Bring the Heat Page 11

  Branwen stared down at Caswyn. “Why do you have blood on your face?”

  “I don’t believe you!” Uther suddenly yelled at his friend before stomping off.

  Branwen looked at Aidan. “What was that about?”

  “Your beauty confuses them.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  Rhona walked up to the cart with a red-faced Keita.

  Brannie placed the point of the weapon into the cart floor, hand on the pummel, legs braced apart, and she knew she was smirking. She couldn’t help it.

  Aidan cleared his throat. “You do know you’re still naked, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I know.”

  He dropped his head but she could still hear his laughter.

  Standing in front of her, Rhona bumped Keita’s arm. “Do it,” she ordered their royal cousin.

  “Sorry,” Keita muttered.

  “Couldn’t hear you,” Brannie taunted. “What was that?”

  Now glaring at her, Keita snarled, “Sorry I was being such a right prat.”

  Smiling, her back straight, her human tits out and proud, Brannie nodded. “Apology accepted.”

  “Now you,” Rhona said.

  Brannie pointed at herself. “Me?”

  “Aye. You.”

  “I didn’t do anything! It was the prat,” Brannie accused.

  “You can apologize,” Rhona said smoothly, “and the two of you can act like the mighty warrior and deceitful spy—”

  “Oy!” Keita snapped.

  “—that you are. Or you can not apologize and I can take all my wonderful weapons and go.”

  Brannie snorted. “You would never leave me without weapons. Defenseless.”

  “True. But, my cousin, there are weapons”—Rhona’s grin was slow and wide—“and there are weapons.”

  Brannie took in a sudden breath, pointed at Rhona. “You . . . you made weapons with your father, didn’t you?”

  Rhona and her father were brilliant blacksmiths. Her father, Sulien, was a Volcano dragon who’d taught his daughter the art of alchemy and creating weapons and armor that could change with a mere thought. He’d been sent away when the war started to work in a safe location where the Zealots could not get to him. Rhona had been working with him off and on over the years—she loved being a blacksmith much more than being a soldier, but she was great at both—and would bring newly created weapons back and forth to the front as needed.

  Still grinning, Rhona tilted her head and said, “Maybe.”

  Brannie tossed the two-handed sword away—barely noticing that the only thing that prevented Aidan from getting his head cut off was his speed at ducking—and jumped off the cart in front of Keita.

  “O’ Keita!” she loudly intoned. “Much loved cousin—”

  Keita glanced at Rhona. “What’s happening?”

  “—I am sorry for ever doubting you.” She grabbed Keita’s hand and the She-dragon desperately tried to pull it away. “You are a Protector of the Throne and our throne and queen could not be in better claws than yours. I pray to the gods I never again offend you and that our familial love and adoration spans the centuries—”

  “All right! All right!” Keita yelled, finally yanking her hand away. “I get it. You’re sorry. But whatever you’re doing is making me nauseous. So stop it.” She turned, but tossed at her, “And put some clothes on. Those giant tits of yours are making Aidan the Divine drool.”

  “Actually,” Aidan said softly, “I think that was simply a reaction to my near-death experience.”

  “I missed your head, didn’t I?” Brannie demanded.

  “Barely!”

  She dismissed the whining dragon with a wave of her hand and turned back to her cousin. “Tell me what you have, dear Rhona. Tell me. Show me what you have.” She made a little squealing sound in her excitement. “I must see!”

  Laughing, Rhona put her arm around Brannie’s shoulders and led her to another cart. “That apology was so epic . . . let’s see what we can find for you, my dearest cousin.”

  * * *

  Aidan watched Brannie and Rhona walk away. He was laughing because he couldn’t believe how excited the army captain was. Who got that happy over weaponry but a Cadwaladr? No one, that’s who.

  To the rest of them, weapons were merely tools to perform their jobs in the best and quickest way they could. But to a Cadwaladr, and especially to Branwen the Awful . . . they were like the finest jewels.

  It was rumored that Cadwaladr didn’t stock their caves with jewels and gold like most dragons. Instead, they used their spoils to purchase new weapons, and that’s what one would find piled high in their caverns.

  And after seeing this . . . Aidan now believed that rumor.

  Aidan watched the two She-dragons open a crate and begin to dig through it. He didn’t know what they were going to get, and he became completely distracted when he realized he was surrounded by three females.

  Slowly turning, he nodded and greeted them. “Triplets.”

  One of them frowned. “We have names.”

  “Yes. But you all look alike and I can’t tell you apart.” He shrugged. “So I never bother to learn your names. It’s easier for me that way.”

  “You’re very honest,” another said.

  “I am. Much to my mother’s great annoyance.”

  “We met your mother when we visited Devenallt Mountain. She’s very . . . um . . .”

  “She’s a horrible female. Don’t spend time with her. She’ll sap your will to live.”

  “That could explain why Auntie Rhiannon sent her and her daughters—your sisters—to Garbhán Isle and ordered Dagmar Reinholdt to manage them.”

  “That was the word she used,” the first added. “Manage.”

  Aidan couldn’t help but smile at that. If his mother thought she could run roughshod over the human Dagmar Reinholdt, who was known in the harsh Northlands as The Beast . . . well . . . heh.

  “You were staring at our Brannie’s ass,” noted the third.

  “She has a very nice ass. Very firm.”

  “Do you like her?” asked the second.

  “I don’t dislike her.”

  “You should like her,” said the third.

  “Your cousin’s a heartbreaker. And I’m very sensitive and beautiful.”

  “She could use a sensitive male in her life.”

  “And beautiful. Don’t forget beautiful.”

  The first shook her head. “He thinks we’re joking, Nesta.”

  “He’ll learn, Breena.” She patted his shoulder. “Because when it comes to our favorite cousins—”

  “And few are our favorites.”

  “—we are very serious.”

  “Favorite cousin?” Aidan asked. “You were just trying to throttle her not fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Not throttling. Showing her how far we’ve come since she used to train us how to throw knives when we were just little hatchlings.”

  “I do love Cadwaladr family stories,” Aidan noted wistfully. “And how far you’ve come? It was like she was being attacked by screeching fleas.”

  “Hmmm,” the first one said before turning and walking off.

  “Huh,” the second said before following her sister.

  And the third just sort of wandered away after staring at him for several silent seconds.

  Caswyn joined him, punching his arm. “That whole clan is a bit . . . touched, yeah?” he asked.

  Aidan glanced at his friend and pointed out, “You still have headless horse stuck between your teeth.”

  “Damn.” Caswyn covered his mouth and quickly walked off before Brannie could see him and start threatening him again.

  Chapter Nine

  The sorting of weapons and armor took longer than Brannie thought it would. Took so long, in fact, it was decided they would camp in the nearby forest for the night. As soon as a fire was started, Brannie dove headfirst into all the wonderful weapons and armor her cousin and uncle had created. Eventually, though, she
had to borrow Aidan’s surcoat to cover her nakedness so that Uther and Caswyn would stop staring.

  Idiots.

  Like she didn’t know how those two really felt about her as a dragoness. Apparently her tail was “too short.” Uther used to call her “Stubby” behind her back. And if they didn’t enjoy looking at her true form, what did she care if they lusted for her human one? They both went together and she loved every part of herself.

  Why shouldn’t she? As she always told her brother Celyn . . . she was adorable!

  What Brannie didn’t know . . . ? How Aidan felt about her. She’d never heard that Aidan had said anything about her one way or another. But when she’d suggested they’d have sex for a little stress relief, he hadn’t been remotely interested.

  Strange. She’d always thought he kind of liked her. Not seriously, but enough to fuck a time or two. She wasn’t asking for a lifetime mating. She had no doubts she’d find her mate one day, but she was sure it would be another warrior like her. Loyal to the army and the troops. Another captain perhaps. Or even a general. That would be nice.

  But until that happened—and she knew it was a long way off—she still had “needs” as her mother liked to call it when her youngest daughter had volunteered for Her Majesty’s Army.

  “You’ll have needs,” Ghleanna had said, picking a quiet time when everyone, even Brannie’s father, was out somewhere else. “And there’s no shame in that. You just have to be careful who you choose. Don’t be like your grandfather or cousin Gwenvael and choose whatever piece of ass crosses your path. Pick someone kind, who won’t call you a beauty to your face and a whore behind your back.”

  It seemed a strange conversation with her mum. Especially when Brannie found out Ghleanna’s conversation with Celyn was “Treat females like trash, and I’ll hunt you down and cut your prick off. Understand?”

  But as Brannie advanced through the ranks, she’d kept her mother’s words in mind and found she was right. Those she’d chosen to share her bedroll with had been fun, nice, and discreet. Only one had decided to get drunk in a pub and expound on what a “great lay” Brannie was. Too bad for him, her cousin Éibhear had been standing behind him. It was before he’d become Mì-runach but he was already becoming known for his temper.

  But you know . . . some dragons don’t need their wings. Or tail. Or right front claw.

  Rhona walked up to Brannie, pulling her out of her thoughts. “I have something special for you, cousin.”

  Brannie sat up straight and didn’t bother to hide her grin. “A halberd? To replace the one I lost.”

  Rhona held out her hand and Brannie stared at it. “Oh . . . how nice,” she lied. “A stick.”

  Rhona glared at her. “It’s not a stick.”

  “Really? Because it looks like a stick.” The glare became worse, so Brannie took the metal stick from her cousin and held it under her cousin’s nose and demanded. “What do you see, Rhona? Because all I see is a bloody stick!”

  “Perhaps,” Aidan decided to interject, “it’s a stick that turns into an actual weapon with a thought. I believe you have a spear like that, Rhona. Yes?”

  “It’s a spear?”

  Rhona grinned. “It’s whatever you want.”

  “Gold?”

  Her cousin’s glare instantly returned.

  “Bread?” Brannie tried again. Of course, now she was just being an ass. “Wine!”

  “No, ya irritating cow!” Rhona let out a frustrated breath. She used to make that same sound whenever she had to train Brannie and Izzy back in those early days. When they were just privates with dreams of being more. It was, as Rhona had told them more than once at the time, one of her least favorite things to do in the “universe.”

  She’d actually said “universe” not just “the world.”

  “Think of your favorite weapon and see what happens,” she finally told Brannie.

  Of course, Brannie liked lots of weapons. But her favorite? Well . . . that would be the halberd, wouldn’t it? But she did love swords. Short swords. And she did love axes . . . and hammers! Gods, she adored hammers!

  “You are overthinking this, Branwen the Awful!” Rhona yelled in the same voice she’d used when she’d been training Brannie. “Make a decision!”

  Startled, Brannie thought halberd! because she wanted to use it to strike down her bellowing cousin.

  And the metal stick in her hand immediately began to grow. It lengthened and thickened right in her palm. The tip turned into a spearhead and from the right side of the tip grew an ax head.

  Brannie immediately stood, her mouth open. She’d never seen anything so beautiful before.

  “It automatically knows if you’re in human form or dragon and will adjust accordingly,” she heard her cousin explain, but Brannie was barely paying attention anymore.

  She thought about a hammer and watched her halberd turn into a war hammer with an oversized head. Then it turned into a gladius. Then a spear. Then a bow. Then a long sword. Then back into a halberd.

  That’s when she squealed.

  * * *

  It was that smile. He watched it spread across Brannie’s face. So wide, it almost made her eyes disappear entirely, her poor nose forced into a scrunched-up position, her shoulders coming up until they practically covered her ears.

  Her glee exploded from every pore on her body and she went up on her toes as she began to sort of . . . dance around with her newly formed halberd in her hands. Yes. She danced.

  Over a weapon.

  And then there was the squealing. Aidan was sure he could hear nearby wolves howling in response, and Uther and Caswyn moved as far away as they could without leaving the fresh roasting meat the triplets had hunted down and put on the fire. But Aidan wasn’t annoyed at all. How could he be when he’d never seen Branwen the Awful this happy or excited before?

  She was so busy hugging her new weapon to her chest and grinning that Brannie didn’t notice that her triplet cousins were walking up behind her, their own weapons at the ready. Triplet one had a hammer. Triplet two had a double-headed lance. Triplet three had a long sword.

  Triplet one brought her hammer up and over, aiming toward Branwen’s head. The second swung the sharp end of her lance at Brannie’s legs. The third went straight for her gut.

  No one said a word to Brannie. Not one word of warning. Not even a grunt from her cousins. They did nothing but attack. With full force.

  Yet she must have sensed them. She must have known they were there. How else could she move so quickly, using the blunt end of the halberd to block the blades of the lance so they never reached her legs? At the same time, she used the curved spike on the opposite side of the halberd’s ax-head to catch hold of the wood handle of the hammer.

  But Triplet three was still coming with her sword. So Brannie, gripping her weapon tight, jerked just her torso far enough over that the blade missed her and sent her cousin falling forward. She would have landed on Brannie, but the army captain stepped back and her kin hit the ground hard. Then Brannie twisted her weapon and body, sending the other two flipping up and over in different directions.

  Her cousins immediately tried to get back up but Brannie brought the blunt end of her weapon down against Triplet one’s head. As she roared in pain, Brannie flipped backward, away from the hammer Triplet two was swinging at Brannie’s legs while she was still on the ground.

  When Brannie landed, she brought the ax-head of her weapon down on the wood part of the hammer, breaking the handle into two pieces.

  Without a word and with absolutely no anger, she slammed her foot down on the back of Triplet three’s back, pinning her to the ground. And the halberd she held in her hands stretched and lengthened until it could reach the other two. Metal spear tips grew out of both ends and she pressed each against her cousins’ throats, quietly waiting until they both raised their hands in defeat.

  Brannie stepped back and, with a quick twist of her hands, she spun the weapon up and back until she held i
t behind her body. By now it had changed once again so that it was a six-foot metal staff.

  And she’d done all that while wearing only his surcoat and a belt around her waist.

  Uther and Caswyn gaped as well until Caswyn demanded, “I want one.”

  Rhona rubbed her hands together and shook her head. “No. That is not a weapon for you.”

  “Why not? I can handle anything. I’ll pay if that’s what you want.”

  “It’s not about money,” Rhona explained calmly, quickly organizing the chain mail and armor they would wear for the rest of their trip. “You’re simply too stupid.”

  Aidan snorted out a surprised laugh and Brannie’s eyes widened in shock at her cousin’s words.

  “Rhona!” Brannie chastised. “What a horrible thing to say to someone!” She jerked her thumb at a stunned Caswyn. “And I say this as someone who doesn’t even like him.”

  “Did you have to add that last bit?” Caswyn asked.

  “Puddles!” she reminded him.

  “It’s nothing personal really.” Rhona tossed each of them chain mail shirts. “He just doesn’t think fast enough. You do. Where’s the shame in that?”

  “You didn’t have to call him stupid!”

  “Dumb?”

  “Rhona!”

  Now she tossed metal sword belts at them. Their sword belts were usually leather but these were different. Aidan examined his. It was made of chain mail, was flexible, and had a clasp at the front to secure it rather than tying it into a knot.

  “All I’m saying,” Rhona explained to Brannie, “is that your weapon is the kind that can help some warriors or get others killed. I trained you, Branwen the Awful, when you were just Branwen the Black. I know exactly how you work and how fast you think on the battlefield. I also know your mother started training you long before that. And what every Cadwaladr knows is how to make anything a weapon. Your battle-mind is”—she snapped her fingers several times—“fast. We all just witnessed that. But that weapon is only as fast as the one who wields it.”

  Rhona looked Caswyn, Uther and, finally, Aidan over before announcing, “These dragons are Mì-runach. Slow. Lumbering. Like bears.” She shrugged. “They run naked and screaming into battle to terrify the weak and startle the strong. So I will give them very good weapons that fit their”—she thought a moment—“skills. That fit their skills better than your weapon. Okay?”