sister didn’t even have a chance to insist—and she would have—because Keeley was moving. Yet it wasn’t the two men she got between. That was her mother and sister. They struggled to pull the males apart. Keeley, however . . . she grabbed that weak, worthless axe off the wall and dropped it on the floor. Then she unslung her hammer from the sling she had strapped to her back, gripped the steel handle with both hands, raised it high above her head—gorgeous muscles rippling—and swung it down. Once. Twice. Three times. Destroying the wood handle.
That stopped everyone.
“Keeley! What have you done?” Angus cried.
“Mad cow! How could you?” Archibald yelled.
Keeley picked up the pieces of the family axe and tossed them into the fireplace, followed by the iron head.
She faced her shocked father and uncle. “Are we now done with this never-ending bullshit?” she ended on a bellow. “Our family is in danger and you two are fighting over a ridiculous axe!” She gestured to Emma. “And Mum!”
“Oy!”
“We,” she said, leaning down and speaking directly to the two men, “have more important things to discuss than your years-old horseshit! So get your old asses off the ground, put some smiles on your faces so as not to scare the children, and maybe . . . maybe! . . . I will be nice enough to make you two mad bastards a new bloody axe!”
Grudgingly, but most likely afraid not to follow her orders, the brothers stood.
“A steel axe?” Archibald softly asked.
“From handle to head,” Keeley sweetly replied, now that she’d gotten her way, “as long as you two don’t keep pissing me off.”
The brothers gave each other another good glare before nodding in agreement.
“Good.” She motioned to Gemma. “Bring everyone in.”
As Gemma silently returned to the courtyard to gather the children, as well as Samuel, Farlan, and Cadell, Laila leaned into Caid’s side and teased, “I think we may have found the queen’s general.”
“I have to admit, Sister,” Caid said in all seriousness, “I was thinking the same thing.”
* * *
Keeley put her baby sister into the bed, noting the hammer still gripped in her little fist. She pulled the fur over her sleeping form and started to stand, but Endelyon proved she wasn’t asleep when she grabbed Keeley’s wrist. So strong already. Keeley was proud.
“Don’t go,” Endelyon whispered.
“I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep,” she promised.
“No. Don’t go. Don’t go away.”
Keeley sat on the edge of the bed and leaned in so she could see her sister’s face in the candlelight.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. Mum and Da won’t let anything happen to you. They’ll protect you.”
“Not protect you.”
Keeley suddenly understood what the nearly four-year-old was trying to say.
“Are you scared for me?”
Endelyon nodded.
Keeley leaned across her sister, resting her elbow on the other end of the narrow bed so they could whisper to each other as they liked to do early in the morning before Keeley had to go to work.
“What are you worried about?”
Endelyon took a good grip on a lock of Keeley’s hair. “B—” she began, but then her gaze moved to something behind Keeley.
Looking over her shoulder, Keeley saw Beatrix standing in the doorway. She gave a short jerk of her head, motioning toward the stairs. Keeley held up a finger before turning back to Endelyon.
“Talk to me,” she gently pushed. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”
Her sister held her little hammer out.
Keeley grinned. “I made that for you. It’s your protection. I have my own,” she said, reaching down and lifting her favorite weapon.
Her sister giggled, reaching for the hammer. But the head was still covered in blood and her sister was too young for that, so Keeley put it back on the floor.
“One day, you’re going to make your own mighty hammer,” Keeley told her. “And then, we’ll be blacksmiths together.”
“Promise?”
“You bet.” She leaned down and kissed her sister on the forehead. “Now get some sleep. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Love you, little bits.”
“Love you too.”
Keeley kissed her again and then a few more times until the giggling got too much for her younger brother, who threw his wooden sword at Keeley’s head.
At some point before he got his first steel one, she’d have to teach him not to do that, but it could wait for another day.
Keeley tucked her siblings in and closed the door on her way into the hall. That’s where she found her uncle.
“Sorry, little Keeley.” He looked sheepishly at his big feet. “Didn’t mean to upset you so.”
She crossed her