What a Dragon Should Know (Dragon Kin #3)(97)

And because of the gods, Fearghus was going to lose his mate. The only female he would ever truly love. Even when they were thousands of leagues apart from each other, Fearghus always knew Annwyl was part of his world, part of his life.

Now he’d no longer have that comfort, that certainty.

He heard two strong cries ring out through the castle and he shut his eyes, trying so very hard not to feel resentment toward innocents who had even less choice in all of this than he and Annwyl had.

He knew he should go down to be with his twins, but he simply didn’t have the heart. The pain tore at him like knives.

As he sat, relieved when the crying eventually stopped, he felt his mother sit down next to him. He wasn’t surprised she’d tracked him down. The only other who could have was Annwyl.

“A boy and a girl,” she said. “Beautiful. Healthy.” She shrugged. “Seem human.”

“And Annwyl’s dead.”

“No. Not yet.”

Fearghus looked at his mother. “But you’re the only thing keeping her alive.”

“For as long as I can.”

“And how long is that?”

She took a breath. “Three days. Perhaps four.”

“Three days.” Three days out of what should have been another four- or five-hundred years at least. “Is she awake?”

He knew each answer she had to give caused his mother more pain, but he had to know. “No.”

“And she won’t be again, will she?”

“No.”

He gave a snort that couldn’t possibly pass for a laugh. “Then why bother keeping her alive?”

“Because you’ll need to say good-bye. You all will.” She cleared her throat. “Now, I’ll stay until—” She cleared her throat again. “I’ll stay for as long as you need me. And I’ll do what I can.”

Which, at the moment was nothing, but instead of saying that, he simply said, “Thank you.”

Briec stared into the large crib holding his niece and nephew while around him healers and midwives bustled about.

They were both extremely—he frowned—well-developed babes. They didn’t look like newborns at all. They seemed older. In fact, they seemed to be more like dragon hatchlings in many ways. Both had full heads of hair—the boy with his mother’s brown hair with light brown streaks and the girl with her father’s pitch-black hair—and their eyes were open, able to focus. Already they reached for things they wanted and could grab with their small hands.

Truly, if Briec didn’t know better, he’d swear they were nearly three months old, rather than born no more than an hour ago.

Annwyl is dying. That’s what his sister had told him a few minutes before. They’d cut the human queen open to get to her babes and then sewn her back up again. It wasn’t the procedure that was killing her. It was rare but had been done before by well-trained healers and witches, including Morfyd who helped most women in the nearby village through easy and hard births.

No, it wasn’t the procedure. It had been the babes. They’d literally sucked the life from their mother, growing too fast and becoming too powerful for her human body to contain them. Now Annwyl was almost skeletal on her bed, the skin that was always taut around powerful muscle sagging on her.

Unintentionally, the babes had drained her of her life’s energy, and now the only thing keeping her heart beating and her lungs breathing was the Dragon Queen. The most powerful Dragonwitch that Briec knew of.

He finally tore his gaze away from the sleeping babes and looked at one of the midwives. “Talaith?”

“She went to fetch the nursemaid who will feed the twins, my lord.”

He nodded, but Briec had already seen the nursemaid outside the room, talking to another healer.

With one last look at his niece and nephew, he slipped from the room, glad to see the guards placed outside the door. He checked his room and the kitchens, the Great Hall, and the library. He went outside and eventually caught her scent. He followed it through the woods to a small lake that few thought about because it was hidden by the trees and several large boulders. Many a night they’d come here and Briec had spent hours making Talaith sob his name.

Now his Talaith sobbed for a different reason.

She kneeled by the lake, her torso bent over her legs, her arms around her waist—and she wailed. She wailed as he’d never heard her before. This woman, who’d been through absolute hell and back, wailed for a friend she’d come to love as a sister and for the heartbreak of a family she now saw as her own.

Briec kneeled down behind her, his knees spread so he could pull her into his body. He held her tight in his arms, leaning over her so she could feel him surrounding her. So she could know that she didn’t have to go through this alone.

Her hands gripped his arms, the small fingers digging into the chain-mail shirt covering him.

And he let her wail. He let her wail not only for herself but for all of them. Because Talaith no longer had to be anything but what she was. She was no monarch. She had no kingdom to rule. No politics to concern herself with.

She was simply a woman whose heart was breaking. And Briec was grateful that at least one of them could show it.

Dagmar had learned very early in life that animals felt and understood more than humans ever gave them credit for. Knowing this, she went to the stables where they kept Annwyl’s horse. As soon as she saw the powerful stallion, she knew he knew. He was pushed up against the back wall, the mare in the stall beside him, pressing her majestic head against his neck.