What a Dragon Should Know (Dragon Kin #3)(60)

“Honestly!” Esyld dragged her toward the door, shoved a bucket in her hand. “Go get some water from the well. Perhaps that’ll help you cool off and get some control!”

The door slammed in her face and Dagmar could only stand there, staring at it, her mouth still open.

Gwenvael grinned at the dragoness peering at him.

“Do you enjoy torturing her?” she asked.

“Depends on the torture.”

She snickered. “I assume you’re hungry, Gwenvael.”

“I am.” He inclined his head. “You look awfully familiar. Have we … uh … met?”

She rested her hands on her knees and bent at the waist, leaning in close. “Look in my face and say that again. With the same inflection.”

Gwenvael did look into her face and he knew what he saw smirking back at him.

His mother.

“I’m feeling really uncomfortable.”

“Good. You should.” She went to the pit fire and spooned stew into a bowl. “I’m your aunt Esyld.”

Gwenvael only knew of one Aunt Esyld and to this day she was still hunted by his kin.

“Then I’m eternally grateful for your help.” Gwenvael pushed himself up, his back resting against the metal rails of the bed frame. Air hissed between his teeth, the pain reminding him he had a ways to go before he was back to his old self.

Tell that to his cock, though. He would have taken Dagmar right then and there if his aunt hadn’t returned. For his life, he didn’t understand that woman’s effect on him.

“Surprised I didn’t kill you in your sleep?” She handed him the bowl and a spoon.

“There’s no good answer for that. So I choose to eat instead.”

Esyld pulled a chair close to the bed and sat, crossing one leg over the other. “She said you were smart.”

“Do you mean the beautiful Dagmar?”

She frowned. “Beauti—forget it. I mean Keita.”

“My sister?” Gwenvael dropped his spoon back into the bowl with a plop. “My sister’s been here?”

“More than once. We’ve become very close.” Gwenvael didn’t like the sound of that one bit, but before he could say anything about it, “Calm yourself, Gwenvael the Gold. Your sister found me. And I can assure you I have no intention of corrupting her.”

“You’re still wanted by my mother’s court.”

“I’m well aware of that. But I have no intention of challenging your mother for her throne.”

“Why did Keita come to you?”

“Why else? Because she knew it would drive your mother insane if she ever found out. They get along as well as Rhiannon got along with our mother. Hopefully it will not meet the same end.”

Considering Rhiannon had to kill her own mother to secure her throne and protect the life of Bercelak and his family, Gwenvael didn’t much appreciate the last part of that statement. “If it does, I’ll blame you.”

“I’m sure you will. But I want nothing more than what I have, Gwenvael. I don’t want her throne or her power. I just want to be left alone.”

“If that’s all you really want, then let me talk to my mother.”

“No.”

“You should be in the south, among your own. Not here among the barbarians.”

“That’s very sweet. And perhaps your mother would seriously consider it. But your father wouldn’t. Those kin of his still search for me. If they know I’m here, I won’t live another day. So I’d prefer they both knew nothing of my presence.”

He couldn’t argue with her; she was absolutely right. There were few dragons who took their commitments as seriously as Bercelak the Great. And he had no greater commitment than Queen Rhiannon.

“As you wish. You saved my life; I owe you at least that.”

She gestured toward his food. “It’s getting cold. Eat.”

The stew had cooled, but it was still warm enough and quite satisfying. While he ate, Dagmar returned. “That took you forever,” he said around a mouthful.

She slammed the filled bucket on the table and marched across the room. She flicked one of his still-healing wounds.

“Ow!” he cried out, pulling his arm away.

“I had no idea where the well is, you clod. So I’ve been stumbling all over the place looking for that bloody thing! I could have fallen in for all you lot care!”

“Don’t say that, Dagmar. Tonight, tomorrow … eventually we would have noticed you were gone. Ow!” he cried out when Dagmar flicked another one of his wounds. “Stop doing that!”

Vigholf the Vicious of the Olgeirsson Horde waited impatiently by the Spikenhammer Gardens. A quiet place of beauty and silence that Vigholf would avoid like the plague if he knew of any safer place to talk. But he didn’t. His father’s spies were everywhere, looking for his betraying son.

That was not Vigholf. As far as his father was concerned, Vigholf was still loyal to him. His brother had begged him to keep that illusion, although it grated on Vigholf’s nerves to do so. He was normally such an honest dragon that his mother often hit him in the back of his head with her tail and yelled at him to, “think before you speak!”

But to his great disappointment, Olgeir the Wastrel no longer earned his son’s devotion. The old dragon had broken the truce they had with the Southlanders and had betrayed one of the warlord dragons he had an alliance with. The Northland Code was all, to dragons like Vigholf. A clear set of rules and guidelines with loyalty being the most important. Yet his father was loyal to no one but himself, so how could he expect others to be loyal to him in return?