The Dragon Who Loved Me (Dragon Kin #5)(23)

“Be glad he was here, Lightning. He’s one of the few strong enough to stop my Uncle Addolgar from doing anything.” Rhona made her way back to the castle, flying over the gates and landing in the courtyard.

The castle grounds weren’t at al like Rhona remembered. Instead of the cheerful place with al the vendors in the courtyard and outside the castle grounds, it had become a military outpost. Siege weapons lined the inside of the wal s and someone had begun to build a moat. Only a smal portion was finished, but already there was something alive and rather unfriendly looking swimming in the murky water.

No. This wasn’t the place she remembered.

Rhona nodded at cousins, smiled at aunts and uncles, but it was her father she ran to, her father whose arms she threw herself into.

“My girl,” Sulien the Smithy whispered, gripping her tight. “My beautiful, precious girl.”

“Oh, Daddy, I’ve missed you so.”

“And I you.” He stepped back, looked her over, and smiled. “So beautiful.”

She handed over the stainless steel spear that had nearly impaled the Lightning. “Not one of yours,” she noted.

“You know my work.” He leaned in, whispered, “This is shoddy.” He motioned to the emergency spear strapped to her back. “And where’s your spear?”

Rhona glared over at the Lightning who’d landed behind her father. “It’s in pieces,” she complained.

“It was an accident,” Vigholf shot back. “I told you I was sorry.”

“But you didn’t mean it!”

“Don’t worry,” her father soothed. “I have something for you anyway.” His brown eyes sparkled. “Something better.” Rhona grinned, feeling real excitement. “What? Tel me!”

“Get settled in first. I’m sure you’re here for a reason, so finish al that, then find me at the forge.” Her father smiled at her, his claw petting her cheek. “Glad you’re back, little one. Wil you be staying long?”

“I’l probably head back tomorrow.”

“Then we’l make the most of our time today.”

Chapter 9

“We’re heading back tomorrow?” Vigholf asked Rhona once her father was gone. “You don’t think they need us here?”

“Unless my orders change . . .”

“Right, right.” Gods, this woman and her bloody orders. “I just don’t want to leave this place undefended.” For a brief moment he saw the concern on Rhona’s face, but then one of the Kyvich walked between them, ignoring the much bigger dragons surrounding her. The witch carried the head of some human male. It looked to be a foreigner, but stil .... “Jesel a,” the witch cal ed out and tossed the head to another witch. “You know what to do with that. Tonight’s a ful moon.”

“Where’s the rest of the body? You know I need the fingers and tongue as wel !” Rhona smirked at Vigholf. “I’m heading back tomorrow,” she said, walking off.

He watched her, unable to figure her out. She could be such a babysitter, caring for everyone, and the next a cold, uncaring, “I’m only fol owing orders, sir” soldier.

“Lord Vigholf?”

Vigholf turned his focus to the ground and smiled. “Lady Dagmar.”

Dagmar Reinholdt. The Northland woman his brother Ragnar had taken under his wing, educating her and making her as devious as Ragnar could be. At the time Vigholf didn’t know why. He’d found nothing very interesting about Dagmar Reinholdt with her plain face and smal body. But he thought perhaps Ragnar wanted her as a pet. Not for sexual reasons—she was much too young for any of that and Vigholf wouldn’t have al owed it—but for general amusement. Like a puppy or a kitten. Yet Ragnar had paid too much attention to her education, her health, and the inadequacies of her eventual—and worthless—husbands.

Over the last few years, though, Vigholf had come to understand what had drawn his brother to the child and then the woman and why the Northland men—hard, brutal men rarely scared or intimidated by anything—had without humor or irony cal ed her The Beast. Because Dagmar Reinholdt was bril iant. A strategist and politician, she wore reason and logic as her armor, playing her political games with the highest-ranking monarchs and, it was rumored, the gods. Her mind was such a vicious and deadly thing that Vigholf now realized it was better to have Dagmar Reinholdt on their side rather than against it.

“You must be starving, my lord.”

“I am, but I’d like to see my mother first.”

“She’s been staying at Devenal t Mountain with the other Northland dragon females. I’ve sent word, so your mother wil be escorted here soon.

Until then”—she motioned to the castle—“let’s get you fed.”

Vigholf knew that tone. He heard it from Ragnar al the time. “I don’t have much choice in this, do I, my lady?” Her smile was smal —and cold. “No, my lord. You don’t.”

Naked and in human form by the lake where her kin had made camp, Rhona studied the many scars littering her body. “I’m like a bleedin’ pin cushion,” she muttered.

“Rhona?”

Rhona turned, smiled. “Hel o, Talaith.”

“Think we can talk?” her cousin Briec’s beautiful mate asked, and Rhona could hear the concern in the woman’s voice. The stress. Not surprising.