“Wouldn’t you know that, Mother?” Keita demanded behind the Dragonlord.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
Keita walked around Ragnar. “It means, how long did you know she was there? How long have you been plotting to have her killed?”
“Your Majesties—” the Lightning began, but Rhiannon cut him off with one raised white talon.
“I knew she was there from the first time you went to see her. Was it worth it?” Rhiannon demanded. “Betraying me for that backstabbing little whore?”
The brat sighed out of pure boredom. “I never betrayed you, Mother.”
“You knew where she was, Keita. You never said a word. Not even to your brothers.”
“I didn’t see a point. She wasn’t hurting anyone.”
“That doesn’t matter, you twit! You knew where a suspected traitor was, and you said nothing. You’ve broken the law. You’ve put yourself and your kin at risk. Why? To protect a female who wants me dead?”
“Och! If you feel that way, call a meeting of the Elder Council, have them find me guilty of treachery, have me sent to the Desert Mines.”
“I should do that. It wouldn’t be any less than you deserve!”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Keita demanded, holding out her front claws. “Have your guards take me away and let us end this ridiculous conversation!”
Annoyed as only her damn daughter could annoy her, Rhiannon slapped Keita’s arms down—and Keita slapped her back across the shoulder.
Mouth open, stunned her daughter would do that to her own mother, much less the queen, Rhiannon stood and slapped Keita’s shoulder. They were in full slapping swing by the time the Lightning pushed his way between them.
“That is enough! ” he bellowed, shoving the females apart. “ Both of you cut it out! I’ve never seen mother and daughter act like this before. You two bite at each other like snakes in a pit!” Rhiannon’s guards burst into the chamber, led by Bercelak, but she held up her claw. “It’s fine, my love.”
“Rhiannon—”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Go back and talk to your son.” Bercelak’s eyes crossed. “Must I?”
“Bercelak!”
“All right, all right.”
Her consort grudgingly left with the rest of Rhiannon’s guard.
“My, my,” Rhiannon said once the three were alone again, slowly walking around the Northlander, “my little lightning bolt has a bit of a temper.”
“He does,” her daughter chimed in, walking around Ragnar as well.
Keita’s anger, as always, quickly forgotten. It was a gift none of Rhiannon’s other offspring possessed.
As they moved around the suddenly tense Dragonlord, the pair grinned at each other as if they shared a delicious secret. Her daughter truly liked this one; Rhiannon could tell. “When he gets really frustrated,” Keita explained, “he says horrible things. But he apologizes and takes a punch to the face from a protective brother like a true dragon should.”
“That’s very nice to hear. Nothing is worse than those who will not apologize. Of course, I never apologize, but I don’t have to. I’m the queen!” Ragnar was dragon enough to admit he was unnerved by the two She-dragons circling him like a wounded bear.
“What else have you noticed about him?” the queen asked her daughter.
“He broods sometimes. But not enough to make him painfully boring.
He’s very loyal to his brother and cousin. And he’s more powerful than he’s willing to admit.”
“So he’s not a show-off then?”
“Oh, no. Not at all.”
“Or like his father?”
“Ewww. Gods, no.”
“More like your mother then?” the queen asked him, her spike-tipped tail brushing his shoulder. “She raised you better perhaps. I knew she would.”
Ragnar studied the queen. “You knew my mother?”
“I knew her quite well. Her disappearance from her kin’s cave was what began the war between our people during my mother’s reign.”
“I’d heard that.”
“So you’re a Southlander as much as a Northlander.” Ragnar couldn’t help but smirk. “We’re not raised that way. No matter where your mother may come from, you are your father’s child—a Northlander.”
“With all those codes and rules and dying with honor?”
“And purple scales and lightning. It’s all part of the package.” Rhiannon smiled at him. She was large for a dragoness. Nearly his height and width. Her daughter, much smaller, stood by her mother’s side now, appearing tiny in comparison, her dark-red scales bright beside her mother’s white ones.
“Tell me, Keita…can this Northlander be trusted?” To Ragnar’s surprise, Keita answered without hesitation, “Aye. He can.”
Unable not to ask the question, he put in, “How can you say that about me?”
“Because I know, and be grateful I do, warlord. It’s the only reason you’re still alive.” Keita abruptly turned to her mother. “How long have you known?”
The queen placed a talon to her lips to silence her daughter and said softly to Ragnar, “Seal the room.”
Ragnar had no idea what was going on between the royals, but he did as the queen bade. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Gods, child. The Dragonlord is powerful.”
“Told you.”
“Aye, daughter, but I thought you were talking about these mighty shoulders of his.” Rhiannon returned to her throne. “How much time, my dark cloud?”
“Ten minutes. But less if you insist on using all those nicknames.”
“I love your nicknames, my swirling tornado.” She sat down on her throne, gazed at her daughter. “What was your question again?”
“How long have you known?” Keita repeated.
“About you?” The queen let out a little laugh. “That’s simple, child—I’ve known since you killed my brother.”
The thought of running crossed Keita’s mind, but she’d never give her mother the satisfaction.
“Which brother?”
“Let’s not play games, child. At least two of them!” Rhiannon’s laugh rang out, and she clapped her front claws together. “Don’t let her beauty and seemingly intense lack of brains confuse you, Lord Ragnar. My second-born daughter is nothing like what she seems.”
“What I did, Mumsy”—and she loved how her mother’s eye twitched when she called her that—“I did to—”
“Yes. I know. You did it to protect the throne. And what I’m about to ask you to do is so that you may continue protecting the throne.”
“Which is what exactly?”
“Someone will approach you, daughter, with an offer. You are to accept it.”
“What kind of offer?”
Rhiannon grinned. “To be the next Dragon Queen.”
“Oh.” Keita glanced at Ragnar, her brown eyes crossing. “Right.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Oh, no, no. There are lots who want to see me as queen. I hear it all the time. Of course, that’s usually from drunk males trying to look up my tail.”
“Keita, you’ve managed to hide the truth about yourself very well.
Most of the human nobles don’t know you’re a dragon or of your connections to Annwyl. And the dragons think you’d love to see me dead.”
“Well—” Keita began, but Ragnar’s tail slammed into her ass, cutting her off. “What I mean is,” she quickly corrected while glaring at him, “the dragons think I’m vapid and stupid and vain. So who in their right mind would think to make me queen?”
Ragnar answered instead of Rhiannon. “Someone who wants complete control of the throne and the Southland dragons.” Rhiannon raised a claw to him. “See how smart he is? Smart and handsome and—”
“Your brothers are too independent and too loyal to their mother,” Ragnar cut in, interrupting her mother’s list of his attributes, and for a second there, Keita adored him like the suns. “And your sister—”
“Right,” Keita said, sniffing in annoyance. “She’s perfect and would never do such a thing.” Her sister’s perfection was something Keita had heard about since hatching.
“About her perfection, I do not know. But with her powers, she’s too dangerous. She’d have to be killed as well.”
“Lovely.” And Keita couldn’t help feeling a little depressed.
“Everyone thinks that I’d betray my entire family to their deaths so I can have,” she sneered, “that.”
“I adore my rock,” the queen said, shifting around on it. “I look very regal on it.”
“Pardon my questions—”
“No, no, Lord Ragnar. Ask. We may not have time like this again before this all plays out.”
“It just seems a dangerous situation to put your daughter in, my lady.” And Keita felt her heart stutter a little before she remembered that all Northlands males were protective of females in that way.
“Oh, but my daughter lives for risk. Don’t you, Keita?” Knowing exactly where Rhiannon was about to go, Keita said,
“Mother—”
“Now, now. There’s no shame on your part, child. Everything my Keita has done has been in service to my throne. For instance, my brother Oissine, who’d fled to Alsandair after I became queen, had hired assassins to kill me. Too bad about that food poisoning, eh?” Then she winked at Keita.
Mortified, Keita sighed, “Oh, Mother.”
“And Muiredach, brother number two, had gone into the Northlands.
It took her some time to track him down, but she must not have liked what she saw or heard when she found him because he seemed to have had a tragic fall off one of those Northland mountains of yours, young Ragnar. He was so high up, apparently, that it was a fall no dragon could survive…
drunk and unconscious, that is. Tell me, Keita, did you use your father’s ale to get him that drunk before you shoved him off that mountain? Or did you find that stash of your grandfather’s drink that we keep when we need to strip skin off a horse carcass?”
Keita could feel Ragnar’s eyes on her, could feel him sizing her up.
She’d never felt so exposed before. Those who knew the truth—her father, Gwenvael, Ren, Gorlas—had been with her from the beginning. They had seen her training, her growth as one of the Protectors of the Throne. The small, eclectic group of dragons and humans that made it their life’s work to do anything and everything necessary to keep the Southland thrones safe from those who would take them.
And discussing what she’d done among those who already knew the truth had never been something that made Keita uncomfortable. Yet discussing it with Ragnar and her mother? Here? Now? She’d be less uncomfortable nak*d and spread eagled in the Garbhán Isle market.