A Tale Of Two Dragons (17 page)

“Don’t worry,” Crystin’s mate explained, his big hand around a pint of ale. “There’s always a male around to train them since the females have no interest.”

Braith stepped up to the table and explained to her kin, “Actually, Addolgar’s not coming with us. He’s going with Bercelak into the Northlands.”

Addolgar pulled out a chair and sat down. Braith began to do the same, but Addolgar’s arm went around her waist and he pulled her onto his lap.

“It’ll take a few weeks for Bercelak to get all the troops and supplies he’ll need together,” he told her. “Until then, I’ll be with you.”

“Oh. All right then.”

This wasn’t what Braith had expected. She’d wanted a clean ending. Not this lingering thing where she would only manage to get more and more attached until she wouldn’t ever be able to let him go.

Unsure what to do, Braith did what she always did. She sort of folded in on herself. It was how she’d always handled her father when . . . well, whenever he was around. Pretending nothing bothered her was something Braith had always been good at, and she put those years of practice to excellent use now. But as she looked around the table of amiably chatting dragons, she noticed that Addolgar’s mother was staring at her.

When she saw that Braith was looking her way, the She-dragon raised her brows. Braith frowned, confused. Shalin raised her brows again and then gestured to Addolgar with a tilt of her head. Still unclear what she was trying to tell her, Braith gave a small shake of her head.

That’s when Shalin the Innocent, Tamer of Ailean the Slag, slammed her hands down on the table and barked, “Gods-dammit, Braith, say what you’re actually thinking!”

 

 

The only time Addolgar could remember hearing his mother yell was when she’d discovered Ghleanna and Addolgar holding a screaming and crying Bercelak over a small but active volcano they’d discovered deep in her cave.

“
What the bloody hells is wrong with you two?
” she’d bellowed at them while holding a sobbing and recently hatched Bercelak to her chest.

This time, however, she didn’t sound mad as much as frustrated.

“
Mum
,” he lightly chastised.

“She’s not saying what she’s thinking, Addolgar.” Shalin wagged a finger at Braith. “Your father’s gone now, so there’s absolutely no reason to keep what you’re feeling to yourself. I can assure you from what I remember of your aunts . . . they won’t.”

Crystin nodded. “She’s right.”

“So you might as well start with my Addolgar,” Shalin pushed.

Addolgar studied the She-dragon in his lap. “Braith?”

Braith turned on his lap so she could more easily look at him and announced, “
I don’t know what the hells we’re doing!
” Okay, that was much more a bellow, wasn’t it?

“Well,” Addolgar explained calmly, “um, I thought we’d stay here for the night. Go back with your aunts and I’d stay there until Bercelak calls me to battle. And before I go, I’d Claim you as my own and then your aunts would train you in weapons combat. Which, when you think about it, is the perfect time, because there will be Lightnings trying to make their way over the Outer Plains’ border into the Southlands, thinking those borders are undefended. You’ll get some excellent training slaughtering that lot.”

“He’s right,” Crystin agreed while reaching over and taking one of the ribs from the platter a servant had just placed on the table. “Nothing better than those fools swarming the border only to face the Daughters of the House of Penarddun. Bloody good training for my girls. Bloody good.” Then she cleaned that rib of meat and marrow in seconds.

“So that’s the plan,” Addolgar told Braith. “Unless you want to do something else.”

Braith stared at him, her mouth open. “What?” he asked her. “What’s that look for?”

She looked over at his mother, and all Shalin could do was shake her head and say, “I know, dear. But you learn to love them despite it all.”

Confused, Addolgar began, “I don’t under—”

But before he could get his sentence out, Braith jumped off his lap, placed her travel bag over her shoulder, grabbed the neck of his chain-mail shirt, and yanked him out of the chair. Then, with a strength everyone in the universe should fear, she dragged him out of the dining hall, up the stairs, and to his room. She pushed him inside and slammed the door shut.

“Sit,” she ordered, tossing her travel bag near the bed.

“Yeah, but—”

“Sit!”

Addolgar sat on the bed.

Braith walked up to him and asked, “You want to Claim me?”

“Of course I do.” Addolgar thought a moment and then, his heart dropping, he asked, “You don’t want me to? You don’t love me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So you do love me?”

“I didn’t say that either.”

“Well, which is it, female?”

“Don’t bark at me!”

“Well, don’t play with my heart!”

“I’m not—”

Braith stopped, closed her eyes, took a breath.

After a few seconds, she said, her voice low, “I love you, Addolgar. And I can’t imagine anything I want more than being Claimed by you.”

Addolgar grinned. “See?”

“See?” Braith barked, glowering. “What should I see?”

“That we’re perfect together. How can you not see that?”

“You’re trying to drive me insane, aren’t you, Addolgar?”

“I don’t think so.” He thought a moment. “No. I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

 

 

Gods, what was she getting herself into with this dragon? Because he was big and ridiculous and some days just plain . . . goofy. But he was perfect for her, wasn’t he?

Addolgar suddenly grabbed Braith around the waist and again pulled her onto his lap.

“I’m so in love with you, Braith,” he told her, and she felt in her bones that he meant every word. “And do you know why?”

“I have no idea,” she replied honestly.

“Because I am such an amazing dragon that I know I richly deserve a She-dragon as wonderful as you. See?” he asked, grinning at her. “How could I
not
love you when you’re so clearly made for me?”

Aye, the big bastard would always be a handful. That she knew, too. But she didn’t care. Because like his mother had said, Braith would love him despite all the rest of it.

“You know I’m right, don’t you?” Addolgar guessed, winking at her and grinning. “I’m amazing. You’re amazing. And we’ll have amazing offspring. Strong and smart like their mum and able to take a good, solid head-butt like their da.”

Braith ran her hands through her hair. “We’re already having offspring?”

“Not right away. First you need to get proper battle training.”

“And why do you think that’s necessary?”

“Because you really enjoyed fighting those Lightnings, and you were really good at it. You can’t waste skill like yours, Braith. Plus, to be honest, you do have a warrior’s name. Braith of the Darkness. That’s a warrior’s name and you can’t waste a good warrior’s name.”

“I guess I didn’t understand the rules.”

“But now you know.”

Braith pushed Addolgar’s arms aside so that she could turn around and get back on his lap, her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck.

“I do love you, Addolgar,” she told him, loving how the words made his grin grow even wider. “More and more each day. It wasn’t just my kin I was missing in my life, but you. One without the other would break my heart, and I thought my heart was dead a long time ago.”

“Not dead, Braith.” Addolgar pushed her hair off her shoulders. “Just hibernating. Like a bear.”

She laughed and kissed Addolgar, the warmth of his mouth making her feel safe and loved. His hands clutched the back of her shirt as he deepened their kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth, reminding her why she enjoyed being human around Addolgar.

When the kiss ended, they were panting, Addolgar resting his forehead against hers.

“It will not be easy to leave you for the cold of the Northlands, luv.”

“But think of it this way . . . while you’re away, you won’t have to hear my aunts call you The Mountain.”

Addolgar rolled his eyes. “Is there
any
way we can get them to stop doing that?”

“Of course not.”

He rested his head on her shoulder. “I thought that’s what you’d say. . . .”

“No point in getting upset,” Braith said, running her hands through his hair. “Especially since I brought something just for you in my travel bag.”

Addolgar raised his head. “For me?”

“Uh-huh.”

Glancing over, Addolgar saw the bag lying on the floor. He grabbed it and, with Braith still on his lap, he dug his hand inside.

His grin went from cheerful to leering as he pulled out her aunt’s chains, cuffs, and collar.

Addolgar held them up. “And what are we going to do with all this, Braith of the Darkness?”

Pressing her hand against his chest, Braith shoved her mate flat against the bed, pinning him there, and snatched the chains from him. She grinned down into his suddenly panic-stricken face. “Guess.”

Epilogue

 

Addolgar landed on the ground and immediately shifted to human. While he put clothes on, he tried not to listen to the complaining going on a few feet away from him.

He was a general in Her Majesty’s army. A Cadwaladr. And an extremely proud father of seven Daughters of the House of Penarddun. Yet, Addolgar was being forced to listen to so much gods-damn complaining!

His eyes narrowed on the blue hair shining in the sunlight while the complaining went on and on.

For Addolgar was just one simple dragon. So it was unfair for
anyone
to think he could tolerate this. Or that he
should
tolerate this. He deserved much better for all he’d sacrificed over the years.

So, picking up his hammer, Addolgar walked up behind all that to-the-ground-length blue hair and raised his weapon. With his left eye beginning to twitch, he brought the hammer down.

But before it crashed into the head, silencing all that complaining, a strong hand caught his arm—and held it. Only one being he knew of, besides his brothers and Ghleanna, could do that.

He looked down into the smiling human face of his mate. Braith of the Darkness, Daughter of the House of Penarddun, and mother of thirteen offspring—seven perfect daughters, and six idiot sons—shook her head at him.

“I. Can’t. Stand. It.
Anymore
,” he told her, glaring at all that blue hair that did not belong to anyone from the House of Penarddun, but adorned the big, fat head of one of Addolgar’s many nephews.

Briefly chewing her lip so she didn’t laugh out loud, Braith called out, “How are you, dearest Éibhear?”

Sighing—dramatically—something his ridiculous princely nephew, the son of his brother Bercelak, had managed to make into a bloody art form in his short, less-than-a-century-old life—the idiot boy didn’t even turn around before he started complaining more!

“I’ve had better days, Auntie Braith.”

“I’m sure you have.” She tugged on Addolgar’s arm, raised her eyebrows.
Lower it,
she mouthed at him.

With much regret—he’d never have a chance like that again—Addolgar lowered his weapon just as the idiot boy faced them.

“I thought you were staying in Dark Plains for a little longer,” Braith prompted Éibhear. She looked over her shoulder at the boy, and the way her cotton shirt was cut, Addolgar could see part of the Claiming brand that he’d placed on her upper chest all those years ago. Addolgar wore Braith’s Claiming mark with pride on his entire right leg, from ass to foot.

“I did, too,” Éibhear continued to complain. “But apparently my father had other ideas.”

“It was either that,” Addolgar shot back at the boy, “or let Bercelak cut off your head like he planned!”

Éibhear, human and dressed in chain mail and the surcoat of some long-dead army, put his hands on his hips. “Why? Because I didn’t agree with the old bastard?”

“You’re a soldier!” Addolgar yelled. “You don’t agree. You don’t disagree.
You follow orders!
”

The boy raised his hands in the air. “Well . . . I don’t like following orders. How about that, Uncle?”

Addolgar went for the boy again, but Braith rammed her hand against his chest, stopping him before he got more than a few feet.

“Éibhear dear,” Braith said, “why don’t you go inside and see your cousins.”

“I don’t feel like seeing anybody,” the idiot boy complained.

Now, it was one thing when Addolgar’s demands weren’t followed, but it was another when Braith’s nicely put requests weren’t.

Slowly, the She-dragon faced her nephew-by-mating. As always, she had two hammers secured to her back. One was once Addolgar’s hammer. The other was one Addolgar had had made for her. She’d been fighting with those two weapons for centuries now, and dragon, human, and centaur feared her. Of course, Addolgar had been right . . . the hammer was the perfect weapon for her. Unlike the current queen, Rhiannon, Braith was not sharp-tongued. She was blunt in word and deed, and blunt weapons were perfect for her. Lack of an edge never stopped her from killing enemies with an enthusiasm that even her own kin respected . . . and feared.

“Nephew,” she said, walking up to Éibhear. “Go inside and see your cousins.”

“Was I not clear?” Éibhear snapped back. “I said I don’t feel like it.”

“Oh. I see.”

Braith turned away from the idiot boy and with her eyes on Addolgar, she pulled out one of her hammers, hefted it between both hands, and spun, swinging the weapon.

The boy, to his credit, was quick, though; his time in his mother’s army had enhanced his reflexes. He dropped low and the hammer zipped by, the head of it ramming into the ancient tree beside him—and tearing it out at the root. The tree tipped over and, with great noise, fell.

Horrified, Éibhear stared first at the fallen tree, then up at Braith from his still-crouched position.

“I said,” Braith calmly repeated, “go inside and see your cousins.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The idiot boy stood on shaky legs and stumbled quickly toward the Penarddun cave. Once he’d disappeared inside, Braith secured her weapon and again faced Addolgar.

After staring at each other for a long moment, they both burst out laughing.

“Gods, Addolgar—what the holy hells? What happened to my sweet Éibhear?”

“And if I have to hear that bloody question again from some besotted female . . .
I will end him
!”

She returned to Addolgar’s side. “What happened? I thought he was to stay in Dark Plains for the next two or three moons. At least. And I definitely didn’t think he’d be going back to the Northlands with the Lightnings after what he did to that Northlander’s cousin.”

Refusing to think too much about the near-war the boy had almost started with their current Northland allies, Addolgar stepped close to his mate and said low, “I’m not taking him back to the Lightnings.”

“Where are you taking him?”

Addolgar didn’t answer right away, trying to think of the best way to say it.

“Addolgar?” Braith pushed.

Forget it. There was no best way to say it.

“I’m taking him into the Ice Lands.”

Braith blinked, shocked. “What the battle-fuck for?”

“He’s to become Mì-runach.”

She gasped, hand clasping over her mouth. “Addolgar, no! No!”

Although the Mì-runach were rarely mentioned among the Southland dragons, everyone knew of them. They were nothing more than a brutal death squad made up of warriors who couldn’t follow orders. Who were more a risk to their comrades than they were a help. And the training for those who joined the Mì-runach was brutal, heartless, just like the dragons who made up their ranks.

“We have no other option,” Addolgar told his mate. “You see how he’s acting.”

“He’s young. And obsessed with some human female with impossibly long legs. Give him time. He’ll work through this.”

“Not without some help.” Not without the heartless training of the Mì-runach.

“Isn’t that what kin is for, Addolgar? Leave him here with my aunts. They’ll get him in line.”

“Absolutely not. First off, this wasn’t my decision or even just Bercelak’s. It was Rhiannon’s. She made this decision, so there’ll be no going back. And secondly, I’ll not have my daughters around that idiot boy’s bad influence.”

Braith’s lips pursed and she rested a hand on her hip. “What about your sons?”

“What about them?”

“Don’t they matter?”

“If they did, you would have warned me long before we had them,” he said, as he’d been saying ever since his first son had been hatched.

“This again?” she demanded.

“You should have warned me!”

“What would it have changed?”

“Everything.”

“
Da!
” one of Addolgar’s sons yelled from behind him, making Addolgar cringe. “
Hello, Da!
”

Addolgar turned, faced his middle son. The boy was standing right behind him in human form, eating a big wheel of cheese, and yelling at him even though Addolgar was less than four feet away.

“Hello, son.”

“
You staying long, Da?
”

“Not on this trip. But when I come back this way, I’ll be staying for a bit.”

“
Good!
” the boy continued to yell.

“Why are you yelling?”

“
Was I?
” he yelled.

The sound of something heavy hitting rock had Addolgar stepping around his middle son, but that just showed him the tragic sight of his two youngest sons taking turns running and ramming their heads into the side of their mountain home. Over and over again.

It’s what Braith hadn’t warned him about, even though Owena had apparently warned her. That although the males of the Penarddun line were big and strong and good, solid fighters, they were, to put it bluntly, painfully dumb. Not like their sisters at all.

“
Cheese?
” his middle son yelled, shoving the half-eaten wheel under Addolgar’s defenseless nose.

“No.”

Braith patted their son’s arm. “Why don’t you lot go inside? Éibhear’s here, but only for the night.”

“
Éibhear’s here?
” the boy yelled. He faced his still-ramming-into-the-mountain brothers and yelled, “
Oy! Éibhear’s here!
”

“
Éibhear’s here!
” the other two cheered in unison. Then they charged toward the cave opening, but as they neared it, the youngest shoved his older brother so that he missed the opening and ran snout-first into the cave wall.

The boy flew back, landed, sat up, shook his big, blue head, and laughing, got to his claws. “
Bastard!
” he yelled before charging after his brother. Now the two would batter each other all the way inside until their great aunts and older female cousins told them to cut it out.

Grinning, his mouth filled with cheese, Addolgar’s middle son ambled back into the cave.

“They could be worse,” Braith reminded Addolgar.

“They could be?”

“They could be like Éibhear.”

Addolgar remembered his brother’s face when Bercelak had ordered his youngest son from his sight while Addolgar, Ghleanna, and Bercelak’s second oldest son, Briec, worked hard to hold the dragon back from murdering his own flesh and blood.

“You’re right,” Addolgar finally agreed. “It could be worse.”

Braith slipped her arms around Addolgar’s waist, hugged him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“So am I.” He pulled her close, kissed her temple. “I wish I didn’t have to go, but this needs to be done.”

“And Bercelak chose the one dragon he could trust to make sure Éibhear gets to the Ice Lands safely. But you can’t keep trying to kill that boy with your ax. It’ll put a strain on family dinners.”

“Only with Rhiannon, since she really loves the nasty bastard. And it wasn’t me ax, it was me hammer.”

Braith laughed. “Oh. Well then.”

Addolgar hugged Braith again, resting his head on her shoulder. “Do you think the idiots—”

“
Addolgar
,” she softly chastised.

“Fine. Do you think our
sons
will keep Éibhear here for the night? You know, keep him busy?”

“I do. They love Éibhear and they’re such cheery bastards, they overlook almost everyone’s rude behavior.”

“Then let’s go to town. Spend the night at that pub there.”

Braith lifted his head from her shoulder, kissed him. Centuries and her kiss still made him as weak as one of her fists to the face.

Panting, they pressed their foreheads together and gazed at each other.

“Aye,” Braith breathlessly agreed. “Let’s go to the pub. You can have breakfast with the rest of our brats in the morning, before you leave.”

She stepped back and took his hand. They were grinning at each other when Éibhear stepped out of the cave and yelled, “Do I really have to stay here talking to these dragons?”

Addolgar was marching over there to tell the idiot boy
exactly
what he had to do and how to do it, but Braith, still holding his hand, pulled him back as his two eldest daughters in their human forms came out of the cave and cut in front of the boy. They blocked him and his eldest daughter raised her arm and pointed her finger, motioning back inside the cave.

“I don’t report to you,” the idiot boy snarled at her.

That’s when Addolgar’s second oldest daughter stepped into her cousin and stared him in the eye. Not even an inch shorter than the very large Éibhear, she glared at him until three more of Addolgar’s tall, powerfully built daughters came out as well . . . and surrounded the idiot boy. Without a word, they overpowered their cousin without raising a weapon or issuing a threat. Their presence alone
was
a threat. Understanding that, the idiot boy snarled but turned around and went back into the cave.

His daughters faced Addolgar and Braith, waved, and said together, “Hi, Daddy.”

“My beautiful daughters.”

“We’ll keep an eye on Éibhear tonight,” his eldest offered with a smile that she had clearly inherited from her mother. “If you and Mum need some time alone.”

Giggling, his daughters went back inside and Addolgar looked at his mate, grinned.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look prouder,” Braith noted.

“Because I have perfect daughters, just like their mum, and . . . sturdy, reliable sons.”

She laughed. “Sturdy and reliable? If that’s the best you can do for our sons.”

“It is. But,” he promised her, “I’m sure after several hours alone with me beautiful mate, I can come up with something much, much better.”