Page 35 of The Rebel Seer

“Brendan, protect your sister,” Neil orders. “Z, stay still.”

What the hell is happening? There’s the sound of a sizzle and a crack and Neil pushes me further down.

“Daniel?” Dev says. “Can you see it?”

“Shy, put your hands at your side,” Rhys yells and I can see his hands rise, fingers splayed in a gesture I’ve seen his father perform many times.

I hear a squeak and manage to turn my head enough to see Rhys has thrown up a wall of thick vines and roots around Shy.

“It’s coming from the east. Some kind of sorcerer or witch,” Daniel is saying. “Keep your heads down.”

I hear a roaring in the distance, but Neil hasn’t let up.

“It’s a chimera,” Shy shouts from her cage of green and brown. “At least that’s what Clem says. Your Highness, it’s trying to kill the priest. But apparently it doesn’t know he’s a priest. He thinks the priest is the king.”

What? I’m very confused. But then another fireball hits and I hear a chuffing sound.

“What the fuck?”

I have never heard Sasha sound so human. This is a man who kept my children alive on a plane where dinosaurs still rule, but he’s disturbed by whatever is coming out of the woods.

“Let me see,” I hiss at Neil.

He frowns down at me. “I’m not letting you see. You don’t want to see.”

He is so bossy when he’s working.

The hounds are freaking out now. Whatever is coming at us must have been cloaked in some crazy magic to fool their senses, but it’s on their radar now.

“Is that…is its tail a freaking snake?” Brendan asks. “Sasha, watch out. It’s definitely a snake. Dad, to your left.”

Neil flips me over, rolling us close to Shy. That’s when baby boy takes over and I’m suddenly in a cage with his girlfriend.

I can hear what’s going on, but I can’t see much.

Neil gets to his feet and looks at me through the vines. “Stay there. You are pregnant, and you are not losing another baby to this place. Am I understood?”

Neil was the one who carried my bleeding body to the palace when I lost our first child.

“Fine.” I nod and then wince because a fireball narrowly misses him.

“Rhys, shield my daughter so my son can try to take this thing’s throat out.” Then Neil’s favorite jeans are toast, and I foresee some shopping in that wolf’s future. Neil’s wolf is arctic white, his eyes a crystal blue. He barks my way, and I still speak wolf. He’s telling me to stay put.

“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?”

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