Feel the Burn (Dragon Kin #8)(45)

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.”

“I doubt that. Kachka doesn’t seem to care about anyone enough to torment them.”

“You could say the same thing about a diseased jungle cat, and yet they still love to torment the large rats that live in burrows beneath them.”

Izzy laughed. “I guess you’re right.”

They reached the first floor and walked toward the head table, taking a moment to easily leap over the bodies of Celyn the Charming and Branwen the Awful as they rolled by, fists and curses flying.

“How many legions do you command now, General?” he asked her.

“Three. The Fifteenth, the Twenty-Third, and the Thirty-Ninth. All good, strong soldiers I’m proud to lead. I’ll be heading off to the base camps in a few days for inspections. Making sure everything is prepared for whenever Annwyl is ready to move.”