Last Dragon Standing (Dragon Kin #4)(11)

“Éibhear?”

Her baby brother, towering over the entire crowd, waved at her and, grinning, Keita waved back. Making sure not to hit herself in the face with that stupid chain. “Éibhear!” she cheered. “What are you doing here?”

“Just passing through,” he called back. “You all right?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she answered honestly. “Are you going to stay for the execution?”

“I guess I better so we can bring your body back to Mum.”

“Don’t take me to her. She’ll just spit on my corpse and dance around it. And being trapped in the afterlife, I won’t be able to beat her within an inch of her miserable existence. But tell Daddy I said hi.” Keita clasped her hands together again and said, “Now, where was I?” She heard her traveling companion clear his throat, and when she glanced over at him, he pointed to something that had pushed past all the townspeople and guards and now was right in front of the block she stood upon.

She examined the male. She could smell the lightning that came from within him, knew he was a Northlander. The blue hood of his cloak probably hid purple hair—common among the Lightnings. But his human face was surprisingly handsome for a barbarian. Sharp cheekbones, delicious-looking full lips, a strong jaw, and a once-battered nose that kept him from looking too perfect. But it was his eyes that made her think she might know him from somewhere. They were blue with shots of silver, like tiny bolts of lightning. They were as beautiful as anything she’d seen, and Keita felt sure that if she’d f**ked this one, she would have remembered. She tried to be very good about that sort of thing—especially if she f**ked the one-time enemies of her people, since that sort of thing brought all sorts of problems.

She pointed at him. “Don’t I know you?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, rather than answering her.

“I’m about to be wrongly executed for something I didn’t do.”

“And yet something tells me you did do it. Now get your ass down here.”

“Get my…” Keita slammed her hands onto her hips, the chain nearly not allowing it. Although she refused to believe her hips were that wide.

“You need to go away before I get angry,” Keita told him.

“I’ve seen you angry. I wasn’t impressed. Tell me, princess, did you hit at them with your tiny little fists or use that tail to ward them off?” When Keita’s skin began to itch and the overwhelming desire to kill everything within a league of her rage flowed from her pores like honey, she knew exactly who this arrogant, lightning-breathing, worthless scum of a whore bastard was! “You! I should have finished you when I had the chance, warlord,” Keita told him.

“Should haves. I bet your entire life is filled with should haves.”

“Only where you’re concerned. Because I should have torn your feeble barbarian heart from your weak chest and I should have danced around you in a veritable orgy of blood and pain and suffering that would have called the dark gods to me so they could make me their reigning queen!”

“Keita?” her traveling companion called out lightly.

“What? ”

When he didn’t answer, she lifted her gaze from the dragon in front of her. The entire crowd now watched her in horror.

“I could be wrong,” her friend said, “but I’m thinking the ‘good people, I have been wrongly accused’ speech isn’t going to work at the moment.”

And whose fault was that? The Lightning’s fault, that’s who!

“Finish it!” Lord Bampour yelled from the safety of the gate walls, his men scrambling to get him to safety.

The executioner grabbed Keita by the shoulders, yanking her back.

The guards on the ground tried to force the Lightning back with the now screaming-for-her-blood townsfolk.

“Well, you’ve left me no choice,” Keita told the audience watching her.

“Keita, no!” Éibhear cried out. Typical of her baby brother. What would he have her do instead? Let these peasants hang her, a royal, like meat? Was that what he wanted?

The executioner reached for the noose, and Keita sucked air into her lungs. But guards were tossed aside, and Ragnar the Bastard, as she liked to call him when she thought of him at all, jumped onto the block and caught hold of the front of her dress. “Oy!” she gasped. “Watch the dress!” Ignoring her, as he always seemed to do, Ragnar hauled her forward and over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” she ordered.

“Quiet!” the bastard snarled, already moving away from the block.

“Just the sound of your voice irritates me.” Keita raised her head and saw the Baron Lord’s guards charging forward. “Kill him!” she ordered them, causing them all to stop and stare at her. Humans. Although she found most of them quite entertaining, they could be a little on the slow side.

Using her chained hands, she gestured at the bastard who was walking off with her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. “Kill. Him,” she said again. “Now!”

Finally, swords were pulled, and the villagers made a run for it. The fight was on, but all Keita could do was sit there on this idiot’s shoulder, hoping the human soldiers could finish what she hadn’t two years before.

“Keita!” She heard the urgency and warning in her friend’s voice and looked back at the block she’d been dragged from.