“You’re all bastards!”
“Don’t whine!” Gwenvael chastised. “Just admit that you’re crazy about Iz—”
“Shut up!”
Dagmar pulled on the much-too-large, but lusciously soft robe, belting it in the middle. She took another glass of wine from Morfyd and dropped into the chair Annwyl had vacated. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.” Morfyd again studied the maps Dagmar had given her. “I’ll give these to Brastias. Perhaps he can figure out where all these lines go. Or my brother, Éibhear. He’s very good with maps.”
“I’ll help as much as I can,” she promised.
Morfyd looked up from her notes. “Tell me, Dagmar, do you talk to Gwenvael?”
“Yes.”
“Full conversations?”
“Yes.”
“And he holds your interest?”
Annwyl laughed at that, but Dagmar didn’t. “As a matter of fact, Lady Morfyd, I find your brother quite intelligent, with excellent ideas and thoughts on a range of topics. Perhaps you should find the time to have a full conversation with him before you judge what you don’t know.”
Morfyd stared at her with wide eyes and Dagmar felt a little guilty. But before she could apologize the bedroom door flew open and another woman marched in. She was a few inches taller than Dagmar and stunningly beautiful with brown skin just like the soldier-for-hire Dagmar had met. Now she’d seen two women of the desert lands in less than a week, when she’d seen none for the thirty years before that.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you two,” the woman snarled, slamming the door closed behind her. “And anyone like to explain what the hell Run and Jump is?”
Annwyl slowly rolled onto her side, away from the woman glaring at everyone in the room.
“Waiting for an answer!” she bellowed, looking quite comfortable yet gorgeous in the plain black leggings she wore with black boots, a loose off-white linen shirt, and a thin leather tie that pulled back her long mass of black curly hair. Nothing else adorned her body except a silver chain necklace that disappeared under her shirt and a small sheathed dagger she had tied to her upper thigh.
It probably took her all of five minutes to dress every day, but Dagmar knew her brothers’ wives spent hours attempting to look as effortlessly beautiful as this woman.
“Well …” Morfyd gave a small shrug. “If you’re talking about dragons, it’s a little game hatchlings play with their parents. You know, before their wings can actually carry them, when the family’s out flying. The hatchlings will run and jump from one parent to the next. I did it with mine. It was fun, but it also helps the hatchlings learn how to fly because very often you’ll catch the wind and you learn to coast.”
“Right,” the woman said, her smile not fooling Dagmar at all, “fun and a learning experience.” That’s when she leaned down and screamed into poor Morfyd’s face, “And that’s why my daughter is doing it with your family!”
Morfyd’s eyes grew wide. “Oh.”
“Yeah! ‘Oh’!” She turned toward Annwyl. “And I blame your fat ass for this, you pregnant sow!”
“Me?” Rolling back to her other side, Annwyl faced them. “How is this my bloody fault?”
“She’s out of control and it is your fault.” The woman threw herself into a chair and said in a mocking, childlike voice, “ ‘They say I can go to war. They say I’m really good. I want to be the Queen’s Champion one day.’ Your fault!” she finished in her own healthy yell.
“I haven’t watched training in three months, how is this my fault?”
“Brastias speaks for you now, does he not?”
Annwyl pursed her lips before slowly stating, “He is in complete charge of my armies until I can mount my war horse without him whinnying in terror, yes.”
“Then it’s your fault! Because he says she’s ready to go to war and so she wants to go.”
Morfyd leaned forward a bit, her hands clasped in front of her. “Perhaps—”
“Shut up, scaly!”
Morfyd leaned back in her chair. “All right then.”
Finally, the woman caught sight of Dagmar, her dark eyes raking over her before she said, “Talaith.”
Dagmar had no idea what that meant until Morfyd cut in, “Sorry. Talaith, Daughter of Haldane. This is Dagmar Reinholdt. Of the Northland Reinholdts.”
Ahh. Talaith was her name.
Talaith focused her lethal gaze back on Morfyd. “Are there Reinholdts in the south?”
Morfyd’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Then don’t embellish!” she screamed.
“I’m not!” Morfyd screamed back.
Suddenly Annwyl sat up, one hand on her belly, a cry exploding from her lips. Immediately the women stopped bickering.
“Gods, Annwyl. What’s wrong?” Morfyd demanded.
Green eyes turned to them and Annwyl sneered, “Nothing. I just wanted the two of you to shut up. You’re going to make us look bad in front of the barbarian!”
The silence that followed was awkward, to say the least. And lasted a good thirty seconds. Until Morfyd spit out that first laugh, and then all of them followed suit. They couldn’t seem to stop either. Even when Gwenvael walked in, stared at them all for a bit, and then walked back out, slamming the door behind him, they kept right on going.
Chapter 19
Gwenvael returned to Dagmar’s room several hours later when he was sure his sister and brothers’ mates were gone. She was stretched out facedown on a bed she was way too small for, her long hair, now clean and smelling delightfully of flowers, hanging over the side and nearly touching the floor. Her freshly washed body was covered only in a robe, and one small hand was balled into a fist, resting by her month. The other hand rested by her hip, palm up, and her spectacles were on the side table across the room.
She also snored, but only a little.
He walked around the bed and crouched down by her head. Reaching out, he gently brushed her hair off her face, smiling at how innocent she looked. Not at all like the manipulative little barbarian he’d been traveling with for days.
“Dagmar.” He said her name softly, gently, his fingers petting her cheek. He liked how her skin felt under his fingertips. “Dagmar,” he said softly again.
And, when she didn’t answer, “Dagmar!”
She snapped awake, head and chest off the bed, her eyes immediately open and alert. “It is not a lie!”
“Sorry, love,” he said softly again. “Did I wake you?”
Rolling her eyes, Dagmar dropped back to the bed. “Go away.”
“No. You were mean to me, and I want reparations.”
“You want—what are you doing?”
“Getting comfortable,” he explained while crawling onto the bed and over her until he’d draped himself across her back. Once in position, he sort of dropped on top of her, and he enjoyed the sound of air abruptly shoved out of her lungs.
“Get off me!”
“Not until you apologize and make me feel better. Much better.”
She tried to drag herself out from under him, but he wouldn’t budge, making sure all his weight stayed on her back.
“Apologize for what?”
“For being mean to me in front of my much-loved kin.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Gwenvael bounced his lower body up and down, causing his groin to slam against her ass.
“Stop! Stop!”
“Take it back.”
There was a long pause, and then what suspiciously sounded like a giggle. “No.”
She squealed when he started slamming into her again.
When Gwenvael finally lifted himself up, Dagmar scrambled off the bed and stumbled across the floor.
Turning around, she gripped her loosening robe closed. “Stay away from me, you mad bastard.”
Gwenvael went up on all fours and began to crawl across the bed. “Apologize.”
“Never.”
“Beast.”
“Defiler.”
With his knees resting on the edge of the bed, Gwenvael reached out to grab Dagmar. She squealed again and made another run for it. Charging off the bed, Gwenvael reached for her again. He lost her … but he got the robe.
He held it up. “Look what I have here.”
Dagmar stopped in mid-run and spun around to face him. She had her right arm over her chest and her left hand over her sex. “Give that back!”
“I don’t think so.”
“Gwenvael, give it back.”
He tossed it over his arm and planted his feet firmly. “No, my lady, what I think I’m going to do is …”
“Gwenvael,” she pushed when he stopped talking. “What’s wrong with you?”
He let out a hard breath, his gaze locked onto her body. Her hands and arms blocked much of it, but still …
“Gods, woman, what have you been hiding?”
Dagmar looked around and down at herself. “Nothing, I don’t think. I mean, I told what I knew to Morfyd and Annwyl—”
Gwenvael shook his head. “Not that. This.” He walked toward her and she quickly stepped back. “We really must find you clothes that do you justice.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t move,” he snapped, and Dagmar immediately stopped moving away from him.
Gwenvael walked slowly around her, his gaze feasting on her.
“What, in the name of reason, are you doing?”
Behind her, Gwenvael slowly went to his knees. “Enjoying myself.”
When Dagmar felt something brush against her ass, her entire body jolted. “Did you just—” She cleared her throat. “Did you just kiss my … uh … backside?”
Gwenvael didn’t respond, but when she felt a warm tongue lazily wind its way up to her hip, she jumped away.
“What are you doing?” she asked again, quickly facing him.
“If you turn back around”—he purred—“you’ll eventually find out.”
“I can’t … We can’t … I know we’ve danced around it, but … uh …”
She took a step back when Gwenvael stood. “It’s all right.”
Dagmar realized she was panting, as if she were running down that main road toward Spikenhammer again.
“I didn’t mean to panic. I just … I’m not used to …”
“Sssh.” He walked toward her and she took another step back.
“Stop moving,” he ordered.
And she did.
Gwenvael put her robe over her shoulders, took one arm and put it through the sleeve and did the same with the other. He closed the robe tightly and belted it.
“Feel better?”
She let out a shaky breath. “Yes.”
“Do I make you uncomfortable?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
She swallowed. “No.”
Gripping her hand, he walked her over to the bed and knelt on top of it, tugging at her until she joined him.