Slowly Dagmar raised her gaze and kept raising it until she could look into the face of the nine-foot beast standing before her. The light from the torches they used to allow them to clearly see their work as they dug out one of the recently closed tunnels glinted off the creature’s horns.

“It seems today,” the Minotaur said softly, grinning down at her and the babes, “the gods have decided to treat their most loyal servants with gifts.”

Chapter 28

It was something none of them had ever heard before. At least not in the context of true pain.

Their mother cried out.

Gwenvael spun around to look at her, along with everyone else in the room, as Rhiannon sat forward, her hand over her chest.

“Oh, gods. She’s dead, Fearghus.” She looked at her eldest son. “He took her from me. He ripped the life right from her body.”

They were all moving for the door when she said, “No.” She shook her head, still trying to get her breath back. “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Fearghus snapped.

“I mean she’s gone. The babes are gone. They’re gone. He took them.”

“No.” Morfyd stepped forward, her eyes unfocused as she saw what her mother saw. “He didn’t take them. He sent the babes away.”

“Where?” Gwenvael asked. “Where did he take them?”

Rhiannon closed her eyes, going inside herself for more information.

Bercelak pushed past his children and siblings and crouched in front of his mate. “What is it, Rhiannon?”

“He wanted me to see. To see what he did because seeing through her pain makes it harder—” She gripped Bercelak’s hand, her face contorting as she tried to see past a god’s tricks to the truth.

Rhiannon snatched her hand away from Bercelak and abruptly stood, her face red with rage as she snarled, “That bastard.”

Fearghus moved toward his mother. “What is it? What has he done?”

“He sent them to the Minotaurs.”

The room fell silent, everyone standing for a moment, brutally stunned. Then Fearghus was stalking across the room and tearing the door open. Without even realizing it, he ripped it off its hinges, Briec and Gwenvael forced to step aside as it flew by.

They all stormed into the Great Hall, Talaith and Izzy waiting for them all.

The Nolwenn witch had felt it, too. She knew what had happened to her friend and the twins.

“They’re not alone,” Rhiannon called after them, and as one they all turned to face her.

“Who’s with her?” Fearghus demanded.

When his mother’s eyes rested on him, Gwenvael felt the breath stop in his lungs. “Dagmar?”

His brother asked him something, but he couldn’t hear him. He couldn’t hear anything above the roar in his ears as Gwenvael realized what had happened to Dagmar—and what would happen to Dagmar if they didn’t get to her and the babes in time.

Fearghus slammed his shoulder, snapping his attention back in the room.

“What?” Gwenvael snarled.

“Will Dagmar buy us time?” Fearghus demanded.

“Yes,” Gwenvael nodded, already running toward the Great Hall doors. “She’ll buy us time.”

Dagmar stared up at the Minotaur standing over her. His eyes were brown, his hair shaggy and unclean, his face bovine with a flat, moist snout covered in some kind of unpleasant-looking mucus. He wore nothing more than a cloth made of some animal skin around his hips and a necklace made of what she would guess was pure gold. The chain was thick and broad and the medallion that hung at the end of it, the size of a small plate. She recognized the symbol of the goddess Arzhela immediately.

Dropping to one knee in front of the head Minotaur, Dagmar said, “I’m so happy to have found you, my lords. I’d taken the children when the chance presented itself, but it was not easy.”

“You took the spawn?”

She nodded, but did not raise her gaze. “I knew you waited here, and at the death of their mother it seemed the most opportune time.”

He shoved the body at Dagmar’s feet with his hoof. She was glad her head was lowered and he couldn’t see the wince his actions caused.

“This one. This is the great Blood Queen of the South?”

“Yes. Giving birth is what killed her, my lord. As you can see, the … uh … spawn drained her of her very life.”

“Good. The whore deserved it.”

Another Minotaur stepped closer, crouching beside the body. He pressed big, meaty fingers against her throat, then nodded. “She’s dead.”

The head Minotaur stepped around Annwyl’s body and kicked it, sending it flying.

Dagmar bit the inside of her cheek when she heard it slam into a far wall, bones crushed from the pressure. The great human queen landed limply on the rocky ground, her remains unnaturally twisted.

It took all of Dagmar’s self-training to not cry out. To not order them as Only Daughter of the Reinholdt to treat the remains of the Great Blood Queen with reverence …

The Only Daughter of the Reinholdt …

“And as for you—”

She saw fur-covered hands reaching for her. “I am the Only Daughter of the Reinholdt,” she snapped. “You will not put your hands on me! And know that my father sent me here as an ambassador to the south so that I may assist you in your holy quest in retrieving the spawn of the demon queen.”

“Why”—another of them demanded—“would he send his daughter on such a mission?”