Dragon On Top (Dragon Kin #0.4)(45)

Chapter 18

Ghleanna waited for Feoras about five miles from where Rhiannon had tracked the bastard down. The queen’s skills had, as Bram had said, gotten mighty. It seemed she could track nearly any dragon she wanted without ever leaving Devenallt Mountain unless the fugitive had the protection of a witch as strong as she. And Rhiannon had tracked Feoras here, not more than fifteen miles from where he’d tried to kill Ghleanna.

As Bram had said, Feoras and the rest of the soldiers he’d bribed, were waiting for Bram to return so they could finish the job that had been started.

And here Bram was, relaxing next to a tree, still in his dragon form, quietly scratching away on some parchment. Did he ever pay attention to anything going on around him that wasn’t on a piece of paper or in a bloody book? She doubted it. But he seemed to have complete faith in her. He still trusted her to protect him and that was all she needed to know.

She heard Feoras and his soldiers moving through the trees. They were quiet enough but Ghleanna knew what to listen for. The flutter of a leaf, the warning of a bird . . . the slither of a tail.

Feoras came around a boulder, but he stopped when he saw Ghleanna standing there. He reared back in surprise, golden eyes blinking wide.

“Ghleanna?”

“Feoras.”

“I . . .” His gaze shifted and he saw Bram leaning against that tree, still writing—and blatantly ignoring him.

“You . . . ?” she pushed when he stopped speaking. “You . . . what? Thought I was dead?”

Feoras focused on her again. “I knew you wouldn’t go down that easy.” He leered. “You never did . . . go down easy.”

“Not unless I want to.” She moved forward, pulling out her axes, holding one in each claw. “I am going to stop you here.”

“You’re going to try.” Soldiers moved out of the trees, some stopping and staring at her, also seemingly shocked to see her alive. If she survived this, her name would be legendary. “You going to take us all on? Are you into that now?”

“Your disrespect to Captain Ghleanna,” Bram said from his tree, his voice soft, “offends me.”

“Does it now?” Feoras said with a laugh. “Oh, well. Don’t want to offend Bram the Merciful. He might bore us to death with his vast knowledge of nothing.” Feoras sauntered closer but not close enough to Ghleanna’s axes. “So, Mercy . . . you seem quite attached to the fair Captain. Tell me, did you two get close while she was trying to survive the wound I gave her?”

Bram continued to scribble away on his parchment. “We did. Very close. In fact—” he finally looked up from his papers but he gazed at Ghleanna—“I love her. Have for years.”

“Gods!” Feoras laughed. “Are you really that desperate, friend? Because the honest truth is, when it comes to getting under a Cadwaladr wench’s tail, the last thing you need to do is tell them you love them.” He eyed Ghleanna and she couldn’t believe she’d ever found him attractive. “That’s how it is for all of them, but especially Ailean’s offspring. All whores . . . just like their father.”

Ghleanna had heard it all before but, unlike her sisters, she never knew how to let it roll off her scales like rainwater. But that was before, wasn’t it? When she actually gave a centaur shit what other dragons thought. Now, however, she realized what her kin had been trying to tell her was true—she was a mighty She-dragon who could do better than Feoras the Traitor. A sad, jealous lizard not worthy of her time or her drunken whining. That being said, she also had no intention of letting Feoras goad her into a rash move. There was a plan, and she intended to stick with it.

But when Bram unleashed an explosion of flame that rammed into Feoras and half his soldiers, sending them flying back through the trees, decimating part of the forest in the process while setting fire to another part . . . she had to admit she was surprised. And rather impressed.

“What?” Bram asked her when she could only gawk at him. “I thought you wanted them over in that clearing so they were surrounded by your kin.”

“I . . . I did. It’s just I thought you were going to run and let them give chase. Not set the entire forest on fire.”

“I don’t run for anybody. I wouldn’t worry about the forest.” He glanced up at the sky. “It looks like it might rain. Besides, I warned you . . . my flame is mighty.”

“I thought you were embellishing.”

“I don’t embellish.”

“I see that now.”

They stepped through a wall of flames and into the clearing as Feoras and his fellow traitors got to their claws.

Feoras was angry now. Bram could see that. Because it was one thing to be bested by a fellow Dragonwarrior, even a female, but by a politician? No. He wasn’t having that.

More traitors landed in the clearing.

“They weren’t there,” one of the soldiers told Feoras, before his eyes locked on Ghleanna in surprise.

“Where are they, Ghleanna?” Feoras demanded. “We’ve been watching that kin of yours for days, knowing they’d lead us to the politician. And we both know they won’t leave you to fight alone with just this one by your side.”

“They’re waiting,” she told him.

“For what?”

“For me to kill you.”