Catch & Hold-Legend (Legend series) by Claudy Conn Page B

who I am. I don’t need to actually breathe, as a Fae can maintain or, if you will, suspend its breath for a very long time, but the human in me wants to breathe all the time … no suspension allowed.
    Raised human, you see, lived human—trained as a Druid priestess, yes, but mostly thought like a human. I had been thoroughly informed of my Fae heritage and how to use many Fae skills, but Fae still took second place. Thus, when I looked around and discovered myself in a world of blue ice, I started to shiver and quake.
    “You are quite capable of dealing with this cold. Adjust your body temperature. You don’t need your woolens,” Rolo clucked and then added, “You have to adjust immediately, for it is coming … ”
    “What? What is coming? Adjust? Body … yes, woolens, good idea, need warm clothes,” I answered him disjointedly as I tried to focus on the problem. I was turning into an ice mannequin, and my teeth were chattering. I could hear my teeth chattering.
    “Z—you aren’t paying attention to me.” Rolo was clucking again. “You aren’t really cold. You only think you are. You are a Daoine—you can adjust your body temperature,” Rolo repeated. “You are a Royal Fae, and even the weakest of the Seelie Fae can survive this temperature, Z. Go into your mind!” Rolo was now shouting at me.
    I did what Rolo asked because he seemed to always know what he was talking about. So, there I was in my Fae mind, but instead of adjusting my body temperature like he asked, I called for ski clothes to cover my freezing body. Old habits died hard, and I was still human in my head.
    A moment later I was dressed in my sexiest ski outfit of black. I choose black more often than not these days. The color matches my purpose. Okay, now, concentrate , I told myself. You are surrounded by ice and nothing else. What to do?
    “Oh-oh,” said Rolo. “It is charging at full speed …”
    “Oh-oh? Full speed? What do you—” and then I saw it, and, Forgive me, Mom , there was no other word to describe how I felt at that moment. “ Fuck! ”
    It looked all wrong, meaning its skin looked turned inside out, and it was coming at me with Fae speed, saliva dripping from its triple rows of teeth, which were circular and not in its suction opening that served for a mouth but in the middle of its body, which was raised and poised to strike.
    So not good.
    “Its saliva is poison. It won’t kill you, but it will paralyze you for a moment, long enough so that it can chomp down on you. The whole experience might be fatal, I think,” Rolo said in a panicked voice.
    “ You think ?”
    I took a stance with my death sword leveled threateningly, but whether it saw my weapon or knew what it could do wasn’t clear, because the damn thing kept coming.
    That was why Gais sent me there with his shifting dust, to be eaten by these things, because another two had joined the first—all ugly, all with teeth chomping and ready to feed.
    Obviously I was still in the Dark Realm, and probably this was one of its basest, coldest, most hostile territories. What to do? Didn’t want it coming close enough to spit at me … and how far could it spit? Its spit would be poison as well … oooh, no spit.
    Its inside-out skin, ugh, was covered in wads of something that was meant to be hair. It had four eyeballs in the thing it used as a head, and then I was sure it could spit long distances. Its mouth was a suction machine that could draw in and then … that’s right, spit out long distances.
    There are times when one must stand bravely and meet the danger head on, and there are times when one has to …
    “Shift!” Rolo shouted desperately.
    Shift was the plan. “Oh, yeah,” I agreed. However, one of them lunged just at that moment. Evidently the thing couldn’t shift, but it seemed to fly, and even though I went into overdrive and shifted, it wasn’t in time to avoid its claws.
    It had torn through the black nylon sleeve of my fitted