“What did you promise?” the king’s sister asked again, but it was Annwyl who answered.
“He promised me that he’d help me defeat Thracius.”
“Thracius?” Lady Agrippina leaned back a bit and studied Annwyl. “You’re the Southland Queen? You’re Annwyl?” Her nose wrinkled. “You?”
“What were you expecting?” Annwyl demanded, tugging on her boots.
“From what I’d heard . . . someone hideous.”
Annwyl smiled. “Awww. Thanks.” Then she frowned. “Wait. You heard I was hideous?”
“Annwyl?” Rhona pushed, hoping to get her to focus. Gods, she was as bad as Izzy. But at least Izzy had youth and inexperience as her excuse.
“I’m not leaving my sister,” the king said again.
“Yes,” Lady Agrippina told her brother. “You are.”
“Aggie—”
She stepped away from her brother, but she was stil weak. Stil unable to stand on her own. Rhona caught hold of her, held her up. The She-dragon nodded at her in thanks. She was much more polite when her brother was around, it seemed.
“You have to go, Gaius.”
“You can’t even stand. How do you expect me to leave you now?”
“Because this is our chance. To end this. To end him.”
The earth around them shook, and Rhona realized that Vigholf had moved a boulder close so that Lady Agrippina could sit. He smiled at Rhona, quite proud of himself and she knew in that moment—she loved him.
Lady Agrippina sat on the boulder, and gave Vigholf a nod of thanks. Then she focused again on her brother.
“I want him dead,” she said plainly. “And I want you to do it. At the very least be there to see it.”
“I won’t leave you here alone, and you’re not fit to travel.”
“Leave a battalion with me for protection. Take the rest. I want this done, brother. I want Thracius. And then, when I’m ready, that little twat he spawned is mine.” She glanced at Annwyl. “Besides, we owe her.” She grinned. “She kil ed Junius.” Gaius, stunned, looked at Annwyl. “You did?”
“The wolf told me to.”
King Gaius frowned. “The wolf that licked your head?”
Vigholf stood next to her and said low so only Rhona could hear, “I never know how that head-licking thing is supposed to help us.”
“That’s because it doesn’t help us.”
“It wil take us days to get there,” Gaius argued, but Aggie didn’t want to hear it.
“I don’t care if it takes you eons. I want Thracius’s head!”
“Aggie . . .”
“I’m al right, I’m al right.” She tried to control her breathing, tried to calm down. She was running out of energy and fighting with her brother wasn’t helping. When she felt she could speak without panting, Aggie raised her head. “Look—” she began, but then the woman appeared out of nothing and, at first, Aggie thought she was seeing things again. Since her time in that slit’s dungeon, she’d been seeing lots of things. Some good, some a nightmare. To be honest, she enjoyed the nightmares more. It took a little more out of her every time she realized that blur walking toward her was not her brother or Varro.
Yet Aggie quickly realized that the woman walking toward them this time wasn’t a hal ucination because everyone else was staring at her, too.
She was brown of skin, like one of Aggie’s rescuers and like the humans of the Desert Lands. She was dressed like a warrior and wounded like one, too. Wounded like a dead warrior, though.
“Annwyl the Bloody,” the woman said to the human queen.
Annwyl pointed at the woman’s stomach. “Did you realize that someone disemboweled you?”
“That’l heal,” she said, walking around Annwyl. “My traveling companion says you need to get somewhere quickly. I can help with that.” A god. This woman was a god. They were chatting with a god. Things certainly had become interesting since Aggie had been rescued from her incarceration.
“Could you at least tuck your organs away?” Annwyl complained.
“You kil things al day.”
“But I don’t stand around talking to them afterward, their guts pouring out while I do.”
“So sensitive.”
Annwyl rubbed her eyes. “I’m tired. I’m very tired.” Now that battling the city guards was over, the Southland queen did look tired. Exhausted.
Aggie knew that kind of exhaustion.
“Yes. I see that.” The god studied Annwyl. “Too tired for this?”
Annwyl brought her fists down. “I wil end this. But I can’t do it from here. Send me or piss off. I’m tired of talking. Or send the wolf to deal with me. I like the wolf. He doesn’t bore me with talk.”
The god crossed her arms over her chest, leaving that gaping wound even more exposed. “I saved your life once. You could be a little more respectful.”
“You saved my life after your mate took it. And that was after he used my mate to knock me up without our permission. So don’t look to me for respect. I’m tired of you. I’m tired of him. I just want this over with. So send us or don’t—but just. Stop. Talking. ” While the god and Southlander glared at each other, Aggie looked to her brother. “This is who you sent to rescue me?” A lunatic who argues with gods? she finished in his mind.
“I’d run out of ideas, al right?” He shrugged helplessly. “Cut me some slack.”
“You think you can win against Thracius?” the god asked.
“I think I’m wil ing to kil anything in my way.” The human queen tipped her head to the side. “Are you in my way?”
“Perhaps. So let me move out of your way.” And with a flick of the god’s wrist—Annwyl the Bloody was gone.
They were evacuating the tunnel, nearly out the exit, when it started again. The arguing. Always with the bloody arguing. And, as she’d been doing since Rhona left, Nesta’s sister Edana got between the two idiots along with poor Austel . The arguing this time, though, was more vicious, more physical. Like it was before Rhona threatened both Éibhear and Celyn. Maybe they knew the war was almost over. Knew they wouldn’t have much more time to fight because all of them would insist the pair was separated. For their own good and the good of others.
Éibhear caught hold of Celyn by his breastplate, yanking him close, and slamming his fist into the dragon’s face. Nesta looked at Breena and her sister could only rol her eyes and shake her head.
Austel , clearly fed up with al of them, pushed himself between the pair, slamming his claws against their chests.
It was what had been happening a lot. There was only one difference this time—the human who suddenly appeared in the middle of al this. And Nesta didn’t mean Izzy and the proverbial wedge she’d shoved between the cousins. But an actual, living, breathing human.
Nesta and Breena looked at each other and then back at the human. They leaned in a little closer.
“Annwyl?” Breena asked.
The human queen looked around, snarled as only Annwyl could, and roared, “That bitch! ” They pushed the Irons back again, but Briec stopped. Looked around. Something wasn’t right. A trap? He turned in a circle, using his tail to bat off any Irons who got too close.
He expected some attack to come at them from either flank, but there was nothing. But stil , the Irons were being pushed back too easily.
Perhaps another attack with their siege weapons?
“Hold!” he cal ed out to his troops. Then, to his brothers, “Fearghus! Gwenvael!” He motioned to them with his shield. “Pul back. Now!” Fearghus responded immediately, but Gwenvael was impatient. “Why?” he demanded. “We’ve got them.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Fearghus snapped. “They’re pul ing us away from here.”
“But—”
“Do you want to take a little longer to return to your mate, or do you want to go back to her without important parts of you intact?” Gwenvael didn’t even have to think on that. He began moving back, cal ing his troops with him.
And, instead of retreating, the Irons again moved forward. They attacked again. But what they were trying to lure them from, Briec real y didn’t know.
“No! ” Izzy bel owed, jumping forward to where Annwyl had been.
Rhona caught her, held the girl in her arms while they al gawked at the spot the human queen once stood in.
“Bring her back.” Izzy pul ed away from Rhona and faced the goddess.
“You think you can order me to—”
“Bring her back!”
“So much emotion,” the god chastised. “I see why I like dealing with Dagmar more.” And then the god was gone.
“No! ” Izzy screamed again.
“You have to go after her,” Lady Agrippina ordered her brother. “There’s no arguing over this.”
“It’l take us days to get to Euphrasia. By then . . .” King Gaius shook his head, glanced over at Izzy, whose roar of pain was so gut-wrenching that no one could look at her for long.
“Rhona,” Vigholf said in a low voice. He jerked his head and Rhona looked in front of them. It was a wolf. A wolf just sitting there. An enormous, freakishly sized wolf, but a wolf nonetheless.
Vigholf shrugged. “A wolf licked her head and made her feel better. He’s a wolf.” Rhona frowned in confusion; then her brown eyes grew wide.
“You,” Rhona said, pointing at the wolf. “You can send us to Annwyl, yeah?”
“To Euphrasia,” Vigholf clarified. A good idea since who the hel s knew where that pissed-off goddess sent Annwyl.
The wolf looked at King Gaius. The Iron glanced at his sister, then said to the wolf, “Let us end this. Send us. We’re ready to fight.” The god nodded once—and they were flying.
Aggie made the mistake of blinking. That’s how fast they were gone. With no more than a nod from the god, some Southlanders, a Northlander, her brother, and Gaius’s entire army were gone with just a thought.
She heard her cousin’s soldiers moving through the trees toward her. Except for the cape Varro had given her, Aggie was nak*d and alone. But she wouldn’t go back to that dungeon. She would never go back.
The first group of thirty burst through the trees into the clearing. They saw her sitting on that boulder and the captain smiled.
“My lady,” he said.
“Captain.” Aggie forced herself to her feet, amused when the soldiers flinched.
“Now, now, my lady,” the captain said, “let’s not be hasty.”
“I’l not go back. You know that.”
“I know you’l fight, but you won’t be able to stop us. Look at you . . . every second you’re getting weaker and weaker. Al we have to do is wait for you to drop.” And Aggie felt real fear at the captain’s words, but the wolf, now much smal er than he had been before, stepped in front of her, facing the soldiers. That’s when Aggie realized she’d gone deaf. She could hear nothing. Not the soldiers laughing at the wolf or the wind in the trees or even the sound of her own heartbeat. She heard nothing, but she could see wel enough. She saw the wolf bark. Once. And although Aggie could hear nothing, the world around her shook. Trees fal ing, boulders rol ing, and the ground cracking open beneath the soldiers’ feet. The men opened their mouths—she assumed they were screaming—their hands grabbing their heads, blood pouring from their ears and through their fingers.