She held it up toward the barbarian horde and screamed at them. No words. Just screaming. Then she threw the head at the horde and sauntered back to her kin.

When Keran finally reached them, she smiled. “All done.”

“You’ve killed us,” Laila softly accused. “You’ve killed us all.”

“Gods, don’t be so dramatic.” She looked at her cousin. “Go on, Keeley. Take your horse. And walk right through.”

“What?”

“They won’t attack.”

“How do you know?”

“Do you trust me or not?”

“Not!” Gemma barked.

“I wasn’t asking you, trifling cow. Go on, Keels. Give it a go.”

“Give it a go?”

“I’m sure about this, Cousin.”

So Keeley started walking. Caid reached out to grab her, to stop her, but Keran caught his arm and held him with a strength that continued to surprise.

The gray mare fell in right beside Keeley and together they walked the distance between their group and the barbarians. When Keeley was no more than a few feet from the horde, they suddenly separated into two groups, allowing her to walk straight down the middle. When she’d made it halfway and no one had attacked, the rest of them followed.

They moved through the silent barbarians and all was fine until Keran herself stepped onto dwarf territory. That’s when the barbarians began to make a loud noise. Kind of like communal humming. It was disconcerting and Caid rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, ready for an attack even though they were no longer on barbarian lands.

But Keran looked at the leaderless warriors and snapped, “Stop that!” They did.

Putting her hands to her head, Keran complained, “Got such a headache.” She looked at Keeley. “I may have to throw up again.”

“Wait a minute.” Gemma gestured at the barbarians. They were just standing there . . . waiting. “What’s happening with them?”

“I’m not positive,” Keran admitted, “but I may now be their leader.”

Keeley lowered her head, but Caid got the feeling it was so she could stifle her laughter.

“What do you mean, may be?” Gemma demanded.

“I don’t remember all of the conversation I had with that barbarian back when I was in the guild, but it had been a long night, a bloody fight, and there was some drinking—”

“Och!” Gemma marched toward her cousin. “You barely remember this conversation and you put us all at risk?”

“I remember the conversation,” Keran insisted. “I just don’t remember exactly what it meant. What the final outcome was. Or the barbarian’s name. Or whether I fucked him.”

“I’m sure you fucked him,” Keeley muttered.

Keran laughed. “Yeah, probably.”

Gemma had her fist pulled back, ready to strike her cousin, but Keeley caught her sister’s arms and pinned them to her sides.

“What?” Keran wanted to know. “You can’t say I didn’t help!”

“You could have killed us all!” Gemma insisted.

Keran sighed sadly. “Must you always be so negative?”

At that point, Keeley just wrapped her arms around the screaming-and-threatening Gemma, picked her up, and carried her away.

CHAPTER 27

Caid knew something was wrong as soon as they entered the Dwarf King’s throne room.

Keeley had been smiling, holding Sichar’s gold, ready to hand it over to the king and queen. But their expressions were so dour it was obvious something had happened. And standing beside their throne and General Unroch was Hearn’s personal messenger, Henok.

Caid and the others held back while Keeley spoke with the royals and Henok.

“What do you think is going on?” Quinn asked him.

“How would I know?”

“Just asking.”

They stood in silence for a bit as Keeley’s expression grew darker and darker while she listened to Henok.

Then Quinn wanted to know, “So you attached to this one, or what?”

“None of your business.”

“Father won’t be happy. And who knows how long she’ll be queen before she loses her head in battle?” He thought a moment, then asked, “And are you planning to breed with her? That could be strange. What if the offspring have horse back legs but everything else is human? And they can’t shift? Or they have front forelegs instead of arms but human legs? What if they just have a horse’s head on a human body? Can she even marry you? She’s a queen, you know, and you’re nothing, so she may leave you for a human prince. Would that bother you? Especially if they have normal babies and banish your horse-headed baby from the territory.”

Laila, by this point, was pacing in front of her brothers; her gaze worriedly locked on Keeley. Gemma had her hands on the hilts of her two swords, her back straight, her body tense. Ready for anything.

Keran was asleep at the table, her feet up. She was snoring.

They’d left the horses, the demon wolves, and Samuel outside the mountain entrance. A good plan for many reasons, Caid was guessing.

“Do you think Dad would be happy with your horse-headed baby?” Quinn asked, either pretending he didn’t see how things were turning or truly oblivious. Caid seriously didn’t know which was worse. “I’m sure Mum would. She’d like to have a horse-headed grandchild. She’d be happy with that. So that’s good.”

His brother smiled at him and Caid was seriously considering pulling out all those pearly white teeth with his bare hands when the sound of metal ramming into metal snatched Caid’s attention away from his brother. Keeley was no longer standing by the dwarf king and queen but they appeared duly concerned. He followed their shocked gazes across the room until he saw Keeley standing over a massive steel anvil. Something he knew was not used for any blacksmithing tasks but, instead, as a symbol for all the Amichai dwarves. It even had a plaque on it, dedicating it to one of the top dwarf gods. Despite that, it was definitely solid metal and Keeley was currently battering at it with her hammer. Over and over. Her current rage focused on nothing but hitting.

Laila quickly made her way over to Henok and returned just as quickly. She motioned Gemma closer and told them, “Well . . . I found out what’s wrong.”

* * *

Keeley continued her assault on the anvil until she couldn’t lift her weapon anymore. Then she dropped it, threw her head back, and roared out.

She finally dropped to her knees before the roar could even finish echoing throughout the dwarves’ stone home.

Devastated and panting, she stayed on her knees, ignoring the sweat pouring from her brow and neck and pooling under her clothes.

“Keeley?”

Keeley quickly held up her hand, stopping Laila from coming any closer. And she did keep her distance but she continued to speak, which Keeley didn’t want.

“Your father is okay,” Laila said. “He’s going to survive. My father has the best healer taking care of him.”

“And I’m grateful, but . . .”

Keeley couldn’t finish. Of course she was worried about her father. About her family. But that wasn’t what had her raging. That wasn’t what made her want to tear this castle down stone by gods-damn stone. Not because the dwarves had done anything wrong—they absolutely hadn’t—but simply because she wanted to destroy.

“Then what’s wrong, Keeley? Tell me,” Laila gently pushed.

Keeley couldn’t say it out loud, though. She simply couldn’t.

But when she looked at Gemma . . .

“How did Straton’s men know where our family was?” Gemma asked Laila.

“Oh, uh . . . I’m not sure. Perhaps Archie told a friend—”

“Uncle Archibald has no friends. He trusts no one. He told no one.”

“So what are you saying?”

Keeley and Gemma stared at each other a long moment before Gemma finally said, “It was Beatrix. She did this. She sent that bastard after her own family.”

Laila gave a little shake of her head. “We don’t know that.”

“We don’t?” Gemma asked. “Then how did Straton’s men find them? Only Beatrix knew where the family was.”

“Trackers?”

“With you centaurs getting us there? Doing everything you could to ensure that trackers couldn’t follow us to Archie’s? You really believe that?”

“But . . . do you really think she’d do that? To her own family? Even to the little ones? The baby . . . ?”

When Keeley and Gemma did nothing but stare at her—silent, accepting the truth of what they believed—the centaur could do nothing more but fold her arms over her chest and look away.

But Keeley couldn’t look away. She had to face this. She had to make a decision.

“So what do we do now?” Keran asked.

“I think it’s finally obvious to all of us,” Gemma said. “We kill Beatrix.” Gemma looked at the centaurs they’d grown to trust and at Keran. And, each one in turn, nodded in agreement.

“Anyone who would do this to their own family . . .” Laila shook her head again as she still struggled to believe the truth. “She has to die.”

Gemma looked at Caid, undoubtedly thinking his support was the most important right now.

Caid gave a small shrug. “It would be hard but . . . it’s what I would do.”

Quinn simply nodded when Gemma turned to him.

And Keran growled, “Kin or not, the evil bitch has to go.”

Gemma finally faced Keeley. “Now are you ready to do this, Sister?”

Keeley gawked at Gemma for a few seconds before she said, “I was ready after she stabbed me.”

“Good!” Gemma turned toward the others. “Let’s all get what we need and—”

“But that’s not what we’re going to do,” Keeley added, slamming the head of her hammer against the floor and using the handle to help her get back to her feet.