Dragon Actually (Dragon Kin #1)(25)
Author: G.A. Aiken

off Bercelak a lack of sympathy just didn’t sound that scary to her. So she walked in alone to face the one being who could protect her or turn her to ash where she stood.

Morfyd still had no idea which the queen would choose. She gave up long ago trying to guess her moods and whims. All she could hope for now was that her fondness for Fearghus kept the girl alive.

The siblings stopped talking. They all heard it. The unmistakable sound of air sucked into lungs. They all turned to each other, just as a ball of flame flew out of the chamber. It hit the wall and crashed against the floor.

“Oh, gods! Annwyl!” Morfyd and Gwenvael rushed over as Annwyl rolled herself on the floor to put the flame out. But by the time they reached her the flame disappeared.

No. That wasn’t right. It didn’t disappear. It went in to her. Her skin soaked up the flame. Annwyl, however, still screamed and rolled around, completely unaware that the fire was gone.

Morfyd caught hold of her. “Annwyl! Annwyl! It’s all right!”

After a few moments, Annwyl stopped. She rolled into a ball and breathed in gulps of air, her entire body shaking. They all waited. Silently. Expecting her to snap out of it. But the queen’s voice called from inside her chamber, “It’s not over yet, my loves.”

That’s when Annwyl started screaming again. Not in fear and panic. But in pure, unbridled pain. “Get it off me! Get it off me!” She ripped off her surcoat and her chainmail shirt and dug at the flesh on her throat and neck. “Get it off me!”

Morfyd hit the girl with a spell that knocked her out instantly. Annwyl fell back and Morfyd looked closely at her.

“What are those markings?” Gwenvael asked, next to her.

“I don’t know.” Morfyd ran her hand along the flesh and felt something right under the skin. Something imbedded in the girl’s flesh. Something that she knew hadn’t been there a few hours before. Within seconds the markings turned a deep rich brown and Morfyd gasped. “The Chain of Beathag!”

Gwenvael stared in awe. “She gave her that?”

Briec snorted in disgust. “The only reason she gave that to this human was because of Fearghus.”

“Well, she never liked you,” Gwenvael muttered.

“Amazing br**sts,” Éibhear noted casually.

“Would you control yourself,” Morfyd snapped at her oversized baby brother. She lifted the girl up. “Help me get her clothes back on. We need to get her out of here quickly and don’t let the others see.” The dragon court would find out about the queen’s gift soon enough.

Her chainmail was scorched. Her hair was darker, the gold streaks that ran through it brighter. And her skin looked like she’d spent several days under the hot desert suns of Alsandair. But other than that, Annwyl lived.

They dressed her quickly and stood her up; Gwenvael took one arm, Briec the other. Morfyd muttered a counter spell and Annwyl awoke, still screaming.

“Annwyl!” She’d made sure to put a healing spell on her chest to stop the pain. She grabbed the girl by the face and yelled her name again.

Annwyl finally stopped screaming. She looked around.

“Better?”

Annwyl’s eyes latched on to her, and that infamous rage exploded around her. “What did that bitch do to me?”

“I heard that!” The siblings all cringed and began dragging Annwyl down the stairs, ignoring the girl’s angry protests. But when she shuddered and began to shake uncontrollably, they stopped.

Morfyd pushed the girl’s hair from her face. “You all right, Annwyl?”

After a few moments, Annwyl nodded. Gods, the girl carried some strength within her. More strength than even some dragons possessed.

“I’ll be fine. Just give me a bit . . .” Annwyl’s eyes focused on Éibhear. “Your hair is blue.”

“I’m a blue dragon,” he announced with his usual pride. Morfyd rolled her eyes. Éibhear did love his blue hair.

Annwyl glanced at Morfyd. “Another brother?”

Morfyd shrugged as they went up another flight of stairs, meeting Bercelak at the top.

He looked down at Annwyl. “So she survived?”

“Looks that way, Father.” Morfyd answered, a little smugly.

Annwyl, still supported by Gwenvael and Briec, raised her head and looked at Bercelak with narrowed accusing eyes. “Why is the queen chained inside her chamber?”

Morfyd closed her eyes in utter embarrassment. For the love of . . .

Bercelak’s relationship with their mother never failed to either embarrass or annoy all their children. If she didn’t know for a fact that they loved each other more than anything, Morfyd would have divorced herself from the clan long ago out of sheer disgust.

Her father grinned. “Did she complain?” Morfyd and Briec exchanged mortified glances while Gwenvael and Éibhear bit back their laughter.

Annwyl shook her head. “No.”

“Then what do you care what goes on between me and my mate?”

Annwyl stared thoughtfully at him, then recognition dawned. “Oh, by the gods!”

“Time to go!” Morfyd started moving again. “The suns will rise soon.”

“Yes. All of you must be off.”

Morfyd stopped and looked at her father. “All of us?” She’d already talked her brothers into helping Fearghus, but they were planning to do it without Bercelak’s knowledge. Now it seemed their father finally realized the danger of Lorcan and Hefaidd-Hen winning this battle and perhaps the Sibling War.

“Aye. You can’t let your brother fight alone with some humans. You all must go with him. I will stay here with the queen.”

“I bet you will,” Annwyl muttered under her breath.

The siblings exchanged glances as Bercelak began pushing them toward the exit. “Go. Now. You haven’t much time.”

“Wait!” Morfyd watched as her younger sister, Keita, in human form ran toward them. She wore a beautiful gown, probably given to her by some noble who thought her a sweet maid before he took her to bed and found out otherwise. Well, perhaps a noble, his brother, and his cousin took her to bed. All at the same time. Slut. “Sorry I’m late!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Daddy asked me to come.” She gave a toss of her long red hair before smiling up at Bercelak who smiled back and patted her shoulder.

“‘Daddy asked me to come,’” Morfyd mimicked brutally. Her sister sneered at her and she wanted to kick Daddy’s little princess in the face, but Annwyl’s voice stopped her.

“Exactly how many are in your family?”

“Too many,” all the siblings answered at once.

Chapter 17

Danelin lived the first nine years of his life in Garbhán Isle’s dungeons. He’d been battling the troops of the Isle since he turned twelve. And learned to fear nothing besides the Siblings’ wrath, which all men of any intelligence feared.

Until the day the black dragon landed in the middle of their camp. For the first time he learned the meaning of true fear. Seeing the black talons of the beast touch down. Watching the mighty horned head turn slowly as it watched the troops surrounding it. Hearing it roar Annwyl’s name. He thought he would never experience fear quite like that again.

He turned out to be very wrong.

Standing across from a dragon who had shapeshifted into a man and explaining to him how his lady love left, but “Don’t worry, she’ll be back soon enough,” introduced him to a whole new world of fear. Especially when the dragon stood nak*d across from him and Brastias, big arms crossed in front of a big chest, big legs braced firmly apart and, most disturbingly, black smoke curling from his nostrils.

Luckily they had already sent the troops ahead. But the two suns were rising and he needed to get Brastias to the village. Someone needed to lead since they really had no idea when Annwyl would return. Although he and Brastias had no intention of telling the dragon that. Of course now they realized they should never have told the dragon about Annwyl while his big body blocked the exit. Now he stood between them and the way out of the tent.

And the dragon wasn’t moving.

“So you just let her leave?”

Danelin exchanged glances with Brastias.

Brastias raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you haven’t actually met Annwyl the Bloody, but you don’t let her or not let her go anywhere. You just stay out of her way.”

Danelin forced himself not to cower as the dragon growled in displeasure.

He watched the two humans stare at him. Brastias looked annoyed. The boy looked like he might start screaming at any second. He knew he shouldn’t take his anger at Annwyl out on these two men, but they were here and she was not.

The last thing he remembered was her slipping that lovely body out of bed with whispered promises to return quickly. He awoke several hours later to the sounds of Annwyl’s troops moving out. He also discovered his bed cold and no sign of his woman. A feeling, he found, he did not relish.

By the time he dragged his human body out of bed, most of the troops were gone, leaving Brastias and the boy. He cornered them in one of the supply tents and refused to let them go. Their cavalier attitude about Annwyl’s disappearance with his sister did nothing but raise his anger. Where Morfyd may have taken her, he could only guess. But if he guessed right, his sister would pay.

“She’s not our responsibility, dragon. Nor is she yours.”

He had to admit, Brastias turned out to be a lot braver than he thought. The boy, though, didn’t look like he could handle much more. But he wasn’t done with them. Soon he would start threatening body parts, but a hand on his bare shoulder stopped him.

“There you all are.” Annwyl smiled. “Everything all right?”

Fearghus scowled. “No. Everything’s not all right. Where the hell have you been?”

“Discuss later. Fight war now.” Obeying a motion of her head, Brastias and the boy quickly left. “You better not have been terrorizing them.”

“Annwyl.” He caught her arm. “What’s going on?” He looked at her face and wondered what was different. The two suns had just begun to rise, darkness still filled the tent, so he couldn’t see all that clearly, but he knew something had changed.

“Later. Right now my people need me, Fearghus.” She reached up and kissed him lightly. “Trust me.”

He brushed his head against her cheek and breathed in her scent. “Try not to get yourself killed, Annwyl.”

She laughed. “Why do all of you keep telling me that?”

He kissed her, long and deep until she pulled away. He enjoyed the fact that it seemed to be a struggle for her.

“We . . . uh . . . better go.” She stared at his lips for a moment longer, then, with a deep sigh of regret, stepped away from him and through the tent opening.

He followed, but stumbled upon finding his siblings waiting for him. All his siblings.

“Took you two long enough,” Briec snapped.

“What exactly were you two doing in there?” Gwenvael smirked.

“Big brother!” Keita spread her wings wide, completely blocking out Morfyd.