“What?” she yelled over him.
One of her sisters, he didn’t know which, appeared in the cave exit. “They’re at it again.”
Rhona’s snarl was so vicious that Vigholf briefly thought about moving out of her way. He didn’t, but it crossed his mind.
“By the unholy gods of piss and fire, I’ll kill them both!” she nearly yelled. “And if not them . . . I’ll kill
her.
Then maybe this centaur shit can end!”
Shoving past him, Rhona marched off in the direction her sister had motioned to, leaving Vigholf simply standing there. Instead of following her, he kept on the way she’d been going. After a few minutes, he came to the underground waterfall. This had been where she’d been going. The female did like her bath times. But, as always, the needs of others had gotten in her way. Unfortunate, really.
Rhona stormed through the chambers and caverns where the lower-ranking dragons resided when they weren’t out on the field.
And, as Rhona’s sister had said, her cousins were “at it again” while the rest of the young recruits stood in a circle around them, passing coin, taking bets, and cheering their favorite.
Seething and absolutely fed up with all of this, Rhona pushed past the troops and grabbed the wings of both males. With strength born of raising her siblings, Rhona yanked the pair apart, then slammed them back together again. Their hard heads collided and they stumbled around in stunned confusion.
“
That is enough!
” she bellowed, shoving them into the crowd surrounding them. “I am tired of this centaur shit!”
“He started—”
“You started—”
Rhona unleashed her flame, first at one, sending him careering into the wall, and then the other, forcing him to roll across the cave floor.
“I said
that is enough
! ”
She leveled her gaze at the other recruits. “Out! All of you!”
And the lot scrambled out of there as if the gods of death ran behind them.
Once they were alone, Rhona said, “I don’t believe you two. Five years I’ve put up with this shit. Five years I’ve watched you two go at it like pit dogs!” She shook her head. “That brat’s pussy must be mighty for all this!”
Éibhear the Blue, her royal cousin and youngest of Her Majesty’s offspring, stood to his lofty height. “Rhona! That’s my—”
“If you say niece, I will rip your lips off! Because, you twat, we both know the real problem here is that Izzy the Dangerous is
not
your niece. She’s merely the whore who’s gotten between cousins!”
Her not even remotely royal cousin Celyn the Black suddenly grew balls, and stood tall before her. “Don’t you dare talk about Izzy that way. If this is anyone’s fault—it’s his!” Celyn pointed an accusing talon at his cousin. “That overreacting harpy!”
“You took advantage!”
“That’s a lie!”
“Shut it!”
Both males snarled and looked away from each other.
All this over a woman. Not a She-dragon but a human female. The adopted daughter of Éibhear’s brother Briec had decided it was a good idea to take Celyn as her lover while the human and dragon troops of Annwyl the Bloody and Dragon Queen Rhiannon fought the Tribesmen of the Western Plains a few years back. And the rest of them had been suffering from that girl’s idiotic decision ever since.
“Perhaps you haven’t noticed,” Rhona pointed out, “that we’re in the middle of a gods-damn war. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that every time you two idiots do this, you put your fellow soldiers at risk. Our troops risk their lives every day and yet you two peck at each other like angry birds! As if you have
nothing
better to do!”
“Rhona—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Éibhear. Not a word!”
She rested her front claws on her hips. “I should just send both of you back to the Southlands. A few years’ suspension while your kin earn glory or death would certainly get my point across.”
As she expected, Rhona saw the panic in their eyes at the threat. And it was a threat she’d carry through on—if they could afford to lose the brute strength of either idiot. Of course as low-level privates neither idiot would know that.
“Please don’t, Rhona,” Éibhear begged. “It won’t happen again.”
“It won’t,” Celyn pleaded. “Just don’t send us back.”
“I don’t know. . . .” she hedged.
“We won’t fight again.”
“Ever.”
Rhona didn’t bother making them swear to that. What was the point when they didn’t even realize they were lying? But at the very least she was sure she’d put some fear into them.
“All right,” she finally told them, watching their bodies sag in relief. “But if I catch you fighting with each other one more time—”
“You won’t,” Éibhear was quick to promise. “You won’t.”
“I better not,” she warned.
And with that, she headed out of the chamber and to her gods-damn bath.
Éibhear the Blue glared across the chamber at his cousin. “This is
your
fault.”
“My fault? You started it!”
“I started it? If you’d kept your cock tucked—”
“This again? Really?”
“Yeah! Really!”
“Let me assure you, cousin, that everything I did with Izzy the Dangerous was at her explicit consent!”
They were chest to chest again, Éibhear enjoying the fact he stood quite a bit taller than his cousin since his last few growth spurts.
“I know I don’t hear more arguing. . . .” Rhona’s voice called from outside the chamber. “I know I don’t hear
that
.”
Austell the Red rushed in and pushed his way between the pair. “No, no,” he yelled out. “You don’t hear anything.” He shoved the pair apart as Rhona had. “Not a thing.”
Austell, a fellow soldier and friend to both Éibhear and Celyn, scowled at each dragon. “What is wrong with you two? This fighting has to stop.”
“It’s this prat’s fault,” Celyn snapped.
“
My
fault?”
“Go.” Austell pushed Celyn away. “Just go.”
“I’ve got watch anyway,” he said, stomping off.
“Don’t die a tragic death while you’re out there,” Éibhear called after him.
“Fuck you.”
Austell shook his head. “Cousins shouldn’t fight like this.”
“It’s
his
fault.”
“Over a woman.”
“She’s an innocent.”
Austell shrugged. “Not from what I’ve heard.”
And Éibhear had his friend by the throat and slammed up against the wall before either even realized it.
“At what point,” Austell asked once he’d pried Éibhear’s claw off his throat, “are you going to admit how you feel about—”
“She’s my niece.”
“Not by blood.” He patted Éibhear’s shoulder. “Just be smart, friend. There’s no female in the world worth fighting over.”
“I’m not fighting over anyone. I’m merely protecting one of my own.”
“Do you really believe your own ox shit?”
Éibhear sighed and headed off to get something to eat. “Usually.”
Vateria, eldest daughter in the House of Atia Flominia, walked into the room where her younger sisters prepared for their night out. There was a monthlong worth of games being thrown by the sons of the human ruler of these lands, Laudaricus, and Vateria’s family would be blessing them with their presence on the royal dais. Family members would be going in their human forms as they often did, although they never allowed their human pets to forget who or what they were.
For they were the true rulers of these lands. The ruling Imperium of the Quintilian Sovereigns for the last six hundred years. The Iron dragons.
At one time, the Iron dragons were part of the dragons of the Dark Plains. But Vateria’s grandfather grew bored at being ruled by another, so he and his allies moved their families far past the Western and Aricia Mountains and into what was the Quintilian Province. Unlike the Dark Plains dragons, Grandfather refused to hide his true form from the humans. Instead, he presented the small ruling body of Quintilian humans with a choice: Accept the Iron dragons as your rulers or watch your men burn and your women and children enslaved to the dragon’s will. Weak, like most humans, the rulers quickly agreed. In their minds, they thought they’d let their invaders get comfortable in their underground cave homes and then go about destroying them.
But Vateria’s grandfather had been much too smart for that. From the beginning he worked to make the Quintilian Province his own, without question. He kept actual killing to a minimum—he needed the humans as farmers, herders, and general labor—while using the
threat
of killing and much worse as the sword he used. When a senator dared question one of his decisions, the senator’s children were taken and turned into slaves, his wife or wives turned into whores, his land burned to embers. The senator in question, however, was kept alive, so that all could see him, day after day, wandering the streets without a home and penniless. His enslaved family sometimes passing him on the way to do their duty, their bodies covered in whip marks, their faces seared with their owner’s brand. Sometimes several brands if they were sold more than once.
By the time Grandfather handed over rule to his eldest son and Vateria’s father, Thracius, the Irons’ rule of Quintilian was without question and without challenge. That’s when Thracius captured the mate of Adienna, the Southland Dragon Queen of that time, during the Great Battle of Aricia and took him back to Quintilian. While the queen sent messengers with offers of treaties and promises of no retribution for the safe return of her mate, Thracius held public games in his father’s honor with the highlight being the crucifixion of the Dragon Queen’s mate.
Once dead, the queen’s mate was cut into pieces, boxed, and returned to Her Majesty. At the time, it was rumored the queen was planning an all-out assault on Quintilian, something Thracius hoped for since they’d be fighting on his territory rather than on hers. But that confrontation was put on hold for the queen had another problem—barbarian dragons from the north, the Lightnings. It had crossed Thracius’s mind to attack Dark Plains then, but he didn’t trust that the barbarians would automatically side with him. For enough gold or females to breed with—both of which the Southlanders had in abundance—the Lightnings could easily be bought. Besides, there was much to the west of the province that held his interest and Thracius had never been one to rush.
Now, centuries later, they were no longer simply the Quintilian Province. That was just the main city of what was known as the Quintilian Sovereigns, and the empire’s territories stretched for thousands and thousands of leagues in all directions.
All directions, but one.
But that would change soon enough for at this moment her father and his vast army fought the current Dragon Queen’s armies and the barbarian Hordes in Euphrasia Valley while Laudaricus’s human armies fought the armies of Annwyl the Bloody, Queen of Garbhán Isle, in the Western Mountains.
The two-prong attack would be quite effective, especially with the enemy armies not having nearly as many troops as the Irons.
Columella, one of Vateria’s four sisters, posed for Vateria in her dark red tunic. “What do you think?”
“You look well enough, I suppose.”
“Don’t overwhelm me with your flattery, sister.”
“I hadn’t planned to.” Vateria studied one of her younger cousins, her eyes narrowing. “That’s my necklace,” she told her.
“Can’t I borrow it?” The young dragoness glanced at Vateria over her shoulder, her tone teasing and playful due to the excitement of the upcoming evening. If Vateria remembered correctly, it would be her cousin’s first event as an adult. “You do have to admit it suits me a bit better than you.”
“It’s true, cousin. It does,” Vateria admitted. Then she caught hold of the dragoness around the neck and unleashed her talons, breaking through the skin, blood pouring across her still-human hand. “That doesn’t mean I gave you leave to take what’s mine.”
Her cousin slapped at Vateria’s arms and chest, unable to scream or breathe. Vateria took her to the floor and waited until a nice pool of blood had formed beneath her cousin’s head before she released her. She snatched the necklace off her cousin’s throat and walked over to one of the cowering human servants.
“Let her bleed out a bit more. When it looks like she’s about to die”—she grabbed a small jar and handed it to the shaking slave—“use this ointment on her. It should stop the bleeding and keep her alive.” Something Vateria had discovered as she’d spent more and more time entertaining herself in her father’s dungeons. For there she kept a great prize. Something so precious that another, more formidable foe was continually kept from the Province gates. Kept away at least until the return of the great Overlord Thracius and his army.