“Think you can help me relax then?”

“Oh, aye. I know I can.”

His hands on her br**sts, he pulled her back until she knew they were right by the table with all its elaborate battle plans and maps. And that’s right where he tossed her.

Stepping between her legs, Bercelak’s head lowered until his mouth covered her breast.

Moaning, she leaned back, her legs wrapped around his waist, her hands buried in his silky black hair. After all this time, he still felt so very good.

But they kept forgetting one small thing . . . actually, five not-so-small things . . .

“Gods!” Their eldest son barked. “Can you two not find a private alcove or, at the very least, a bed?”

Rhiannon looked over to see her children at the entrance. Her eldest, Fearghus, slapped his claws around the eyes of her two youngest, Keita and Éibhear. Morfyd looked appalled and embarrassed, Briec looked bored and Gwenvael, of course, applauded.

“It’s nice to see old dragons f**king, isn’t it?” he cheered. And she suddenly wished that she’d taken his tail.

Bercelak lifted his head and roared, “Out, you little bastards! Out!”

Morfyd couldn’t move fast enough. She practically sprinted from the room, white hair flying behind her. I really will have to find a way to toughen that little dragoness up. Briec snorted and walked away, reaching back to grab Gwenvael’s wounded tail and drag the cheeky little bastard, yelling and threatening and still bleeding, from the room. Fearghus lifted up his young kin and walked out while Keita tried to remove her brother’s hand so she could get a better look, and Rhiannon’s sweet Éibhear just kept saying, “What? What am I missing? What?”

Once they’d left, Bercelak focused those black eyes on her. Eyes that her eldest son had.

“You wanted hatchlings.”

“I know. I just didn’t want those hatchlings. Personally, I blame your father.”

Bercelak’s eyes grew wide. “Excuse me?”

On a burst of laughter, she exclaimed, “Well that came out horribly wrong!”

“Oh, that’s it, Princess. You’ve got to make it up to me now.”

With that, he lifted her up and tossed her over his shoulder.

“Where are we going?” she demanded, even as she kept laughing and he stalked off deep into the cave.

“Where do you think?”

And, laughing, they said together, “To get the chains!”

And here’s a sneak peek at the next book in G.A. Aiken’s dragon series, ABOUT A DRAGON, coming in December from Zebra. . . .

They dragged her from bed before the two suns even rose over the Caffyn Mountains. She fought as best she could, but the noose they’d wrapped around her throat cut off her ability to breathe, weakening her. And they bound her hands tightly with coarse rope because they feared she’d cast a spell on them. She had none to cast, but what really annoyed her was her inability to get the dagger still tied to her thigh.

Of course, only she would get an entire town to try and kill her. Nice one, idiot.

Strong men threw the end of the rope over a sturdy branch and slowly pulled her off her feet. They didn’t want her to die too quickly. They wanted to watch her hang for a while, and it looked like they’d prepared a pyre for a good, old-fashioned witch burning.

Lovely.

The man she called husband screamed at her. He screamed how she was a witch. How she was evil. How they all knew the truth about her and now she would pay. If she weren’t fighting for her life, she’d roll her eyes in annoyance.

But what truly galled her . . . what set her teeth absolutely on edge—other than choking to death—was that the goddess who sent her here all those years ago was the same one leaving her to die.

She thought the evil bitch would at least protect her until she finally accomplished what she needed her to do. What she’d been training to do since she was sixteen.

But Talaith, Daughter of Haldane, had learned long ago that no one was to be trusted. No one would ever protect her. No one would ever do anything but use her. Eventually she’d learned to trust no one but herself.

Of course a few allies might have helped you this day, Talaith.

She coughed and squirmed in her bonds, praying her neck would finally just break. She would definitely rather not die by burning. Talaith never considered flame a witch’s best friend.

As she wondered what it would take to snap her neck using her own body weight, she saw him.

He stood out like a jewel among pigs. Her arrogant, handsome knight, still in his chainmail with the bright red surcoat over it, but without the black cape he wore that shielded part of his face and hair from her sight. She wasn’t sure if it were her imagination or if her impending death had made her sight untrustworthy, but he had—silver?—yes. He had glossy silver hair that reached past his knees. But it wasn’t the silver hair of an old man. This beauty couldn’t be more than thirty winters. At most.

Gods, and he was a beauty. The most beautiful thing Talaith had ever seen. Well, at least she’d leave this world with something pretty for her last vision.

He walked up to one of the townsfolk and motioned toward her.

“She is a witch, m’lord!” a woman—whose child Talaith saved from a poisonous snakebite the year before—screamed. “She’s in league with demons and the dark gods.”

She wished. At least the dark gods protected their own.

The knight stared at her for several moments. If she could, she wouldn’t have been too proud to beg for mercy. But, even if she could speak, she wouldn’t bother. Those cold violet eyes of his told her it would have done no good anyway.