About a Dragon (Dragon Kin #2)(104)

Startled, Gwenvael sat up screaming, “I never touched her!”

Morfyd rolled her eyes and headed toward the door. “You are a constant source of embarrassment, little brother. Fearghus, follow me.”

Fearghus nodded at Talaith and followed his sister out. Gwenvael stood and stretched. “Talaith, my love.”

“Gwenvael, my pain.”

Chuckling, he reached down, grabbing hold of Éibhear’s hand, and dragged the still-sleeping dragon from the room.

Finally, Briec stood. A soft smile on his lips, he headed toward the door, his eyes never leaving Talaith’s face. He stopped at the doorway to look at her one more time before he walked out, softly closing the door behind him.

“Izzy?” Talaith forced her daughter back, staring intently at her. “Are you all right?”

Tears streaming down her face, she nodded.

“Are you sure?”

She couldn’t remember much after talking to Rhydderch Hael.

“I’m fine, Mum. I am.”

“Arzhela?”

A strange expression passed over her daughter’s features, but was gone so quickly, Talaith wasn’t sure if it was a play of the shifting light or not. “Gone now. I don’t think she’ll be back.”

“Did she suffer?”

“Yes. I believe she did.”

Talaith pulled Izzy back into the safety of her arms. “Good. That makes me smile.”

“Me, too, Mum. Me, too.”

* * *

Annwyl leaned back in the tub, sighing heavily. She’d finally worn herself out. Somewhere during her fight with that last battalion and setting fire to the still-decaying and screaming remains of Hamish, she’d lost her energy to continue fighting. She left her men to clean up and rode back to Garbhán Isle with her elite guard. After removing most of the blood using the well near the stables and cleaning the blood and gore off Violence, she’d returned to her room. The servants filled her tub with hot water and quickly disappeared. They wouldn’t look at her, mostly because they’d seen her decimate the Great Hall hours before.

The bedroom door opened and Fearghus walked in. He didn’t look at her either. He simply walked into the room, placed a bottle of wine on a side table by the window, and proceeded to remove his clothes.

“What’s that?” Annwyl motioned toward the bottle of wine.

He barely glanced at her. “It’s from Morfyd. Should you need it.”

She’d suffered no wounds during battle. At least nothing that needed anything more than some of Morfyd’s ointments. Unless it was for her other “problem”.

“How’s Talaith?”

“Awake.”

“Good.” She probably should apologize to Talaith. She wasn’t sure, but she may have thrown a chair at the woman’s head. And a table.

Fearghus dropped his clothes to the floor as was his way. She expected him to go to bed but instead he walked over to the tub and stared down at her.

“You’re not going to shove me under the water, are you?”

He finally smiled. “Move up a bit.” She did and he got in behind her, his long legs on either side of her. “Back.”

She leaned back, relaxing against Fearghus’ chest.

“Feel better?”

“Now that I’ve decimated an entire army and set Hamish’s rotting corpse aflame…I don’t feel half bad.”

“Good.” Big arms wrapped around her and Annwyl let herself relax with the only being she ever let herself relax around. “We’ve got decisions to make, love.”

“I know,” she sighed out. “I know we do.”

“Before you met me did you want a family? Children?”

“To be quite honest, I never thought I’d live this long. So I never thought of it as an option. You?”

“Sometimes. But nothing that ever kept me up nights. I do know I don’t like to be used.”

And that was Annwyl’s biggest problem with all this. Gods having fun with her body and with her and Fearghus’ love for each other. “Aye. That pisses me off as well.”

“Still…”

“Still what?”

“Imagine the kind of children we would have.”

She’d been doing that all day, in between the killing of course. “Bloody nightmares is what we’d have, Fearghus.”

“Aye.”

“Killers,” she added.

“Destroyers.”

“Warlords.”

“Definitely.”

“So what’s your point, dragon?”

“They’ll be ours to raise as we sit fit. They’ll be ours, Annwyl.”

“Aye. They’ll be part Fearghus the Destroyer and Annwyl the Bloody. Two of the most violent and vicious beings known in recent history as I was told the other day by an old wizard passing through town.”

“Aye. We are that.”

“And do you really want to release the unholy product of our union on the world?”

“No, Annwyl.” He pulled her wet hair to the side. “I want to release the unholy product of our union on them.”

Annwyl tried to sit up, but Fearghus kept a tight grip on her with his arms while he kissed her neck. “You can’t be serious, Fearghus.”