Light My Fire (Dragon Kin #7)(11)

Celyn took a few tentative steps, stopped, and asked his sister, “I am dressed, right?” Because he honestly couldn’t remember.

“You are. You passed out in your clothes last night and sadly I didn’t have time to take them off so that when I sent the maids in to clean the room, they could find your naked ass waving at them and scream in human terror. You know how I love that.”

Celyn glared at his sister. “What is wrong with you?”

Brannie shrugged. “Nothing. Why?”

Celyn went to the bedroom door and eased it open, peeking into the hallway.

“Well?” his sister whispered.

“It’s clear. Let’s move.”

Together, the siblings rushed down the hallway, down one set of steps to the second-floor hallway, and another set of stairs toward the Great Hall.

Celyn worried he’d start vomiting, but he was determined to do that only once he was outside and far away from whatever drama was about to erupt among his royal cousins.

But as he and Brannie cut between two long dining tables, Celyn was hit in the face with a . . . well . . . a human head, forcing him to stop.

Celyn stared down at the head he now held in his hands.

“Quick hands,” his sister noted.

“Not quick enough not to get hit in the face with a human head.”

Before Celyn could toss the head away and make a run for it, Annwyl the Bloody stormed into the Great Hall. Briec, in his human form, wearing only leggings and boots, stalked right behind her.

“I fail to understand,” Briec snarled at Annwyl, “how one woman could do so many stupid things at one time.”

“I don’t owe you, Briec the Annoying, any explanation whatsoever about the decisions I make about my kingdom.” She walked over to Celyn and snatched the head from his hands so that she could add it to the others she held. “And stop throwing my heads.” She lifted them so they were right under Briec’s nose. “I’m putting these on spikes outside the walls.”

“Because you want to declare to the world that you make stupid decisions?”

“Are you under some delusion that you rule here, dragon? Because you don’t.” She turned in a circle, shaking the heads and spraying blood as she yelled, “I answer to no man and no dragon! And I definitely don’t answer to you!”

Celyn had just managed to clear the blood from his eyes when Briec slapped the heads from Annwyl’s hand, knocking them into Celyn’s defenseless face.

That was also when the slap fight broke out between the pair.

Disgusted, Celyn pushed his way between them and shoved them apart.

“Stop it! Both of you! You’re acting like hatchlings!”

“She started it!”

“He started it!”

“Shut up! ”

Both royals stepped back and glared at Celyn.

“Who do you think you’re speaking to, Low Born?” Briec demanded of Celyn.

“I am queen,” Annwyl spit at Celyn.

“And I am a Dragon Prince,” Briec added.

“And I am one of the chosen of Her Majesty, Dragon Queen of these lands! Which makes me more important than either of you!” Celyn placed his hand to his forehead. “Oh. The pain.” He dropped back into a chair and Brannie rushed to his side. “My head hurts so, sister.”

“What have you two done to my poor brother?” Brannie demanded while petting Celyn’s head. “You bastards! Do you care for no one but yourselves?”

Briec shrugged. “I don’t know about this ridiculous woman, but I don’t care.”

Fearghus the Destroyer, first-born son to Queen Rhiannon and future Dragon King of the Southlands unless he could find another sucker to take such an oxen-shit job—Maybe I can talk Morfyd into being the next queen . . . no. She’s not that stupid—landed in the courtyard and shifted to human.

“Brother! Good day to you!”

Fearghus let out a long sigh and turned to face his younger sibling. “Gwenvael.”

“You’re missing a fight.”

“I don’t care.”

“Between Annwyl and Briec.”

At his brother’s words, Fearghus glanced off.

“What’s that look for?” Gwenvael asked.

“I’m trying to figure out if Mum will forgive Annwyl for taking Briec’s head.”

“She might, but Talaith and the girls never will.”

“True,” Fearghus sighed. “And I do like Talaith and my nieces.”

Fearghus caught the clothes that Gwenvael tossed to him and put them on. As the brothers headed toward the stairs of the Great Hall, the ground shook beneath their feet as their mother and father landed in the courtyard.

“By the power of the most unholy of gods, this party’s getting better!” Gwenvael happily cheered.

“Stop it,” Fearghus told him, but he wasn’t exactly surprised. Gwenvael loved to stir shit and had been doing so since he’d hatched from his egg and managed to start a fight between their parents. Fearghus still didn’t know how Gwenvael had managed it since he’d been too young to speak . . . but he had.

Rhiannon tossed her white hair off her face and greeted them. “My handsome sons!”

“Mum,” they both replied.