Light My Fire. G.A. Aiken

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      Chapter Three

      Annwyl the Bloody, queen of Southland territories, rode into Baron Pyrs’s courtyard, stopping in front of the big stone steps that led into the castle where the meeting was to take place.

      “Are you sure you should be doing this?” her general commander, Brastias, gently asked.

      Annwyl patted her horse’s neck. “I’m going to meet Baron Pyrs, not get into a pit fight.”

      “Are we really sure about that?”

      Annwyl gritted her teeth, her lip curling. She knew what Brastias was really saying to her. “Do you really think that you, of all people in the universe, can handle this without removing someone’s head? You? Really?”

      It was a tone that Annwyl had been hearing for quite a long time. A very long time. In years, she was nearly . . . ? Gods. Fifty? Maybe more. She’d lost track. Not because she’d become so doddering that it had all been lost in her head, but because she’d stop caring. When she looked in the mirror, she still saw a woman of less than thirty winters. Not because she was blind to her aging, but because of a gift from Rhiannon the White. A gift that would—should she not die in battle or from an assassin’s blade to the back—allow her to age much more slowly than other humans, the way dragons do. So that she and her black dragon mate, Fearghus, could grow old together.

      Although Fearghus often suggested that Annwyl “played with death far too much” to keep him company for another six or seven hundred years.

      But what did Fearghus expect her to do? She was queen of the Southlands. A title that Annwyl did not take lightly. Her people meant far too much to her, which was why, for the last few years, Annwyl had been trying so hard not to be as . . . what was the word her battle lord often used? Oh, yes. Ridiculous! Dangerously ridiculous. Stupidly ridiculous.

      It was no secret Annwyl had a bit of a temper. During war times, when she was busy protecting her children, Annwyl knew she could be a tad . . . touchy. But her battle lord and steward, Dagmar Reinholdt, Beast of the Northlands, had made a very good point. If she were to continue to protect her children—now off in different regions of the world, learning important skills so that one day they’d be ready to lead in Annwyl’s stead—she would have to learn to be a “proper” royal.

      A “proper” queen.

      Not some screaming, mad noble bent on destroying everyone and everything that even looked at her wrong. But a nice, normal noble that people didn’t automatically fear and despise.

      A change Annwyl was finding hard to make, not because she didn’t want to, but because so many didn’t seem to believe in her. Even her own general commander.

      Yet, instead of snapping at Brastias that he should “fuck off ” before she slapped him off his horse, she took a breath, waited ten seconds, and calmly replied, “I can handle it.”

      Brastias shrugged. “All right.”

      No. She didn’t hear a lot of faith in that reply. Not a lot of faith at all. But she wouldn’t slap him off his horse, no matter how much she truly wanted to.

      And gods . . . did she want to.

      “You lot wait here,” she ordered him and her personal guard.

      “Are you sure you shouldn’t wait for Briec and Gwenvael to arrive?” one of her guards asked. “They shouldn’t be too long.”

      Why should she do that? She could handle this. Why was everyone questioning her?

      “I said—” Annwyl stopped. Calm and easy, she told herself. Calm and bloody easy.

      “It’ll be fine.” Annwyl dismounted the large horse that had been specifically chosen by her mate for the beast’s calm manner in battle and ease around dragons.

      Annwyl climbed the steps two at a time and walked into the large hall. The four men standing by one of the tables immediately stopped speaking and turned to face her.

      She forced a closed-mouth smile. “My lords.”

      “My lie—” Baron Thomas stopped, tried again. “My Quee . . . uh . . .” He glanced at the other royals. “My . . . lady?”

      Annwyl shook her head. “They’re all fine,” she lied. She hated all the bowing and scraping that came with being a ruler, and they all knew it, but part of being queen, according to Dagmar, was “sucking up” the royal titles that were thrown one’s way.

      Annwyl was trying hard to suck it up.

      “We appreciate your taking the time, my lady. We all know there is much occupying you in the kingdom.”

      “True, but I can’t neglect the lords who help protect my lands.”

      Annwyl winced a bit. Did those words sound as false to their ears as they did to her own?

      She reached to scratch her head but knew that would mean her hair would fall in her eyes and, as she’d been told many times by Dagmar and her dragon sister-by-mating Keita, that just made her “look like a mad cow.”

      But having her hand just linger by her head like that looked strange, she was sure, so she carefully smoothed down her hair to either side of her head so that the part stayed clear and her hair appeared shiny and straight. Not messy and insane.

      “Now . . . what can I help you with, Baron Pyrs?”

      “Queen Annwyl,” a female voice said from behind her.

      Annwyl’s hand instantly reached for her sword as she turned just her torso to get a look at who stood behind her.

      “My lady, please!” Baron Pyrs begged as he ran around to stand between Annwyl and the woman behind her. “You are not in danger. I swear СКАЧАТЬ