“Where’s the loyalty?”
“Shut up!”
“Oy!” a male voice called from outside the cavern. The sound of it was so disconcerting, all of Braith’s kin and the Lightnings stopped fighting, and Braith and her aunts walked toward the cave opening.
An older Lightning who was missing the scales and skin on the left side of his face so it seemed like he was perpetually smiling, stood in front of the cave opening, his gaze hungrily examining Braith’s kin.
“Southland females,” he growled out, and that’s when Braith realized he was also missing the scales and skin on the right side of his neck. The area was so damaged, his words seemed to be torn from his throat. “There is no need to fight us. To risk your lives. Come with us now of your own free will and we swear on our honor that we won’t harm you. We’ll take you to our land and treat you like the queens you are.” His expression turned hard, even while it still looked like he smiled. “But fight us now—and your regret will be great.”
“Take our wings, will you?” Owena asked him. “I thought you lot didn’t do that anymore.”
“We do what we must. Now come. Join us, so we can stop all this fighting. We’d hate to risk so much . . . beauty.”
Owena looked around at her kin. “What do you say, Penardduns? Do we give ourselves to these Lightnings? Or stand our ground?”
Funny. Braith was tired of giving herself to dragons she didn’t respect, like her father and the Queen. But she was also tired of being proud and standing her ground like a good little She-dragon.
So she did neither. Instead she ran. Using rage, annoyance, and outright viciousness, Braith of the Darkness ran out of the cave and right toward the Lightning leader. He saw her coming and smiled until she raised Addolgar’s hammer. The leader reared back, but Braith just kept coming. She couldn’t stop herself and, to be honest, she wouldn’t. This felt . . . right. So very, very right.
As she neared the Lightning leader, Braith unleashed her wings and rose up in the air, bringing the hammer up and over with both front claws and then down until it collided with the Lightning leader’s head. He let out a roar when the hammer hit him, but that’s when Braith rammed her back claws into the Lightning’s chest and forced him to the ground. She dug her talons past his scales and kept him pinned to the ground with the strength of her legs while she brought the hammer up and over, again and again and again, until she’d beaten the Lightning leader’s already damaged head into a blood-and-bone pulp.
Covered in the Lightning’s blood, she turned around and faced her kin.
Her aunts gawked at her, tears in their eyes, until Crystin said through barely held-back sobs, “Your mother . . . would be so
“Then let’s do this in my mother’s honor,” Braith suggested. “And kill . . .
Chapter 18
Braith liked Addolgar’s hammer. She liked it a lot. It fit her somehow. Knives, swords . . . no. All that slashing steel and shoving pointy ends into things did nothing for her. But battering that hammer onto a Lightning’s head gave her a perverse pleasure. She got hit a few times. A couple of cuts. But nothing she couldn’t handle.
At one point she stopped and took a look around. Her aunts were mostly delegating. Ordering their daughters on which Lightnings to kill and, sometimes, how. Heledd walked among the bodies, looking at each one. Braith didn’t know what her cousin was looking for until she saw her gaze move back to the cave opening.
“What is it?” Braith asked her cousin.
“There’s some missing.”
There were so many, Braith wondered how she knew. If she truly knew. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
From what Braith understood, the Lightnings would have no interest in the hatchlings, even the female ones. They at least respected that particular boundary. But they were probably more than happy to come around and attack from behind . . . and yet they hadn’t.
“Addolgar,” she said, looking to Crystin. “Addolgar!”
Braith raced past her kin and back into the cave. She heard Crystin behind her, yelling at her daughters and Owena to follow. Braith didn’t wait for them. She couldn’t.
She charged down passage after passage, trying not to think too much about poor, defenseless Addolgar. She never should have left him. She never should have deserted him!
She finally hit the passage that would lead her to the main chamber, and ran full out around that last corner—where she stumbled to an awkward stop, her kin running into the back of her and nearly knocking her on her face.
Together, they stood and stared, watching Addolgar—on one leg only—swing his ax down, taking the head off some Lightning. Then using his wings to move, he spun, and swung his ax again, cutting into the side of another Lightning. He tore the blade out, swung again, this time into the Lightning’s neck. Another Lightning came up behind him, but Addolgar threw his wings out, knocking his enemy into the wall. He turned, brought the ax up, tearing the stunned Lightning open from groin to belly. Addolgar yanked the blade out, and the Lightning’s intestines fell to the floor in a nasty pile.
That left only one Lightning. A rather young one by the looks of him. Addolgar faced him, hopped toward him on his good leg. He took his blood-covered ax and pressed the blunt head against the youngster’s throat. He pushed until the Lightning was backed up against a wall.
“Cadwaladr trash,” the youngster hissed, trying to hide the fact he was terrified.
“Go home, Lightning,” Addolgar told him. “Go home and tell them what happened here today. They’ll not only face the Penardduns if they are ever stupid enough to come back here, but they’ll also face Cadwaladr
The Lightning slid against the wall, moving away from that ax head. Once he was far enough away, he turned, and ran out the way Braith assumed those Lightnings had all come in.
Owena sat back on her haunches, crossed her forearms over her chest and said, “You shouldn’t be playing around on that bad leg, Mountain.”
Addolgar’s back tensed at Owena’s words. “I’m
Addolgar turned around, ready to tell Owena what she could do with her bloody nicknames when he saw Braith. She looked . . . happy. As happy as he’d ever seen her.
He grinned and announced, “Look at you, Braith of the Darkness, all covered in Lightning blood! My father would be so proud!”
“Thank you.” Braith held up his hammer. “Can I keep this?”
“Absolutely,” he said, hopping over to her. “You’ll need it.” He reached her and pulled her against his body, hugging her tight. He let out a breath at having her safe with him again. Even better . . . she hugged him back.
“I was so worried,” she told him, “when Heledd told us we hadn’t gotten all of them. I realized they must have come in through another way.”
“Lightnings like the sneak attack. Too bad for them, I love killing Lightnings, so it all worked in my favor.”
“Good job, Mountain,” Crystin praised. “Your father would be proud of you, too, I think.”
“And I thought you knew my father.”
Braith leaned her head back and looked up at Addolgar. “Wait, why do I
“It’s your hammer now. At least until we have one made for you. And you’ll need it for when we go after your bastard father.”
Braith broke out in another smile that warmed Addolgar’s heart. She was whole now, wasn’t she? Truly
