Some scaly lizard was laughing at her! The only daughter of The Reinholdt! And he was having this moment on Reinholdt land, no less!
Any awe and admiration Dagmar had were wiped clean in that moment, and she felt that distinct coldness she hid so well from outsiders. It swept through her like ice from an avalanche. The men behind her began to murmur amongst themselves, feet shuffled, and her father cleared his throat. A few times. It wasn’t the dragon that made them uncomfortable. Not directly anyway.
Dagmar waited until his laughter turned into chuckles. “Are you done?” she asked, keeping her voice even.
“Sorry, uh … Beast.” It snorted out another laugh.
“Dagmar will do. Dagmar Reinholdt. Thirteenth child of The Reinholdt and his only daughter. I asked your queen here,” she continued, “because I have news that may save her life and the lives of her unborn whelps.”
The dragon’s expression of humor quickly changed to a scowl. Apparently it did not appreciate the term she’d used, but she was past caring. All her dreams of building an allegiance with the Blood Queen faded as soon as that woman sent this idiot to represent her. No, Dagmar would have to find other allegiances for her father. The Blood Queen of Dark Plains simply would not do.
“Tell me, sweet Dagmar,” it sneered, rolling back to its belly and lifting its head a bit. “And I’ll tell her.”
Dagmar remained silent for one very long moment, then answered simply, “No.”
The dragon blinked in surprise and abruptly pushed itself up a bit so that its snout was barely inches from her nose. Its gold eyes were locked on hers, and she wondered how she ever saw them as pretty. They were as ugly as the rest of the dragon. Ugly and mocking and absolutely useless.
“What do you mean, no?” it demanded.
“I mean, you’ve insulted me. You’ve insulted my kinsmen. And you’ve insulted The Reinholdt. So you can return to your bitch queen and you can watch her die.”
Confident she’d made her point, Dagmar Reinholdt turned on her heel and walked away from it. But she did stop a few feet away and glanced over her shoulder.
“Now that, dragon”—she happily sneered back, mocking the creature’s tone—“that’s funny.”
Without another word, she returned to her father’s fortress. But before she disappeared into its mighty embrace, she heard her father ask, “You are a bit of a dumb bastard, aren’t ya, dragon?”
And it was times like these when she truly did appreciate her father’s coarseness.
A woman! The Beast was a woman! Why didn’t anyone tell him that? Why did everyone keep claiming he was a man? If Gwenvael had known, he would have handled the whole thing quite differently.
But he hadn’t known and his first reaction at seeing her … well, it had not been his finest moment. Even he’d admit that. Yet how was that his fault when everyone kept telling him that The Beast was some mighty giant warrior spit up from one of hell’s many pits?
Pacing restlessly in the abandoned cave he found high in the Mountains of Sorrow—a rather fitting name at the moment—Gwenvael tore at his mind trying to figure out how to fix this.
His first thought, naturally, was to seduce the woman. She had that look of a spinster, didn’t she? A bitter, unhappy virgin who didn’t trust men enough to allow them in her bed. In the past, he’d had great success with women like that. And yet …
He sighed, rubbed his eyes.
And yet this one didn’t seem like that at all, did she?
She was plain, that was true enough. But not hideous. He didn’t feel the need to scream and run away at first sight of her. And she had those eyes—steel grey and cold as the top of this mountain. Eyes like hers could go a long way if managed correctly, but she wore a drab, grey dress that did nothing for her. No adornments on it, no low-cut bodice, teasing of her bosom. Nor was there a painfully high and prim collar up to her chin so that one demanded to know what she was hiding. The girdle was a boring brown leather, when a silver weave would have been much nicer. The eating dagger she had tucked into it was nice enough, but so? The boots on her small feet were grey fur as well. And she wore that head scarf tied over her hair as if she were about to go off and scrub a kitchen.
No, it wasn’t looks that had gained her a name like The Beast. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t such a gorgeous animal that men were devoured in her bed.
Nor was she a raving lunatic, which one would think a woman named The Beast by Northmen would be.
The coldness in those eyes ran through her entire body. Without a thought to what a powerful dragon could do if angered, she’d kept the information about Annwyl to herself. To be honest, Gwenvael wasn’t even sure the Reinholdt men knew what she held.
The Reinholdt himself seemed to be completely clueless unless he had a war ax in his hands. Surprisingly short for a Northlander, The Reinholdt made up for it with width—his shoulders and chest disturbingly large, his muscles near busting from his clothes. Yet beyond his appearance, the stumpy Northlander reminded Gwenvael a bit of his own father, Bercelak the Great. His father was never as happy as when he was killing someone or something in battle—politics absolutely bored the older Black dragon.
Gwenvael scratched his head. Yes, yes, he could read the old Reinholdt well enough. But it was the girl … dammit! She was the key. He knew it! It wasn’t merely the knowledge she had about Annwyl either. There was something else about that girl … woman … whatever. Really, if he didn’t know better, he’d swear she was a dragon with those damn cold eyes and features. She had a young face, but those eyes were filled with ageless knowledge that she used for her own selfish gains.
Not that he couldn’t admire that a bit since he did the same.
He had to go back. He knew he did. And he realized now that going back just to take her and seduce her would not work. Not with her. She wouldn’t swoon at a mere look from his human self. She wouldn’t be entranced by the extraordinary beauty of his face or the exquisiteness of his human body. Nor would she be intimidated by threats and yelling.
He’d have to go a different way, but first he’d have to get in and see her. To go back in his true form would be useless. He’d have to be human and …
Gwenvael smiled, the etiquette of the Northland rulers and its people coming back to him in a sudden flash. Yes, yes. That would work. The woman he’d faced today knew her etiquette, kept her own council, and played by the rules. At least … she did as far as everyone else was concerned.
It would only buy him a night, but that would be enough.
He’d make it enough, because he wouldn’t fail Annwyl on this. Not this. She’d nearly broken his heart when she sent him off, kissing his cheek and holding him for a long time in a hug before telling him, “Don’t listen to the others. I know you’ll be amazing in the north. Just be careful and watch your back, Gwenvael.”
That’s when Gwenvael knew she had more faith in him than any of his own blood. She was entrusting him with her life and the lives of her babes. And if he had to go so far north that he entered the forbidden Ice Lands himself, he’d do it. He wouldn’t let any harm come to Annwyl.
He walked to the mouth of the cave and stood there a moment, staring down at the countryside below, until that scent he knew so well tore into his nostrils. He should have caught it sooner, but he’d been deep in his thoughts and now he only had a moment to use the shadows around him. A gift from the blood of his loving Grandfather Ailean, Gwenvael’s scales changed colors until he became one with the cave shadows surrounding him.
Right on time too, as they came into view seconds later. Four of them, all big, bold … and purple.
Lightning dragons. Also called the Horde dragons. He’d fought their kind for the first time during a war nearly a century ago. They were barbarians but mighty warriors, and he had the permanent scars to prove it.
These days, some would say the Lightnings lived in peace with the dragons of the Southlands, but that wasn’t remotely true. There was a truce, but it was a
delicate one, easily broken at any moment. All that kept a new war from starting was the fact that the Lightnings were broken up into fiefdoms, similar to the way the Northland humans were. They didn’t consider themselves monarchs but warlords. They were often so busy fighting each other, they rarely had the energy or time to take on the armies of the Southland Dragon Queen.
Still, Gwenvael had moved carefully through the territories leading to his Northland destination. Olgeir the Wastrel controlled the Outerplains—the borderlands between the north and the south—as well as the territory overlapping the Reinholdt lands, and he’d never bothered to hide his outright hatred of Queen Rhiannon. He kept the truce, but not happily. And Gwenvael didn’t doubt for a minute what Olgeir would do if he caught one of Rhiannon’s male offsprings on his territory. Especially the one the Horde males referred to as “The Ruiner.”
The Lightnings moved past the cave, but one stopped, hovering in front of the entrance.
Gwenvael didn’t move or make a sound. He certainly didn’t charge the bastard. He wasn’t here to fight and he wasn’t a fool who thought he could take on a Lightning scout party and come out still intact.
The Lightning sniffed the air and inched a bit closer. As Gwenvael could smell the lightning inside the barbarian, the barbarian could scent the fire in Gwenvael.
So Gwenvael slowly lowered himself into a crouch, readying his body and flame to attack.
The Lightning was mere inches from entering the cave when Gwenvael heard the caw of a crow overhead. The Northlands were simply inundated with crows, it seemed. And, at the moment, Gwenvael had never been so grateful, as the crow’s shit unceremoniously landed on the Lightning’s snout.
The dragon’s eyes crossed as he tried to see it and he snarled. “Why you little mother—”
“Come on, you idiot!” another voice yelled farther ahead. “Move!”
Wiping the shit from his face, the Lightning followed after his comrades.
Letting out a sigh, Gwenvael stood at the very edge of the cave and looked up at the crows overhead. There had to be hundreds of them making good use of the limbs and vines that protruded from the mountain’s rock face.
“Thank you for that,” he offered kindly. And in answer, another crow unloaded itself, and Gwenvael hastily stepped back. “Oy, you tiny bastards! Watch the hair!”
When all those damn birds began to laugh at him, he was not pleased.
Chapter 4
Dagmar exited the library that only she ever went into and that only she ever maintained with Canute faithfully by her side. His paws silently padded against the stone floor as he kept pace with her.
It was time for training, and she didn’t like to be late. But she wasn’t exactly shocked when her father fell into step beside her, smartly staying on the opposite side of Canute.
“Well, that went well,” he grumbled. Her father had never been one for wasted words or preamble.
“Come to gloat?” she asked.
“No. Come to find out what you’re planning.”
Dagmar kept her gaze straight ahead and her expression purposely blank. “What makes you think I’m planning anything?”
“You’re still breathing, ain’t ya? Never known a day when you ain’t planning something. Plotting is what they call it.”
For once Dagmar didn’t have to step around people as they moved through the Main Hall; people automatically moved out of the way of The Reinholdt and anyone who happened to be with him.
“I’m not planning anything,” she assured him. “But don’t be surprised when it comes back in another day or two.”
“ ‘It?’ Don’t you mean ‘him’?”
“It. Him. Whatever.”
“And he’ll come back to what? Tear the place down?”
“Doubtful. He won’t want to harm the one who holds the information.”
“Always so sure, you are. Always so damn sure you’re right.”
With a shrug, she left her father by the doors leaving the Main Hall. “When have I ever been wrong?” she smugly asked.
Dagmar walked through the courtyard and around to the side near one of several barracks. She passed groups of men training hard to be the warriors her father expected. The Reinholdt had no patience for weakness or complaints of injuries. You fought and you fought well every time or dying in battle would be the least of your problems.
As she walked by, like every day when she walked by, she was completely ignored. Nothing new there.
Cutting through the training grounds and past some of the barracks, Dagmar headed to the large training area that was hers and hers alone. To get to it, she had to enter the vast building constructed under her direction. It housed all The Reinholdt’s battle dogs, and she never had to limit access to only the trainers chosen by her because few of her father’s warriors were idiotic enough to enter here and risk that even one of her dogs was loose.
As soon as Dagmar entered, the dogs still in their runs began to greet her with barks and howls. Using voice commands only, she eased her dogs’ excitement and walked through the back exit and toward the training ring. Johann, her assistant, was already working the young pups that would soon be two-hundred-pound warrior dogs. He’d been a good choice on her part. Like her, Johann preferred the company of dogs to the company of humans.
“How goes it, Johann?”
“Well, my lady.”
Dagmar gave the hand signal for Canute to lie down and stay outside the ring until she returned to him. Closing and locking the gate behind her, she patiently waited for Johann to finish. He had the dogs lying down, waiting for his next signal. They wouldn’t move until instructed to do so. They were the most obedient dogs one could find in the Northlands. And also the most obedient and the most bloodthirsty because of her training methods. Only the companion animals of the Kyvich witches—giant wolflike beasts with horns—were more feared than Dagmar’s dogs. She prided herself on that fact.
As she waited on Johann, she pulled her list from her pocket and studied her remaining tasks for the day. But it wasn’t the words on the page that had her attention, it was that damn dragon.
Could that have gone any worse? She’d always doubted the Blood Queen would come herself, but Dagmar never thought the crazed monarch would send an actual dragon to represent her. Yet did she send one of the Southland Elders Brother Ragnar had told her about last time he’d visited? No! Instead she’d sent that … that … swine! He’d laughed at her. Laughed! Loudly. In front of her kinsmen.
That had been the worst part, in truth. That her brothers had heard it all—which meant her sisters-in-law had heard it all.
Johann made the dogs wait a few more seconds before he released them. When he did, they ran to Dagmar and began jumping on her, barking at her. They were chatty today. Excited. She smiled and petted them all.
She loved her dogs. With them, she never had to be anything but what she was. They never judged her or expected anything from her, and the plainness of her face meant nothing to them.
The dragon’s rudeness from earlier already forgotten, Dagmar crouched down and the dogs proceeded to lick her face and neck while trying to push each other out of the way. She was about to get them back into training formation when she heard Canute’s angry bark from the other side of the gate. He didn’t like it when she left him, but she didn’t dare bring him in the ring while the other dogs were around. But when be wouldn’t stop barking, she signaled for the other dogs to say and walked over to the gate.
Putting her feet between the lower slats, Dagmar pulled herself up, leaned over the fence … and looked straight into gold eyes.
He was staring up at her, looking guilty, with his hand around the back of Canute’s neck.
“What are you doing to my dog?” she asked.
“Nothing?”
“Why are you saying that like a question?”
“I wasn’t?”
“Yes, you were. And unhand him.”
He had a handsome face, whoever he was. Ev
en when he gave a little pout at her order. He looked down at the dog again and then, with a shrug, unclamped his hand. Canute charged back and started growling and barking again.
“Quiet,” she softly ordered.
Canute stopped barking, but he didn’t stop the growling.
“What do you want?” she asked the stranger, curious as to whom he was. He couldn’t be from the Northlands. His skin was too golden from exposure to the suns, and the gold hair that reached past his knees was loose and wild around his face. The Northland men didn’t wear their hair that long or free from their single braid except when they slept.
He slowly stood … and he kept standing until he towered over her more than her brothers did and that said something. Unlike their father, The Reinholdt’s sons were all tall, strapping men. But this one was unreasonably tall. And big. Large, powerful muscles rippled under his chain-mail shirt and leggings, the pale-red surcoat tight across his chest.
Oddly, he stared at her in such a way as to make her feel … but no. No man looked at Dagmar like that. Yet there was something so undeniably familiar about him—had she met him before? Long ago?
While she tried to remember where she’d seen or met him, he grinned.
And it was that grin she recognized. That damn mocking, rude grin. Even without the elongated muzzle or sharp fangs, she’d recognized that rude grin!
“You,” she said flatly.
His brow went up in surprise. “Very good. Most humans never put the two together.”
“I thought I made myself clear earlier.”
“Yes, but I have needs.”
She blinked, keeping her expression blank. He has needs? What did that even mean?
“Your needs are not my concern.”
“But are you not lady of this house?”
He did have a point. Without a new wife for her father, etiquette demanded the task fall to Dagmar.
“And as lady of the house, isn’t it your job to care for your visitor?”