Last Dragon Standing

“I am.”

“And you’re kind of naked.”

She laughed. “I’m that too.” She shifted back to her natural form and heard the girl gasp, felt her swell of excitement and curiosity, her eagerness to know more, to know everything about Ebba’s kind. And, more importantly—more impressively—her immediate acceptance of something that was vastly different from herself.

“Oh, by the gods! You’re a centaur!”

Ebba laughed. “I am.”

“Oh…no, no, no.” Ebba didn’t even have to turn around to know that poor Izzy was now making a mad dash across the room, trying to stop the twins who’d eased from their hiding place and crawled onto the closest side table so they could leap from it to Ebba’s back. The girl with her sword drawn, aimed right for Ebba’s neck.

Amused more than she had been in an age, Ebba clicked her tongue against her teeth. She heard Izzy slide to a stop, and Ebba looked over her shoulder at the two toddlers hanging from midair behind her.

Nuzzling the affectionate babe in her arms, the two of them understanding each other more than any would ever know, even these twins, Ebba slowly turned toward the siblings, making sure not to knock anything over with her horse’s hindquarters.

“So,” she said, “this is them? The infamous twins of the Blood Queen.”

She smirked at them, and the boy, Talan, burst into pathetic fake tears.

A skill she could only imagine his Uncle Gwenvael had taught him, based on what her mother had always said about “the hatchling I loved and loathed in equal parts.” While the girl, Talwyn, snarled and snapped like she had a mouth full of fangs rather than baby teeth and kept stabbing her tiny wooden sword in Ebba’s direction.

“I’m sorry,” Izzy said. “I’ve been told they’re like that with, uh, new people.”

“That’s all right. No need to apologize. They were only protecting your sister, and I’d be awfully miserable if they were like everyone else’s children.”

“They’re definitely not that.”

“No. They’re definitely not.”

Leaning in, Ebba waved one finger in the girl’s face before plucking the sword from her. “Now let me make this clear, little ones. There will be none of this sort of thing from now on. No silent attacks, no screaming attacks, no assaults of any kind. While you’re under my care you will learn to read and write and the proper care of those you’ll one day lead. We will be very good friends, and you will learn to adore me, for I fear your other options will not be as amenable to you.” She walked around the bed, and suddenly the children were falling and screaming.

Izzy again dashed across the floor, her arms outstretched to catch the babes, but Ebba had no intention of letting them actually hit the floor. At least not until they were much sturdier.

Izzy’s hands slid under her cousins, but the toddlers hovered inches over them. And Ebba kept them there.

Shifting back to human, she sat on the edge of one of the small beds, adjusting Rhi so she was cradled in the crook of her arm, and said to Izzy, “I think this position will suit me well. Don’t you?” Her grin wide and quite beautiful, Izzy nodded. “Oh, yes, I think this position is perfect for you.”

Keita watched her baby brother closely. He’d come down to first meal and, without his usual greeting, sat at the full table and stared at the food sitting in front of him. He didn’t eat. He didn’t talk. He didn’t do anything but stare at his food.

Éibhear’s reaction was so strange that Keita even stopped glaring at Ragnar over his reaction to Ebba. Considering she didn’t understand what this strange, new, and quite unpleasant feeling was, the fact that her brother could distract her from it said much.

First, thinking her brothers were behind Éibhear’s mood, Keita looked to them. But, as usual, they were oblivious. Then she looked to Morfyd, who watched their brother as Keita did. When Keita looked around the table, it was her sisters—those by blood and those by mating—who saw the difference in Éibhear the Blue. And, to her surprise, the Northlanders.

Ragnar caught her attention and motioned to Éibhear. She could only shrug, unsure of what was wrong or what she could do to fix it. Keita would admit it, she liked to fix things. Especially when it involved her baby brother. Yet she’d never seen him like this. Not once in almost a century.

“Morning, all!” Izzy said, tearing down the stairs. She stopped at the table long enough to grab a loaf of bread, glancing around. “Anyone seen my puppy?”

“If you got him from my kennel, brat, he’s not your anything,” Dagmar reminded their niece.

“Oops,” Izzy laughed. Then she gushed. “I love the new nanny! She’s a centaur!”

Keita ignored the pointed look she received from Ragnar.

“All right. I’m off to run up Flower Hill with Branwen.” Keita frowned and briefly re-focused her attention on her young niece.

“Whatever for?”

“Have you seen that hill?” she demanded. “Go up that thing a few times a day, I’ll have legs like iron.”

“You already have legs like iron.”

“All right. Steel then. Steel’s harder than iron, I think.”

“Come on, ya fat sow,” Branwen called from outside. “Move that shiftless ass!”

“Fat? ” Izzy screamed back. Then she took off running, and Keita heard her cousin squeal in a very non dragonesslike manner before, Keita was sure, running for her life.