Keita shifted to human and ran down a corridor, snatching up a silk robe from several hung on a wooden stand.
Brannie shifted and followed her. They reached a door and went down a long set of stairs to the dungeon.
Unlike the dungeon at the Zealot fort, there was only one captive, trapped in a gold cage, with a rune-covered gold torc around his neck.
“Ren!”
Ren of the Chosen jumped to his feet and broke into a smile so wide and beautiful it nearly blinded Brannie with its joy.
“Keita!”
The pair hugged through the gold bars.
“You’re alive!”
“You thought I was dead?”
“I found your sigil chain at a Zealots fort and the Riders said that you had been there with them—”
“Gods, so much Zoya.” Ren suddenly pulled back from Keita, staring down into her face. “You came east to kill my family, didn’t you?”
“I thought you were dead!”
“That’s your excuse?”
“You would have done the same if the situation were reversed.”
“I wouldn’t have to. Your mother adores me.” He looked at Brannie. “And how did you get here?”
Brannie stretched her neck, trying to loosen the tight muscles. “How do you think?”
“Oh, ignore her. She’s been so difficult lately.” Keita moved back from the bars. “We need to get him out,” she said to Brannie.
“Why haven’t you gotten yourself out?” Brannie had to ask.
Ren pointed at the gold torc. “This is magickal. It’s kept me in human form and my magickal skills quite weak. I’ve been trapped like this for ages.”
Brannie looked over the cage door. “You best step back.”
Ren and Keita moved to the back of the cage. Not because they were in danger from her flame but so that pair could whisper through the bars while Brannie shifted to dragon again. Unleashing her flame on the lock, she pulled with both claws, tearing the door open once she’d softened the gold.
With the door open, Brannie realized that Ren and Keita weren’t talking, they were arguing.
“You sent Batu to my mother’s house?” Only an Eastland royal dragon would call the Empress’s Palace my mother’s house. “What were you thinking?”
“There will be an alliance.”
“He hates my mother!”
“Would you leave it to me? Now, let’s go. We have a war to end!”
Keita flounced off toward the exit and Ren turned to Brannie. “Has she been like this the entire time?”
“The entire time!” Brannie rubbed her forehead. “To be honest, I really thought all of us would be dead by now.”
“Oh, don’t worry. There’s still time for that to happen. Especially when Keita’s involved.”
* * *
Annwyl backed away from the false image of her father, and the faces of all the men she’d killed in her life. Their heads were back on, but she recognized them. They could be real. Those men she’d killed. She clearly remembered condemning many of them to whatever hell would have them.
But her father . . . her father had to be false. How could he be anything else?
She hadn’t killed her father. She’d never been brave enough. Someone else had done her the favor. But then her brother had taken over and things didn’t get better. Not for her.
Actually, not for anyone.
“What are we doing, Da?” an angry voice demanded from behind her and Annwyl recognized that voice, too. Without even looking, she recognized that voice. “You said—”
“Shut up, boy! Me and the great Annwyl the Bloody are talking. Don’t you see that?”
And that’s when Annwyl knew. She wasn’t being haunted by those she’d killed. It wasn’t her brain torturing her with her past.
How did she know that now? Because never in a million years would Annwyl the Bloody allow her brain to torture her over her idiot brother.
Because if anyone had deserved to die, it had been her brother, Lorcan the Butcher. When she’d taken his head, he’d earned every second of his pain in that world and this one.
Standing behind her, glowering, Lorcan reached for Annwyl but she slapped his hand away. That did what it had always done. Pissed him off. So he grabbed at her again.
Annwyl caught his grasping hand and twisted, turning her body at the same time. She dropped him to the ground and twisted his entire arm until she heard something break and her brother began screaming.
They were dead, but they could feel pain. That made sense since it was hell.
Releasing her brother’s hand, she faced her father.
“What do you want?”
“Is that how you talk to me? Your father? Your king?”
“Dead king. I’m queen now. I rule.”
“Not very well. From what I hear.”
“Who have you been talking to? Men I’ve already killed? I doubt they’d be fans.”
“You even killed your own brother—and would you shut up, Lorcan!”
His rage getting hold of him, Lorcan stopped screaming in pain and struggled to his feet, cradling his broken arm.
“You always take her side!” Lorcan accused.
Father and daughter rolled their eyes, having heard this particular argument since the day Annwyl had been brought to her father’s house all those years ago.
“You always say that,” Annwyl finally told her brother, “but he hates us equally.”
Her father nodded. “I really do. Of course,” he added, “at least you aren’t a whore for a dragon, Lorcan.”
“That’s because the She-dragons I know wouldn’t want anything to do with him.”
Her father turned those gray-green eyes on her. “You think this is funny? You don’t think I’m disgusted by you?”
“No, I just don’t care. And I do think it’s funny.”
“I don’t understand how you could do what you’ve done.”
“What I’ve done?” Annwyl asked her father. “You mean fuck a dragon? He was the best thing that ever happened to me. Speaking of which . . . you do know that you’re a grandfather, don’t you?” She smirked. “I’d love for you to meet the twins. Especially Talwyn. She’d adore you.”
Annwyl had to laugh at that, knowing her daughter as well as she did. But it seemed to her father as if she was laughing at him. Something he could never abide.
Her father grabbed her by the neck of her chain mail shirt and yanked her close. Like he used to when she was a child.
“You betrayed me,” he snarled at her. “You betrayed our name. You betrayed our blood.”
Fighting her rage, Annwyl told her father, “Get your hands off me.”
“You had one job!” her father bellowed in her face. “To use that pussy for something useful!”
Rage began to move through Annwyl. The way it used to. But back then . . . she’d had no outlet. She’d been too afraid to challenge the man who ruled the Southlands. So she’d curl her hands into fists and dig her nails into her palms until blood dripped onto the floor. She’d had no voice then. No power.
“I was not put here by the gods to whore for you!” she screamed in her father’s face.
Without even hesitating, her father shoved her away and swung, just like he used to do all the time when she angered him . . . but this time Annwyl caught his fist and held it; the pair stared into each other’s eyes. Their mutual rage growing and growing until—
“Oh. Excellent. You have her.”
Annwyl looked to her left and saw the demon lord she’d tried to kill sitting on something that those with bad eyesight might call a horse.
And behind him was his personal army of demons. It was not a big army. Not like Annwyl’s. But they were demons, which meant they were probably much deadlier than any army she’d ever faced before. Even dragons.
The men who had come with her father began to panic, trying to back away, but the demon lord raised his clawed hand to soothe them.
“No, no
. No need to fear. We’re not here for any of you.” He pointed one claw at Annwyl. “We’re here for her.”
Her father, never a man to back down, replied, “When I’m done with her.”
“I need her alive, human. I know this is hard for you to hear, but she has great work to do.”
Shocked by that, Annwyl dropped her father’s hand and faced the demon lord and his army.
“Great work? For you?”
“Absolutely. Even now, Chramnesind is about to unleash his Zealots on your armies and the armies that have joined your cause. They will be wiped out. And that’s when you will return.”
“Why would I return?”
“To bring this world to yours. All of it under my rule.”
“And why would you need me to do that?”
“I cannot leave this world of my own volition. But you can bring me and my army to yours.” The demon lord dismounted from his horse and walked toward Annwyl. “And once there, Annwyl the Bloody, you will give me your children. The other Abominations will follow your unholy twins and your unholy twins will follow you.” He slid his hand behind the back of her neck, the claws scraping her skin. “Now, this may be where you’re thinking of sacrificing yourself in an attempt to save your children but that would be foolish. Because I can spend an eternity”—he yanked her close, his lips nearly touching hers—“a gods-damn eternity, making you pay for such a mistake. So choose wisely, one-time queen.”
He smiled at her and, waiting a heartbeat or two, asked, “So . . . what is your choice?”
But Annwyl couldn’t answer him. Everything had turned red around her. Not just the sky and the dirt . . . but everything. And she could no longer hear anything except . . . rushing waves? Right in her ears.
All Annwyl knew was that the demon lord wanted to use her children. Her children. And Annwyl . . . she couldn’t . . . she wouldn’t . . . she . . . she . . .
* * *
He saw it coming. Knew his daughter better than he knew himself, and he saw it coming. As soon as that idiot mentioned her unholy children she just started . . . screaming.
Like she used to do when she got into it with her brother. She’d scream and attack him and take him down to the floor even though she wasn’t even eight yet. She’d hurt him, too. But she was only a child then. A child with no skill and no strength.
But now?
Annwyl wrapped herself around the struggling Lord Phalet, her screams completely drowning out his. She dug her hands into his scalp and pressed her thumbs into his eyes.
Lord Phalet spun, trying to get her off, but Annwyl held on tight, unwilling to let go.
Then he screamed for help. “Get her off me! Get her off me!”
Several of his soldiers ran to aid him, grabbing Annwyl around the waist and pulling her one way while two other soldiers pulled Lord Phalet the other. Annwyl still didn’t let go.
The soldiers tried harder; Phalet’s screams getting more desperate.
Finally they pried her off, but her thumbs were covered in the remains of Phalet’s eyes.
The demon lord dropped to his hands and knees, spitting and screaming and bleeding everywhere.
But they still didn’t know his daughter. She wasn’t done. She wouldn’t be done until Lord Phalet was dead.
She fought off the soldiers holding her and managed to get a sword from one of them. As soon as she yanked that weapon free, several of the men she’d already killed once made a crazed run for it. Away. They ran away.
Annwyl swung the blade and took one demon’s head and then the leg of another.
She ran back to Lord Phalet and tackled him to the ground. She sat on him and buried her sword deep into his chest. But he wasn’t dead. The demons around here didn’t have their hearts in the same place humans did. Annwyl seemed to understand that now.
She kept him pinned to the ground with the sword and then pulled his dagger from his belt. She cut off his fine clothing and then began on his skin. Cutting, then tearing off whole sheets. Then she went for the muscle, ripping into that. First with the dagger, then her bare hands.
She dug and she dug, until she finally grabbed something and yanked it out.
Annwyl held Lord Phalet’s beating heart in her hand and got up.
Phalet was still alive, blindly staring up at her as she held the heart in front of him as if he could still see it.
And Annwyl was still screaming.
With that rage she’d had since she was a very little girl, Annwyl ripped Phalet’s heart apart until there was nothing but tiny pieces, littering the ground around her feet.
Then she leaned down, staring into Phalet’s face and screamed and screamed until he was gone.
Taking deep breaths, Annwyl stood straight, wiping her bloody hands on her chain mail leggings. When she faced the remaining dead who’d come for her . . . they ran.
None would face her again. Not now. Not ever again.
Even his idiot son ran. Pathetic boy that he always was.
He stood, however, and watched his daughter for a little longer. Their gazes locked and he saw the hatred he’d always seen in those eyes.
“Such a disappointment,” he told her one more time, before turning his back on her and walking away.
* * *
The baby demon animal came and stood next to Annwyl, brushing his snout against her.
The army was still behind her but no one said anything to her or tried to grab her. It seemed Lord Phalet’s plan was his and his alone. But unlike the dead she’d faced, the demons weren’t walking away.
They would take her back, she guessed. To that dungeon. Until whoever was replacing Phalet decided what to do with his live victim.
Still, seeing her father walking away from her . . .
Annwyl reached over and patted the baby’s side. “Hungry?” she asked him. “Would you like a chewy corpse?”
They looked at each other, and the baby’s sizable tongue swiped from one side of its massive mouth to the other.
Smiling, Annwyl coaxed, “Go on, baby. Go eat.”
He took off, running down her father, tearing into him with his giant baby fangs.
Annwyl turned around and faced Phalet’s army. They were still staring at her.
Letting out a breath, she asked, “So . . . what now?”
As one, the demon soldiers slammed the blunt ends of their spears into the ground, dropped to one knee, and bowed their heads.
Eyes wide, Annwyl looked at the mother demon animal standing beside some of the soldiers. They stared at each other a moment before Annwyl looked back at soldiers, opened her mouth, and said, “Huh . . .”
Because, honestly, she really didn’t know what else to say.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Empress’s generals were impressive. Moving quickly as soon as the threat came into view, they rallied the troops and began to fight back immediately.
But the Empress was still undone by the loss of her youngest son, and her remaining offspring were having a hard time getting her to face her brother. Not in a one-on-one fight, but at the head of her troops in a show of fearlessness.
Her sobbing, though, made that impossible.
“Ma,” Fang tried again while Aidan and his brothers secured the windows and doors of the palace’s war room. “You have to stop this. Ren would want you to fight.”
“My Ren is gone! He’s gone! Why would I want to go on?”
“Because you have other offspring. And, of course, an empire to run.”
“Eh.”
Fang threw up her hands and walked away.
It was amazing, really, the way the entire family ignored the sound of rocks and lava balls ramming into their home; the crash of swords and shields. Instead, they all focused on their mother and trying to talk her into doing something. Anything.
As for Aidan and his brethren, they did what they always did. They protected the royals. It was what they were trained for. If Keita were here, and she still wanted to poison the entire fam
ily, that would be up to her. But Aidan wasn’t about to carry out anything like that.
“Ma, please.” Lei tried.
“My Ren!” the Empress suddenly burst out before throwing herself onto a large metal table, sobbing hysterically.
The Empress’s offspring huddled together, whispering. Aidan moved from window to window, looking outside to see if any of the enemy troops were getting close. He’d prefer to move the Empress to a more secure location but until she calmed down a bit that would probably not be possible.
Aidan glanced over and saw that the offspring were watching him. He had to admit . . . he didn’t like it.
He especially didn’t like it when Ju grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the room.
“You work with Rhiannon the White, don’t you?” Ju asked Aidan.
“It’s been my honor to protect, Her Maj—”
“Right, right. Whatever you say. Now we need you to use some of that skill on our mother.”
But Aidan didn’t know the Empress. He didn’t know anything about her.
“We need her to get up and face her brother.”
“But . . . as her children, wouldn’t it be easier for you to—”
“She never listens to anyone but Ren. But he’s dead, so . . .”
Surprised that Ren’s sister was taking his death so casually, Aidan didn’t really put up a fight when Ju shoved him back into the room and over to her mother.
The Empress had been placed back in a chair, but she was still sobbing, wiping her eyes with a cloth clutched in her hand.
The others watched Aidan expectantly. As if they hoped for some miracle from him!
His gaze flicked to each of them, wondering what he should do next. He had no fucking idea. But he also had nothing to lose at this point. So he borrowed knowledge he’d learned from Keita on the art of pissing someone off.
Aidan crouched beside the chair and took the Empress’s hand, being careful not to let the tips of those nail guards nick his human flesh. He’d heard rumors she had poison on them and, true or false, he didn’t want to take any risks.
“My lady, I know you are devastated by the loss of your son—”
“My perfect, amazing son.”
Clearing his throat, “Yes, your perfect, amazing son. And I have to say, I find it distasteful that even though your perfect, amazing son lost his precious life in a Zealot fort outside of Aberthol in the Southlands, your brother had the nerve, the audacity to lie to you and say that he held your perfect, amazing son captive all this time. You built your hopes on that. That he would return Ren of the Chosen to you . . . when he knew he never would. That’s a lie I know I could never forgive.”