“Where is Fearghus? Why are we dealing with this?”

“Again,” the silver-haired one yelled. “I am bleeding here! Are none of you going to help me?”

“Daddy, please!” the brown one chastised, shocking the silver-haired one.

“I say,” the gold one suggested, “that we give Annwyl Briec—since he’s bleeding to death anyway—and then burn the whole bloody place down around them.”

“Really?” the silver-haired one snapped. “That’s your grand plan, idiot?”

“You’d survive the flame!”

“She’d survive the flame as well, only then she’d be more pissed off!”

“Someone find Morfyd,” the bear ordered. “She can magickally bind her. That’ll hold her until Fearghus gets back.”

“Why can’t you just contact Morfyd yourself?” the one who resembled Celyn demanded.

“Because she’s blocking me, which means she’s probably with Brastias doing things I don’t want to talk about when it’s my sister.”

“I know where she is then,” the female who resembled Celyn said, charging out of the hall.

“She’s moving,” the brown-skinned woman said. “Do something!”

“I’m not hitting her,” the bear snapped back.

“I hit her.”

“You she’ll forgive.”

“Well, my hand is broken. Until Morfyd or my mother fixes it, I can’t hit her.”

The males shrugged, each one refusing to do anything, including helping the silver-haired male still bleeding on the floor.

“All of you are weak!” the brown-skinned female snarled before she walked over to the queen, who had pushed her head and shoulders up off the floor with her elbows.

“Sorry, Annwyl,” the female said before she kicked the queen in the jaw, knocking her out again.

Celyn grinned at the sisters and gave a courtly bow. “My Lady Elina. My Lady Kachka. Welcome to the Southlands!”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Fearghus walked into the bedroom he shared with Annwyl and went to the desk where he kept personal correspondence. He placed the scrolls he’d received from one of the generals regarding defenses on the outskirts of Southland territories onto the desk and removed his travel bag. He dropped that on the floor and turned to leave.

That’s when he saw Annwyl. She was in a sitting position on the bed with her arms stretched out and bound to the headboard with ropes that, he was guessing, had been mystically enhanced. Someone had also gagged her. And he quickly noticed that her eyes were angry over that gag. Very angry.

Which was when he started laughing. He couldn’t help himself!

“I swear by all the gods, Annwyl. I leave you alone for five minutes. . . .”

“May I?”

Elina nodded at the She-dragon’s polite request. With extremely gentle hands, Morfyd the White carefully removed the bandage over her eye. Then, she placed cool fingers against her jaw and slowly tilted Elina’s head back so that she could get a good look at the wound.

They’d moved into the “war room,” as it was called, and the group had multiplied. Now Dagmar and Talaith had joined them, along with Morfyd.

“I simply don’t understand,” Dagmar was saying. “Why would your mother do this to you?”

Elina gave a very small shrug since Morfyd was still examining her. “She hates me. She has always hated me.”

“Then why not just kill you?”

“I am still her child. She still bore me. To kill me for no reason would have brought curse on our tribe.”

“But asking to see the Anne Atli gave her a reason?”

Elina didn’t want to answer that question, so Kachka did it for her. “When Glebovicha told her she could not meet with Anne Atli, my sister insisted she would. When she did that, she was disobeying the leader of our tribe.”

“And that made it acceptable for Glebovicha to kill her,” Dagmar finished.

“Yes.”

Gwenvael, who sat next to Celyn, a few chairs over, shook his head. “Nice job protecting the Rider, Celyn. So glad we sent you instead of our father.”

Elina, shocked by such an unfair comment, pulled away from Morfyd’s skillful touch in time to see Celyn, his lips now a thin line of anger, reach his arm around his cousin, grab the back of Gwenvael’s head and slam him face-first into the hard wood table. Three times.

Then, gripping all that golden hair, Celyn tossed the dragon out of his chair and across the floor.

“Celyn!” Morfyd gasped.

Celyn gave a shrug. “Sorry. Me hand slipped.”

For several long seconds, Dagmar stared at her snarling, raging mate bleeding on the floor, her brow pulled far down on her face, before she turned back to Elina and asked, “Why the eye?”

Surprised that it was Gwenvael’s sister running to his side to help him and not his mate, Elina opened and closed her mouth a few times before she replied, “What?”

“Why the eye? Why did she take your eye?”

“She tried for neck, but I managed to move fast.”

“So it wasn’t that she joined the cult of Chramnesind and removed your eye as some sort of sacrifice?”

Elina and Kachka laughed at that.

“Our mother?” Elina asked.

“Worshipping anyone but herself?” Kachka finished.

Then they both laughed again.

Talaith now moved in to examine the wounds.