The Elf Prince Is My Baby Daddy novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: Roots

"I'm going," I said.

"You're three months pregnant with triplets," said Ilvar.

"Not quite three. And it's my mother's house."

"Which is why I'm going. With twenty guards. And you're staying here with her."

"Twenty guards take an hour to saddle. That captain already has an hour on us." I was pulling on my boots. "And you don't know where the loose stone is."

"Your mother can tell me."

"By the woodbox," said Mam.

"Thank you," said Ilvar.

"It sticks," Mam added. "You have to know which corner to lift. Linnet knows."

Ilvar looked at her. Mam looked back with her walnut face, perfectly innocent.

He closed his eyes for a second.

"Fine," he said. "My horse. You ride in front of me. If you feel one cramp, one, we stop."

"Agreed."

"I mean it."

"Clause four goes both ways, Ilvar. I don't lie either."

Seren stayed with Mam with the door barred and a kitchen knife on the table, looking terrified and thrilled.

Ilvar's horse was a tall gray mare with a long stride and no patience.

We crossed the bridge at a canter and took the south road out of Starhold under a half moon.

He rode with one arm tight round my waist, his hand spread flat over the babies.

I leaned back against his chest because there was nowhere else to lean.

"The riders will take the high road," he said in my ear. "It's safer. It's also longer. If we cut along the edge of the Burnt Wood we save four hours."

"Why isn't everyone doing that?"

"Because of what lives in the Burnt Wood."

"Blight-boars."

"And worse."

"Lovely."

We rode all night.

Around three in the morning, the trees on our left turned black.

No leaves. No sound. Just tall dead trunks, as far as I could see in the moonlight, and a smell of old ash that got into the back of my throat.

I'd lived three miles from it my whole life and never once gone in.

Now I knew why my skin crawled every time I looked at it.

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