Light My Fire (Dragon Kin #7)(105)

Fearghus, now behind his mate, laid his hand on her shoulder. “Annwyl, why don’t we go to the training field for a bit?”

“I’m queen!” Annwyl snapped. “I should be able to rip the eye out of anyone’s head that I want to!” She glanced over at Gaius Domitus, noticed the eye patch over his right eye, and said with an annoyed sigh, “No offense.”

“Of course,” his sister shot back.

But, not surprisingly, Annwyl missed the tone and she marched off, Fearghus behind her—still laughing.

“I suggest we get the guests set up quickly,” Ghleanna offered.

“I can show them the way,” Var said, quickly sliding off Bram’s back.

Bram nodded at the suggestion and shifted to human. The others followed suit and they all quickly dressed.

Once that was done, Var led Gaius and his sister to the guest quarters that would conveniently keep them out of the castle and away from Annwyl.

With that taken care of, Bram turned toward the castle stairs and, to his great relief, saw Celyn and Brannie coming toward him. Bram had been worried about his son on this trip, but he was glad to see him back and well. Although he was back much sooner than Bram had expected.

Celyn walked up to his parents and stared at them.

“Celyn?” Ghleanna asked. “What is it?”

Then they were both being hugged. Tightly.

Bram looked over at his mate, frowning in question. But all Ghleanna could do was shrug.

“Is everything all right?” Ghleanna demanded. “Have you been hurt?”

“Nah,” Brannie answered for her brother. “He’s just glad you never hacked off bits of him because you didn’t like him.”

Horrified, Bram stared at his daughter. “What?”

While the dragons and their human kin continued to argue over Brigida the Foul, Elina walked out with her sister.

“I’m hungry,” her sister announced.

“There is always food. And servants to get it for you.”

“You enjoy this decadence, don’t you?”

“You will, too . . . in time.”

Disgusted by such a suggestion, Kachka retrieved her bow and quiver from where she’d left them in the Great Hall and walked out to hunt down her meal. Elina also picked up her bow, but she just held it and walked toward the big table in the middle of the hall. As she walked, she collided with a man she hadn’t even seen.

Stumbling back, Elina looked up at him as he looked down. All she saw at first was a patch where his right eye should be. They both stared and, slowly, each moved one way, then the other.

Finally, the man asked, “Just lose it?”

Elina nodded. “Yes. And you?”

“Years ago.”

He glanced down at her bow. “You’re an archer.”

“I was. Now . . . I am not even that.”

“When I had both eyes, I still closed one in order to shoot arrows.”

“But it was my favored eye that I lost.”

“So?” he asked, shrugging massive shoulders. “You will just have to relearn what you already know.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Where are you from?”

“The Steppes of the Outerplains.”

He gave a little laugh. “Then you’ll always be an archer. I’ve seen your people in action. That’s something born in your blood. Plus you still have both arms.”

“I cannot hit side of hut, much less moving target on horse.”

“That’ll take time. But I can show you how to compensate.”

“Compensate?”

“Make do with what you have.” He nodded toward the Great Hall doors. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

“Now?”

“I was just looking for a book to read while my sister naps. But I think I’d enjoy helping a fellow one-eyer.”

Elina glanced around, suddenly wondering if Celyn would have a problem with this. Then she wondered why she should care if Celyn had a problem with this. Then she wondered what the holy hells was wrong with her.

“Besides,” the man said softly, his gaze moving to one of Celyn’s royal cousins who was coming through the doors in the back of the hall, “you don’t want to stay around here right now.”

“I don’t?”

The female, Keita was her name, stopped and focused on Elina and the man. At the sight of them, she clasped her hands together and went up on her bare toes. “Oh! I have just the thing for both of you! Don’t go anywhere!”

Keita charged up the stairs, and Elina turned toward the man. “Let us go. Now. Her good cheer terrifies me.”

“As it should.”

They headed toward the Great Hall doors. “I am Gaius Lucius Domitus by the way.”

“And I am Elina Shestakova of the Black Bear Riders of the Midnight Mountains of Despair in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains. But you can call me Elina since these weak Southlanders cannot seem to handle much more than that.”

Gaius Lucius Domitus laughed. “No, they probably can’t.”

Celyn had taken his parents into the stables and filled them in on what had happened to Elina at her mother’s hands.

“That poor girl,” Bram said, shaking his head. “I had no idea we were putting her in such danger.”