by G. A. Aiken
That had been the worst part, in truth. That her brothers had heard it all—which meant her sisters-in-law had heard it all.
Johann made the dogs wait a few more seconds before he released them. When he did, they ran to Dagmar and began jumping on her, barking at her. They were chatty today. Excited. She smiled and petted them all.
She loved her dogs. With them, she never had to be anything but what she was. They never judged her or expected anything from her, and the plainness of her face meant nothing to them.
The dragon’s rudeness from earlier already forgotten, Dagmar crouched down and the dogs proceeded to lick her face and neck while trying to push each other out of the way. She was about to get them back into training formation when she heard Canute’s angry bark from the other side of the gate. He didn’t like it when she left him, but she didn’t dare bring him in the ring while the other dogs were around. But when he wouldn’t stop barking, she signaled for the other dogs to stay and walked over to the gate.
Putting her feet between the lower slats, Dagmar pulled herself up, leaned over the fence…and looked straight into gold eyes.
He was staring up at her, looking guilty, with his hand around the back of Canute’s neck.
“What are you doing to my dog?” she asked.
“Nothing?”
“Why are you saying that like a question?”
“I wasn’t?”
“Yes, you were. And unhand him.”
He had a handsome face, whoever he was. Even when he gave a little pout at her order. He looked down at the dog again and then, with a shrug, unclamped his hand. Canute charged back and started growling and barking again.
“Quiet,” she softly ordered.
Canute stopped barking, but he didn’t stop the growling.
“What do you want?” she asked the stranger, curious as to whom he was. He couldn’t be from the Northlands. His skin was too golden from exposure to the suns, and the gold hair that reached past his knees was loose and wild around his face. The Northland men didn’t wear their hair that long or free from their single braid except when they slept.
He slowly stood…and he kept standing until he towered over her more than her brothers did and that said something. Unlike their father, The Reinholdt’s sons were all tall, strapping men. But this one was unreasonably tall. And big. Large, powerful muscles rippled under his chain-mail shirt and leggings, the pale-red surcoat tight across his chest.
Oddly, he stared at her in such a way as to make her feel…but no. No man looked at Dagmar like that. Yet there was something so undeniably familiar about him—had she met him before? Long ago?
While she tried to remember where she’d seen or met him, he grinned.
And it was that grin she recognized. That damn mocking, rude grin. Even without the elongated muzzle or sharp fangs, she’d recognized that rude grin!
“You,” she said flatly.
His brow went up in surprise. “Very good. Most humans never put the two together.”
“I thought I made myself clear earlier.”
“Yes, but I have needs.”
She blinked, keeping her expression blank. He has needs? What did that even mean?
“Your needs are not my concern.”
“But are you not lady of this house?”
He did have a point. Without a new wife for her father, etiquette demanded the task fall to Dagmar.
“And as lady of the house, isn’t it your job to care for your visitor?”
“Except I asked you to leave.”
“I did leave. Then I came back. As I’m sure you knew I would.” He rested his elbow on the gate, his chin in his palm. “I’m hungry.”
The way he said that…honestly! Dagmar simply didn’t know what to make of this dragon.
He glanced over her shoulder. “Think I can have one of those?”
Dagmar looked behind her and saw her dogs snarling and snapping in their direction while poor Johann stood around, completely baffled. For once the dogs ignored his commands, and he had no idea why.
“Have one?” she asked, also baffled.
“Aye. I’m hungry and—”
Her head snapped around and she slapped her hand over his mouth. “If you say what I think you’re about to say,” she warned softly, “I’ll be forced to have you killed. So stop speaking.”
She felt it. Against her hand. That damn smile again. She ignored the feeling of another being’s flesh against her own. It had been so long that it felt disconcertingly strange to her.
She pulled her hand away and blatantly wiped her palm against her dress. “Leave.”
“Why?”
“Because the mere sight of you frightens my dogs.”
He leaned in closer to her. “And what does the mere sight of me do to you?”
She stared up at him and stated flatly, “Besides disgust me, you mean?”
His smug smile fell. “Sorry?”
“Disgust. Although you can hardly be surprised. You come to my father’s stronghold disguised as a human when in fact that’s nothing but a lie. But I wonder how many unsuspecting females fell for that insipid charm you believe yourself to have only to later realize they’d done nothing but bed a giant slimy lizard. So you, as human, disgust me.” She sneered a bit. “Now aren’t you glad you asked?”
Actually…no he wasn’t glad. How rude! She was rude! Gwenvael liked mean women, but he didn’t much like rude ones. Slimy? He was not slimy!
And if she wanted to play this way, fine.
He leaned in closer, studying her face. He could tell by the way her entire body tightened at his approach that she wasn’t remotely comfortable with him getting so close. He knew he could use that to his advantage if necessary. “What are those things on your face?”
Beyond a tiny little tic in her cheek, the rest of her face remained remarkably blank. “What exactly are you talking about?”
Gwenvael’s head tilted to the side a bit, not sure what else she thought he could mean. “The glass.” He went to poke one, but she slapped his hand away.
“They’re my spectacles.”
“Do you mean like a ‘spectacle of bad’? Or a ‘spectacle of horror’?”
“No,” she replied flatly. “They’re so I can see.”
“Are you blind?” He waved his hands in front of her face. “Can you see me?” he shouted, causing all those delicious-looking dogs to bark and snarl louder.
That constantly cold façade abruptly dropped as she again, but more viciously, slapped his hands away. “I am not blind. Nor am I deaf!”
“No need to get testy.”
“I don’t get testy.”
“Except around me.”
“Perhaps you bring out the worst in people, which is not anything one should be proud of.”
“You haven’t met my family. We’re proud of the oddest things.”
Her lip curled. “There are more of you?”
“None quite like me. I’m unbearably unique and, dare I say, adorable. But I do have kin.” He shrugged. “I’m so very sorry about earlier,” he lied. “And I’m hoping you’ll help me.”
There went that flat expression again. She had this constant expression of being unimpressed. By anything, everything. Yet he was beginning to find it kind of…cute. And annoyingly intriguing.
“I’m sure you’d rather I help you, but I delight in the fact that I won’t.”
That was her delighted expression? Eeesh.
Gwenvael pulled back a bit. “And why wouldn’t you help me even after I apologized? So sweetly too!”
“One, because you didn’t really mean that apology, and two…I really don’t like you.”
“Everyone likes me. I’m loveable. Even those who start out hating me end up liking me.”
“Then they’re fools. Because I don’t like you, and I won’t like you.”
“I’m sure you’ll change your mind.”
“I don’t change my mind.”
Gwenvael frowned a bi
t. “Ever?”
“Once…but then I realized I was right the first time, so I never bothered to change my mind again.”
She was not going to be easy, this one. Yet she wasn’t resisting him as much as simply not responding to him. No matter how he taunted her, she refused to rise to the occasion. He couldn’t be more irritated by that!
“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll talk to your father then. See if he can convince you to act like a true and proper hostess.”
“You do that.”
Gwenvael continued to stand there, staring down at her, until she was forced to ask, “Well…?”
“Don’t know where he is.”
“Find him.”
“A proper hostess would show me the way.”
“A proper hostess wouldn’t have your kind in her home.”
“That was mean.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re not going to help me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I already explained this. I don’t like you. True, I don’t like most people, but I especially dislike you. I could start my own religion based on how much I dislike you.”
Out of ideas on how to handle this wench, Gwenvael went with one of his tried and true methods. He sniffed…and then he sniffed again.
The Beast blinked, her expression confused, but then her eyes widened in horror when she saw that first tear fall.
“Wait…are…are you…crying?”
It was a skill he’d taught himself when he was barely ten years old. With brothers like his, he needed it in order to get his mother to protect her favorite son as much as possible. He rarely used the technique now, but he was desperate.
“You’re so mean to me,” he complained around his tears.
“Yes, but—”
“Why won’t you help me?” he wailed.
“All right. All right.” She held her hands up. “I’ll take you to my father.”
He sniffed more tears away. “You promise?”
“Do I…” She sighed and stepped down from the fence. She didn’t jump down, nor did she step down daintily. It was a carefully, plotted step. He bet she took lots of careful steps in her life.
She came out of the gate and closed it behind her. “Canute, here.” The tasty morsel that had almost been Gwenvael’s afternoon meal immediately went to her side, his yellow dog eyes watching Gwenvael closely.
“And you,” she said to Gwenvael. “Come along.”
Gwenvael watched her walk away. Her clothes were bulky and plain. He couldn’t make out a bit of her body, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she looked like under all that. Was she thin like a rail, or did she have some curves? Were her breasts big handfuls or things to be tweaked? Was her ass flat, or would he be able to grip it tight while he rode her? Did she moan, or was she a screamer?
She stopped and glared at him over her shoulder. “Well…Are you coming?”
And she didn’t seem to appreciate it much when he started laughing at her again.
Chapter 5
As soon as they stepped within the main courtyard, Dagmar felt every eye on them. People stopped in their work; the soldiers and warriors stopped in their training. And the women…Dagmar was surprised fainting wasn’t involved. She knew she heard sighing. Deep, longing sighs. When a servant girl carrying a large basket of bread to the soldiers’ dining hall walked into a wall because she was busy staring at the dragon pretending to be human, Dagmar could only roll her eyes.
“Are those men naked?”
Dagmar squinted across the courtyard toward one of the many training rings and nodded. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Learn to fight in this cold naked, chances are you’ll be able to fight no matter what you’re wearing.”
“Are there a lot of naked fights among the Northland men? Is that something they enjoy doing?”
His teasing tone almost made her laugh. “If it is something they enjoy, I assure you not one will admit it.”
“I thought you would have asked me questions by now.”
“What would I ask you about?”
“About Queen Annwyl. About her affiliation with dragons. Or even ask me about my name.”
“It’s no concern of mine.”
“That’s a lie. And my name is Gwenvael the Handsome.”
“Fascinating. And I know my place, Lord Gwenvael. I know my role.”
“Oh, come on. You can ask me something.”
“All right.” She glanced at his chest. “That crest on your surcoat.”
“What about it?”
“I’ve read that the nation it represented was destroyed more than five hundred years ago.”
He stopped walking and scrutinized the crest. “Damn,” he said after a few moments. “I hate that.”
“Kill them yourself, did you?”
“I’m not that old, thank you very much. And I think it was one of my uncles. But it’s so awkward.”
“Is it?”
“Imagine standing there, having a very nice chat with some human royal and then he gets a good look at your crest. His face gets all pale and sweaty, and you suddenly realize—gods, I wiped out the entire male line of your family, didn’t I? That’s awkward.”
“I imagine so.”
They began to walk again, and, not remotely surprising to Dagmar, he asked, “So how did you get the name Beast?”
Dagmar stopped at the large front door that would lead into the Main Hall. She lowered her eyes, kept her voice soft. Wounded. “The wife of one of my brothers nicknamed me that because I am plain. She wanted to hurt me, and she did.”
A long and large finger slid under her chin, tipping up her face. She kept her eyes averted, did her best to look nearly destroyed by it all. She’d lost count of all the stories she’d made up over the years about how she’d obtained her nickname. She didn’t lie about it simply for amusement but because the truth was something she would never share with anyone. The guilt of her actions from that day and the subsequent outcome was still fresh even after all this time.
Yet molding the story to fit whoever asked was an indulgent form of entertainment on her part and had gained her either pity or fear, depending on what she needed. She kept the tales simple and unadorned, avoiding possible traps should her memory fail her at a later date.
“My sweet, sweet Dagmar,” he said softly, seductively. “That would have been almost perfect—if you could have just managed the tear.”
Dagmar made sure she only appeared confused, rather than annoyed. “Sorry, my lord?”
“You have to learn to cry. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart at the end. Just that single tear works wonders. Right here.” He drew his finger down her cheek and Dagmar immediately pulled her head back.
The Gold smiled. “Now that’s the real you. Look at those eyes. If they were knives, they’d cut me to ribbons.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, my lord.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re just a silly woman. Without a brain in your head.” He walked around her and she felt a hand swipe across her ass. She jumped, and he had the nerve to look startled. “Come on then, silly woman. Introduce me to the more important men.”
Gwenvael followed the lying Lady Dagmar—did she truly expect him to believe that story?—into the Reinholdt fortress. It wasn’t as miserable as he expected, but he’d seen uninhabited caves that were a lot more warm and friendly.
The first floor of the building was mostly one big room with a sizable pit fire in front of rows and rows of dining tables with several boars roasting over it. There was a small group of women sitting at a table chatting, and if they saw the man asleep under their table, they made no mention of him. Dogs that didn’t look at all like the ones The Beast was breeding for battle ran free around the hall, eating whatever was left on the floor.
By the time Gwenvael and Dagmar reached the center of the room, all activity stopped and every eye focused on them.
&n
bsp; A large human carrying a pint of ale in his hand stepped in front of them, his suspicious gaze locked on Gwenvael.
“Dagmar.”
“Brother.”
“Who is this?”
“This is Lord Gwenvael. I’m taking him to see Father.”
The Northlander examined Gwenvael closely before saying, “He must be from the south. So brown.”
“I prefer golden,” Gwenvael corrected. “It’s a tragic curse really since I live in a part of the world where the two suns actually come out during the day and don’t cower behind clouds, afraid to be seen by the scary Northmen.”
When Dagmar’s brother only stared at him, Gwenvael glanced down at the female. She was smirking, and he knew he’d been right. Any intelligence in this group had gone to the woman.
“Lord Gwenvael, this is my brother and oldest son to The Reinholdt, Eymund. And I don’t think he understood your joke.”
That was sadly true. He didn’t. “Lord Eymund.”
The Northlander grunted, but kept staring. Gwenvael had no idea if this was an unspoken challenge so he said, “The men of the north are very handsome. Especially you.”
It took a while for his statement to get through the immense skull surrounding that excessively slow brain, but when it did Eymund eyed him intently.
“Uh…what?”
“If you’ll excuse us, brother”—Dagmar motioned for Gwenvael to move toward the end of the massive hall—“we’re going to see Father.”
When they reached a plain wood door, she knocked.
“In.”
She pushed the thick door open and ushered Gwenvael in, signaling for that tasty morsel of dog to stay behind. After closing the door behind them, she walked to her father’s desk. She kept her hands folded in front of her and her demeanor as nonthreatening as possible.
“Father, there’s someone here to see you.”
The Reinholdt lifted his gaze from the maps in front of him, glanced at Gwenvael, and immediately went back to his maps. “Don’t know him.”
“I know. But you’ve met him.”
“I have?”
“He’s the dragon from this morning.”
Grey eyes similar to his daughter’s slowly lifted, and the widely built man leaned over in his chair, looking around Dagmar to see Gwenvael.
