The Rebel Queen (Outlaw 1)

So he could foist me off on someone else? Not a chance. I moved in beside him and threaded my arm through his. “All I need is my sweet son.”

“Lee is going to take you, then?” Rhys said the words with a hint of desperation that absolutely offended me.

Lee shook his head and stepped back. “No can do, brother. Dad sat me down and had this whole long talk about how I can’t die before he’s ready to turn me. See, if I took Mom out and I died, then I would likely wake up and eat her, and that would be super bad for my psyche.”

“Excuse me?” What had Daniel been putting in his brain?

Lee gave me a half shrug and his “what are you going to do” smile. “Mom, you’re a companion. If I die and we’re out there all alone, you’re going to have to run because when I wake up I’ll be all kinds of crazy psycho killer and you’ll be a big old ball of light, and I won’t remember you’re my mom. You’ll be dinner, and there’s like a whole psychiatric thing Dad called an Oedipal complex that gets worse if you’re a vamp and your mom is a companion. I don’t know. He talked a lot. What I basically got out of it is killing my mom is bad. You know I could have told him I agreed with that without the long lecture. When did Dad get so chatty?”

Was Daniel trying to give Lee a complex? “You’re not going to eat me.”

“Correct. Which is why, alas, I cannot be the one to traipse around muddy bridges looking for Ingrid and Halle. I know all the old stories and I would definitely die,” Lee announced. “The good news is Rhys is hard to kill, and he probably won’t drink your blood. And if you talk about how long we breastfed, I’m leaving right now.”

Rhys glared at his brother. “If you can’t die while you’re alone with Mom, how the hell are you going to run a heist with her?”

“Oh, I have to do that. I’m the only one who we know can actually see the grimoire,” Lee replied.

“She doesn’t need to see the grimoire. She needs to see the bag. She’ll be able to see the bag,” Rhys countered.

“What if she drops the bag and oops, the book falls out?” Lee faced off with Rhys. “She can be very clumsy. That’s how she dropped you on your head as a small child.”

“I did not.” I mean maybe once, but it wasn’t from very high.

“How do we know I wouldn’t be able to see the book?” Rhys ignored me entirely.

“Uh, we only get one shot at this and we need to go with the sure thing,” Lee replied. “Besides, we’re going to be invisible, so I seriously doubt I’ll die. Also, I’ve literally done this job before. I did it when I was eleven. I can do it now. And you can pull your weight and take our mother to see her godparents. It’s been twelve years since she’s seen them. How heartless are you?”

“I’m pretty sure from her point of view she saw them last Thursday,” Rhys shot back before turning to me. “Why can’t you wait for Dad?”

“I don’t want to.” I wasn’t about to point out that I had actually seen my godparents shortly before the world exploded. Nor was I going to tell him I wanted to ask Ingrid about time travel. It was becoming very obvious that I might not win this fight, and I also wasn’t going to break down in tears. Even though I wanted to. Rejection hurts, and rejection from someone I loved the way I did Rhys hurt like hell. I would need to regroup on this one. I stepped back. “I’ll ask Neil to go with me.”

I turned and started back toward Neil’s house. I heard my sons whispering behind me.

“You made Mom cry.” Lee’s whisper wasn’t much of a whisper.

“I didn’t mean to.” At least Rhys sounded like he felt guilty. “I just think it’s a bad idea.”

“Well, a worse idea is letting her run off on her own,” Lee pointed out.

“She won’t do…” Rhys groaned, a deeply frustrated sound.

“Yes, remember our childhood. If you think she won’t go and do exactly what she wants, you do not remember our mother,” Lee said.

“Then what do we do?” Rhys asked. “We can’t allow her to run around the countryside.”

It was my turn to argue. I turned and put my hands on my hips. I was still their mother. I didn’t let their fathers tell me what to do, and I wasn’t about to be shoved in a cage by my sons. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I’m not stupid. I won’t go off on my own, but I assure you that Neil and I have handled many a dangerous situation. We were doing it long before you were born. I wanted to spend the afternoon with you, Rhys. If that’s not what you want, then I understand, but if you think for a single instant that you can allow me to do something, you have forgotten your childhood. Go do what you need to do. Trust me. Your fathers won’t blame you for whatever I do or I’ll remind them who I am.”