Taking a deep breath, Dagmar lifted the fur blanket she’d nicked from Annwyl’s room and slowly placed it over the stallion’s back. She adjusted it so it rested high on his shoulders and he could catch her scent.
The stallion’s head lifted up and over his mate’s, his black eyes looking down at her. After a moment, he lowered his head, his muzzle near her. She reached up and stroked him there.
“I am so very sorry,” she said softly, and his eyes closed.
She walked away, making sure to lock the gate behind her. Once outside, Dagmar looked around. It was late and she hadn’t eaten, but she wasn’t very hungry, truth be told. Nor was she tired.
With a sigh, she started back to the castle, but stopped when she heard sniffles. Following the sound, she came around the stables and what she’d always considered a painfully hard heart melted right inside her chest.
She crouched down beside him, but didn’t know why. He was so large, she wasn’t that much bigger than him when she stood up.
Dagmar placed her hand on his knee, smiling into the teary silver eyes that peered up at her beneath long dark blue lashes.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, knowing words would do nothing at the moment.
“I’ll miss her,” Éibhear said while trying to wipe the tears away. “I’ll miss her so bloody much.”
“I know. I’ve barely known her and I know I’m going to miss her.”
He shrugged sheepishly. “Guess your kin don’t blubber, though.”
“My father cried once. He doesn’t know that I know, but my old nursemaid told me before she died.”
“Why did he cry?”
“Because my mother died while having me. She made the choice to save me. Just as Annwyl did to save her own babes.”
He nodded. “I know it was her choice and that she’d make no other. Not Annwyl. She’ll risk everything for the ones she loves.”
The great blue dragon in human form relaxed his head back against the wall behind him. “But Fearghus … He’ll never recover from this. Not really.”
“And all you can do is be there for him. To let him know that he’s not in this alone.”
“I will.” He tried to wipe his face and Dagmar took a clean cloth from the pocket of her dress and wiped his tears for him.
“You won’t tell, will you?” he asked. “That you found me crying.”
Dagmar rested back on her calves and said, “Your secret will always be safe with me, Éibhear the Blue.”
Gwenvael leaned over and stared down into the crib. The girl frowned like her father—no, that wasn’t right. She frowned like his father. And that did nothing but make Gwenvael rather nervous. Especially with those bright green eyes watching him so intently as if she were debating whether to cut his throat or not. Her brother, however, had quickly grown bored of staring and gone back to sleep.
Thankfully, his niece and nephew looked human. More human than he’d hoped to expect. They had no scales, no wings—no tail, which would have been awkward in the best of situations. They looked like every other human baby he’d ever seen.
Except that they appeared to be three or four months old physically and yet they already moved as if older than that. He’d give them a few days before they could roll over and crawl just like most hatchlings.
Gods, what else did their future hold? As it was, he could feel the Magick surrounding them. No, that was wrong. It didn’t surround them. It poured from them. Out of every pore. They were still weak and terribly vulnerable, but one day … One day their power would be phenomenal.
“How are they?”
Gwenvael glanced over his shoulder. Fearghus lurked in the doorway, unwilling to enter.
“They’re doing well. They’re healthy. Seem to have all the important parts and nothing in addition we have to worry about.” At least not yet. “You should take a look.”
“No. I need to go back to Annwyl.”
“I understand.” Gwenvael reached down and scooped up the girl. He’d done that earlier and immediately put her back down. She clearly wanted to be left alone, but he needed the same reaction he got the first time. And he got it. Her face turned red and she began screaming.
“What are you doing?” Fearghus demanded. “You’re upsetting … her or him.”
“Her. And she’ll stop eventually.”
But he knew she wouldn’t. Gwenvael’s arms weren’t the ones she wanted holding her at the moment.
Aye, very similar to how newly hatched dragons behaved.
The boy’s eyes snapped open. Like his father’s and grandfather’s, they were a coal black and at the moment, quite angry. He started screaming too, because his sister was and he was not happy about it.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Fearghus reached over and took his daughter from Gwenvael’s arms.
“Clearly she wants to be left alone!”
“I was just trying to help.”
“That was not helpful, you idiot. That was stupid.”
“She’s not crying now.”
Fearghus blinked and immediately gazed down at his daughter.
“She has Annwyl’s eyes.”
“True.” He sat his brother down in the chair beside the cribs. “But the boy has yours.”
He readjusted the girl into the crook of her father’s left arm and then placed her brother in the opposite arm.