How to Drive a Dragon Crazy
“I’m so glad you’re home. I need your help.”
“Tell me. What do you need?”
“I’ll need your help with your father. You’re so good with him.”
“Anything, Mum. Just tell me.”
“Your sister . . .”
“What about her?” Izzy pushed.
“Her skills as a witch . . . they’re . . .” Talaith licked her lips, took a breath. “I want to send her to her grandmother for training. Proper training.”
Izzy winced. “Grandmum, eh?” She shrugged. “That won’t be easy. But I’m sure I can come up with something to get Dad to agree. Although it’ll be hard for Rhi on Devenallt Mountain, being unable to fly . . . wait. Can she fly?”
Talaith shook her head. “No, no. Not your grandmum. Your grandmother.” Talaith licked her lips again and admitted, “My mother.”
Izzy stared at her mother for a long moment. Then, when she truly understood what she was saying, Izzy flung her mother’s hands away and roared, “Have you lost your f**king mind?”
“That is enough!” Dagmar snarled, stepping between Briec and Keita and swinging her arms in an attempt to stop the ridiculous slap fight between siblings.
“Your lady is very brave,” Éibhear stated to Gwenvael before taking a bite out of the fruit he held.
“She is. I’ve seen her face down some of the worst tyrants with absolutely no fear.”
“You mean Dad?”
“He was one.” Gwenvael glanced at him. “Did you start all this?”
“I’d really say that Keita started it, but I did escalate the argument to the free-for-all you see before you.”
“Nicely handled, little brother. I’m usually the only one who creates this level of discord.”
“I’d found that creating discord, as you call it, among the Ice Landers, made them much easier to kill because they were so distracted. I have to admit . . . I’ve used that to my advantage.”
Gwenvael put his hand to his heart. “Are you saying that I helped you become a better killer?”
“You have, brother. You have.”
“I’m surprisingly proud of that.”
Dagmar faced Keita. “I thought I was to handle Lord Madock.”
“You were taking too long and once I discovered his taste for women with muscular thighs bigger than his entire body, I thought of Izzy.”
“Wait,” Briec said. “Are you saying you want Lord Madock dead?”
“You’re just getting that?”
“And you expected Izzy to kill him? A man she doesn’t even know?”
“All Izzy does every day is kill,” Keita snapped back. “She kills and she orders others to kill. So why are we acting like she’s some weak little child I’m trying to marry off?”
“Why didn’t you just ask her that then?” Dagmar wanted to know. “To take care of Madock? Rather than this pretending you want her to meet and entertain a man more than twice her senior?”
Keita shrugged. “Celyn was twice her senior and no one seemed to have a problem.”
Gwenvael sucked his tongue against his teeth.
“What’s wrong?” Éibhear asked him.
“I’m sad Talaith wasn’t here for that one. It would have led to a lovely fistfight.”
“A fight Keita would have lost.”
“Gods, yes. She’s so busy protecting her face, Talaith just hits her with repeated body shots until she passes out.”
Izzy leaned back in her chair and gazed at her mother, her mouth slightly open. “How you can even consider—”
“Izzy, I understand your concerns but—”
“My concerns?” Izzy rubbed her forehead, tried to be calm. “Mum, that bitch abandoned you. She tossed you out, left you defenseless, all because you’d fallen in love with my birth father and gotten pregnant with me. How could you ever forgive her for what she did to you? What she allowed to happen? It was because she abandoned you when you needed her most that Arzhela was able to get to you. To ruin your life for sixteen years.”
“I never said I would forgive her, Izzy. I remember everything. The horrible things she said and did when I told her that I was in love with your father. That I was pregnant with you. How she purposely waited until I was hours away from labor before she told me to get out because I’d betrayed my sisters. And just before I left, news came that your father . . .” Talaith cleared her throat, took a breath. “That your father had been killed in battle, yet she still threw me out of the temple. So understand that I have no intention of forgiving Haldane, Daughter of Elisa for a gods-damn thing. But we have to be realistic about your sister.”
“What can your mother teach her that Rhiannon can’t? That Morfyd can’t? They’re both white Dragonwitches and—”
“Right,” she cut in. “They’re both white dragons. Dragons, Iseabail. Not humans. And Rhi’s half human.”
It was something they never really talked about except as a way to explain how difficult Rhi and the twins could be at any given moment. Because it had never mattered before. Not to Izzy and not to the rest of the family. So why was it important now?
“I know she’s half human, Mum. What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with it when it comes to Magick, when it comes to power. And Rhiannon’s ability to control her Magick, to rein it in, was born into her. The control of human Magick, however, needs to be taught.”