Page 16 of Fae Exile

7.WHAT THE MOTHERBLAZIN’ DUCKBALLS AM I LOOKIN’ AT?

~ ELOWYN ~

“I don’t think the fire’s gonna keep them away,” Reed announced, a panicked edge riding his warning.

Since I’d awoken and discovered myself in the Wilds, Reed had been the calmest of all of us. The stretch of no-man’s-land between Embermere and the clans where he’d mostly raised himself was apparently dangerous in similar ways, just not to the same degree.

To now hear his calm shattering sent my pulse racing—which kicked in the instincts honed from a lifetime of training.

I was injured, sure, but I’d forever be a warrior. And soldiers fought when they were wounded all the time. It was the way of our profession.

“Where are they coming from?” I asked as I peered out into the darkness surrounding the makeshift circle we’d established with our log seats. With the fire at our backs, it was challenging to make out anything beyond movement at the edge of the forest. For that distinct disadvantage, the fire was supposed to keep away the monsters.

Trading my throwing knives for a single dagger, I added, “Air or ground?”

“Ground,” came Xeno’s sharp voice, still coming from above us. As a dragon shifter, he’d stay up in the trees to continue being our eyes. He could always transform and fly down.

Only then, he’d be a full-blown dragon several times the current size of Saffron.

Reed and Roan flanked me, their backs to either of my sides. To get behind us, our attackers, whatever they were, would have to travel past the fire.

Roan gripped his ax and growled. Reed had also opted for a blade instead of his usual bow and arrow.

“Finnian,” I called out without looking behind me. “Protect Saffron and Pru.”

“With my life,” he answered immediately. A fraction of my panic relaxed at the earnestness of his reply.

I narrowed my eyes to make out long, dark limbs slashing and slithering, much like snakes—fucking great—but at waist level, as if the snakes had feet. Whatever they were, they hissed and chittered, hissed and chittered.

When the fire popped, I clenched all over before once more recalling my training. Zako’s smooth lilt drifted through my memory:When you calm your breathing, you calm yourself. Focus on your breathing. Watch your opponent.

I breathed. And I watched, forcing down my revulsion, a niggling terror I couldn’t give in to, as the flickering shadows of the fire illuminated big ... bulbous ...things... with too many arms crawling toward us. Whatever they were, they hissed and chittered some more, making the hairs on the back of my neck stiffen.

“I think they’re coming up through the ground,” Finnian exclaimed, and I risked a glance downward.

I exhaled deeply when I found nothing crawling up through the dirt at my feet.

“Can they come up next to the fire, ya think?” Roan asked.

No one answered. None of us knew.

Now I had to divide my attention between two planes of vulnerability.

Dark lines like rope, the diameter of my leg, undulated toward us, as if testing the air.

“Fuck no,” I mumbled under my breath as Reed and Roan scanned to the left and right.

Clutching my dagger tightly, I backed up slowly, careful not to trip, and quickly spun to grab a burning log from the edge of the fire. Even its unlit bottom was hot, but I held it like a torch as I resumed my station.

I edged the light forward—and stilled completely, feeling my eyes widen, my pulse jolt in my neck, my breath seize for a moment before I made myself push it through and out.

“What the motherblazin’ fuckballs am I lookin’ at?” Roan asked, but his usual gruffness was absent, replaced by a gentle whisper meant not to provoke ... whatever the dragonfire we were looking at.

“What is it?” Finnian asked, equally quietly, following Roan’s lead.

“Some kinda humongous tentacled beast,” Reed answered.

“More than one,” Xeno called gently from above.

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