What a Dragon Should Know (Dragon Kin #3)(114)

“Missed,” she hissed, and the Minotaur stumbled back. He was terrified. He couldn’t hide it, not from his comrades, not from himself. For the first time in his life, Dagmar was sure, an Ice Lander was terrified and everyone knew it—because they were all terrified as well.

Terrified as they watched Annwyl grab the hilt of the Minotaur’s blade still sticking up from the female’s chest. Terrified as the much smaller human and naked female got to her feet. Annwyl panted, not from exertion … but from lust. From desire. The desire for the kill. Dagmar had never seen it like this before. Not like this. Not as if the warrior would climax at any moment merely from the threat she presented.

The queen’s crazed gaze shifted to Dagmar and the Minotaur behind her lowered his blade and moved away. He held his hands up, the palms coated with a lighter, paler fur than the brown and white on top.

As one, the Minotaurs all moved back, watching her closely, so closely.

Annwyl wet her lips, her panting getting heavier, her body more aroused by the second. Then she screamed; she screamed and the Minotaurs ran. Down the tunnel they’d built and out into the sunlight they rarely saw.

And Annwyl? She was right behind them.

Fearghus stopped short and Gwenvael almost ran into the back of him. His brother turned, his eyes wild as he searched the area. Annwyl’s horse reared up and held its ground.

“What? What is it?”

“Listen!”

Gwenvael heard it then. Something he thought never to hear again. The battle cry of the Blood Queen.

“There! She’s there!”

And Annwyl was there, tearing out of a hole dug into the base of a small hill. She wasn’t running away, though; she was running after. Running after the Minotaurs she’d chased off. At least nine feet tall and outweighing her by more than twenty stone, the Minotaurs ran. But she caught up with them. As he, Fearghus, Briec, and Bercelak all landed nearly a hundred feet away, Annwyl caught up with the first one. She slashed the back of his ankles and he tumbled forward. As he rolled onto his back, she cut his throat and kept moving, slashing at another. The Minotaurs had hoped to outrun her, but now there were dragons in their way, cutting them off.

Briec took in a breath, ready to douse them all in flame, but Fearghus shook his head. “No. Leave it.”

“But Annwyl will be safe.” A gift from their mother protected Annwyl from a dragon’s flame. It had helped her more than once during a messy battle.

“Leave it,” Fearghus said again.

They did, and the Minotaurs, realizing they couldn’t escape, spun around to face Annwyl. They attacked as one fighting unit, nearly twelve of them remaining from what Dagmar had assured Fearghus would be a force of at least fifty. But the blade Annwyl carried—a short sword for a Minotaur, but nearly double the length of Annwyl’s own broad sword—flashed in the sun as she went to work.

It was a brutal battle, the Blood Queen once again proving her name as she hacked away at arms, legs, and heads. The heads were hard to take, so she crippled most of them first and then went from one to the other to the other, finishing them off. As the brothers and their father watched, Morfyd and Rhiannon landed, followed by Talaith and Izzy arriving on horseback. Then the Cadwaladr Clan arrived, dropping from the sky and watching as Annwyl did what she’d always done best.

She went to the last one, who no longer had legs but was still struggling to get away. She planted her foot into his back and held him in place. Then she raised the sword in her hands and brought it down against his neck. The first strike did not take his head, so she hacked and hacked until it fell off.

Then Annwyl stood there, panting, her naked body covered in blood. But she was alive. Very much alive.

And completely insane.

Gwenvael heard a small cry and looked up to see Dagmar walk out of the tunnel. She was dirty, her clothes torn, and she had some blood on her, but she was alive and so were the twins. They were the ones crying, annoyed, it seemed, more than anything. But all four were fine—four because he now included Dagmar’s spectacles in all estimates.

She looked at him, her relieved smile warming him in a way he’d never felt before. He stepped forward, determined to get to her, but her eyes widened and she quickly shook her head. Good thing, too, because Annwyl turned on him so fast, Gwenvael took a hasty step back. She held the blade in both hands, raised high on her side. A move for a running attack.

Fearghus scowled, more confused than angry. “Annwyl?”

Her green eyes shifted toward Fearghus, but Gwenvael saw no recognition of her mate. No undying love and loyalty. As far as Annwyl the Bloody was concerned, all of them were enemies.

“Get on the horse,” Annwyl ordered Dagmar.

Gwenvael shook his head. “Wait—” But his mother caught his arm, pulled him back. She stepped in front of him, prepared to protect her son, and kept her eyes on Annwyl.

“Move!” Annwyl commanded again.

Dagmar did, going to Annwyl’s stallion. The horse lowered himself to the ground and Dagmar climbed onto his back, the babes in her arms making it an awkward ordeal. Annwyl moved toward the horse, her gaze constantly scanning from one dragon to the other. She reached Violence and slid on behind Dagmar. She still held the sword and appeared ready to use it at any second.

“Take his mane,” she ordered Dagmar as the horse stood tall. “Now hold on. He knows where to go.”