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 he wouldn’t stop barking, she signaled for the other dogs to stay 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.
“Quiet,” she softly ordered.
Canute stopped barking, but he didn’t stop the growling.
“What do you want?” she asked the stranger, curious as to whom he was. He couldn’t be from the Northlands. His skin was too golden from exposure to the suns, and the gold hair that reached past his knees was loose and wild around his face. The Northland men didn’t wear their hair that long or free from their single braid except when they slept.
He slowly stood…and he kept standing until he towered over her more than her brothers did and that said something. Unlike their father, The Reinholdt’s sons were all tall, strapping men. But this one was unreasonably tall. And big. Large, powerful muscles rippled under his chain-mail shirt and leggings, the pale-red surcoat tight across his chest.
Oddly, he stared at her in such a way as to make her feel…but no. No man looked at Dagmar like that. Yet there was something so undeniably familiar about him—had she met him before? Long ago?
While she tried to remember where she’d seen or met him, he grinned.
And it was that grin she recognized. That damn mocking, rude grin. Even without the elongated muzzle or sharp fangs, she’d recognized that rude grin!
“You,” she said flatly.
His brow went up in surprise. “Very good. Most humans never put the two together.”
“I thought I made myself clear earlier.”
“Yes, but I have needs.”
She blinked, keeping her expression blank. He has needs? What did that even mean?
“Your needs are not my concern.”
“But are you not lady of this house?”
He did have a point. Without a new wife for her father, etiquette demanded the task fall to Dagmar.
“And as lady of the house, isn’t it your job to care for your visitor?”
“Except I asked you to leave.”
“I did leave. Then I came back. As I’m sure you knew I would.” He rested his elbow on the gate, his chin in his palm. “I’m hungry.”
The way he said that…honestly! Dagmar simply didn’t know what to make of this dragon.
He glanced over her shoulder. “Think I can have one of those?”
Dagmar looked behind her and saw her dogs snarling and snapping in their direction while poor Johann stood around, completely baffled. For once the dogs ignored his commands, and he had no idea why.
“Have one?” she asked, also baffled.
“Aye. I’m hungry and—”
Her head snapped around and she slapped her hand over his mouth. “If you say what I think
