by G. A. Aiken
“Excellent. And? Anything else?”
“Our men lost their grip on the Quintilian King.”
“Ah. I see. That’s unfortunate. Did he get away on his own?”
“The men were all slaughtered, the slaves released, but not by dragons. By human hands. They were in the Outerplains at the time.”
“Riders. The Whore Queen’s new allies.” He sighed, sad for the barbarians. “Foolish women. To trust such a . . .” He shook his head. “Nothing we can do about it now. They’ve lost their souls, which is not our problem.”
“Should we keep looking for Gaius Domitus?”
“No. He’ll be back in the Provinces soon enough to be with his sister. Have our spies keep an eye on him once he’s there.”
“As you wish, my lord. And Lady Ageltrude is looking for you.”
“Yes, of course. My wife is ready to return to our home, I think.”
“I’m sure she is, my lord.”
Together, they left the suns-soaked battlements and headed down to the first floor. As soon as they walked into the main hall, Roland’s oldest boy ran to him.
“Daddy!”
Roland lifted his son in his arms, held him tight. “There’s my boy. Ready to go home?”
“Yes. I’m very bored.”
His son was smart like Roland’s beautiful wife and would one day make a great king. He’d brought his son on this peacekeeping mission because Roland wanted to be the one to teach him not only the ways of their god, but the ways of politics.
“Where’s your mama?”
“Outside. Waiting for you.”
“Then we’d best go to her.”
Still holding his son, Roland walked out the large double doors and onto the stairs, with de Vitis behind him.
Roland’s beautiful wife, Ageltrude, stood waiting with her orphaned nephew and niece. They were the children of Ageltrude’s brother who’d died many years ago. Armed and ready, they protected their aunt without question. Something Roland appreciated.
The early morning suns beamed down on his wife’s regal head. She was everything Roland could ask for in a woman. Intelligent. Beautiful. Royal. Pure.
In their ten years together, she’d given Roland four beautiful sons and a wealth of excellent advice. She was also dedicated to his god and, Roland truly believed, a gift from Chramnesind himself for loyal service.
“Ready, my love?” he asked.
“Of course.” She tightened the fur cape around her shoulders and walked down the stairs, leading the way for the rest of them.
Roland happily followed, watching his wife as she moved. Laughing, she looked over her shoulder at him, and said, “A beautiful sacrifice to our god.”
He had to agree, for the screams of dying heretics were music to the ears of Chramnesind.
Roland glanced around at the field of those who would not submit to Chramnesind. In order to save their wretched souls, each heretic was held or tied down and molten silver poured into their eyes. It was an excruciating death, but it purified them. Brought them closer to Chramnesind. A gift, really.
So the screams and cries of those not already dead . . . ? Nothing but hymns of praise to the one true god.
When they reached their carriage, de Vitis took Roland’s son from his arms and placed him inside. Ageltrude turned to him, smiled in that beautiful way she had.
“Anything I need to know?” she asked quietly.
“They lost the Quintilian King.”
Her beautiful eyes darkened and Roland knew that she was angry. Not with him, but with incompetence. His wife had no patience for incompetence. “That is unfortunate.”
“Do not worry. We’ll get him—and if he does truly know anything, we will cut it out of him.”
She let out a breath, smiled. “I don’t worry when you’re in charge.” She pressed her hand to his cheek and kissed him softly on the lips. “Now . . . let’s go home before that smell of burned flesh invades all my clothes.”
Chapter Thirteen
Gaius slowly woke up. He felt warm and safe and very comfortable. The Southlanders had the best beds. So good, in fact, he let himself luxuriate in that warm, comfortable feeling until he heard snoring. Deep, loud snoring.
Male snoring.
Gaius forced his eyes open and immediately noticed that his arms were around tiny Tatyana Shestakova. But she wasn’t the one snoring. That was Ivan Khoruzhaya behind her.
Even more horrifying, Yelena Khoruzhaya was pressed up against Gaius’s back.
What the hell had happened last night? What the hell was happening right now?
Gaius sat up and barked, “By Iovis’s cock, what is happening here?”
Marina Aleksandrovna, who slept by Gaius’s feet, lifted her head, stared at him a moment, then turned over and seemingly went back to sleep.
So Gaius dropped his head back and unleashed flame, burning the ceiling above and rousing every Rider near him as they reached for and brandished their closest weapons.
That’s when Kachka Shestakova slowly sat up. She was on the far side of the bed, her eyes bleary from drink. She yawned and scratched her head as she gazed at him. “What?”
“Why are all these people in my bed?”
“My bed, royal. This is my bed. Not yours. I allow you to sleep here. And I allowed them to sleep here. I do not see what problem is.”
The door to the bedroom slammed open. Dagmar Reinholdt stood in the doorway with her mate. She took one look and her hand covered her open mouth, her eyes widened in shock and despair.
Her mate, however, began to laugh—until Dagmar brought her fist down very close to his balls.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“King Gaius,” Dagmar began, “I am so sorry about this.”
“Sorry for what?” Kachka demanded. “We do nothing wrong. It is not like we fucked him while he slept.” She abruptly looked at Ivan Khoruzhaya. “Did we?”
“Why are you looking at me?”
“Because you are male. And if there is hole, you must fill it.”
“Well, I did not fill any of his holes.”
Unable to listen to another second, Gaius roared, “Get the fuck out of my bed!”
“Not your bed. My bed.”
“Shut up!”
“I saved your life!” Kachka shot back.
“You should have left me to die!”
“Next time I will!”
“I do not understand,” Dagmar snarled, “why you did not just take him to one of the many rooms we have available.”
“You all waste space. I do not understand why you waste so much space! And it is not like he is so important.”
Fed up, Gaius took in a breath, ready to unleash flame that would destroy every Rider . . . and most likely the entire room. He didn’t care. He cared about nothing at the moment. Because this was ridiculous!
But before he could burn them all to ashes that he would roll around in like a pig rolled in its shit, Dagmar’s mate joked, “Maybe you should fuck him, Kachka. It might loosen him up a bit.”
When Gaius’s head snapped around, Dagmar squeaked a little, then dropped into a crouch, her arms over her head. He appreciated that. Because he unleashed a ball of flame that sent the gold dragon flying out of the room and over the banister outside.
“Owwwww!” the Gold cried out when he hit the hard stone floor below. Gods, that poor floor took a lot of abuse.
“Feel better now that you hurt another?” Kachka asked.
“Shut up.”
“King Gaius,” Dagmar said, standing. “Please. Allow me to show you to another room. Your own room.”
“Yes. Horse gods forbid some royal should be forced to share anything with another.”
“Shut up,” Dagmar snarled at Kachka. Then she took in a deep breath, let it out, and stretched out her arm. She motioned to Gaius with a twitch of her fingers. “Please, my lord. This way.”
Gaius stood, trying to pull the fur covering around his bare ass. But none of the
Riders would move. So, he yanked, sending them all flipping to the floor.
Feeling sadly triumphant over that, he wrapped the covering around his waist and allowed Lady Dagmar to show him from this room and these ridiculous people!
Dagmar placed him in a room beside Annwyl’s.
“King Gaius, I am so sorry—”
“No, no,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “No need to apologize, Lady Dagmar. This was not your fault.”
And it wasn’t! Gaius wasn’t lying or trying to ease her discomfort. It really wasn’t Dagmar’s fault.
It was Kachka’s!
“Would you like me to order water for your bath?” Dagmar asked.
“Actually, I think I’ll go out to one of the lakes.” He needed to shift to his natural form. He needed to feel water against his scales. He needed to be away from here!
Dagmar nodded. She’d lived with dragons long enough now to understand. She stepped out into the hallway and peered in both directions. She finally raised her hand. “You. Boy. Come here.”
A young boy ran over and Dagmar gestured to Gaius. “Please escort the king to the lake that Prince Fearghus likes to use.”
“Aye, my lady.”
“And make sure to stop by the gates and get some clothes for his majesty as well. He’ll need them when he’s done bathing.”
“Aye, my lady.”
Gaius moved into the hallway, stopping by Dagmar’s side long enough to nod down at her. “Thank you.”
“Of course. Anything you need, King Gaius.”
Normally, Gaius would never need so much use of his title, but at the moment . . .
Gods! That woman!
Kachka was pissing in the chamber pot, sighing loudly from the pleasure of it. She’d drunk much the evening before and was glad she hadn’t pissed the bed.
Honestly, she didn’t remember getting in bed with the dragon. Or bringing the others with her, but she truly did not see the big deal of it all. Riders shared beds. The winters on the Outerplains were brutally cold and sharing beds for warmth was typical. Yet these Southlanders acted like it was the most outrageous thing one could do.
Whatever. Let the dragon be pissed at her. She didn’t care. Life was too short for such bullshit!
Deciding she wouldn’t worry about it for one more second, Kachka was about to stand when the door slammed open again.
“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.”
“Run and jump?”
“Where I . . . run and jump from dragon to dragon.”
“While they’re flying?”
“No need for that tone!” she shot back.
There was a soft throat-clear from the banks of the lake and they both looked over to see a stoic but drenched Annwyl standing there, arms crossed over her chest, green eyes glaring. The power of the splash when Gaius had hit
the surface of the lake had been so strong that Annwyl’s hair was blown off her face, revealing how annoyed she was at the moment.
Even worse than the overall wetness of the queen was that her daughter had been several feet behind Annwyl. Only Talwyn’s booted feet were wet. The rest of her was dry, and she was laughing hysterically at her mother.
This was not a good situation.
“My liege—” Izzy began.
“Shut up!”
“Are you all right?” Gaius asked the queen in order to stop himself from laughing. Because, gods! Did he want to laugh.
“I’m fine,” she growled between gritted teeth. She cast an angry glare at her daughter, who was now doubled over at the waist, tears streaming down her face. Although they could no longer hear her laughter . . . because she’d begun to wheeze.
“Talwyn!” Izzy hissed at her cousin. “Stop it!”
“I . . . I can’t!”
The queen didn’t seem to particularly like this response, so she reached back and slapped her daughter on the back of the head.
The laughter stopped immediately, and Talwyn shot up, crazed black eyes burrowing into crazed green ones.
“No, no, no!” Izzy begged. She hit at Gaius’s arms. “Get me over there. Get me over there!”
With a shrug, Gaius tossed her halfway across the lake and onto the shore.
“I meant swim me over here, you git!” she yelled when she’d landed and rolled several feet.
True, if he was back in the Provinces, his sister would have a general’s tongue removed if one dared speak to him in such a manner, but Gaius and Izzy had quite the long history. Besides, he was enjoying himself, which was nice, considering the morning he’d already had.
Izzy got to her feet and stepped between glowering mother and daughter.
“Why don’t we focus on something else besides each other?” she asked the two women, but if they heard Izzy . . .
Instead, the pair tried to look around Izzy’s wide shoulders so that they could keep eye contact. Like two pit dogs ready to fight, they would not be distracted from the rage they seemed to feel toward each other.
Gaius took the quiet moment before what he felt certain would become a full-out brawl to swim to the other side of the lake. He pulled himself onto the shore, shifting at the same moment. Human and naked, he walked to the clothes that the squire had left and grabbed hold of a piece of thick white material, which he used to dry himself off.