by G. A. Aiken
“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.”
Éibhear really didn’t understand, did he? He couldn’t compare himself to his older and much more devious brothers. Unlike that lot, Éibhear cared. Not merely about himself, the acceptable selfish attitude 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 bloody 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 Éibhear had stood.
His son’s silver eyes widened, his gaze locked at where the tip of that mighty blade met Éibhear’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 bastard. 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 Éibhear?” she asked with a huge laugh.
“I was.” The pair hugged. “I’m much bigger now.”
“That you are.” Her arm around Éibhear’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 pussyfoot; 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 bloody cave.”
“Growl, growl. Snarl, snarl.” She motioned to him as she headed through the recent field of battle, her strong arm still around Éibhear. “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 piss-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 ass 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 Éibhear.
“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.
“Snobby 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 space was filled with tomes from all over the Northlands, Southlands, and the west. The east was less rep resented 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 ass 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 damn kiss last night.”
“But it’s the library!” she managed to gasp before his mouth covered hers and suddenly Dagmar didn’t give a flying flip where she was. Not when the sweetest lips ever were urging hers to part, to allow his tongue to slip inside.
She sighed deeply, his tongue gently caressing and teasing. She’d never had such a sweet, patient kiss before. At least not one that made her feel so damn needy.
He pulled his mouth away from hers, and Dagmar realized her tongue had nearly followed him.
“No. Not a dream.”
Blessed reason…he’s panting. Because of me!
He gave her small kisses on her mouth, her chin, down her neck. She groaned and allowed her body to lean into his.
“I should take you right here, Lady Dagmar,” he whispered, his breath like silk against her ear. “Among all your precious books and boring monks. They’ll hear you come,” he taunted, “and they’ll wish they were the ones in my place.”
Dagmar bit her lip and thought about letting him take her to the floor right now. Or up against the stacks, books on alchemy and the other sciences shaking around them as he pounded into her with that gorgeous, massive—
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Dagmar jumped as a walking stick slammed against Gwenvael’s back.
“Oy!” the dragon snarled.
“You release her this instant, you hooligan!”
Gwenvael stared down at her. “Hooligan?” he mouthed and she had to look away.
The walking stick was brought down again, and Gwenvael released his hold on her. The dragon turned on the monk and snapped in a fabulous Northland brogue she had no idea he’d mastered, “What ya hittin’ me for? She was the one tossin’ it about. Just look at her.”
They did look at her, and Dagmar took a moment to adjust her spectacles and her grey dress before she took her time raising her eyes to the monk’s face. Her “puppy-dog expression,” she liked to call it.
“Oh…Brother!” she cried out, placing her hand over her mouth and shaking.
The old monk raised his walking stick again, aiming for Gwenvael. “You!”
“All right, I’m leavin’, I’m leavin’!” Several monks followed Gwenvael to the end of the row and he glanced back at her, giving her a quick wink and motioning toward the door before he disappeared.
The monk placed his arm around Dagmar’s heaving shoulders. “You poor, wee thing.”
“Brother, he was just so…just so…forceful!”
“I know, dear. You must be careful around brutes like him.”
“I will, Brother,” she replied bravely as the monk helped her toward the main desk, where she could hopefully get her questions answered. “I never want to experience that horror again.”
Gwenvael let the monks force him out the massive doorway and onto the library steps.
“You’re all stuck up bastards!” he yelled as the door slammed in his face. He grinned. “I am such a bastard.”
He turned and realized he had everyone’s attention. “What?” he demanded with the appropriate scowl, and they all scattered.
Grinning again, Gwenvael went down several steps and looked around. He saw a nice-looking inn not too far away and thought about taking Dagmar there for a quick meal before they were on their way.
Though what he really wanted to do was get a room and keep her in it for the remainder of the day and all of the night. What was it about that woman that made his knees weak?
He’d only met one other woman who had ever done that to him before and she’d been his first. An older sea dragoness named Catrìona who taught him all the important basics about pleasuring a woman. But he’d been a babe then—no more than thirty—and he’d realized too late that he was one of many. She’d waited until Gwenvael was good and attached to her before she disappeared one morning, back into the sea she’d come from. It had been his dear grandfather Ailean who’d tracked him down at a local whorehouse, knee-deep in ale and pussy. It had been his grandfather who told him that one day he’d find someone meant only for him and him alone….
Gods, what was wrong with him? He hadn’t even bedded the little barbarian yet and he was having wistful memories of his grandfather explaining love to his drunken ass.
Obviously he was losing his sanity in this cold, unforgiving place. Dagmar was not and would never be the woman for him. Not for more than a night or so and he was sure he could make that happen without much trouble. He knew she wanted it as much as he did, and there was no reason to deny either of them the pleasure.
Tonight he’d have her, tomorrow he’d take her back to her precious people, and with valuable information in hand, he’d head back to his own. Aye, perfect plan.
Gwenvael took a deep breath—trying to calm his cock down before anyone noticed—and looked up at the sky. As always there were those low-hanging clouds that seemed to perpetually block the beauty of the two suns, but he really expected to see darker clouds since it smelled like a storm was…
Realizing too late he should have been paying closer attention to his surroundings rather than day-dreaming about tiny plotters, Gwenvael swung around just in time to see that warhammer as it smashed into his head.
Yrjan had worked in the Great Library since he was fourteen winters. His father realized quite early that Yrjan would never have the skills or strength of his brothers, and he got rid of him as soon as he could manage by giving him to the Order of the Knowledge—the only order dedicated solely to the libraries of the Northlands. Not that Yrjan minded joining the Order. He was actually quite grateful to his papa.
Normally, here in the Great Library he was safe from the kind of violence he had suffered every day at the hands of his own kinsmen as he’d always been an easy, weak target. The brothers of his order, the other librarians, were all quiet, learned men who spent their time helping others find books or learning something new themselves.
But now that violence had come into their quiet lives.
The poor woman who’d ended up trapped in the stacks with that horrid warrior. His type thought they could get anything they wanted by taking it—and often they could. But the brute underestimated Yrjan’s order. They simply didn’t allow that sort of thing to happen among their sacred books!
Yet there was nothing to do about it now. Instead he was asked to soothe the young woman’s rattled nerves. Poor thing. She appeared so stricken by that animal!
She was a wee, plain thing and, like Yrjan and his order, most likely spent the majority of her time in the safety of books. She wore small, round spectacles, as did many of his library brethren, and the unadorned wardrobe of a true scholar. Yrjan was sure the brute had targeted her as he would a small deer or elk.
“You’re quite safe now, my lady,” he promised, putting a cup of hot tea in her hands. “I can call the city guards, if you’d like.”
