She impaled the tail, burying the blade into the ground. The roar he sent out shook the cave and Annwyl knew she only had seconds before he got himself loose. So she unsheathed her second sword and ran under the dragon.

She could only pray that a dragon’s weakness was the same as a human’s. The groin. She lay flat on her back and, using her legs, slid completely under him. She had to move quickly. Once he realized she was there, all he had to do was lie down.

As she hoped, the hard scales that covered the rest of his body did not cover his groin. His shaft protectively tucked up inside the flesh, thankfully out of sight and away from her face. She’d already seen more of this dragon than she’d ever wanted to. She raised her sword and dug it into the beast’s fleshy underbelly, readying herself to push the blade through. She hoped the move would allow her time to get out of the cave and out of the glen if she had to.

“Annwyl! No!”

Annwyl froze. Blood began to seep where the tip of her blade rested, but she pushed no further. The dragon above her stopped breathing. He couldn’t sit now. True, he’d crush her, but he’d impale himself in the process.

“Annwyl, love. Give me your hand.”

Annwyl glanced over and saw the shiny black talons of her dragon. Breathing hard, a war raged in her soul between the warrior ready to strike the killing blow and Annwyl the woman who knew this dragon was Fearghus’s father.

“Fearghus?”

“Annwyl. Trust me.”

Annwyl looked back at the bleeding beast above her. If the old dragon killed her now, she knew as sure as she knew her own name that Fearghus would kill him. The old beast wouldn’t risk that. She decided to trust the one being she’d trusted all along.

She grabbed onto his talon and allowed him to snatch her out from under the great dragon. He pushed her back into Morfyd and Gwenvael and turned to face his father, protecting them all with his own body.

Chapter 13

Never before had anyone gotten so close to killing Bercelak. And if he hadn’t stopped her, Annwyl would have killed him. She found the one weak spot on a dragon. The one place with no protective scales.

When the four of them charged in, Annwyl had just slid her long body under the dragon’s. Fearghus called her name but the blood lust had her, and she couldn’t hear him. So he shifted, his voice shifting with him, almost bringing the walls down with his call to her.

Part of him didn’t want to stop her, he was so angry at his father. But he knew that if Annwyl killed him, there would be no going back for the queen. She would move heaven and earth to destroy Annwyl and he would do the same to protect her. But at the sound of his voice, she stopped. Cold. He wasn’t sure she had that kind of self-control. But, as always, Annwyl continued to amaze him.

“You son of a bitch!” Fearghus’s rage shook the walls of his lair, and he itched to beat the old bastard to death.

His father had his claw over his slashed snout while desperately trying to get his tail released from the blade that held it. “Did you see what that mad bitch did to me?”

“I should have let her kill you.”

“I gave you strict orders. . . .”

“I don’t answer to you! Get out. Now!”

“What is your attachment to this human?” His father’s shrewd eyes stared closely at his son, his nostrils twitched. “I smell her all over you.”

“I said go!”

His father looked around him to see Annwyl. “What did he tell you, little human, to get you to spread your legs?”

Fearghus released a fireball that sent his father flying across the cave, part of his tail torn off where the blade impaled it.

“Fearghus, no!” Morfyd shouted behind him. But he only glanced at his sister. His anger had a stranglehold on him now. Too blind with rage to acknowledge anything. Until he heard Annwyl.

“Fearghus?” She didn’t shout. She didn’t scream. She said it so quietly the rest of his family probably never heard her. But he did.

Annwyl sheathed her sword and listened to the fight between father and son. It almost reminded her of Lorcan and their father, but she doubted the fight would end with Fearghus crying and cowering in a corner.

The old dragon’s cold eyes turned to her. She pulled away from Morfyd, ready to face the old bastard when something caught her eye. The bright red of a surcoat. Shredded and sitting at the entrance to the chamber. She walked over to it as the family squabble continued. She crouched down beside the garment and also found chainmail leggings, chainmail shirt, and leather boots. All shredded and ripped apart. For a moment she worried that maybe her knight had become food for the old dragon, but she could find no blood and the garments seemed split apart.

She looked up at Fearghus who had just blasted his father across the room. What did the old bastard say to her? What did he tell you, little human, to get you to spread your legs? At that moment, Morfyd called out to Fearghus, and in anger the dragon’s head snapped around to briefly look at her. The action caused his mane to flip to the opposite side and an unruly bit of black hair fell over his eye.

Annwyl stared. How had she never noticed it before? That black hair that she loved so much on both her knight and her dragon. The hair she insisted on running her hands through when she talked with her dragon or gripping in passion when she rode her knight.

“Fearghus?”

He moved to descend on his fallen father, but her voice stopped him. He looked at her. Their eyes locked. And Annwyl felt a wave of cold spike down her spine. Her gaze shifted to Morfyd, but the woman looked away from her. Gwenvael, although still a little green, turned his entire body away. His eyes downcast. Then she realized that there was another. She looked up to find a silver-haired naked man staring at her. He grinned in greeting. Then he winked.