What a Dragon Should Know (Dragon Kin #3)(12)

Still, Gwenvael had moved carefully through the territories leading to his Northland destination. Olgeir the Wastrel controlled the Outerplains—the borderlands between the north and the south—as well as the territory overlapping the Reinholdt lands, and he’d never bothered to hide his outright hatred of Queen Rhiannon. He kept the truce, but not happily. And Gwenvael didn’t doubt for a minute what Olgeir would do if he caught one of Rhiannon’s male offsprings on his territory. Especially the one the Horde males referred to as “The Ruiner.”

The Lightnings moved past the cave, but one stopped, hovering in front of the entrance.

Gwenvael didn’t move or make a sound. He certainly didn’t charge the bastard. He wasn’t here to fight and he wasn’t a fool who thought he could take on a Lightning scout party and come out still intact.

The Lightning sniffed the air and inched a bit closer. As Gwenvael could smell the lightning inside the barbarian, the barbarian could scent the fire in Gwenvael.

So Gwenvael slowly lowered himself into a crouch, readying his body and flame to attack.

The Lightning was mere inches from entering the cave when Gwenvael heard the caw of a crow overhead. The Northlands were simply inundated with crows, it seemed. And, at the moment, Gwenvael had never been so grateful, as the crow’s shit unceremoniously landed on the Lightning’s snout.

The dragon’s eyes crossed as he tried to see it and he snarled. “Why you little mother—”

“Come on, you idiot!” another voice yelled farther ahead. “Move!”

Wiping the shit from his face, the Lightning followed after his comrades.

Letting out a sigh, Gwenvael stood at the very edge of the cave and looked up at the crows overhead. There had to be hundreds of them making good use of the limbs and vines that protruded from the mountain’s rock face.

“Thank you for that,” he offered kindly. And in answer, another crow unloaded itself, and Gwenvael hastily stepped back. “Oy, you tiny bastards! Watch the hair!”

When all those damn birds began to laugh at him, he was not pleased.

Chapter 4

Dagmar exited the library that only she ever went into and that only she ever maintained with Canute faithfully by her side. His paws silently padded against the stone floor as he kept pace with her.

It was time for training, and she didn’t like to be late. But she wasn’t exactly shocked when her father fell into step beside her, smartly staying on the opposite side of Canute.

“Well, that went well,” he grumbled. Her father had never been one for wasted words or preamble.

“Come to gloat?” she asked.

“No. Come to find out what you’re planning.”

Dagmar kept her gaze straight ahead and her expression purposely blank. “What makes you think I’m planning anything?”

“You’re still breathing, ain’t ya? Never known a day when you ain’t planning something. Plotting is what they call it.”

For once Dagmar didn’t have to step around people as they moved through the Main Hall; people automatically moved out of the way of The Reinholdt and anyone who happened to be with him.

“I’m not planning anything,” she assured him. “But don’t be surprised when it comes back in another day or two.”

“ ‘It?’ Don’t you mean ‘him’?”

“It. Him. Whatever.”

“And he’ll come back to what? Tear the place down?”

“Doubtful. He won’t want to harm the one who holds the information.”

“Always so sure, you are. Always so damn sure you’re right.”

With a shrug, she left her father by the doors leaving the Main Hall. “When have I ever been wrong?” she smugly asked.

Dagmar walked through the courtyard and around to the side near one of several barracks. She passed groups of men training hard to be the warriors her father expected. The Reinholdt had no patience for weakness or complaints of injuries. You fought and you fought well every time or dying in battle would be the least of your problems.

As she walked by, like every day when she walked by, she was completely ignored. Nothing new there.

Cutting through the training grounds and past some of the barracks, Dagmar headed to the large training area that was hers and hers alone. To get to it, she had to enter the vast building constructed under her direction. It housed all The Reinholdt’s battle dogs, and she never had to limit access to only the trainers chosen by her because few of her father’s warriors were idiotic enough to enter here and risk that even one of her dogs was loose.

As soon as Dagmar entered, the dogs still in their runs began to greet her with barks and howls. Using voice commands only, she eased her dogs’ excitement and walked through the back exit and toward the training ring. Johann, her assistant, was already working the young pups that would soon be two-hundred-pound warrior dogs. He’d been a good choice on her part. Like her, Johann preferred the company of dogs to the company of humans.

“How goes it, Johann?”

“Well, my lady.”

Dagmar gave the hand signal for Canute to lie down and stay outside the ring until she returned to him. Closing and locking the gate behind her, she patiently waited for Johann to finish. He had the dogs lying down, waiting for his next signal. They wouldn’t move until instructed to do so. They were the most obedient dogs one could find in the Northlands. And also the most obedient and the most bloodthirsty because of her training methods. Only the companion animals of the Kyvich witches—giant wolflike beasts with horns—were more feared than Dagmar’s dogs. She prided herself on that fact.