Page 16 of The Blood Queen

Hands grab my elbows and lift me bodily up, my feet slipping in the mud. I twist, but the grip is tight.

Still, I can see who’s holding me.

Samson.

I let out a sob, the sound strangled, and the High Blade practically purrs as whimpering grief pulls my body down.

She holds her arm up. “Forward!” she shouts, letting her arm fall to her side.

As one, the Red Cap army strides forward.

A portal underwater means they will have to swim. A human could never gain access to such a route, but any full-blooded fae or strong Leth would draw upon the magic of the portal, able to hold their breath for longer than a human can.

So Elizabeth doesn’t think there’s anything wrong when her soldiers dip beneath the silvery surface of the loch and start swimming down. She’s grinning as she watches from the shore, and I have to bite back my own smile so she doesn’t see.

She doesn’t realize anything is wrong at all until the water starts to churn, the froth tinted pink.

My facade of fear cracks away, and a grin splits my face just as viciously as Elizabeth split my skin.

She whirls around to me, her eyes ice cold with fury.

She cannot see what is attacking her soldiers under the water, but then a monstrous scream almost like a horse’s whinny rips through the winter air, and she spins back to the loch, catching a glimpse of horse hooves, slick fur, a mouthful of gore dangling from the kelpie’s teeth.

“A kelpie loch?” the High Blade screams.

I cannot hide the triumph in my feral grin. The High Blade was right—all the portals in the south, especially this close to the border, have been closed for centuries. But this remote loch was perfect for a group of kelpies I helped relocate years ago. A favor for Moyra, the witch who lives in the bog near Stirling, more than repaid now in Red Cap blood.

Kelpies are wild fae, shape-shifters who prefer their horselike form, but they feed on humans, often enticing them to the water so they can drown and eat them. But they like to eat fae just as well.

I strain my eyes, looking for one Red Cap in particular. The water is a mess of waves and blood, froth and limbs, but when a gray kelpie leaps into the air, tossing up the body of a Red Cap, my grin widens.

Oak kicks and hits, and he actually breaks free from the kelpie’s grasp, frantically swimming toward the shore.

His eyes go to the High Blade first, then slide to me.

I make sure to meet his gaze. I make sure he knows I’m watching as the kelpie surges from behind him, jaw widened far past what a horse’s mouth can do, and clamps down on his neck. Oak’s scream is cut short as the kelpie drags him under the murky depths.

I strain forward. Samson’s eyes are wide, and they go even bigger when they meet my gaze. He cannot move more than that.

The High Blade takes several steps toward the loch and then focuses so much on the churning surface of the water that I’m certain she’s channeling her own energy to her troops, giving them some of the violence in her soul so that they can fight the vicious monsters.

I test Samson’s hold on me.

I slip from his grasp.

Elizabeth is so intent on saving the remaining Red Caps that she let some of her control over Samson fade.

I frame his face with my hands, searching his eyes, waiting, waiting—

His gaze focuses on me.

“Alyth.”

Grief and horror twist his face, but we don’t have time for that. I know he didn’t want to torture me. I know he was controlled by the High Blade. There will be time for assurances and forgiveness later.

For now, we have to run.

I grab his wrist and start racing toward the forest.