Last Dragon Standing (Dragon Kin #4)(80)

At that point, everyone—even Ragnar—looked at Gwenvael, who quickly denied any involvement. “It wasn’t me! I didn’t teach him that.”

“It seems more like the boy is taking after his father.” Briec took his own babe from his mate’s arms. Whether he was doing it to give her a rest or annoy her was anyone’s guess and impossible to tell with those two. “You do seem to have a fetish, Fearghus.”

Now they all looked at Annwyl. Unlike everyone else, she hadn’t dressed up for dinner, but wore what she’d worn all day. She also wasn’t paying attention, her gaze focused on her lap. When the silence continued, she finally lifted her head. “What?”

“You’ve got a book under there again, don’t you?” Dagmar accused.

“What if I do?” Annwyl slammed the book onto the table. “What of it?”

“We have a guest,” Dagmar snapped back.

Annwyl glanced at Ragnar and shrugged. “So?”

“Despite the fact you tried to kill his brother and cousin—”

“I told you I didn’t know who they were!”

“That’s a lie. You could at the very least, your royal worship-ness, give him the respect he deserves as Chief Dragonlord and representative of the Northland dragons. Is that asking too bloody much? ”

“When I’m this bored… yes! ”

“Uh…excuse me,” Ragnar interrupted and, dying to see what he’d actually say, Keita turned in her chair to look directly at him.

“Yes, Lord Ragnar?” Dagmar asked, attempting to keep her voice calm.

“Well…” He reached under the table, pulled something out, and slammed it onto the table. A book. “All right. Fine. You caught me.” Dagmar’s back, already painfully straight, managed to straighten more. “Ragnar!”

“I’m sorry. I was bored, too. It was all this chatter about relatives I didn’t know, never intend to meet, and couldn’t care less about. So I smuggled in a book.”

Queen Annwyl, human ruler of all the Southland territories and one of the most feared warriors to ever live, pointed her finger across the table at Dagmar and screamed, “Ha! ” Then she raised her fists in the air and cheered, “Yes! Yes! Yes! ”

“Oh, shut up!” Dagmar looked at Ragnar. “You do understand, my lord, that I am trying to train her on basic etiquette?”

“I’m not one of your dogs, barbarian!”

“No, you’re not. Because my dogs are smarter.” Annwyl gasped. “Savage beast!”

Ragnar had to admit he was intrigued. He’d never seen Dagmar Reinholdt get into a verbal argument with anyone. Not one that involved actual voice raising. And he remembered clearly how she was around her sisters-in-law. A catty, vicious group of hags who took delight in making her life miserable. Too bad for them doing so was near impossible because Dagmar didn’t care. She didn’t care what they called her, she didn’t care how they treated her, she didn’t care if they liked her or not. All Dagmar cared about was the safety of her people and of her father, The Reinholdt himself.

Yet it could only mean one thing for Dagmar to unleash vicious insults and barking rage at the obviously insane human ruler who bored easily—that she was comfortable. Not comfortable in a sitting-in-a-soft-padded-chair-after-a-long-walk way. But comfortable enough around these humans and dragons to reveal her true nature and thoughts while trusting that Annwyl’s insults would go no further than “barbarian” and “savage beast”—words and phrases Dagmar would only take as compliments.

Focusing on the queen, Ragnar watched her chant “Boring! Boring!

Boring!” over and over again while Dagmar tried to explain how visiting nobles and dignitaries should be treated during meals. Dignitaries and nobles that he sensed did not visit too often. Obviously the human queen ran her court very differently than the Dragon Queen ran hers. In fact…he took a quick glance around the enormous Great Hall. Nope. Just this small group and the servants. No nobles or dignitaries anywhere in sight. For some reason the realization made Ragnar like the human queen.

Like a true warrior, Annwyl had scars. Lots of them. On her face, hands, arms. He was sure there were more under her sleeveless chainmail shirt and leather leggings. She also brandished the marks of her Claiming by Fearghus with great pride, wearing no bracelets or armbands on her forearms to hide the branded dragons she had there. She didn’t seem to have the same issues as Keita did about being Claimed and he was finding it harder and harder to dismiss Annwyl as just another insane monarch.

Ragnar leaned forward a bit to look at the book she’d slammed onto the table. He studied the cover and laughed. The queen’s green eyes turned to him, and he could understand how anyone’s first impression of her was of someone insane. It was that scowl combined with those wild green eyes and the fact that she always seemed to be glaring through her hair. But now Ragnar was beginning to see her as he’d seen Dagmar all those years ago.

The warlord’s tiny daughter that he’d almost dismissed as shy and probably a little slow—until he realized she simply couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her. Once that issue had been addressed, the real Dagmar had made her very dangerous appearance.

Finding the connection with Dagmar had been easy back in those early days. He’d brought her a puppy he found. It was the equivalent of handing some a gold-filled cave.