The Rebel Queen (Outlaw #1) - Lexi Blake Page 0,110

fields, how will you hide them from the humans?”

A big old field of spring crops in a place that didn’t normally grow much more than moss would probably cause someone to have questions.

“We can hide our fields the way we do our homes.” Asta’s words held a note of hope.

“And you may punish me in any way you see fit, Green Man.” Magnus moved to stand beside his mate. He got down to one knee. “I will take the punishment in exchange for food for my people, for that place at the table your mother spoke of. We have been voiceless for eons. My death will be a good exchange.”

I groaned. “Do you people know what a drama llama is?”

Rhys’s seafoam eyes narrowed. “There is a reason you do not deal with politics.”

I shrugged because truth matters. I preferred to shoot things. Especially when I could see them.

“Until now I have not used my power because I’ve always been afraid of it. I worry if I use it, it will overtake me and I’ll be further from everything I love,” Rhys explained. “But my mother was right many years ago, and she’s right today. I have power and if I choose not to use it for good, then who am I?”

Rhys leaned over and touched the ground, whispering something in Gaelic, and then he bent down and breathed over the dirt. Crops sprang up around us, crops and arbors of fruit trees. Warm winds shifted through what had once been cold and icy. Spring washed over the fallow fields, bringing life and hope.

“This is my gift to you, Hidden Ones,” Rhys said, his tone steady and deep. “I give it to you willingly and with no request but to live in our world and follow our laws. You cannot hide from the world and then punish it when it accidently touches you. I do ask that you send a representative to Frelsi so we might open talks about how to best be allies, but make no mistake. You are earthbound Fae and I am your Green Man. I am walking spring.”

They surrounded him like he was a messiah, and to them I supposed he was. To the Fae my son was a god of sorts, but I remembered when he was a child who wanted his brother to play with him, who clung to me when the world seemed unfair.

He’d stepped into his power when he needed to, when to not step into it would have been an act of selfishness he wasn’t capable of.

“Hey! Rhys? Mom!”

I turned and Lee was standing at the edge of the field, and I realized the Hidden Ones had already proven they could keep their secrets from the world. Lee couldn’t see us. Shy stood there with him, looking over what I suspected seemed to be a snowy, empty field. There was a look of pure fear on her face as she tried to figure out where we were.

I strode over to them, unwilling to leave them on the outside. I had to hope physical connection would pull them in. I reached out and grabbed their arms, pulling them close.

“Hey!” Lee yelled, and then his expression changed. “Mom. Whoa. What the hell? Where did all those people come from?”

“The Hidden Ones,” Shy said. “They showed themselves to Rhys? And he did this? Oh, it’s beautiful.”

Flowers popped up around Shy’s feet, making a circle around her. One sprouted up to the level of her hand, offering itself to her.

Rhys stared at her across the field, nodding her way as though acknowledging that she was here.

I watched the moment my son fell hopelessly in love with a woman, when he found his goddess.

“I think I want to vomit,” Lee said. “I do not get the romantic stuff.”

I pointed his way. “Don’t you tease your brother.”

“I won’t now. Now he can like shove a tree up my ass,” Lee countered. “I’ll probably be way more polite to him from here on out, but the flower stuff is gross. So how did you manage to get Rhys to loosen up and unleash the god within?”

“You know how it goes. We had a nice talk, almost got eaten by a troll, and then your brother became walking spring.”

All in all just another day in the life of a mom.

I stood in the warmth of spring, hidden from the world, and wondered if our new allies couldn’t help with my problem, too. After all, they breached space. Could they do