“What is wrong with you?” the tiny Northland female bellowed from the doorway, her pale face red with rage, her entire body shaking like a small dog’s.
Kachka glanced around. “Nothing,” she replied honestly. “Why?”
“Why would you all get in bed with him?”
“Because we were tired.”
“And drunk,” Zoya Kolesova volunteered as she got to her incredibly large feet. She’d tried to sleep in the bed with them, but there just hadn’t been enough room for her, so they’d rolled her off and onto the floor. Like a thousand-year-old oak chopped at its roots, she’d gone over, and never woke. Not even for a second. She slept like the dead.
Nina Chechneva rubbed the sides of her head. “Very drunk.”
“I don’t give a battle-fuck!” the Northlander raged. “He is a royal and an ally of this court and every last gods-damn one of you will treat him with respect!”
“I do not think—”
“Do I make myself clear!” Dagmar Reinholdt briefly closed her eyes behind those small round pieces of glass. “Because I swear,” she finally said, her voice low, but oddly more terrifying than when she was yelling, “by all reason, that if you don’t, I will personally hunt down each and every one of your kinswomen and kill them, starting from youngest to oldest until I’ve wiped out your entire fucking bloodlines. Do I make myself clear?”
Zoya sauntered up to the Northlander. “Look, little person, I—”
“Do I make myself,” and the Northlander’s head tipped to the side a bit before she finished with, “clear?”
Zoya and the Beast locked eyes for a very long time before Zoya finally looked away and nodded. “You make yourself clear.”
The Beast looked at the others and they all nodded in agreement.
She stepped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Zoya spun around, raised her hands, and, in their language, demanded, “Where the fuck did you bring us, Kachka Shestakova?”
Gaius was very pleased with the lake the boy led him to before leaving a pile of clean clothes carefully placed on a rock nearby.
Of course, the Southlands were known for their lakes. And the dragons here loved them, even though they were made of fire.
The Irons had fewer lakes to choose from, so they built their own inside the Quintilian Provinces, allowing for communal bathing, where political ideas and decisions could easily flow. Many deals were struck among those easing sore muscles in the communal baths.
Dropping the fur around his hips, Gaius dove into the water. When he pulled himself up, he was dragon again. Just that alone made him feel better.
Gaius dove under the water again. The lake was much deeper than he’d thought it would be, and he wondered if dragons had dug it out over time.
When he swam back up, breaking the surface, he launched himself up and out, unleashing his wings and taking to the skies. As he flew toward the two suns, he realized that he hadn’t flown simply for the feel of it since his capture. He’d flown out of the cave the day before, but that had been in a desperate search for food.
Gods, how he’d missed it.
Gaius turned over so that the suns warmed his belly, his wings keeping him aloft. A trick he and his sister had taught themselves at a very young age.
He put his claws behind his head, closed his eyes, and let out a long, relieved sigh.
Gaius didn’t know how long he flew like that. He’d heard the cheers and laughter for a bit, but he just assumed it was other Southland dragons. Something that didn’t worry him. He knew he was as safe as he was ever going to be among the Southlanders as long as he had his alliance with the two queens.
Still, he never expected anyone to crash on top of him in mid-flight and then immediately flip off.
His eyes snapped open and he stared at the large round shield that bore Annwyl’s coat of arms—two black dragons with two crossed steel swords between them and a shock of red that represented the “blood” in “Annwyl the Bloody.”
As he gazed at the shield, he heard the screamed, “Shit!” and flipped over in time to see a human warrior falling toward the lake below.
“Fuck,” Gaius growled before diving down, his front forearms out. He caught the human seconds before the warrior hit the water, turning his body and pulling the human in tight.
He crashed hard, his body going deep down, but he couldn’t stay. The human in his arms would never last as long as he would under the fresh water, so Gaius quickly swam back to the top. As soon as he broke the surface, he held the human up.
Gaius shook his head to get the hair and water out of his eyes and to see whom he held in his claws, sputtering and cursing.
When he could finally see again, he still blinked several times before asking, “Iseabail?”
The high-ranking general in Annwyl’s army coughed a few more times before replying, “Hello, Gaius. Long time.”
“Not really. Just saw you a few months ago.”
“Oh. Right. Forgot.”
“What were you doing?”
“Don’t tell Mum.”
That didn’t really answer his question. “What?”
“I was just doing a bit of run and jump.”