What a Dragon Should Know (Dragon Kin #3)(110)

Fearghus slammed his shoulder, snapping his attention back in the room.

“What?” Gwenvael snarled.

“Will Dagmar buy us time?” Fearghus demanded.

“Yes,” Gwenvael nodded, already running toward the Great Hall doors. “She’ll buy us time.”

Dagmar stared up at the Minotaur standing over her. His eyes were brown, his hair shaggy and unclean, his face bovine with a flat, moist snout covered in some kind of unpleasant-looking mucus. He wore nothing more than a cloth made of some animal skin around his hips and a necklace made of what she would guess was pure gold. The chain was thick and broad and the medallion that hung at the end of it, the size of a small plate. She recognized the symbol of the goddess Arzhela immediately.

Dropping to one knee in front of the head Minotaur, Dagmar said, “I’m so happy to have found you, my lords. I’d taken the children when the chance presented itself, but it was not easy.”

“You took the spawn?”

She nodded, but did not raise her gaze. “I knew you waited here, and at the death of their mother it seemed the most opportune time.”

He shoved the body at Dagmar’s feet with his hoof. She was glad her head was lowered and he couldn’t see the wince his actions caused.

“This one. This is the great Blood Queen of the South?”

“Yes. Giving birth is what killed her, my lord. As you can see, the … uh … spawn drained her of her very life.”

“Good. The whore deserved it.”

Another Minotaur stepped closer, crouching beside the body. He pressed big, meaty fingers against her throat, then nodded. “She’s dead.”

The head Minotaur stepped around Annwyl’s body and kicked it, sending it flying.

Dagmar bit the inside of her cheek when she heard it slam into a far wall, bones crushed from the pressure. The great human queen landed limply on the rocky ground, her remains unnaturally twisted.

It took all of Dagmar’s self-training to not cry out. To not order them as Only Daughter of the Reinholdt to treat the remains of the Great Blood Queen with reverence …

The Only Daughter of the Reinholdt …

“And as for you—”

She saw fur-covered hands reaching for her. “I am the Only Daughter of the Reinholdt,” she snapped. “You will not put your hands on me! And know that my father sent me here as an ambassador to the south so that I may assist you in your holy quest in retrieving the spawn of the demon queen.”

“Why”—another of them demanded—“would he send his daughter on such a mission?”

She got to her feet, the babes still tight in her arms. “He knew the demon queen would only trust a woman. And because I am The Beast.”

“You? You’re The Beast?”

“My father knew sending me here was dangerous, but no one else would be able to get close enough.”

“Or had the strength of will of The Beast to be around the whore.”

“Very true, my lord.” She looked at Annwyl’s broken body and her expression of disgust was real enough—but most likely not for the reasons they thought. “I’ve seen many things in that place that will keep me up at nights. Many horrors. But my father will be proud, for I have retrieved the spawn as he has commanded.”

“You’ve done well.” The head Minotaur praised, reaching for them. “Now we can cut their throats and head home this very night.”

“No.” Dagmar turned her body away from him to keep his hands off them. “We cannot kill them here. We must return with them to the north and give my father the prize of cutting off their useless little heads.”

“We cannot do that. They need to die before those dragons can find us.”

“We’ll have more to bargain with if they live.”

“Going home was never our intent, my lady. Killing them is. If any of us survive that and make it home alive, then it will be an extra gift from the gods. But our main goal—our only goal—is to see these atrocities dead before we do anything else.”

Would they understand the hypocrisy of referring to the twins as atrocities when they were standing cows? Talking standing cows?

No. Probably not.

“I cannot allow that,” she said with as much royal rudeness as she could muster. “Their deaths are not for … you.”

“But the gods—”

“Your only purpose here, bovine, is to ensure my safe passage home. They will come for us and you will fight to protect me and most likely die. That is your only task.”

The males stood in confusion, glancing between each other. She knew she had them. Men were always so easy for her to twist when she needed to.

Tragically, Dagmar hadn’t counted on the female.

“She lies,” the female hissed, moving out from the shadows. Her dress was also made of animal skin but covered her from shoulders to hooves. She had no horns as the males did, but was slightly shorter than the tallest among them. The brown cape over her dress was wool. She had the hood pulled up to cover her hair and Dagmar could see the runes sewn into the fabric.

A priestess of Arzhela. Of some power, too.

“She protects those things she carries, with her very life.” She slammed her fist into the shoulder of whatever male stood closest to her, eliciting a grunt. “And you fools believe her.”