the other day had gone really well; Uncle Brastias was not nearly as brutal as her father when Lord Pombray’s son moved too close to Rhi.
