Page 52 of Elven Throne

But she would stay beside him through all of it. She’d made that silent promise to them both and fully intended to keep it.

When they rounded the back corner of the farmhouse, the sight spreading out before them would have filled her with awed gratitude and relief under normal circumstances.

Rebecca’s capacity for feeling such things had filled nearly to bursting, thanks to her connection with the shifter and his endless storm of emotions far too complex to grasp.

But she could still appreciate the beauty of this place, regardless.

Calling it a back yard would have been a massive understatement.

This single property was so much larger and more expensive than immediately visible from the front. Open farmland stretching out behind the house nearly as far as she could see, all the way up to the woods trailing in a line acres away, with the barely audible rush of a river softly underlying the odd chirp of crickets and the constant cicada droning apparently unaffected by the sunrise.

The property lines marked by high fences in the distance surrounded at least ten acres, though probably more, behind the farmhouse. Settled a quarter-mile back beside a thick row of blackberry brambles was a two-story barn. The window in the loft hung open to let in the buzzing, lazily muggy air.

Behind that was a second barn, though, Rebecca couldn’t see much through the thick trees that had sprouted up around it.

To the east were several cornfields, the crops already immensely high. To the west stretched a seemingly endless sea of golden wheat stalks swaying in the breeze, even with the growing burden of wheat-heads bending them toward the ground.

Comfortably spaced apart within the back yard surrounded by the growing crops, several other outbuildings dotted the freshly mowed grass. Doubtful these were working barns in the traditional sense. There was no sound of animals or hint of their odor in the air. Just the muggy, sweet scent of the lawn now dry after the morning dew had long since dissipated and the wheat fields in the distance.

Though Rebeccadidspot a small, thin-looking dog trotting across the back of the property, the animal could have belonged to anyone.

Something told her, in this part of the state, leash laws and the fear of strange animals on one’s property were far less prevalent here.

All that she took in just at a first quick glance.

Closer to the main house were a dozen or more picnic tables scattered randomly, with plenty of remaining space to double their numbers.

Among the other outbuildings, Rebecca recognized the differences in a number of erected yurts and small trailers parked along the property, clothes lines strung up between them and the outer edges of narrow fences.

Apparently, they’d stepped into some kind of compound, or at least a property that frequently housed large groups of visitors on a regular basis.

Orguests, as Maxwell had made abundantly clear.

Shade members milled around the open space, shuffling across the grass, eyeing their new temporary sanctuary with curiosity dampened by exhaustion. Plus the fact that no direction had been given, leaving a suspended uncertainty lingering over the entire situation.

Only the pulsing buzz of cicadas and the faint rush of the river beyond the property’s stretching line of trees in the distance filled the otherwise peacefully lulled air.

Then a door at the back of the farmhouse opened, letting out another flood of the same overpowering odor of the meal cooking inside. An exterior screen door creaked slightly as it opened next, then the same gray-haired man who hadn’t actually greeted them on his front porch stepped into the muggy shade of his house, his boots clomping across the much smaller wooden deck in the back.

This time, a woman joined him. About the same age, though her hair was mostly a rich dark brown with streaks of aging gray, the top of it pulled back in a loose half-ponytail behind her head. She also wore jeans and leather work boots, though whether she preferred the button-down long-sleeved shirts like her partner was unclear; she’d also donned a thin gray sweater.

But she stopped beside the gray-haired man to stand at his right, tall and proud and watchful as she surveyed the unexpected strangers now turned refugees inhabiting the back of her property.

A shifter matriarch, perhaps? Rebecca could only guess. She knew nothing of Maxwell’s world and constantly reminded herself of that.

For all intents and purposes, she might as well have been on a different planet altogether.

After a long, silent moment of studying the Shade members scattered haphazardly across the back lawn, the gray-haired man finally lifted his chin and inhaled deeply through his nose.

In a proud, steady voice enhanced by commanding authority, he announced, “We receive guests today and a request for refuge and shelter from those in need. The request has been accepted, seven days offered. Welcome them as you would welcome our own.”

The man’s voice seemed to fill the entire property like air pumped into a balloon.

Though it was heartening to hear they’d all been officially accepted as guests, the off-putting fact that he made such an announcement to an empty yard and empty fields beyond didn’t quite offer the same level of reassurance.

There was no one else here.

The creak of rusty hinges behind her made Rebecca turn toward the sound just as a door within the closest trailer opened slowly, followed by a wide-eyed woman in her early forties peeking her head out to assess the new guests. She was merely the first.

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