Last Dragon Standing (Dragon Kin #4)(82)

“Unhappy? Me? Oh, no, sister! I’m deliriously happy.” Keita ran her hands through her dark red locks before adding, “Although you might want to get off that sacrificial pyre…we need the wood.”

“What does that mean?”

“‘Oh, no, Talaith!’” Keita mocked her in an annoyingly high pitch that sounded nothing like Morfyd’s voice. “‘I don’t want to eat. Just let me starve in my virginal white robes. You all go on without me. Honestly, I’ll be fine—if I don’t die first.’”

“That is not what I said, nor what I meant.”

“Oh, really? Because that’s what it sounded like to me, my Good Lady Dragoness of Suffering.”

“Come now, sister,” Morfyd lashed back. “Don’t be so jealous.”

“Jealous? Of you?”

“Of the fact that there are others who care about me, who like to take care of me. But I don’t want you to worry. I know for a fact there are many who care about you. Even now I’m sure there’s a bed set up in the middle of the barracks with a line of soldiers wrapped twice around the building, waiting just for you.”

Keita stood up fast, her chair slamming hard to the floor, while Éibhear caught hold of their no-longer-sleeping nephew before he could tumble to the ground.

“Keita!” Fearghus snapped.

“What is it, sister, that really bothers you?” Keita asked, ignoring Fearghus. “The fact that I could pleasure every one of those soldiers in a way you couldn’t even dream…or that your precious Brastias might be at the head of that line?”

To be honest, Morfyd didn’t remember much after she let loose that roar.

Ragnar was so busy wondering if there was, in fact, a line of soldiers waiting for Keita that it never occurred to him to grab her. Besides, why would he have to? She was a royal, after all. Trained in the fine art of etiquette, proper poise, and all that.

Unless, that is, your sister just called you a whore in front of your entire family, which meant you had to return the favor by suggesting you’re whore enough to f**k your sister’s mate. Apparently the Southland dragon etiquette rules varied little from the Northland Dragon Code when it came to sibling fights.

Still, Ragnar knew he’d never have been prepared for any Northland female of his acquaintance to suddenly jump up on the table and charge across it as Keita was doing, only to meet her roaring sister in the middle, the two of them colliding. Their bodies spun as they hit, both of them grabbing on to the other’s hair and pulling, screaming obscenities at each other like drunken Northland sailors on leave. No. Ragnar would never have been prepared for that—and he wasn’t prepared for it now.

And what were their kin doing? Nothing. They mostly looked bored while the Blue just kept saying, “We have to do something!” But he wasn’t actually doing “something.” Even the human queen had gone back to her book. Only Dagmar seemed shocked, her hand over her open mouth, her eyes wide behind her spectacles.

Realizing none of Keita’s kin were going to do anything to stop this, Ragnar stood and climbed up onto the table.

“You don’t want to get into the middle of this,” Fearghus, the queen’s eldest and seemingly most useless offspring, warned. He’d quickly retrieved his wandering children and was holding them securely on his lap, but that was all he seemed in the mood to do.

Yet Ragnar didn’t want to get in the middle of this, but the Fire Breathers had left him little choice.

He had just gotten his arms around Keita’s waist when a human male rushed in from another exit. “Damn,” he muttered before he dropped his shield and ax and joined Ragnar on the table. He took firm hold of Princess Morfyd, and, together, they pulled the two royals apart. Too bad the females still had each other by the hair.

“Let her go, Keita.”

Keita’s response was to scream. She didn’t scream words, just screamed. It was a little disconcerting.

“Morfyd! Please!” the human practically begged. But she wasn’t much better than her sister.

Desperate, Ragnar pulled one arm away from Keita’s waist and touched her hand. He unleashed the lightest of lightning bolts, but it was enough. The bolt shot through her fingers and into her sister’s hair, directly into her scalp. They both screeched and released the other, allowing the two males to pull them apart.

“Whore!” Princess Morfyd screamed.

“Frigid cow!” Keita screeched. Then one slapped the other, and the other slapped the first and Ragnar had had enough! He stepped down from the table and carried Keita from the Great Hall and out into the cool night.

Brastias took Morfyd into their room and closed the door. He placed her on the bed, returned to the door, and locked it, then went back to their bed and sat down beside her. She had her elbows resting on her knees and her face buried in her hands.

“The door’s locked,” he said.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Then Morfyd burst into tears, and Brastias pulled her into his arms, letting her cry herself out.

Ragnar placed Keita down, and she immediately began to head back toward the castle. “Ungrateful, spiteful—”

He caught her arm and pulled her back. “Let it go.”

“Let it go? I’ll let nothing go including my righteous disdain!” And Ragnar honestly couldn’t help it when he started to laugh.