How to Drive a Dragon Crazy (Dragon Kin #6)(49)

Even now, a good two hours’ flight from his home, and what was he doing? Going through his damn bag!

Brother and sister looked at each other, then back at their father. Although Brannie—and Celyn for that matter—had very little in common with their father, she did adore him. Unlike most of the males among her kin, he was the kindest dragon she knew. And although all his hatchlings had followed the way of the Cadwaladrs rather than the way of Bram the Merciful, he never showed disappointment or envy of dragons who had offspring more comfortable in libraries or royal chambers than in battlefields.

Even better, he made their mother very happy. Still, after several centuries together. Unlike her Uncle Bercelak and Queen Rhiannon, however, Brannie’s parents kept their private lives, well . . . private. Occasionally she saw her mother on her father’s lap when they were human or their tails intertwined when they were dragon, but if their father ever chained up their mother, Brannie could say with great relief . . . she’d never walked in on that.

Shame her royal cousins could not say the same thing.

“What do you think he’s looking for?” Brannie asked.

“His sanity?”

She laughed and leaned over the railing. “Daddy,” she called out and her father stopped searching in his bag, but he didn’t move at all.

“Daddy,” she called again. And now her father looked around him, appearing a tad panicked. She looked at Celyn, but he could only shrug.

“Daddy! Look up!”

He did, but when he saw his youngest daughter and son, he let out a breath, his hand against his chest. “Gods, Branwen the Black! You scared me to death! I thought you were calling me from the Great Beyond.”

Brannie frowned. “Beyond what?”

Now her brother laughed and her father shook his head. “Brannie, my love, how I’ve missed you.”

She grinned. “I’ve missed you, too. But why are you here?”

“To talk to the queens. But”—and the bag digging began again—“I can’t find all the paperwork. Gods, I hate when this happens. I hate not having everything I need when I must see Queen Rhiannon.”

She didn’t ask why he didn’t worry about Queen Annwyl the same way. It wasn’t because he feared her less—he didn’t—but because Annwyl didn’t make it her business in life to torment poor Bram. It wasn’t vicious. In fact, it was Rhiannon’s way of showing how much she liked their father. Too bad Bram just saw it as pure torment.

“Do you want us to go get it for you?” Brannie asked. She didn’t like her father to travel as much as he used to. He was getting older, although it was hard to see since he was still so very handsome, and she worried about him. Especially since he traveled mostly on his own. Only on Queen’s orders would he allow for a protective guard. “We can be there and back by tomorrow, before your meeting.”

But a bony elbow rammed into her side.

“Ow!” she complained.

“I have plans tonight,” he whispered.

“Oh, by the gods,” she sighed. “Please don’t tell me you’re starting up again with Izzy.”

“No, I’m not starting up again with Izzy. And are you going to keep throwing that in my face any time I say I have plans?”

“Maybe!”

Disgusted, although she didn’t really know why, Brannie turned from her brother to finish talking to her father, but he was gone.

“Where’d he go?”

“Wandered off that way.” Celyn motioned toward the Great Hall doors.

“I don’t want him traveling so much, Celyn. He’s not getting any younger.”

“Neither are you, but we aren’t holding that against you.”

Fed up, Brannie caught her brother by his black hair, lifted him up while she stood and then hauled him over the railing, throwing him to the ground below.

“You vicious cow!” he screamed up at her.

She started to scream back at him, but something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she walked across the battlement to the other side. There she saw Izzy walking along with that ugly dog of hers. Brannie had been around Izzy for many years now. They’d been through battles and nights of too much drink and other nights of too much kin, and she knew when something was bothering her friend.

Worried it was Éibhear, she went down the battlement stairs, walked past her still-yelling brother, and out one of the side doors. She tracked down Izzy heading away from the castle and deep into the woods.

“Iz!”

Izzy stopped and turned, watching Brannie run up to her. She forced a smile. “Hi, there.”

Brannie halted in her tracks, glared. “Do you expect me to believe that smile?”

Realizing it was futile, Izzy let the smile go and her shoulders slump.

“What’s wrong?”

Izzy threw her arms out and announced to the trees, “Everything!”

Nodding, Brannie suggested, “Would you like a stage to make this speech?”

Izzy pursed her lips to stop from chuckling. “Bitch.”

Brannie slung her arm around Izzy’s shoulders. “I know, I know. It’s a flaw. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

Izzy did. She told her of her surprisingly short but incredibly painful conversation with her mother. While she talked, they walked, until they ended up at one of their favorite spots. A quiet lake surrounded by trees and boulders. It was too small for dragons in their true form, so it was mostly used in the evening by dragons with human mates. And during the day . . . by Izzy and Brannie.