And just as she opened her mouth to let fly her banshee scream, Kaziel launched himself at her, transforming from wolf to man. He wrapped his arms around her and slapped his hand over her mouth to keep her from making that horrendous sound she was known for.
“Shh.” He breathed calmly in her ear to hold her tight against his chest. “You let fly yours, love. I’ll let fly mine and we’ll both have bleeding ears. And I know you don’t be wanting any of that, now do you?”
“Kaziel?” she whispered in her deep husky voice.
“Aye.”
“What the bloody cythral are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to fetch Aeron. You’re not going to be getting in me way now are you, boyo? I’d hate to be hurting you after what all we’ve been through together, like. But I won’t be letting sentimentals stop me from protecting me penlord. You get me way, like, and I will be hurting you. Friendship be damned.”
“Aeron here? Are you moithered or drunk?”
“Neither.”
Jaden was having the hardest time following this bizarre exchange. Never mind the fact that their Welsh accents were thick, and they were technically speaking English, which up until now he would have sworn he was fluent in.
But …
“You two know each other?”
And that got Rhibyn’s attention on him, which turned out to be a bad, bad thing as she started for him like Cujo after fresh meat.
Kaziel picked her up and swung her about. “None of that. He be friendly, like.”
“Now you’re all coggy-headed, for sure! You’re as addled as me da, after Cordelia’s feast! Now put me down, you brute, or I’ll take from your hide and be making meself new white, furry boots.”
“Nae, I won’t having none of it, now. Stop your fussing, Vawn! I mean it!”
Rhibyn bared her jagged gray, bony fangs.
“Really?” Kaziel laughed in a mocking tone. “You think to be scaring me with that patheticness o’yours? What? You going to wash your clothes at the creek, now, and cry ’bout it, too?”
“You’re such a bleeding arse!”
“I come by it honestly, I do.”
Rhibyn pointed at Jaden. “He’ll be the one what turns you in. Mark me words on that. He’s a low-lying, worthless piece-o-work what can’t be trusted no further than what you can toss him, and you can’t even pick his giant arse up.”
“Be that as it may, I was sent here to protect him, and you know I will.”
“Och, Duw! You were ever half-soaked, boyo! From your first breath to your last. Never be changing your ways.”
“Most likely not. Now will you be helping or are we to keep talking?”
She spoke in fast, furious, demonic Welsh that questioned Jaden’s parentage, as well as Kaziel’s, and all his sense, both common and otherwise.
Finally, Rhibyn calmed. “Of course, I’ll be helping you. What kind of monster do you be thinking I am? But swear you’ll be getting me out of here, too.”
Kaziel scowled. “How is it you’re here, even?”
“Was captured and traded.”
Tilting his head, Kaziel looked at Jaden. “Can I be taking him from here? Would that be allowed?”
“Why do you keep calling her a him?”
He looked at Jaden as if he were the daft one. “What are you? Blind? Rhibyn’s a man.”
Jaden swept a skeptical glance over the lush curves of her body. While he’d never seen her naked … “You sure about that?”
Rhibyn rolled her eyes?
Kaziel bit back a laugh. “Aye, indeed. He was cursed into that body after he broke the heart of a woman, and she killed herself for him. Now he’s forever damned to walk the earth in her very image, and cry out for the souls of those about to die to warn others that they will lose what they hold dearest.”
“Oh, that’s harsh.”
Rhibyn ground his teeth. “You’ve no idea. It weren’t even me fault. She preyed upon me until I was near mad with her attentions. The lass was unhinged.” Gesturing at himself, he sighed. “And this was her final vengeance upon me. To make sure I’d never have another woman. Ever. I’d have rather she turned me to a goat, to be honest.” He turned to Kaziel. “And one smart word from you, man, and you’ll be getting it kicked from a woman, you hear me?”
He held his hands up in surrender. But his eyes twinkled with unspoken humor.
“So I take it then that the Robin is short for Robert?”
“Rhyvawn Ddu,” they said in unison.
Jaden felt the urge to say bless you. But he refrained from saying more as he led them toward the room where Aeron should be found. “You know, Kaziel … for someone who couldn’t talk, you sure found your tongue.”
Kaziel returned to his wolf form.
“He’s only silent around those he doesn’t know or trust.”
“Apparently.” Jaden didn’t miss the way Rhibyn kept one hand buried in Kaziel’s white fur as if afraid the C?n Annwn would leave him.
They stopped as Jaden passed a door, and heard the sound of Noir’s voice coming from inside the dungeon room.
“How can I be weakening? We know who the Malachai is. I sent my siphon. How can I be weaker?”