It was time for training, and she didn’t like to be late. But she wasn’t exactly shocked when her father fell into step beside her, smartly staying on the opposite side of Canute.
“Well, that went well,” he grumbled. Her father had never been one for wasted words or preamble.
“Come to gloat?” she asked.
“No. Come to find out what you’re planning.”
Dagmar kept her gaze straight ahead and her expression purposely blank. “What makes you think I’m planning anything?”
“You’re still breathing, ain’t ya? Never known a day when you ain’t planning something. Plotting is what they call it.”
For once Dagmar didn’t have to step around people as they moved through the Main Hall; people automatically moved out of the way of The Reinholdt and anyone who happened to be with him.
“I’m not planning anything,” she assured him. “But don’t be surprised when it comes back in another day or two.”
“ ‘It?’ Don’t you mean ‘him’?”
“It. Him. Whatever.”
“And he’ll come back to what? Tear the place down?”
“Doubtful. He won’t want to harm the one who holds the information.”
“Always so sure, you are. Always so damn sure you’re right.”
With a shrug, she left her father by the doors leaving the Main Hall. “When have I ever been wrong?” she smugly asked.
Dagmar walked through the courtyard and around to the side near one of several barracks. She passed groups of men training hard to be the warriors her father expected. The Reinholdt had no patience for weakness or complaints of injuries. You fought and you fought well every time or dying in battle would be the least of your problems.
As she walked by, like every day when she walked by, she was completely ignored. Nothing new there.
Cutting through the training grounds and past some of the barracks, Dagmar headed to the large training area that was hers and hers alone. To get to it, she had to enter the vast building constructed under her direction. It housed all The Reinholdt’s battle dogs, and she never had to limit access to only the trainers chosen by her because few of her father’s warriors were idiotic enough to enter here and risk that even one of her dogs was loose.As soon as Dagmar entered, the dogs still in their runs began to greet her with barks and howls. Using voice commands only, she eased her dogs’ excitement and walked through the back exit and toward the training ring. Johann, her assistant, was already working the young pups that would soon be two-hundred-pound warrior dogs. He’d been a good choice on her part. Like her, Johann preferred the company of dogs to the company of humans.
“How goes it, Johann?”
“Well, my lady.”
Dagmar gave the hand signal for Canute to lie down and stay outside the ring until she returned to him. Closing and locking the gate behind her, she patiently waited for Johann to finish. He had the dogs lying down, waiting for his next signal. They wouldn’t move until instructed to do so. They were the most obedient dogs one could find in the Northlands. And also the most obedient and the most bloodthirsty because of her training methods. Only the companion animals of the Kyvich witches—giant wolflike beasts with horns—were more feared than Dagmar’s dogs. She prided herself on that fact.
As she waited on Johann, she pulled her list from her pocket and studied her remaining tasks for the day. But it wasn’t the words on the page that had her attention, it was that damn dragon.
Could that have gone any worse? She’d always doubted the Blood Queen would come herself, but Dagmar never thought the crazed monarch would send an actual dragon to represent her. Yet did she send one of the Southland Elders Brother Ragnar had told her about last time he’d visited? No! Instead she’d sent that … that … swine! He’d laughed at her. Laughed! Loudly. In front of her kinsmen.
That had been the worst part, in truth. That her brothers had heard it all—which meant her sisters-in-law had heard it all.
Johann made the dogs wait a few more seconds before he released them. When he did, they ran to Dagmar and began jumping on her, barking at her. They were chatty today. Excited. She smiled and petted them all.
She loved her dogs. With them, she never had to be anything but what she was. They never judged her or expected anything from her, and the plainness of her face meant nothing to them.
The dragon’s rudeness from earlier already forgotten, Dagmar crouched down and the dogs proceeded to lick her face and neck while trying to push each other out of the way. She was about to get them back into training formation when she heard Canute’s angry bark from the other side of the gate. He didn’t like it when she left him, but she didn’t dare bring him in the ring while the other dogs were around. But when be wouldn’t stop barking, she signaled for the other dogs to say and walked over to the gate.
Putting her feet between the lower slats, Dagmar pulled herself up, leaned over the fence … and looked straight into gold eyes.
He was staring up at her, looking guilty, with his hand around the back of Canute’s neck.
“What are you doing to my dog?” she asked.
“Nothing?”
“Why are you saying that like a question?”
“I wasn’t?”
“Yes, you were. And unhand him.”
He had a handsome face, whoever he was. Even when he gave a little pout at her order. He looked down at the dog again and then, with a shrug, unclamped his hand. Canute charged back and started growling and barking again.