“Silence!”

Annwyl didn’t answer Rhiannon; instead, she walked over to Talwyn, who was still trapped on the ground because of her damaged leg.

With cold indifference, she gazed down at her daughter.

“Come after me, little girl,” their mother warned, “and you’d best be ready.”

“Annwyl,” Fearghus said, softly. But Annwyl raised her hand, keeping him quiet.

“Understand me, Talwyn?”

Breathing hard, her rage a palpable thing surrounding her, Talwyn spat out between gritted teeth, “Oh, I understand.”

“Good.”

Annwyl turned and walked across the training ring. As she passed Talan, she stopped to get him back to his feet and patted his shoulder. Then she went over the fence and headed toward the stables.

No one stopped her. No one tried to speak to her. They all just watched her until she disappeared.

Rhi was the first to move, rushing over to Talwyn’s side along with her mother and Morfyd. Together, they examined the damage to his sister’s leg.

His grandmother shifted to human and accepted a robe from her mate while Bercelak quickly put on human clothes and followed her into the house so that she could, most likely, meet with King Gaius.

Talan went to his sister’s side. He crouched beside her, putting his arms under her, careful of her damaged leg, and lifted her.

“Let’s get her in a room so we can fix this leg,” Morfyd suggested.

Talan had started to follow his aunts and cousin, when Talwyn grabbed the scruff of his shirt.

“Why did you stop me?” she demanded, the pain of her leg making her voice deeper, sweat rolling down her face from the recent battle.

“Because,” Talan replied, gazing deeply into his sister’s dark eyes, “she’s our mother.”

Talwyn blinked, as if she’d forgotten that very important fact. “Oh . . . yeah. Right.”

Gods in the heavens, she had forgotten!

Chapter Fifteen

“King Gaius!” a voice trilled.

Gaius cringed. He hadn’t bothered to go outside to watch the battle between mother and daughter, mostly because he hadn’t cared. Plus, he’d thought he’d have some time alone to eat.

Sadly . . . that was not to be.

Gaius stood and faced the Dragon Queen of the Southlands.

“Queen Rhiannon.”

She held out her hand, apparently a new bit of etiquette she’d borrowed from the humans.

Gaius grasped that hand and kissed the back of it, which got him a lovely growl from Rhiannon’s mate.

Exasperated, Gaius snapped, “She offered it to me!”

“Oh, stop it, Bercelak!” She crinkled up her nose in an adorable manner that Gaius found annoying, and said, “He gets so testy around other males. But nothing to worry about.”

Yeah . . . Gaius wasn’t so sure about that. Not with black smoke pouring out of the dragon’s human nostrils.

“You should have come to see, Gaius Domitus,” Zoya Kolesova stated as she and the other Riders returned to the hall. “Mother and daughter battling for dominance. It was beautiful sight to behold.”

The Dragon Queen’s eyes grew wide at the sight of Zoya as she exclaimed, “Good gods! When did we start letting giants in? Bercelak, I thought we had them banished!”

“Queen Rhiannon,” Gaius quickly stepped in, “please let me introduce you to the Riders of the Outerplains, brought here by Kachka Shestakova. First, this is Zoya Kolesova of the Mountain Movers of the Lands of Pain in the Far Reaches of—”

“No!” the queen snarled, hands up and swiping through the air. “Absolutely not! I will not sit here and listen to those ridiculous names! No!”

She turned on her heel and stormed toward the back of the castle. “Come, Iron. We have much to discuss!”

Gaius glanced at Kachka and she mouthed, Thank you, at him.

He gave a small smile and began to follow, but he’d barely gotten a step before the queen yelled through the doors at the back of the hall, “Are you coming or do you need an engraved invitation, Iron?”

Letting out a pained sigh, Gaius mouthed back, You owe me, female, which only made Kachka laugh.

Kachka watched Gaius make the walk to the back of the hall, his feet dragging like a little boy sent to be reprimanded by his mother.

When she turned back around, Elina was staring at her.

“What?” she asked in their language.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“You’re smiling. It’s disturbing.”

“Do you want to go hunting or not?”

“All right. I was just letting you know.”

After the extremely long meeting with Rhiannon and Bercelak—discussing what he’d already discussed with Annwyl—Gaius had barely been able to get back to his room to change clothes for dinner before he heard the knock on his bedroom door and opened it to find Izzy standing there. She’d changed out of her chain mail and was in a dark blue dress that hugged every curve. She had small blue flowers weaved throughout her hair, but she still kept several of her warrior braids and had two decorative—but quite functional—swords strapped to her back.

“You look beautiful,” he noted.

Her smile was wide. There was something about her that still reminded Gaius of the young woman he’d met all those years ago. A cheerful innocence that belied the brutal warrior she’d become, who was feared throughout the realms.

Many warlords and generals called her “The Blood Queen’s Pit Dog.”

A rather dismissive name for a warrior who had personally destroyed the orc kingdom of the west and laid waste to the Three Kingdoms of Ice right outside the Ice Land territories.

And that same terrifying general was now outside his door . . . blushing.

“Thank you,” she gushed, giving an awkward little curtsy. Awkward because Izzy, like Annwyl, had not been raised in the court as most of the lords and ladies of this land had.

“Are you here to escort me to the dinner?”

“I am. Celyn was supposed to come get you. As you know, he’s sergeant major of the Dragon Queen’s Army now and he thought it was his duty to escort you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But his sister, Brannie, she wanted to escort you because she’s also a captain and she thinks you’re quite cute.” Gaius laughed as Izzy went on. “But Celyn wasn’t having it. And Brannie . . . she’s never been one to back down about anything. So the pair of them are in a right brawl now . . . that’s when I decided to come get you myself. I’m hungry and, as soon as we’re done eating, we can dance!”

She reached in and took his arm, pulling him out into the hall.

“Are you happy with your room?” she asked as they made their way toward the stairs.

“Much happier now.”

She winced. “Heard about that.”

“I’m sure everyone has heard about that.”

“You have to understand the Riders live differently than we do. I’m sure they didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

“I’m sure the Riders who arrived with me didn’t see anything wrong with sleeping in my bed. But I’m sure that Kachka Shestakova knew exactly what she was doing. She did it on purpose.”