Lorcan winced, remembering the brutality of the beating they both received. What gave him small satisfaction was that he’d expected the beating. His bastard sister apparently lived a simple life in her poor village and received little or no discipline. Her reaction to her punishment... well, truly reward enough for him.

He didn’t know one could hate someone as much as he hated this girl. But she continued to make a fool of him. There were several surrounding kingdoms that gave her campaign gold and troops in the hopes she would do what they could not. Kill him. Take his throne.

He’d see her head on a spike outside his castle walls first. And he now had the perfect ally to assist him.

He never much liked witches. Didn’t like the idea of such weak beings as females having that kind of power that they probably could not control. But he tolerated sorcerers well enough. And Hefaidd-Hen was just what he needed. Pay him well and Hefaidd-Hen would hand you the world. He’d proven himself over and over the few months they’d been allies. Although he still hadn’t captured his sister.

Lorcan heard the moan of the soldier pinned to the floor beneath his boot. With a sneer, he pushed his foot down harder on his neck. The worthless little bastard had failed him. He’d come back without the bitch.

He glanced over his shoulder at his lieutenants. They watched him, trying their best to hide their fear. But he could smell it. He looked back at the lowering suns. “I want my sister.” He growled the words low. “I want my sister!” He slammed his foot down, snapping the man’s neck and crushing his jaw. “Now get out of my sight!”

He heard them run from the room.

They better run.

He would have his sister. He would see the bitch dead if he had to destroy half the world to get to her.

“Well, I see now why the women in the village avoid her. She’s crazy.”

Fearghus the Destroyer settled his enormous bulk near his lair’s underground lake. “She’s not crazy, little sister. She’s angry.”

Morfyd settled against a rock opposite her brother, wrapping her cloak tightly around her body. Her human form was constantly cold, constantly shivering. And yet, she lived freely among the humans. They all believed her to be human. Merely a powerful witch and healer. Even as Annwyl’s brother ordered her face sliced open during the early days of his reign, she stayed human. Fearghus could simply never understand why.

But for the first time, Fearghus needed to call on his sister as a human. His power could only keep Annwyl alive for a short time. Morfyd and her ancient dragon Magicks actually healed the girl by mending her damaged organs. And as a human female, she could comfortably tend to the girl’s needs.

Morfyd nodded. “From what I’ve heard she has much to be angry about. It’s a well-known fact that her father was a tyrant and her brother hated her from the day she appeared.”

“Do you know why?” Fearghus found himself becoming obsessively fascinated with the girl.

“I know they don’t have the same mother. Annwyl’s mother never married her father. You know how important that is to these humans. And Lorcan never let her forget that she was a bastard. A poor bastard, no less, from some little village east of Kerezik.”

“Can she be trusted?”

Morfyd shrugged. “Her men are loyal to her. And as much as the village women avoid her they do respect her. They trust their men’s lives with her. But whether we can trust her? That I do not know, brother. She’s still human.”

Fearghus, too, wasn’t sure he could trust Annwyl. Dragons possessed powers that far outweighed most creatures. But these powers, like their ability to use flame or to shift to human, kept them alive. Humans were a treacherous and dangerous lot and made killing one of his kind as some sort of rite of passage. No. His brethren relied on secrecy.He couldn’t and wouldn’t betray that to a girl he knew nothing about. Just bringing her to his lair was a dangerous risk he normally would never take. There were very few who knew a dragon lived in Dark Glen. And those who stumbled upon him in the past he quickly silenced.But that hadn’t been an option for Annwyl. She really did fascinate him, just as he said. Her bravery. Her strength. Her beauty. And she was beautiful. Tall. Strong. Brown hair with golden streaks that reached down past the waist of her lean body.

“I’m still impressed she challenged you like that,” his sister continued. “Although it could just be more proof that she’s mad.”

Fearghus heard her, but barely. His mind busy recalling when he first found Annwyl. He shifted to human to easily remove her armor and get at her wound. He remembered how quickly and strongly his human body reacted to the sight of her. Naked, pale, and covered in her own blood, there was something about her that called to him. As he chanted the spell that would keep her alive until Morfyd arrived, she watched him with the darkest green eyes he’d ever seen. Over the subsequent days, while he cared for her, he kept seeing those eyes in his dreams. That long, lean body covered in many battle scars there as well.

Without even trying, the girl trapped his attention and he couldn’t stop thinking about her, which was unusual. Quite a few females had graced his life over the more than two hundred years he existed. All of them beautiful and cultured. Some human and some dragon. But none entranced him like this tiny girl. How tall was she anyway? Maybe six feet? He smiled; only his people would call her “tiny.”

A small fireball hit him in the face. He again looked at his sister, smoke still curling out from her human nostrils.