“How long have you known?” Briec asked his mate while keeping an eye on the damage his brother was doing to Celyn. Although Celyn had finally gotten back to his feet and was now putting up a fight.
“Since I saw them together when he arrived. They didn’t do anything,” she added. “But a mother knows.”
“And you said nothing to her?”
“Say what to her? I had her when I was sixteen. She’s nineteen, and as long as she’s careful—”
“You could have told me.”
Talaith smirked. “A beating is one thing, Lord Arrogance. Your family will forgive Éibhear that. Especially since the only ones who don’t seem to know how he feels about my eldest daughter are Éibhear and Izzy.
But a dead Celyn is something they’d never forgive you for.” And gods-dammit if she wasn’t right.
“I had no idea,” Ragnar admitted.
“Nor I.” Vigholf leaned back against a tree trunk, his arms crossed over his chest. “Who knew the boy had it in him?”
“I knew.” And the brothers looked over at their cousin. “I knew it was waiting there to be released.”
Blood slashed across Meinhard’s face, and he wiped it off with the back of his hand. “He’s got a rage in him, that one. He just don’t know it yet.”
“He knows it now.”
“Nah. He has all sorts of excuses for this. But whatever set him off is only part of it.”
“Why didn’t we set him off earlier?” Vigholf asked. “We could have used this royal in a few battles to do more than clear trees.”
“Who would have taken that beating? Which of our kin would you have saddled with being beaten by Éibhear the Chivalrous? It’s better this way. A Southlander gets him started, and now, if he comes back with us, we can start to really hone that rage until he’s like a living, breathing weapon we can unleash at our whim.”
Ragnar tipped his head to his brother. “Told you the armies should report to Meinhard.”
“And report they shall.”
“You named him the Chivalrous?” Dagmar asked from behind them, and all three males winced.
“Dagmar—”
“That was rather petty of you.” To those who did not know her, those words probably didn’t sound nearly as harsh as they actually were.
Her mate’s gaze moved back and forth among the Northland group.
“What’s wrong with chivalrous?”
“You get a name like that in the north, it just means you’re weak. Too nice to fight.” Dagmar shook her head. “And he has no idea, does he?”
“If it helps”—Ragnar watched Éibhear slam his cousin to the ground face first and hold him down with one hand, while twisting his arm around to his back until something broke—“I doubt he’ll be keeping that name much longer.”
Cursing, and with a broken arm, the cousin got Éibhear off him by slamming the back of his head into the Blue’s face. Then he faced him and got in a few good punches to Éibhear’s head, too, with his sound arm. But those hits only seemed to piss Éibhear off more. The blue dragon head-butted his cousin so hard that the sound cracked across the lake and everyone in earshot flinched. Then the royal caught hold of his cousin’s throat with one hand and began to pummel him in the face with the other.
What impressed Ragnar the most was that both managed to stay human during the whole thing. That was a skill even Ragnar didn’t think he had.
His ability to stay human often hinged on whether he felt like it or not.
He looked over and saw Keita watching. She cringed at every blow, winced at every hit. Although she wouldn’t get involved, she still didn’t like it.
Ragnar motioned to his brother and cousin. “We should stop this.”
“Why?” Vigholf asked. “Even their kin aren’t getting in the middle of it.”
“I know. That’s why we should stop it. We have no emotional stake in this.”
“No,” Meinhard said. “But I’m guessing she does.” Iseabail pushed past everyone in her way and briefly watched Éibhear and Celyn. At this point, the cousin’s face was nothing more than a bloody mess, but still Éibhear held him steady in one hand while he continued to hit his cousin over and over again. Not exactly chivalrous, now was it?
Then again, Ragnar had the feeling the cousin had stopped putting up a fight simply because Izzy was standing there.
Snarling, Izzy stomped over to them, yanking her arms from kin who tried to stop her. As she neared the two battling Fire Breathers, she grabbed up another training shield in both her hands.
“Gods,” Vigholf said in awe, and Ragnar had to silently agree with him. A training shield might not be made of solid steel, but it was made for dragons who trained every day to be warriors. He remembered his first one and how tired his forearms got from holding it those first few months of training.
And yet here was this human—a female, no less—who swung that shield like she’d been born wielding one, somehow ignoring the fact that the shield was several inches taller than she and probably weighed the same. She swung it and slammed Éibhear’s side, knocking him off his feet and right into a few of his kin who stood nearby. For the first time, Ragnar realized exactly how little chance his father had had when he’d faced and died at the hands of this girl and her witch mother, Talaith.