Caswyn stopped chewing, eyes wide, her poor horse’s front hooves still sticking out of his maw. Still twitching.

They were still twitching!

But before she could embed her weapon into the idiot’s neck and end him for such an affront, Aidan jumped between them. Protecting his idiot friend and getting in her way!

“Perhaps we should think about this?” Aidan gently suggested, as was his way. The only Mì-runach she knew who tried to use reason rather than brute force.

“No,” she snapped. “Move.”

“You’re not thinking this through.”

“Get out of my way before I kill you both.”

“He didn’t mean it!”

“I don’t care! I will have his head!”

“He was dying anyway,” Caswyn mumbled around the hooves.

“It’s just a bloody horse,” Uther noted, his blood-covered human form coming at her from the opposite side.

But he stopped when the tip of Brannie’s sword now pressed against the artery in his neck. She’d pulled it from her scabbard without making a sound and so quickly, the males had no time to react. As Branwen well knew, it was her speed that had always kept her alive.

Of course, at the moment, she really wasn’t in danger. These dragons, no matter their form, would never hurt her. Not because they fought on the same side. Not because she outranked them, no matter which army she represented. Not even because she was faster and a better fighter than any of them. But because she was the “baby cousin” of Éibhear the Despicable. Their brother in arms. As brethren of the Mì-runach, they protected each other’s kin as they would their own. So she knew that none of these males would ever harm a hair on her head, which only meant she could kill them quickly and leave their bleeding corpses to the wild animals of these mountains.

It seemed fair enough for what Caswyn had done, and for Uther sticking up for the idiot.

Of course, Éibhear wouldn’t be happy, but what did he expect when he allowed his Mì-runach brethren to roam around free, doing stupid, stupid things?

“Could you both do me a favor?” Aidan asked his friends. “And stop talking?”

When neither male responded, Aidan faced Brannie, and opened his mouth to speak . . . but the sound of crunching that came from Caswyn as he slowly began to chew on her precious horse’s hooves made him stop, his head dropping forward in silent defeat.

* * *

Talwyn, only daughter of Fearghus the Destroyer and Annwyl the Bloody, buried her ax into a brawny chest and forced her enemy to the ground. Once she had him there, she yanked her weapon out and slammed the blade into the man’s head, ignoring the spray of blood that splashed across her face.

She turned and looked through the battle raging around her until she locked eyes with her twin brother.

“What did you say?”

“I said get Mum!”

“Why is she my responsibility?” Talwyn wanted to know before cutting off the leg of a man standing next to her.