Bring the Heat Read online

  Keita stopped posing in her finery and stomped her bare foot. “Are you blaming me for this?”

  “You drew the Zealots here, Keita. What if you hadn’t made it here in time to do what you were planning?”

  “But I did make it on time. I’m very good about timing.”

  “Since when? You’d be late to your own funeral pyre if we weren’t the ones forced to carry you there when your time comes.”

  “Already planning for my death, cousin?”

  “Have been for quite a while now.”

  “All right,” Aidan said, quickly stepping in between them. “Perhaps we should get on our way. The Port Cities aren’t around the corner, you know.”

  Keita lifted her skirts and, with a toss of her royal head, walked around her cousin, making sure to brush up against her as she did.

  Brannie had her fist pulled back when Aidan caught her hand and held it in both of his.

  “Why are you torturing us?” he asked Brannie. A question that confused her so much, she was distracted from Keita being a bitch.

  “What?” she asked Aidan.

  “Why are you torturing us?”

  “How am I torturing you?”

  “You’ll get yourself killed—”

  “By your own cousin,” Uther tossed in.

  “—which means we’ll be alone with her—”

  “Eventually she’ll decide to kill us, too,” Caswyn added.

  “—and you won’t be here to protect us.” Aidan shook his head. “Is that what you want for us?”

  Brannie thought on that a moment before answering with a firm “Yes. It is.” And she walked off, hiding her smile until she was sure they couldn’t see her face.

  * * *

  When Aidan first marched out with Her Majesty’s armies at the beginning of this war, he’d known that his whole goal in life was to keep his Mì-runach brethren alive by not letting them get into too much trouble with the rank and file of the regular army. A general who was used to having his or her orders followed without question never appreciated the disdain with which most of the Mì-runach took those orders.

  At first, trying to watch out for all those Mì-runach had been troublesome but, as time moved on, he’d been able to focus on just two. Sometimes three. Uther, Caswyn, and occasionally Éibhear.

  He hadn’t worried too much about Éibhear, though. He was, at the end of the day, still a prince and, more important, the favorite youngest son of the queen. He could only get into so much trouble. And Éibhear’s mate, Iseabail, had calmed his now-famous temper. She knew how to keep him busy when he got in a mood simply by having him deal with entire forests. Aidan didn’t know what it was, but that dragon loved to take down trees. And he was damn good at it, too.

  Uther and Caswyn, however, seemed to make it their goal to irritate the higher ranks of the queen’s army until Aidan had feared they would end up ass first on a standing pike. Eventually, though, it seemed that Branwen had made it her personal business to deal with the pair. And she was much easier to distract from their foolishness than some of the harder generals.

  Still, on his worst day interceding between a pissed-off general and the unruly idiots he loved as brothers, Aidan had never been so overwhelmed, so terrified of the outcome, as he was trying to keep two She-dragons from killing each other.

  He’d admit, his mother and older sisters were . . . well, horrible beings. Plotting, deceitful, and terribly, unbelievably, bigoted. If one was not of equal royal stature or greater, one was not to be spoken to with even a modicum of respect. And yet . . . he’d rather stand between them and the unwashed masses asking for bread than deal with Keita the Viper and Branwen the Awful when they didn’t get along.

  What made it worse? Unlike true enemies, they had no intention of fighting. Instead they kept slapping at each other like two human girls fighting over the last piece of dessert at a family meal.

  Which meant that, with Aidan attempting to keep them apart by staying between them, he was getting hit. Constantly. And their human hands hurt his frail human skin. He’d rather face the claws of a bear than the punches and slaps of these two angry She-dragons.

  At the fifth hour, when he finally could stand no more, he bellowed, “That is enough!”

  Their small party stopped and the two females glared at him in surprise.

  “I am covered in bruises and scrapes because you two can’t put your differences aside for five minutes! I’m sick of it!”

  “She—”

  “It was her—”

  “I don’t care!” he barked. “Now I’m going to say this once and never again. If you two bitches don’t settle down—”

  “Settle down?”

  “Bitches?”

  “—and act like you have some common sense, I’m going to—”

  Aidan’s words ended abruptly when both Keita and Brannie put their hands over his mouth. At first, he assumed they were both going to kill him. Poison from Keita. A quick blade across the throat from Brannie. But, he realized, they weren’t focused on him. They were looking off into the nearby trees.

  “Someone’s coming,” Keita said.

  “From the east.” Brannie motioned to Uther and Caswyn. “Get Keita out of here.”

  Aidan pulled the females’ hands away from his face. “What about you?”

  “They know we’re here.” Her head tilted to the side a bit. “They’ve sent riders ahead. I’ll deal with them.”

  “Bran—”

  “It’s all right. Just go.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Your orders are to protect Keita. Do it.”

  Reluctant, but unable to argue—his orders from the queen had been very clear—Aidan pulled his horse back and rode off to the trees. Keita right behind him, with Uther and Caswyn protecting her flank.

  * * *

  Brannie dismounted her horse and pulled out her sword. Not knowing the horse as well as she’d known her brave old steed—gods, how she missed him—she didn’t want to risk fighting on his back. So she slapped his ass and sent him to the side of the road.

  She stood her ground and waited . . . but after a few minutes she saw nothing. No one coming her way. All sound of advancement had stopped. Some would feel relief, but she didn’t. Instead, she was only more concerned. Because that could mean—

  Something small, human, and powerful landed on her back, arms around her neck.

  Choking, Brannie grabbed the arm, and yanked. She flung the body away from her but another small and powerful body hit her from the right, pinning her sword arm to her side.

  Standing her ground, not allowing herself to be dragged to the ground, Brannie used her free hand to grab hold of a good amount of hair and pull.

  There was a screech and she sent the body flying. But before she could raise her arm, yet another body attacked her. Hands over Brannie’s face, legs around her waist.

  Fed up, Brannie reached back and grabbed an arm. She lifted the body up and over her head, slamming it to the ground. She used her foot to pin it in place and raised her sword. That’s when she realized that the weak blade had broken in the middle.

  “I knew this thing was a piece of—”

  A strong, sturdy blade slid under her chin. “Such shitty weaponry, Cadwaladr. You should be ashamed. For that affront alone, you should die. . . .”

  * * *

  Aidan heard screams. He would have ignored them, but one of those screams was definitely Branwen’s.

  Still, his orders from the queen—

  “What are you waiting for?” Keita practically bellowed at him. “Go to my cousin. Now!”

  Aidan immediately turned his horse around and rode back.

  As he cleared the trees, he dismounted his horse in mid-gallop and pulled his weapon.

  Three vicious she-demons had wrapped themselves around Branwen, pummeling her with fists and assaulting her with their screams. Aidan stormed up to them, grabbing the first one by the neck and yanking her off. He threw
her to her back and was about to impale her with his blade when his hand was caught and held.

  Smelling the flame of dragons, he froze and looked down at the female holding him. He blinked twice, shocked.

  “Rhona?”

  Rhona the Fearless of the Cadwaladr Clan smiled at him. “Aidan the Divine? What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to—”

  “Rhona?” Keita the Viper called out from the side of the road, both Caswyn and Uther wincing behind her. “My dear, sweet cousin! Is that you?”

  Rhona briefly closed her eyes and said softly to Aidan, “Oh . . . you poor dragon.”

  Aidan sighed. “Rhona, my old friend, you have no idea.”

  * * *

  Brannie tossed off the last of her cousins and gazed down at them on the ground while the triplets moaned.

  “Is that the best you lot can do?”

  “I tell them they need more training,” Rhona said about her sisters. “But they never believe me.”

  Nesta, Breena, and Edana slowly got to their feet and brushed their asses off as a caravan came onto the road about a half a mile away.

  “What’s that?” Brannie asked, pointing.

  “That’s why we’re out here and not fighting with the queen’s armies at the moment. We were heading back, but many of the roads were inundated with the bloody Zealots. We had to take tunnels to get here. Word is these roads aren’t bad.”

  “No. They’re not. But be careful what you drink and eat,” she warned.

  Rhona looked over at Keita being helped down from her horse by Caswyn. “Gods, how many has she poisoned now?”

  “I’ve lost track.”

  “Now wait one minute!” Keita snarled, slapping Caswyn’s hands away so she could stomp her way over. “I’ll have you know that everything I’ve done has been for the protection of the throne.”

  “Stop looking so smug, Keita,” Rhona told her flatly.

  Keita’s arms dropped to her sides and her bottom lip poked out. “But she’s being so mean to me, Rhona,” she now whined. “Beat her for me, would you? Teach her where she stands in the hierarchy of this family.”

  “In this family?” Rhona asked. “She’s way over you.”

  “How could you say that to me?”

  “Everyone knows it. You’re a sneaky spy who kills without honor. The only thing that stopped any of us from killing you decades ago was that Uncle Bercelak adores you and Protectors of the Throne are important during wartime. As for Brannie, she roars into battle, fighting with skill and force, and bringing nothing but honor and respect to the Cadwaladr name.” Rhona stepped close to Keita, looking down at her. “Do you think for a second that you could ever live up to her in our eyes?”

  “You know what, cousin? I never liked you.” Keita put her hands on her hips and turned to Brannie. “And you’re just lucky I haven’t given you something to make you lose all your scales. Ask Gwenvael how well that went for him and how long it took to grow his scales back. Then give me that tone.”

  * * *

  Rhona the Fearless really did love her kin. She did. Really. Honestly!

  But sometimes they were a lot of work. Especially when a few of them weren’t getting along.

  First Keita, with her inability to simply tell those working with her exactly what was going on so everyone was clear and involved. True, she’d probably been trained that way by those who’d brought her into the Protectors of the Throne because secrecy was what kept them alive. But if Rhona was to be honest—and when wasn’t she?—Keita enjoyed tormenting others just for the hell of it. Like her brother Gwenvael, nothing entertained her more than confusing and ridiculing everyone around her.

  Then there was wonderful Branwen, whose biggest issue was her lack of focus. In battle, there was no question that Branwen was the cousin Rhona wanted at her side. Like her mother, Brannie was a true warrior. But when she wasn’t in battle . . .

  Gods! It was like talking to a human who’d been hit on the head one too many times.

  “Why doesn’t someone explain to me what’s going on. And why you are here, Branwen, and not with your troops?”

  Brannie’s eyes narrowed dangerously and she opened her mouth, but Aidan suddenly stepped between them.

  “No, no,” he said to Branwen. “We don’t have time for you to start yelling again. And, to be truthful, I just can’t listen to that anymore.”

  “But she—”

  “Caswyn killed your horse,” he suddenly announced to Branwen, causing his dragon friend to turn to him in horror.

  “You treacherous bastard!” Caswyn cried.

  Rhona leaned to the side to look at her cousin. “Awwwww. Not Puddles.”

  “He was injured in battle and I was going to put him down with honor!” Brannie yelled, still upset. “And that dozy bastard ate him!”

  “He was dying anyway!”

  “I still don’t care!” Brannie snarled at Caswyn before she turned to Keita and barked, “And what are you laughing about?”

  Standing a few feet away and giggling, Keita replied, “The Mì-runach killed your horse. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all century.”

  Branwen gazed at her cousin for long seconds before announcing, “You have wide hips like your mother.”

  With a roar, eyes wild with rage, Keita shifted to a roaring She-dragon, uncaring that everyone else had to dash out of her way or be crushed in their human forms.

  Rhona grabbed Aidan’s arm and pulled him farther off. She used her free hand to motion to the triplets. They could handle Keita and Brannie and keep them from killing each other.

  “All right, Aidan the Divine . . . tell me what the battle-fuck is going on.”

  * * *

  Uther moved the horses off to the side and stood beside them with Caswyn. They ate dried meat from their travel packs and watched as Keita and Brannie rolled across the land. Knocking down trees. Crushing boulders. Sending wildlife running for safety.

  And running after them? The triplets, now in their dragon forms, desperately trying to stop them.

  “That Rhona,” Caswyn said around his snack, “she’s—”

  “Taken,” Uther reminded him.

  “Yeah, but to a Lightning. Like there aren’t enough worthy Fire dragons for her to find a mate.”

  “She must like him. And I hear that’s what counts when ya choose a mate. Liking them.”

  “Eh.” Caswyn took another bite. “What about them triplets?”

  “Little young, aren’t they?”

  “Does that matter to us?”

  “Yes,” Uther said quickly, thinking of his own younger sisters. “That matters.”

  “All right. No need to get testy.”

  Keita and Brannie rolled back the other way with the triplets still behind them. Uther and Caswyn managed to duck just in time to avoid a slashing tail. Sadly, one of the horses wasn’t fast enough and he lost his head, his body dropping to the ground, spasms shaking it.

  Caswyn stared at the horse’s body and licked his lips.

  That’s when Uther had to say it.

  “By the gods, brother! You never learn!”

  * * *

  “I’m glad you told me everything. Now I know what needs to be done.”

  Aidan smiled at his one-time trainer, who had told him in no uncertain terms that “You are a mighty killer, Aidan the Gold, but a soldier of this queen’s army? Never.”

  “You can get me out of this?” Aidan teased.

  Rhona laughed. “If only I could. But the orders came from Rhiannon and Ghleanna. You’re stuck.” She looked over at her cousins. Now they were trying to choke the life from each other while Rhona’s youngest sisters desperately attempted to tear them apart. “But I do think I know what to do with those two.”

  “I’ve already got Uther and Caswyn to deal with. So anything you can do to help me . . .”

  * * *

  The back of Brannie’s neck was grabbed and she was yanked off Keita. Keita jumped up, c
laws aiming for her eyes, but Rhona caught a handful of all that red hair and yanked her until she lowered her forearms.

  “That is enough!” their cousin bellowed, stopping them both in mid-attack.

  Brannie might outrank Rhona the Fearless because she was only a sergeant. And Keita might be a princess. But among the Cadwaladr, Rhona had the highest rank of all the cousins who were the offspring of the offspring of Ailean the Wicked and Shalin the Innocent.

  For good reason, too.

  Rhona, since hatching, was the most dependable, loyal, and rational of all the Cadwaladr cousins. Often more rational than the elders. She kept them all from doing immensely stupid things with nothing more than sound reason. She didn’t hit unless necessary and didn’t throw anyone into volcanoes unless they really deserved it.

  Even Branwen couldn’t say that.

  So when she spoke . . . they all listened. Even Keita, queen of the difficult!

  “My hair! My precious hair!” Keita screeched, desperately trying to untangle Rhona’s claw from her long tresses. “Let me go, you evil female!”

  Brannie, who was being completely calm and had stopped attacking Keita as soon as Rhona had told her to, hysterically laughed at her cousin until Rhona said, “I have weapons.”

  Standing straight, her laughter dying in her throat, Brannie asked, “Weapons? Where?” she asked, looking around. “Where are the weapons?”

  “In the caravan crates.”

  Excited beyond anything, Brannie ran over and quickly shifted back to her human self. Naked—her crappy chain mail and surcoat ruined when she’d become dragon—she climbed into the back of one of the carts and tore open the first crate she saw.

  “You are so easily distracted,” Aidan remarked, leaning over the cart wall and smiling.

  “Personally,” Uther added, “I like seeing you naked when we’re not running from Zealots and Caswyn isn’t dying. You should be naked more.”

  Brannie pulled out a two-handed sword nearly the length of her body and easily held it in front of her.

  Uther stepped back, hands up, and added, “I was just joking. You don’t have to get naked for me. I like you dressed. You should be covered from head to toe in full armor at all times.”

  Using a finger to pick something out of his teeth, Caswyn said, “I like naked Branwen.”