The queen smiled, her laugh a little breathy. “Then you don’t think this is … uh …”
“Ill timed?” Bercelak shook his head. “No. Not at all. But we need to get you back inside, Annwyl. To a bed, so the grandchildren of someone as great as I can be born in luxury and comfort.”
Her smile quickly turned into an intense expression of distrust. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Because I am in the mood to do so. Do not question me!” he bellowed.
“Don’t yell at me!” she bellowed back.
Dagmar held her hands up. “Perhaps we could have this delightful yelling another time.” She leaned over and whispered to Annwyl, “And how many times do you think you can get him to carry you?”
“You may have a point,” she said moments before another contraction tore through her. Her fingers ripped into the wooden slats of the gate, a piece breaking apart in her hands. This was no ordinary pain, Dagmar knew that now. She also knew they were quickly running out of time.
She passed a hard glance at Bercelak, and he nodded.
When the contraction passed, he stepped forward. “Let’s get you inside. Unless you’d prefer to have your children out here among the horses and hay like a homeless peasant?”
“Was there really no nicer way for you to ask me that question?” she asked once he had her in his arms, the two hated enemies staring each other in the eye.
“I’m sure there was, but I chose not to use it.”
“Of course.”
He headed out, Dagmar beside them, but halfway to the Great Hall, Annwyl made Bercelak stop.
“Before we go inside,” she said, panting heavily, sweat now covering her entire body. “I need you both to promise me something …”
Gwenvael stood in the middle of the Great Hall and tried hard not to panic.
“I doubt he’d actually kill her,” he said.
Morfyd slugged his shoulder.
“Ow.”
“You’re an idiot. Of course he’s not going to kill her.”
“All I know is that I left them here together and now they’re gone. Remember what happened the first time we left him alone with Annwyl?”
“That was the only time we left him alone with Annwyl.” Fearghus sat on the table closest to his brothers and sister. “So,” Fearghus asked casually, “how was last night?”
Gwenvael, not in the mood to tell his kin anything at the moment, shrugged. “Last night was fine; why?”
Fearghus’s eyes narrowed a bit, and then he snarled in disgust, “Gods dammit!”
He snatched a small leather pouch off his belt and tossed it to Briec.
Grinning, their silver-haired brother said, “Told you he’d f**k her.”“I knew he’d try, but I thought she was smarter than that.”
Gwenvael folded his arms across his chest. “What the hell does that mean?”
His brothers glanced at him and then turned back toward each other.
“A woman has needs,” Briec explained to Fearghus. “Even a Northland woman.”
“I still thought she’d think better of herself.”
Now he was really getting pissed. “And what the hell does that mean?”
Before anyone could answer, Izzy charged into the hall and up the stairs.
“Look, brother, you have to face it,” Briec said. “You’re not exactly in her class.”
Gwenvael’s mouth dropped open in astonishment and he glared at Éibhear, who’d walked in a few moments after the rest of them.
“I didn’t say anything!” the pup cried out desperately.
“I am not in her class?” Gwenvael snarled. “I’m a Dragon Prince of royal blood and I’m not in her class?”
“She’s smart,” Fearghus said simply.
“And I’m not?”
Morfyd patted his shoulder. “You have your own special talents.”
“Yeah,” Briec said simply. “Fucking.”
“Briec,” Morfyd chastised. Sort of. She didn’t put any real venom into it.
“You’re all bloody bastards, you know that?”
Izzy charged back down the stairs, stopping briefly in front of them while she danced back and forth on her toes. Then she sighed in disgust and ran off down the closest hallway. “Mum! Come quick!”
Gwenvael began to pace. “As much as I do for this family and you have the gall—”
His tirade was cut off when they all started laughing at him. Briec and Fearghus were lying back on the table, laughing. Morfyd was doubled over. Only Éibhear wasn’t laughing, but he did look guilty.
Gwenvael guessed that was something.
Unreasonably hurt, he watched as Izzy and now Talaith ran through the hall and out the big doorway.
“You know what?” he said, turning toward his kin. “You can all burn in the deepest, fiery pits of hell. Because none of you bloody bastards—” His eyes strayed to the front of the hall and his words choked in his throat. “Fearghus.”
His brother sat up, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, until he saw what Gwenvael saw.
Talaith tapped her daughter’s shoulder. “Go upstairs to the room we’ve set up and turn the furs down.” Izzy charged off. “And then go find Brastias!”
There were things in the world Gwenvael never thought he’d see. A dragon with two heads—although humans did love to write about them as if they existed—his oldest sister performing a human sacrifice since she did seem to adore the humans so, and his father, Bercelak the Great, carrying Annwyl the Bloody as if she were spun of the finest glass.