Page 53

Neith

“F etrick!” Kylen growls in warning simply because he’s close to us.

Fetrick’s eyes narrow, but instead of getting angry with Kylen for pushing him off a cliff, Fetrick’s eyes lower submissively and he fucking apologizes to Kylen. My eyebrows rise in disbelief. Something is definitely not right with that situation.

Fetrick is not a small supernatural, although few are. He’s got broad shoulders and a full beard, with dark hair shoved up haphazardly on his head. He’s actually bigger than Kylen, but he’s behaving like Kylen is a threat.

We all know that’s true, but only because he cheats. If he went toe to toe with Coen without the necklace he’s got on, then Coen would decimate him without even breaking a sweat.

Kylen knows that, which is partly why he insists on controlling him the way he does.

Hopefully for not much longer though.

“What was that?” River suddenly asks, tilting his head to the side like he’s listening to something.

Everyone freezes and listens intently.

“Something big,” Ransom says, his eyes widening. “Or lots of somethings moving together.”

Before anyone can do or say anything, the ground beneath our feet rumbles and shakes so violently that I struggle to stay on my feet.

I call Asael to my hand, something tells me whatever is coming isn’t friendly.

The ground splits open in about two-meter-wide slices, and out of each slice appears a creature that, like the flying things, looks prehistoric in nature.

They’re standing on two legs, easily seven feet tall, covered in scales, and quite frankly look like a velociraptor except a lot bigger, and have double of everything.

Two tails, four little clawed arms, and two big giant snappy heads.

Its heads are so big, almost the length of its body, excluding the tails, that I have no idea how it’s not falling over and landing on its faces.

Oh, and it’s on fire.

“That’s not good,” I mutter sarcastically.

The ground is still rumbling, and more and more of these creatures are appearing from under the ground.

They don’t start off on fire, but as soon as they have fully emerged, they are engulfed by flames.

They don’t seem to be in pain or anything, so I’m pretty sure that they’re supposed to do that, and that it most likely makes them incredibly hard to fight.

The more that appear, the more apparent it becomes that there is no way that we’re going to be able to fight them. There are only a few of us, but there are hundreds of them, and more keep appearing, as I stare in absolute shock.

“Over the bridge!” Evander says, trying to sound calm, coming to the same conclusion that I am, that there is no way that we’re going to win against them.

Everyone starts to move toward the bridge slowly, none of us wanting to make any sudden movements and entice the creatures to attack since, at the moment, they’re all still emerging from the ground.

“Are you sure?” Doc asks worriedly. “It’s not going to hold us.”

“We don’t have a choice, we can’t survive being attacked by all of them. We will get overwhelmed by the sheer number of them,” Evander replies.

Suddenly, they all rush toward us, leaving us no time to try to come up with an alternative route.

We all run onto the bridge, moving across it as quickly as we can.

It’s a single file, and as I run, I can feel the boards groaning beneath my feet, making me incredibly nervous as I try not to look down at the raging water below.

Van’s behind me, and Reed is in front, the others all spread out along the bridge, and I can’t help but shout as I see Doc’s foot go through one of the boards.

Fetrick grabs hold of him before he can fall any heavier on them and risk breaking more.

I’ll be surprised about that later, right now I need to focus on getting across this bridge alive.

Glancing back, I see Griff step onto the bridge. He’s the last person on it, and as soon as he’s a couple of meters on, the whole thing disappears.

It doesn’t break, it doesn’t crumble, it simply disappears completely. One second it’s there, and I’m hoping that it doesn’t snap under our weight, and the next moment it’s simply not there. No trace that it once existed.

We all plunge toward the water, and a scream bubbles from my throat in sheer terror as we fall. I may like heights, but I do not like falling.

Evander’s arm wraps around my waist like a steel band as we hit the icy water and plunge below its depths.

For a brief and terrifying moment, we’re thrown around under the water, and I have no idea which way is up.

Evander doesn’t let go of me, and I catch sight of his scaled arm still wrapped around my waist.

He's gone full siren mode.

In seconds that feel like hours, my head breaks the water, and I take a huge breath, gasping for air as I frantically look around for the others. I find them all, including the Draconian team, with their heads above water and seemingly being held still like Evander and I are.

“Are you keeping them steady?” I ask, over the roar of the water.

“I can’t do it for much longer,” Evander replies. The strain is already evident in his voice. “There are too many of us, and this water is magically charged and too strong.”

“Fuck,” Reed curses, close enough that he can hear us.

“I can’t put the ward around us, or do much at all. I tried when we fell. My magic is too worn out,” Ransom shouts over the sound of the raging water.

“The kelpies!” Raiden suddenly exclaims.

We wanted to avoid using them if we could, it’s not something that we wanted to let most of the supernatural world know that we were capable of doing. Having a bond with a kelpie is an incredibly rare thing, and therefore a powerful thing as well. One that will most likely be sought after.

We don’t have a choice though, Evander can’t keep this up for much longer, and the water is moving so fast that we will all easily get swept away, not to mention that there are jagged rocks and fuck knows what living here. If the water is magic, then it could be concealing all manner of creatures.

“What the fuck do you mean kelpies?” Rupert exclaims, looking around and panicking.

There’s no time to explain. The water is starting to move us more and more, and I can feel the tension in Evander’s body as he tries to keep us all afloat.

As the guys begin to whistle to call their kelpies, I start to do the same with the intention of calling them all to me, so that the Draconian team can ride their own, but the voices rise in warning, very clearly telling me that I should only call Mael.

As always, I don’t question them, and I call Mael only.

He appears seconds later, along with all of the others, and Van releases me as I swing up onto his back with immeasurable relief.

Leaning forward I wrap my hands around his neck, “You have no idea how fucking glad I am to see you.”

He snorts in concern, but I urge him over to Coen, who just happens to be closest to me.

“Hop up,” I say urgently.

Coen doesn’t even question me if it’s safe, he just immediately climbs up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. I try not to melt into him like I want to.

“Fucking kelpies,” he mutters near my ear in awe. “You never cease to amaze me, Love.”

A shudder goes through me at his words, and how close he is to me.

“For fuck sake! I can’t keep your head above water for much longer,” Evander snaps angrily.

Looking over to where he and Griff, and of course their kelpies are, I see them near Kylen and Rupert who both look absolutely fucking terrified.

I can’t say I blame them. Kelpies have a well-founded reputation, but we are sitting on them, which should tell Kylen and Rupert that these ones at least won’t eat them.

They don’t really have a choice. They will die if they don’t get on them.

Fetrick is already on the back of River’s kelpie, Reath, and it looks like Jamie has only just been convinced to get on the back of Raiden’s kelpie, Mavros, although no one looks happy about that situation.

Finally, the other two get up on Reed and Evander’s kelpies.

“What’s the plan?” Ransom asks, and all of us are now fairly relaxed that the kelpies are here.

Well, the guys and I are, everyone on the Draconian team, apart from Fetrick and Coen, are looking terrified and extremely tense.

None of them seem to be struggling at all, and it’s almost like we’re standing around in a field talking, rather than in the middle of a raging magical river that we were moments away from drowning in.

“We need to find a place where the kelpies can climb out and get us up to the top,” Evander replies.

“The portal is further down the river anyway, so I think we should just head that way, and hope that there is a space that we can get out,” Doc adds.

“I don’t want to be on these disgusting creatures for any longer than I have to be,” Kylen spits.

“Asshole,” Coen mutters in my ear.

I’m reasonably certain that no one else can hear him or even knows that he’s speaking to me since he’s pressed so tightly against me.

I fucking love it.

Although I would love it more if I could respond, or sink into his embrace, we’re so close to the end of the Choosing though.

This is the last task, or at least we think it is, and we have managed to keep the fact that Coen knows me from Kylen so far.

It would really fucking suck if we slipped up now.

It would cause so many complications from Coen’s point of view, which I’m not entirely sure about the specific reasons, but also because it means that he is less likely to allow Coen to be anywhere near us.