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Fish?
A slick, heavy something brushes against my thigh.
So probably not a fish. Because this day hasn’t been bad enough.
Dragging my gaze from the griffin, I blink down into the murky depths. Something nags at me. Something important. A warning that prickles my spine with alarming intensity.
The griffin’s wings flare as its golden eyes shift to the water. Behind me. Then it screeches so loudly I can feel it in my bones and begins dragging its talons through the sand.
“Don’t move!” a female voice commands.
I follow the familiar voice to the embankment twenty yards away. Eclipsa! We were supposed to meet by the lake for sunrise yoga before our session. A crowd forms behind her, including Professor Balefire, the Mythological Creatures professor.
Standing alone, the Spring Prince watches from the other side of the lake. Unlike the others, his face isn’t the least bit concerned for my welfare.
If his lazy smirk is any indication, he’s rather amused by the whole affair.
I face Eclipsa. “It’s okay. It won’t go in the water.”
Oh crap—why does Eclipsa look like she wants to murder me? “Summer, did you forget why no one swims in the Lake of Sorrows?”
And . . . just like that, I remember there are selkies in this water. Hungry, flesh-eating selkies.
My heart flails into a mad gallop as I glance left and right. Heads poke just above the surface. Heads with inhumanly large, curious eyes, bright flowing hair that pools around the water like kelp, and rows of glittering teeth perfectly capable of sheering flesh from bone.
There’s a ravenous look in their alien faces that steals my breath.
“You don’t want anything to do with me,” I say, trying to reach out with my mind the same way I did with the griffin. “I taste horrible. Worse than my Aunt Zinnia’s cornbread.”
Thank God Zinnia can’t hear my blasphemous statement. She’d never forgive me.
A pang of regret nearly doubles me over. Shimmer save me, if I die in the Everwilde, Zinnia would never recover. Not after losing her first daughter to the Fae.
I have to fight my way out of this no matter what it takes. But my voice only seems to draw the selkies closer.
Should I make a dash for the shore? The griffin blocks my way . . . but right now he seems like the lesser of the two evils.
I lift my arms, ready to make a break for it—
“Freeze, girl!” Professor Balefire slides down the side of the embankment, pebbles disturbing the pond below. “They’re attracted to movement.”
The selkies turn their hungry gazes on the professor in unison and then slowly back to me.
He holds up a wooden bucket and pours the entire disgusting contents into the water. It looks like some type of . . . raw meat. Bleck.
Dark red blood blooms along the foamy waves.
A few selkies dart beneath the water, their silky fins churning the lake as they scramble for the food.
But most don’t give the bait a second glance.
“It’s troll meat meant for the harpies,” the professor calls, tapping the bucket like it’s a dinner bell. “Best I could do short notice.”
Hellebore’s chuckle carries on the soft breeze. “Selkies prefer their food live so they can play with it first.”
Fae-freaking-tastic.
Eclipsa leaps to the shore. Her sharp focus darts between the selkies, Hellebore, and the griffin, making it clear that she sees all three as equal threats.
