“Are you sure?” Kachka asked.
Gaius glanced over at Annwyl, who sat on the other side of him. She had her legs raised, her knees pressed against the table, her heels pressed against the seat, and a book balanced on her kneecaps. While she read the book and turned pages with one hand, she held a half-eaten turkey leg in the other. She had part of it in her mouth, noisily sucking the marrow from it.
When Gaius looked back at Kachka, he replied, “Oh . . . I’m so very sure.”
Once the dinner was done, tables were pulled back and musicians began to play. Izzy and Gwenvael the Slag were the first out on the floor, something no one seemed surprised at.
The Riders went into a small huddle over in a corner before Zoya Kolesova marched out. When she returned about a half hour later, she held several bottles covered in dirt.
“Whatever you do,” Talan suddenly whispered to Gaius, “don’t drink that. You’ll regret it forever.”
Zoya dropped the bottles on an empty table, then grabbed two. She walked over to Briec, for some unknown reason, and yanked away the cup of wine he’d been drinking, tossing it to the floor.
The dragon gawked at her—shocked she’d dare touch anything of his and clearly ready to blast her through the wall with his flame—before she shoved a bottle into his hand.
“Here, beautiful one,” Zoya told him. “Drink this. Beauty such as yours only deserves best.”
Then Zoya squeezed his ass and Briec’s eyes grew wide in panic.
“Come!” Zoya ordered the room. “Everyone drink! Especially all these pretty boys!”
“Yeahhhh,” Talan said on a harsh breath. “I’m out of here.”
Gaius watched Prince Talan quickly cut through to the back and disappear out the door. When Gaius turned around again, Kachka stood in front of him, a bottle in her hand.
“Are you brave enough, royal?” she asked, holding up the bottle.
“Brave enough? Or stupid enough?”
“Sometimes,” she said, pulling the cork out, “there is truly no difference.”
Kachka began to pour some of her people’s ale into Talaith’s chalice. But she’d barely put in a splash before Briec the Mighty physically lifted his mate and moved her away.
“Hey!”
“No. Just . . . no,” he insisted, carrying her off.
“What’s that look for?” Annwyl asked, waving off the ale when Kachka offered it.
“She allows male to tell her what she can and cannot drink? My mother cut one of her husband’s throats once because he suggested she had ‘had enough.’ She did not kill him, but he never questioned her choice of drink again.”
“Your mother was . . . unpleasant.”
Kachka didn’t bother to argue that point.
“And Talaith can’t hold her drink,” Annwyl went on. “He’s just saving himself the bother of having to carry her to bed tonight while she miscounts absolutely everything. Loudly. The drunker she gets, the worse her math gets.”
The queen’s dragon mate passed them. He signaled to Annwyl with a slight jerk of his head toward the door at the back of the hall.
Suddenly smiling, the queen put down her chalice of whatever weak Southland wine she’d been drinking.
“See ya,” she said.
“Wait.”
The queen stopped. “What?”
“You go to fuck him?”
“Unless he’s calling me back there to yell at me about Talwyn . . . most likely.”
“Do you not mind that he is not human?”
Annwyl put her hands on her hips. “Is this an Abomination question? Because those just make me angry.”
“No. I do not care about you and your unholy children.”
“I would never call my son or Rhi un—”
“But Fearghus has scales. That does not bother you?”
“Oh.” Annwyl grinned, chuckled. “That.” She shrugged her big shoulders. “I find his scales beautiful. Human or dragon, he’s always been beautiful to me. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious. Watching my sister, she seems very happy.”
Annwyl frowned, head tilting to the side. “Does she? Really?”
“For Daughter of Steppes . . . she is happy.”
“Well . . . if you say so.”
The queen followed after her mate, disappearing through the back door. Kachka stared after her for a long time, wondering if she was being a little too . . . harsh about dragons. Unlike her mother, she was willing to change her opinion when it was truly warranted. She just didn’t know if it was.
Once she became bored staring at the empty doorway, she studied the room. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Even the Rebel King, laughing at whatever Gwenvael the Handsome was saying to him.