“I did, too,” Éibhear continued to complain. “But apparently my father had other ideas.”

“It was either that,” Addolgar shot back at the boy, “or let Bercelak cut off your head like he planned!”

Éibhear, human and dressed in chain mail and the surcoat of some long-dead army, put his hands on his hips. “Why? Because I didn’t agree with the old bastard?”

“You’re a soldier!” Addolgar yelled. “You don’t agree. You don’t disagree. You follow orders!”

The boy raised his hands in the air. “Well . . . I don’t like following orders. How about that, Uncle?”

Addolgar went for the boy again, but Braith rammed her hand against his chest, stopping him before he got more than a few feet.

“Éibhear dear,” Braith said, “why don’t you go inside and see your cousins.”

“I don’t feel like seeing anybody,” the idiot boy complained.

Now, it was one thing when Addolgar’s demands weren’t followed, but it was another when Braith’s nicely put requests weren’t.

Slowly, the She-dragon faced her nephew-by-mating. As always, she had two hammers secured to her back. One was once Addolgar’s hammer. The other was one Addolgar had had made for her. She’d been fighting with those two weapons for centuries now, and dragon, human, and centaur feared her. Of course, Addolgar had been right . . . the hammer was the perfect weapon for her. Unlike the current queen, Rhiannon, Braith was not sharp-tongued. She was blunt in word and deed, and blunt weapons were perfect for her. Lack of an edge never stopped her from killing enemies with an enthusiasm that even her own kin respected . . . and feared.

“Nephew,” she said, walking up to Éibhear. “Go inside and see your cousins.”

“Was I not clear?” Éibhear snapped back. “I said I don’t feel like it.”

“Oh. I see.”

Braith turned away from the idiot boy and with her eyes on Addolgar, she pulled out one of her hammers, hefted it between both hands, and spun, swinging the weapon.

The boy, to his credit, was quick, though; his time in his mother’s army had enhanced his reflexes. He dropped low and the hammer zipped by, the head of it ramming into the ancient tree beside him—and tearing it out at the root. The tree tipped over and, with great noise, fell.

Horrified, Éibhear stared first at the fallen tree, then up at Braith from his still-crouched position.

“I said,” Braith calmly repeated, “go inside and see your cousins.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The idiot boy stood on shaky legs and stumbled quickly toward the Penarddun cave. Once he’d disappeared inside, Braith secured her weapon and again faced Addolgar.

After staring at each other for a long moment, they both burst out laughing.

“Gods, Addolgar—what the holy hells? What happened to my sweet Éibhear?”

“And if I have to hear that bloody question again from some besotted female . . . I will end him!”

She returned to Addolgar’s side. “What happened? I thought he was to stay in Dark Plains for the next two or three moons. At least. And I definitely didn’t think he’d be going back to the Northlands with the Lightnings after what he did to that Northlander’s cousin.”

Refusing to think too much about the near-war the boy had almost started with their current Northland allies, Addolgar stepped close to his mate and said low, “I’m not taking him back to the Lightnings.”

“Where are you taking him?”

Addolgar didn’t answer right away, trying to think of the best way to say it.

“Addolgar?” Braith pushed.

Forget it. There was no best way to say it.

“I’m taking him into the Ice Lands.”

Braith blinked, shocked. “What the battle-fuck for?”

“He’s to become Mì-runach.”

She gasped, hand clasping over her mouth. “Addolgar, no! No!”

Although the Mì-runach were rarely mentioned among the Southland dragons, everyone knew of them. They were nothing more than a brutal death squad made up of warriors who couldn’t follow orders. Who were more a risk to their comrades than they were a help. And the training for those who joined the Mì-runach was brutal, heartless, just like the dragons who made up their ranks.

“We have no other option,” Addolgar told his mate. “You see how he’s acting.”

“He’s young. And obsessed with some human female with impossibly long legs. Give him time. He’ll work through this.”

“Not without some help.” Not without the heartless training of the Mì-runach.

“Isn’t that what kin is for, Addolgar? Leave him here with my aunts. They’ll get him in line.”

“Absolutely not. First off, this wasn’t my decision or even just Bercelak’s. It was Rhiannon’s. She made this decision, so there’ll be no going back. And secondly, I’ll not have my daughters around that idiot boy’s bad influence.”

Braith’s lips pursed and she rested a hand on her hip. “What about your sons?”

“What about them?”

“Don’t they matter?”

“If they did, you would have warned me long before we had them,” he said, as he’d been saying ever since his first son had been hatched.

“This again?” she demanded.