“You should have warned me!”
“What would it have changed?”
“Everything.”
“Da!” one of Addolgar’s sons yelled from behind him, making Addolgar cringe. “Hello, Da!”
Addolgar turned, faced his middle son. The boy was standing right behind him in human form, eating a big wheel of cheese, and yelling at him even though Addolgar was less than four feet away.
“Hello, son.”
“You staying long, Da?”
“Not on this trip. But when I come back this way, I’ll be staying for a bit.”
“Good!” the boy continued to yell.
“Why are you yelling?”
“Was I?” he yelled.
The sound of something heavy hitting rock had Addolgar stepping around his middle son, but that just showed him the tragic sight of his two youngest sons taking turns running and ramming their heads into the side of their mountain home. Over and over again.
It’s what Braith hadn’t warned him about, even though Owena had apparently warned her. That although the males of the Penarddun line were big and strong and good, solid fighters, they were, to put it bluntly, painfully dumb. Not like their sisters at all.
“Cheese?” his middle son yelled, shoving the half-eaten wheel under Addolgar’s defenseless nose.
“No.”
Braith patted their son’s arm. “Why don’t you lot go inside? Éibhear’s here, but only for the night.”
“Éibhear’s here?” the boy yelled. He faced his still-ramming-into-the-mountain brothers and yelled, “Oy! Éibhear’s here!”
“Éibhear’s here!” the other two cheered in unison. Then they charged toward the cave opening, but as they neared it, the youngest shoved his older brother so that he missed the opening and ran snout-first into the cave wall.
The boy flew back, landed, sat up, shook his big, blue head, and laughing, got to his claws. “Bastard!” he yelled before charging after his brother. Now the two would batter each other all the way inside until their great aunts and older female cousins told them to cut it out.
Grinning, his mouth filled with cheese, Addolgar’s middle son ambled back into the cave.
“They could be worse,” Braith reminded Addolgar.
“They could be?”“They could be like Éibhear.”
Addolgar remembered his brother’s face when Bercelak had ordered his youngest son from his sight while Addolgar, Ghleanna, and Bercelak’s second oldest son, Briec, worked hard to hold the dragon back from murdering his own flesh and blood.
“You’re right,” Addolgar finally agreed. “It could be worse.”
Braith slipped her arms around Addolgar’s waist, hugged him. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“So am I.” He pulled her close, kissed her temple. “I wish I didn’t have to go, but this needs to be done.”
“And Bercelak chose the one dragon he could trust to make sure Éibhear gets to the Ice Lands safely. But you can’t keep trying to kill that boy with your ax. It’ll put a strain on family dinners.”
“Only with Rhiannon, since she really loves the nasty bastard. And it wasn’t me ax, it was me hammer.”
Braith laughed. “Oh. Well then.”
Addolgar hugged Braith again, resting his head on her shoulder. “Do you think the idiots—”
“Addolgar,” she softly chastised.
“Fine. Do you think our sons will keep Éibhear here for the night? You know, keep him busy?”
“I do. They love Éibhear and they’re such cheery bastards, they overlook almost everyone’s rude behavior.”
“Then let’s go to town. Spend the night at that pub there.”
Braith lifted his head from her shoulder, kissed him. Centuries and her kiss still made him as weak as one of her fists to the face.
Panting, they pressed their foreheads together and gazed at each other.
“Aye,” Braith breathlessly agreed. “Let’s go to the pub. You can have breakfast with the rest of our brats in the morning, before you leave.”
She stepped back and took his hand. They were grinning at each other when Éibhear stepped out of the cave and yelled, “Do I really have to stay here talking to these dragons?”
Addolgar was marching over there to tell the idiot boy exactly what he had to do and how to do it, but Braith, still holding his hand, pulled him back as his two eldest daughters in their human forms came out of the cave and cut in front of the boy. They blocked him and his eldest daughter raised her arm and pointed her finger, motioning back inside the cave.
“I don’t report to you,” the idiot boy snarled at her.
That’s when Addolgar’s second oldest daughter stepped into her cousin and stared him in the eye. Not even an inch shorter than the very large Éibhear, she glared at him until three more of Addolgar’s tall, powerfully built daughters came out as well . . . and surrounded the idiot boy. Without a word, they overpowered their cousin without raising a weapon or issuing a threat. Their presence alone was a threat. Understanding that, the idiot boy snarled but turned around and went back into the cave.
His daughters faced Addolgar and Braith, waved, and said together, “Hi, Daddy.”
“My beautiful daughters.”
“We’ll keep an eye on Éibhear tonight,” his eldest offered with a smile that she had clearly inherited from her mother. “If you and Mum need some time alone.”