Someone, Kett noted.

“But I’m going to talk to Dad and to Uncle Talis, tell them why you did it.”

“I don’t reckon Talis is particularly on my side,” Kett said, wincing as she recalled a couple of instances in her youth when she’d set out to humiliate the king just because she could. Her father hadn’t protected her then. No one had.

“Are you kidding? Kett, you remember the queen, right? She was a bloody lunatic, everyone says, but he adored her. Can’t stand vapid women, Dad always says. He thinks you’re brilliant.”

“The king thinks I’m brilliant,” Kett said flatly, not believing it for a second.

“He’ll think you’re even more brilliant when I tell him you saved Giselle’s life.”

“I really don’t think they were gonna kill her,” Kett said, flustered.

“They weren’t inviting me to a tea party either,” Giselle said. Her eyes were huge and solemn as she regarded Kett. “Kett, I…”

Kett shrugged, embarrassed.

“I wish I was as brave as you,” Giselle said.

“Yeah, well. There’s a thin line between being brave and being a bloody idiot,” Kett said. “Get Tane to teach you how to defend yourself, yeah?”

She backed out, feeling awkward, and walked past Eithne’s room. Her sharp hearing picked up a male voice from within.

Kett smiled, wondering if her father knew that only one of his offspring had spent the night alone.

Although she wouldn’t put it past Beyla to have hidden a man in the wardrobe.

Passing a window, she caught sight of the snowy garden and decided to change her shape inside, before the cold air froze her bare skin. She rolled her clothes into a bundle and changed into a large dog with thick fur, and was almost to the stairs when Bael’s scent came to her. It was an intriguing mix of candied fruits, molten metal and winter ice. Hurriedly, she dropped her clothes and shoved them under a nearby table, then wagged her tail cheerfully as he rounded the corner.

Bael made that clicking noise people make with dogs, and she trotted over happily.

“Hey, Kett,” he said, and she froze for a second, horrified. How did he know? Could he smell her? Who’d told him?

But then he reached out and scratched her ears, saying, “Oh, you’ve lost your collar. I’ll tell the girls, shall I?”

He thought she was Kett II. Relief flooded Kett and she wagged her tail harder. Bael chuckled and stroked the top of her head, which felt way better than it ought to have.

“You’re a beauty, aren’t you, sweetheart? Not that you’d be anything else with a name like that.”

So saying, he chucked her under the chin and walked away, leaving Kett mildly stunned.

Bael had woken alone, which was annoying, but he figured it was about time for breakfast so he got dressed and made his way downstairs in the hopes of finding someone who could tell him which of the many, many rooms of Nuala’s house breakfast might be served in.

Stopping to say hello to the leggy black hound Eithne had introduced him to last night as Kett II, he loped down the stairs, smiling to himself. He wondered if the real Kett knew she had a bitch named after her, and whether she cared. She probably didn’t. Kett didn’t seem to care much what people thought of her.

Except that she did, really. She cared very much that people saw her as someone who didn’t care. That they thought she was reckless, angry, violent, insane-but not smart, warm and vulnerable.

Her family saw it, or at least some of it. It was one of the reasons Bael liked them. Her siblings might be in awe of her-as they should, because she’s awesome-but they were proud of her. Last night he’d heard Beyla telling her friends about Kett’s dragons, huge pride in her voice.

He trailed around the house for a while, checking out the now-spotless ballroom and looking out fondly over the terrace where Kett had completely nailed those three asshole kids. What a gorgeous girl she really was. Strong, brave, loyal, smart and impossible to break. She rescued silly girls from stupid boys and wrestled dragons with equal aplomb. She was an absolute miracle in bed. And she looked really, really hot in a dress.

He had absolutely no idea how he was going to explain her presence to Albhar-or vice versa-but right then he didn’t really care.

The sun was up, the air was clear, he’d found his mate and she was really, truly perfect for him.

Inside, his nose led him to a salon decorated with roses and full of people serving themselves breakfast, only about half of whom he recognized. Kett was there, looking delicious and smelling-different, slightly, although he couldn’t put his finger on it.

No, it wasn’t her scent, it was something else. There was something different about her. Last night Verrick had told him a few things about Kett, but they’d been whispered like legends. That once Kett had been married, but her husband cheated on her so she stabbed him with a kitchen knife. That she’d been flogged in the army, hard enough to kill a normal person, but she’d survived. That she had once been killed and brought back to life again.

Verrick had even, wide-eyed, related the story of the sabertooth tiger, which had given Bael pause. If that one was true, what about the rest? Had his mate really done all those things?

Those scars on her back. Someone had flogged her, hard enough to kill.

Her prickly self-defensiveness. Someone had hurt her, badly enough for it to still smart.

If she hadn’t already stabbed the bastard, I’d do it myself.

He smiled at her and she scowled at him.

“Morning, gorgeous,” he said, sweeping her to him by the waist and planting a big kiss on her mouth.

“Bugger off,” she said, yanking herself away and grabbing the coffeepot, her expression telling him that if he tried that again she’d pour its contents all over him.

Bael grinned and turned away to get his own breakfast.

Kett picked a seat between Beyla and Nuala, deliberately it seemed, so Bael sat down opposite her, all the better to enjoy the view. Unlike her elegant stepmother and sister, she attacked her food, stabbing it with her fork and hacking away with her knife. She attacked everything, he realized-food, men, opinions, life in general. It was as if she had a grudge against the entire world. It wasn’t something he expected to find sexy, but with Kett, he was finding everything sexy.

Chance and Dark came in and, as she stood pouring some pink juice into a glass, he touched her waist and said something in her ear that made her smile, sparkling up at him with love and affection. It was sweet, touching and totally the opposite of the way Kett had reacted to him.

And yet, he found himself preferring her that way.

“I’m sorry you missed so much of the ball,” Nuala said to Bael. “But it was so very sweet of you to accompany Verrick like that.”

He smiled back, unsure what to say to someone who was actively trying to approve of him, and was grateful when Eithne came in, her eyes bright and her cheeks pink.

“Nice walk, sweetheart?” Tyrnan asked, and she smiled prettily and nodded.

This time Bael snorted. It sure as hell hadn’t been walking that had put that sparkle into her eyes. “Somebody got some last night,” he said, and immediately both Kett and Beyla snapped their heads up, eyes wide with warning.

Bael was too busy being struck for the first time by how similar they were to actually pay attention to what they were trying to tell him, but when Tane loudly cleared his throat and said, “I don’t think what Giselle and I got up to last night is any of your business,” Bael actually laughed.

Then he realized they were serious.

Tane was sitting there with his arm around Giselle and Bael didn’t need Nasc senses or Mage powers to know they hadn’t been playing tiddlywinks all night. But there was Eithne, looking like a frightened rabbit, and Kett and Beyla were shaking their heads frantically at him, and it made no sense.