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"So, did you think I soe of you while you slept?"

"Well" Annwyl flinched as one talon tapped iht had crossed my mind" She lowered herself into one of the other chairs surrounding the table, too weak to stand any longer "I’m sorry I know only what I learned froreat beast sighed "I have heard tales of your brother You do realize he should have been killed at birth?"

Annwyl smiled "If only" She looked across the cave floor to the bed It looked so far away and her body was still so weak

"Here" He lowered his claw and opened it Black talons as long as her leg glistened at Annwyl

"You ot in here?"

"Yes, but" There she went again Treating him as an animal when, in the little time she’d known him, he’d treated her with more respect than any man she’d met at her brother’s castle

She pushed herself up and took the two steps to his outstretched claw With force of will she didn’t know she possessed she stepped onto it, pushing out the vision she had of hi her into hishis forearm until he had reached the bed He carefully lowered her onto the fur coverings

"Now, let’s try not to have any th back"

Annwyl laughed "As you wish"

She sat down on the bed, her long legs hanging over the side She watched his body leave the cavern His long tail following behind But Annondered if it had a will of its own as it whipped out and wrapped itself around her leg For a briefher across the roo against her calf Then it released her and disappeared with the dragon that wielded it

Long after he’d gone and she slid herself back under the fur covers, Annwyl still felt where he’d touched her leg And she wondered what insanity had begun to take over her normally sensible mind

Lorcan of Garbhán Isle stared out over his battle the two suns lower in the west, and wondered how his sister kept slipping frorasp

No matter what he did or what he tried, she just wouldn’t die And the longer she lived, the more men she killed His men His troops The number of headless bodies with her name carved on their chest rivaled even his own Of course, his took thirty-one years to achieve She’d accumulated hers in little over two

He wished now he’d killed her when he had the chance She was ten, he just fourteen She had just arrived, sleeping soundly in her new bed He held the pillow in his hands He knew he could smother her, and no one would ever know But she woke up, looked at hie Which he returned His father found the two of the to choke each other Thehim out of a sound sleep