The damn thing really had no choice with all those soldiers outside Bram the Merciful’s back door.

Dagmar grabbed her daughter’s arm, but Arlais easily pulled away and walked over to her sisters.

Seva pulled back, her face covered in blood. There were so many fangs. So gods-damn many.

“Finish him,” Seva told Arlais in a voice that did not sound like hers or anything from this world.

“Arlais . . . don’t.”

But when Arlais looked over her shoulder at her mother, Dagmar realized that she was no different from her sisters. Not with those gold eyes that were now black with a tinge of dark red around the iris.

“Do it!” Seva ordered in a harsh whisper.

Arlais raised the blade high, but Dagmar shoved Arlais aside and dropped to her knees. Taking her eating dagger in both hands, Dagmar brought it down and buried it to the hilt in Mabsant’s chest.

Now, with the threat gone, the fangs and strange eyes disappeared and, suddenly Dagmar was staring at her children. Her babies.

Crying, they ran to her, wrapping their arms around her waist, her legs, the youngest trying to get her to pick her up, which Dagmar did.

That’s when she realized that Frederik, Éibhear, and Izzy were in the room. They had been for a bit, the door now sitting against the far wall, its hinges torn away.

They’d seen everything. Dagmar could tell by the look of horror on their faces.

Dagmar faced them. “You will say nothing of what you’ve seen here today. Not a word. Do you understand me? This can never get out. This can never be known.”

After all three agreed, Dagmar swallowed and held her daughters closer. “Now . . . go get my son.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Elina turned and shot, her arrow ramming directly into the nostril of the dragon who was chasing them. He fell back with a roar as Elina pulled another arrow and nocked it.

That’s when Var yelled out.

“In front of us!”

Elina faced forward in time to see a dragon land directly ahead of them, the ground shaking beneath the horse’s hooves.

“Give us the Abomination, female,” he ordered as Elina’s horse reared up and backward. “And I’ll let you live.”

“I give you nothing.”

“Then you both die.”

“Do not let go of me, little Var,” she warned him.

“Why? What are you going to do?”

“I—”

Elina’s words were cut off by dragon’s blood splattering across her face and body. She looked up and saw a dragon-sized sword that had been shoved through the dragon’s chest.

When the dragon slumped forward, dead, the sword was yanked out and the body dropped.

At first, Elina saw nothing but trees swaying in the cold winter wind, but then, born out of nothing, it seemed . . . like a chameleon lizard who’d camouflaged himself against a rock . . . the golden dragon, Gwenvael, appeared.

Var sat up straight in the saddle. “Dad!”

Gwenvael, golden in the sunlight, smiled down at his son. “Thank the gods,” he said on a relieved sigh. “I was afraid I’d have to spend my long life listening to your mother complain about how wrong I was to let you go to your uncle Bram’s.”

The boy laughed, but Elina could hear the tears he was trying to hold back. “And she would have, too. But what are you doing here?”

The dragon rolled his eyes, clearly embarrassed. “What can I say? I lied to your mother.”

“Shocking,” the boy muttered drily.

“I told her I wouldn’t be checking on you while you were at Bram’s but . . . well . . .” He shrugged, helpless. “You’re too important to me to just let you go off on your own. There, I said it. But if you repeat it, I’ll flatly deny I care about anyone that much, especially my own son.”

“Take your boy, dragon,” Elina said, helping Var dismount from the horse. “Bring him back to his mother.”

“Come with us, Elina,” Var pleaded.

“I cannot. I have to go to my sister.”

“The Cadwaladrs are flying to Bram’s as we speak,” Gwenvael explained. “I’m sure—”

“No, beautiful golden one—”

“Why, thank you, Elina.”

“Dad! ”

“—but I must get my sister and you must take this boy back to his mother. I would hate to see what she will do to world if he is no longer in it.”

Gwenvael picked his son up with his tail and placed the boy on his back. “Thank you for protecting him, Elina.”

Elina nodded at his words, turned her horse, and headed back to Bram’s castle.

Celyn saw the battle from above and dove in. He uncurled his fists, making sure his talons were out.

He tackled one of the last remaining dragons, a Gold who was making a wild swing at Brannie’s back.

Ramming his claws into the dragon’s side, Celyn dug them in deep, then moved them up and down, back and forth, rending valuable organs in the process.

The Gold screamed out in pain, his flames decimating nearby trees.

Celyn yanked his claws from the Gold’s body and quickly gripped his head. He turned it one way, then the other, breaking the neck.

He dropped the body and stood. Brannie had gotten some dragon’s axe and was chopping away. Someone must have pissed her off.

“I think he’s dead enough, sister.”

At Celyn’s words, Brannie spun around with an angry snarl, the axe raised, her tail taking down a tree in the process.