Dagmar nodded. “Yes. Of course.” She sat down on the bed. “First off, Fearghus, I must apologize.” And that’s when the first tear fell.
“Dagmar?”
“It’s all my fault, Gwenvael. All of it. I only wanted to help, but instead I nearly wipe out your entire family!”
Gwenvael crouched in front of her, taking her hands in his. The simple feel of his flesh against hers, his thumbs rubbing across her knuckles, calmed her down almost immediately.
“I want you to listen to me well, Dagmar Reinholdt,” he said. “No one’s blaming you for anything.”
“Yet.”
Dagmar and Gwenvael looked at Fearghus.
“Did I say that out loud?” Then he winked, and Dagmar almost started to cry again, even while he got her to smile.
“Ignore him, Beast.” Gwenvael grabbed a straight-back chair and sat down in front of her. He took hold of her hands again. “Now tell us everything.”
She kept it clean and direct, no emotions tossed in. No mentions of her own mother and the desire to prevent the twins from going through what she went through herself.
Instead, she told them as she would have told her own father. In plain words, with “none of that fancy analyzing you do” and that her father hated.
Fearghus stayed on the bed, near his babes, his eyes constantly straying over to them. Neither spoke while she did. Neither asked questions. Instead they waited until she finished.
“I know the babes are hungry,” she said when she was done. “But they’ve been surprisingly good-natured about the whole thing and went right to sleep when I put them down. But at some point they are going to need to eat, and either Annwyl has to pull those udders out or we need to get a nursemaid in here because I’ll be of no use. Other than that”—she shrugged—“that’s pretty much the whole story.”
The following silence nearly choked her and she was moments from a good bout of panic when Fearghus leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
Clasping his hands together, he said, “I’m sorry. Can we go back for a moment—you bargained your way out of that with socks?”
That hadn’t been what she’d expected the future Dragon King of Dark Plains to ask, but … all right.
“Yes, but it was because she was vague that—”
“Now aren’t you glad I bought you the socks?”
Dagmar scrutinized Gwenvael. “Pardon?”
“If I hadn’t gotten you that new pair, you wouldn’t have given up your socks to a traveling goddess.”
“He has a point,” Fearghus tossed in.
“Yes, but—”
“Which means you owe me your life.” Gwenvael glanced at his brother. “Like Talaith and Briec—I can keep her.”
“No, you cannot!” Dagmar snapped, completely confused.
“But I bought you the socks,” Gwenvael insisted.
“Only because I made you take back the puppy.”
Regarding his brother, Fearghus asked, “Puppy?”
“I was trying to make her feel better. She was all upset because I wouldn’t bring that bloody dog of hers.”
“Was he a nice one?”
“Large. Lots of meat. With the right seasoning …” Gwenvael sighed, his eyes staring far off. “Gods, I’m hungry.”
Dagmar dragged both her hands through her hair. “Shouldn’t both of you be a little more … livid with me?”
“But I have my Annwyl back,” Fearghus said. “Sort of. She doesn’t know who she is.”
“Or that she’s a mother.”
“Let’s not be negative,” Fearghus insisted lightly. “All that matters is that my Annwyl wiped out an entire murderous unit of Minotaurs.”
“Fearghus,” Gwenvael asked, appearing sincere, “can Annwyl fight naked all the time?”
“Don’t make me kill you. I’m in a good mood, and it’ll just upset Mother.” He stood and bundled the fur around his children, carefully lifting them. “I’m off to find Annwyl.”
Gwenvael tapped his leg. “Remember what Talaith said, Fearghus. Take it slow with her. Give her time to remember who she is.”
“I will.”
Fearghus took several steps away, but stopped. He faced her. “Dagmar?”
“Yes?”
He gazed down at his twins and then at her. “Thank you.” He smiled and it was something so beautiful and sincere she didn’t know what to say. “For everything. I’m eternally grateful.”
Unable to speak, she nodded, and Fearghus disappeared down one of the dark tunnels.
“You keep staring at my brother like that and I’m sending Annwyl after you.”
Startled, Dagmar’s spine snapped straight and she gave Gwenvael her haughtiest look. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not wearing my spectacles, so I can’t see anyway.”
“Ohhh. That’s what that was. It wasn’t you staring longingly at the spot where that deep, low voice told you ‘Thank you, Daughter of The Reinholdt … for everything.’ ”
“I hate you,” she managed before she started laughing.
Gwenvael rested his hands on the bed, braced on either side of her legs. As he moved forward he teased in a high-pitched voice, “Oh, Fearghus! I’ll happily help you because you’re so big and strong!”