“I said everyone. Except his daughters. Never his daughters. Never Auntie Rhiannon or Dagmar, but I think that has a lot to do with fear.”
“No one ever said your uncle was stupid.”
“True. Anyway, there’s a look to all the Cadwaladr that makes them easy to spot. So when I see someone I’m sure is a cousin and they greet me warmly, with a big hug, I reply, ‘Hey, you!’”
Aidan looked away from the ceiling so he could gaze at Brannie. “‘Hey, you’?”
She shrugged. “It works. I just make sure to do it with a smile. I’ve learned from Rhiannon that you can get away with almost anything as long as you smile while doing it.”
“That really only works for females. When a male smiles like that . . . he just looks sadistic.”
“You might have a point. No one in the universe likes it when Uncle Bercelak smiles.”
Aidan returned his gaze to the ceiling. “Do you think Keita will want to leave tomorrow?”
“No. She won’t. But we will.”
Surprised by that answer, Aidan pulled his legs off the bed and rolled to his side, resting on his elbow. He looked down at Brannie, whose focus was still on the ceiling.
“We’ll be leaving?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you know this . . . how?”
“I’ve been part of a military Clan since hatching. All me aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings . . . almost all of them in the military. And my father, the peacemaker . . . ? Well, you can’t have peace without war and you can’t make truces and alliances without understanding war. I spent the first years of my life attached to his tail while he plotted and planned with the brilliant elders of the Southlands. So, I’ll admit it’s a guess.” She finally looked at him. “But I’d be shocked if I was wrong.”
“But we still have tonight.”
“No one would be foolish enough to enter these territories at night. All the warrior witches I’ve known are like cats. They look for prey when the suns go down. I doubt the Destroyers are any different. We’ll be safe until the morning.”
“Good.” Aidan moved into a crouch, reaching down to grab Brannie under the arms and lifting her up as he stood.
He tossed her over his shoulder and Brannie laughed, slapping at his ass.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Looking for somewhere we haven’t already fucked.” He turned in a complete circle. “I don’t see anything. Everything in this room has been defiled.”
“We haven’t used the bed . . . except to sleep.”
“You’re right!” He pulled her off his shoulder and casually tossed her onto the bed. Branwen bounced once and flipped onto the floor.
“Brannie!” Horrified, Aidan scrambled over the bed to the other side. Brannie was curled into a ball, laughing so hard, she could barely breathe.
“Are you all right?”
But she was laughing too hard to even answer.
“By the gods, female.” He reached down and pulled her onto the bed. “You are ridiculous.”
He checked to make sure nothing was broken or, at the very least, knocked out of an important socket. But he should have known better. This was Branwen the Awful. She’d survived a mountain crumbling around her with barely a scratch and a lightning bolt to the back. So surviving a flip off a bed . . . ?
Aidan sat on the mattress and waited for Brannie to stop laughing, which she did eventually. But then she became fascinated with the actual bed.
“What are you doing?” he finally asked when he got tired of watching her crawl around the bed and press her hands into it.
“Wondering why it’s so bouncy. None of our beds at home are bouncy. You’d think Annwyl would have bouncy beds.”
“Seriously?”
She stopped, gazed at him. “What?”
“We’re both here, naked, on our last night of what may be freedom or possibly our lives . . . and you’re worried about a bouncy bed?”
Brannie nodded. “Yes.”
Aidan grabbed Brannie’s arm and pulled her close. “Kiss me, Brannie.”
“All right, but if we make it back home alive . . . I want you to get me a bouncy bed.”
* * *
Aidan stared at her for so long, she thought maybe she’d crossed a line. Not about suggesting that they might not get back to the Southlands alive, but by suggesting they’d still be involved somehow. Enough, anyway, to insist on a gift.
Uncomfortable, she asked, “Why are you staring?”
He never answered, but he kissed her. A sweet kiss that confused her even more.
“What is happening?” she asked when he pulled back.
“I like you, Branwen.”
She smiled and replied, “Awwwww, Aidan . . . I like me, too.”
Rolling his eyes, Aidan pushed her back on the bed and settled between her thighs.
“Why do I bother?” he asked her.
And, laughing, Brannie admitted, “I have no idea!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Meihui was meditating. She got up early, hours before the two suns rose, to meditate. It healed her mind and body and helped her maintain the strength she’d built over the centuries. Although she was born to human parents—farmers—she’d been sent to Heaven’s Destroyers before she’d reached her thirteenth year. That had been about fifteen hundred years ago, give or take a few stray years she might have forgotten. And in that time, she’d honed her skills until they were absolutely razor-sharp.
So what she heard moving outside her temple wasn’t footsteps. It was breathing. Very controlled breathing by very controlled killers.
Brazen ones if they were trying to sneak into a Heaven’s Destroyers’ temple.
No. These killers wouldn’t be here for one of her sisters or for Meihui. They were here for Keita.
Reaching under her bed, she pulled out her seax, a fighting knife, given to her by her training mistress a long time ago, and quickly slipped out of her room. She knew she didn’t have to warn her sisters. They were already aware of what was happening. But Keita and her friends . . .
Meihui ran up the stairs to the guest rooms and to Keita’s door. She eased inside and went straight to the bed, but before she could shake Keita awake, a blade was pressed to her throat.
“Come to kill me, old friend?”
Meihui smiled. “No, you idiot. I’m here to rescue the damsel.”
The blade pulled away from her throat and Meihui faced her friend. “And you, my dearest Keita . . . better run.”
* * *
Brannie’s mother used to warn her that sometimes good sex could be a distraction. She used to roll her eyes at her mother’s speech and then beg her to stop talking because it was so embarrassing having this conversation with her mum.
But when she felt the air around her move, Brannie had to grudgingly admit her mother was right. Because she should have realized something was wrong long before her attackers were in the room.
Brannie jerked back and the head of an ax landed on her pillow. She struck out with her fist, knocking her assailant back.
By the time she got to her feet, Aidan was up as well. He grabbed his weapon and tossed her the special weapon Rhona had given her. It quickly extended into a spear and Brannie blocked another blow from her attacker.
It was a male, dressed all in black with no armor or chain mail.
She twisted her spear in an attempt to get the blade from him, but he moved with her weapon and kept his grip. He struck again. Fast. Brannie blocked the strike with her forearm, shortened her spear to fit in the small room, and drove it up through his chin and into his head.
She yanked it out, turned, and cut the throat of the man behind her.
Aidan had three bodies at his feet and was moving across the room to grab their things.
“Get Keita and the others,” she ordered him.
He tossed her chain mail to her. “What are you going to do?”
Brannie quickly tugged on the leggings and carried the
rest to the balcony. A small group of witches were surrounded by at least twenty of the killers dressed in black.
Without answering Aidan, she jumped over the railing and landed in the middle of the fight.
“Help my friends,” she told the witches. “Including the Riders.”
“And you, Captain?” one of the witches asked.
Brannie lowered her head and the spear in her hand thickened, extended to twice its length with a pointed blade on each end.
She swung the weapon, cutting across several throats.
The killers attacked and the witches ran, leaving Brannie on her own.
* * *
Aidan kicked open the doors to his friends’ rooms.
“Move!” he bellowed.
And they did, jumping from their beds and grabbing their weapons and travel bags.
They were both already dressed, having dropped on their beds fully clothed.
They came out of their rooms, weapons raised. They were awake and alert. Ready for battle. Just as they’d been trained.
“Keita.”
They went down the hall to Keita’s room but it was empty. There were, however, a number of assassin bodies littering her floor.
“Outside,” Aidan barked, and they moved.
They passed enemies along the way and executed them quickly and cleanly. Not wasting time with anything fancy or fun.
When they arrived on the first floor, they went out the front door—and froze on the top step.
Mouths open, Aidan and his brothers watched the legion of fighters marching toward them from the beach.
“Did you call them here?” he asked the witch closest to him.
“We did not.”
“Find the Riders!” he barked at Uther and Caswyn before running into the temple and toward the back.
* * *
The blade sliced into her arm. The blood began to drip down her skin.
Bending her elbow, Brannie swiped her wounded arm against her attacker’s face, temporarily blinding him with her blood.
With her other arm, she rammed her blade into his belly, and shoved him away with her shoulder.
Someone ran up behind her and she turned at the waist and took his head.
“Branwen!” Aidan came sliding out the back door. “Soldiers. Lots of them.”
Brannie stepped over the bodies of those she’d just killed and, finally managing to get her chain mail shirt on, she called out to one of the witches pummeling an assassin, “Where’s my cousin?”
“With Meihui.” She pointed to the other side of the building.
With a grateful nod, Brannie grabbed her travel bag and ran, slinging the strap over her shoulders as she did, Aidan right behind her.
They’d just cleared the other side of the building when a black horse charged past them. The only reason Brannie didn’t get run down was that Aidan grabbed her by her chain mail shirt and yanked her back.
“Keita!” Brannie yelled. But her cousin was charging off into the woods.
“Here.” Meihui arrived with another horse for her, with Kachka right behind her. “Go.”
Brannie turned to Aidan.
“Go,” he said.
“But—”
“We’ll keep them off your back. Go. Now.”
Brannie didn’t have time for grand good-byes. She just had to keep moving.
Grabbing the reins of the white-and-brown horse, she mounted him, and took off after her cousin.
* * *
Aidan faced Meihui. “We have to—”
He jerked back but it was Meihui’s quick reflexes that saved Aidan from the black-clothed attacker who’d snuck up behind them.
She blocked his strike with her forearm, and one of her sisters snatched the weapon from his hand while the others stabbed at him with their seax.
Meihui motioned to a sister who came out the back. She held up the attacker’s weapon. “Find out if there are any others still alive. I’ll be in the front.”
She headed back into the temple. “Watch these,” she said offhandedly, moving quickly, Kachka following them both.
“Watch what?”
“These weapons. The edges have been dipped in poison.”
* * *
Uther cringed watching Zoya taunt the legion that marched toward them.
“Come!” she yelled out. “You want to challenge Zoya? Come challenge Zoya!”
Aidan returned to the front of the temple with Meihui and Kachka.
“What is she doing?” he asked.
Aidan shrugged. “I really don’t know. But she’s been doing it for a while.” He glanced at the others. “Where’s Brannie and Keita?”
“Gone. We need to keep the attackers off their backs until they get some distance between—”
Meihui stepped close to Aidan. “Those are the Empress’s legions.”
“So?”
“A mix of dragons and humans. You’ll be outnumbered and you no longer have Branwen the Awful clearing the way for you.”
“Suggestions?”
“Act like they’re welcome. Like you were just attacked and they’re saving you.”
“We were just attacked.”
“Act like you were just attacked by someone other than those sent by the Empress.”
“Are you so sure they were sent by the Empress?”
Meihui smiled. “No, but the way Keita went running for a horse as soon as she checked one . . .”
“What about Keita?” Uther asked. Their queen had asked them to protect her. As far as he was concerned, they had just failed.
Aidan nodded at Meihui and she went to her sisters to organize them before the Empress’s army arrived right at her door.
“Keita left on purpose, but she’s got Brannie with her,” Aidan told Uther.
“So we’re just going to let them go?”
“We have no choice. All we can do now is keep playing the game and hope Keita has a plan.”
Caswyn snorted. “If Keita’s anything like her mother . . . she’ll always have a plan.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
They rode hard throughout the day, stopping only a few minutes at a time by streams and lakes so that their horses could get a break.
By the time the suns were beginning to go down, they’d arrived at a large, dark forest. And that’s where Keita stopped.
Brannie dismounted her horse and rested against it. “What are we doing here?”
Keita also dismounted. “We’re going in.”
“Why?”
“Because I said—what’s wrong with you?” Keita abruptly asked.
“I’m exhausted.”
“That’s what you get for fucking all night.”
“He was there and I had needs.”
“Liar,” Keita accused, grabbing her horse’s reins. “You like him.”
“He’s me friend. Of course I like him.”
“‘He’s me friend,’” Keita mocked.
“Don’t make me slap you.” Brannie followed her into the forest. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
“Can’t you just trust me to know what I’m doing?”
“No.”
“Cow.”
“Do you even know where we are?”
“Stop snapping at me because you’re worried about Aidan.”
“I am not!”
“Such a liar. And a bad one at that!”
They walked on in the growing darkness, neither speaking, until Brannie realized she heard no birds in the trees. No sounds of animals scuttling away.
Branwen stopped, blew out a quick burst of air through her teeth. Keita froze, her gaze moving.
Stroking her horse’s neck to keep him calm, Brannie also looked for signs of what was in these woods. It was the scent she recognized first. Human men.
She was reaching for her weapon, tucked innocuously into her boot, when the sword pressed against her throat.
Shocked, Keita gawked at Brannie. Not that she blamed her cousin for bei
ng so surprised. Brannie couldn’t remember the last time she’d let a gods-damned human sneak up on her.
To protect her cousin, Brannie was about to make a move anyway, but somehow she ended up facedown on the ground, vomiting and praying for sweet death.
* * *
“Branwen!”
Keita yanked herself away from the Eastland Rider who gripped her arm and ran to her cousin’s side. She turned her over.
“Fuck,” she growled, grabbing the hem of her dress and tearing off a bit to quickly clean Brannie’s face.
She leaned in close, lifted her cousin’s eyelids, opened her mouth, checked her nostrils.
Keita was just checking her fingers when she noticed there was blood on her wrist. She pulled up her chain mail shirt, tugging out her arm until she found the wound.
She sniffed, recognized the scent, but refused to panic. If she panicked, Brannie would die.
Looking around, Keita stood. One of the men stepped toward her but she pointed at a smarter-looking fellow and ordered, “I need the pallavi root. Now. Find it.”
“Uhhh . . .”
“Was I unclear? Move!”
Startled into action, the man began to search the ground for what she needed. She also grabbed some other ingredients and began to shred and tear until the man handed her a small root.
She used her thumbnail to shred several pieces off, and mixed it with the other materials in the palm of her hand.
Snapping her fingers, Keita ordered, “Ale. Now.”
Someone handed her a canteen of ale and she added several drops to the mix in her hand. She cupped her hands and brought them close to her mouth. She used a bit of her flame to activate her little poultice. Done, she spread the concoction on Brannie’s wound and then placed a small bit under her cousin’s tongue.
She stood. “You,” she barked at one of the bigger men. “Get her on her horse and let’s move. I need to get her to a shaman or witch. Now.”
Fed up, the leader of the team stepped forward and pointed his finger at her. “You don’t seem to under—”
Keita grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head to the side and forcing him to bend at the waist.
“You do what I tell you,” she growled, “or I will kill all of you!”
* * *
Batu the Iron Hearted relaxed in his tent, surrounded by his pillows and concubines, while a musician played songs to keep him calm.