Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 151630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 758(@200wpm)___ 607(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 758(@200wpm)___ 607(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
“Can you see anything?” Shy asks.
I can barely move. I’m going to have such a talk with my eldest child. Cages should have room. I try to move some of the vines, gaining a slit to see out of. “Danny is in the air. Damn. That was close. He dodged a fireball. I’ve never seen a chimera. Have you?”
“No, but Clem has,” Shy replies. “Cassie’s going to be pissed. I can see her little cage thing and she’s trying to hack her way through it. They never try this shit with Evan. Not after she shot Rhys with an arrow. Your husband is a bad influence on my boyfriend.”
I can’t exactly argue with her. Dev and Danny have been known to be overly protective in the best of times. And now I’m pregnant with my tiny abomination, so they’ll go overboard. And good for Evan. I can say that because my fully Fae son is pretty indestructible.
I feel heat blast in my direction, but the vines don’t catch fire. As long as we’re here I have questions. “Who is Clem and does she know how to take out a chimera?”
A loud roar breaks through the forest and the ground kind of shakes.
“Did you know it could fly?” I hear Dev yell.
“I was too busy trying to figure out which head to lop off,” Sasha replies in a low growl. “Do I take the lion or the goat head?”
That’s easy. I would totally pick lion over goat. Goat doesn’t scare me much, though apparently my son did piss off the Icelandic goats. So there’s that.
“I think she’s a sprite.” Shy manages to push back some of the vines separating us. I can see her face now. She glances downward. “Sorry. I didn’t know. She says she is a woodland Fae and sprites are whores. But she also says some weird stuff, Your Highness.” She sighs. “I was not referring to her as the Queen of the Fae. She’s the Queen of All Vampire. Yes. I said vampire, though she’s also the high priest’s wife.”
“Zoey, please.” I’m going to have to remind her because the idea of my son’s goddess calling me by a royal title doesn’t sit well. “And I would think almost every creature in the Seelie sithein would know who I am. We’ve done tours of all the districts over the years. She might not know me by sight, but she should know my name. I’m her high priest’s goddess.”
I can barely make out Shy’s head shaking. Rhys seems to have thrown up another wall, and I can’t see anything at all outside now. I never get to have any fun.
“That’s the thing, Zoey,” Shy says. “I’m not sure this is the Seelie sithein.”
There’s a loud crash and Daniel yells for Dev to get out of the way. Then Dev yells for Rhys to duck and something else seems to explode. Cassie calls one of the men an asshole, and I hear a whole lot of growling and barking. “I promise you it is. I’ve been here many times. This is the place where Herne the Hunter bound me to a tree that might have exploded because he wanted to use me as bait to kill an ogre, but then he got horny and followed a baobhan sith home for some loving. Now she was a skanky bitch.”
Sasha rushes by our green cell cursing in Russian.
“Clem says there are no baobhan sith in this sithein and haven’t been for centuries. She’s surprised the chimera is here. What?” Shy’s face disappears for a moment and then she’s back, her hands wrapping around the vines. “She said she thinks the rebels must have brought him over from the Unseelie sithein.”
Rebels? “Someone is rebelling against Miria?”
“Cassie!” Neil must have taken human form again because he’s screaming his daughter’s name. “Don’t you dare try to ride that… Damn it…”
I turn, trying to get a look at Neil’s fierce daughter. And make the mistake of actually catching a glimpse of that thing. Creature. I try not to be too judgey. There are a lot of creatures who seem really scary who turn out to be super cool. This…I would bet this is not one of them. The massive beast has two heads—a roaring lion with a matted mane and a goat with nasty horns it’s currently using to try to headbutt my vampire husband.
Of course there’s also the tail, which could be considered a third head, maybe, since it’s a big old snake. Cassie has a machete in her hand. I would bet anything that sucker’s made of cold iron. Rhys and Dev seem to have shackled the chimera with various roots, but the lion/goat/snake is giving it a good go.
“Is Cassie okay?” Shy asks.
“Cassie is…oh shit. Cassie lopped off the tail, and the biting snake parts that went with it.” I’ve got a good view now, and I will faithfully recount everything I see to my future daughter-in-law. “Oh, and now it’s super pissed. It’s strong. Its claws are able to cut through whatever Dev and Rhys are sending his way.”