Page 16 of Moonlight's Mate
“Unless it’s the only sign,” argued the quartet baritone, a black bear wereling who conveniently went by the name Barry. The other two black bears nodded.
Orson threw up his hands with a grizzly-sized grunt which clearly did not impress the others. He fixed Beck and Merrilee with a stare. “What are you two doing?”
Beck tried to choke out an answer, but Merrilee slipped in front of him gracefully. “We gathered some iron antiques for weapons.” She grinned at Orson. “Claudia said you can come pick them up whenever.”
A flush colored the old man’s cheeks. “Ain’t got a truck.”
“Borrow Beck’s.” While the grizzly grumbled, she went behind the bar and served up a round of plain waters. “So tell us, what did you boys smell?”
“That imp was creeping around for a couple days at least,” Barry said while the quartet clambered onto stools in front of her.
Orson drank deep before rubbing his nose. “It was a subtle thing, which I suppose makes sense for a spy. Wouldn’t have known what I was smelling if it hadn’t died in my backyard.”
“Any pattern?” Beck didn’t take the fifth water, and Merrilee arched a brow at him.
Orson pulled a small, tattered notebook from his pocket. Flipping past pages of musical notations, he paused on a sketched map of the town. “Caught the oldest scent here.” He pointed at the mouth of the valley. “Anything earlier was lost in the comings and goings. Lot of traffic there. Anyway, it skipped up the valley, back and forth.” He zigzagged his finger along the map, stopping when he got to the Sun-Down at the end of the road.
“Searching,” Merrilee said.
“For what?” Beck scowled at the map. “It was digging through my garbage.”
She deliberately did not look at him. “Maybe we should have held it for questioning.”
“Next time a three-legged spider thing tries to stab you,youcan hold it for questioning.” But even as he said it, the thought of her wrestling the imp with its stabbing claws made what was left of his erection wither.
She gave him a glance that would have cooled any lingering ardor. “I’ll do that.”
“Maybe they won’t come back,” Barry said.
Orson snorted. “The fae don’t back down.”
“Neither do we,” Merrilee said.
Beck looked at the pattern on the paper. The imp had stopped at the bar only because he had stumbled upon it. But the zigzag had been headed in one direction: toward the mountains.
Toward the lake village. Toward Merrilee.
***
Why did she feel such a need to poke him?
Merrilee watched while Beck outlined a sentry schedule for the quartet and a few others they trusted to keep quiet. No sense worrying the town’s wereling population into an uproar about creatures that were mostly a legend to them, much as they themselves were a fantasy to the unsuspecting humans.
She waited while he tossed Orson the keys to his truck and ushered the quartet out. Only then did she shakily settle on a bar stool, flattening one hand over her aching breasts.
She poked him because she wanted him to poke her with that long, thick, hard—
He slammed the door open, reentering the bar, and she jumped off the stool.
She just couldn’t back down. If she did, she might never want to get back up again.
And worse? She might like it.
“That imp was heading my way,” she said.
He nodded, his face impassive. “Now you know what to watch for. Or what to smell for, anyway.”
She wavered. Her smaller pack didn’t have the resources Beck’s did. If she tried to set up a watch, she’d quickly have a group of worn-out werelings who could be as much a danger to themselves as any fae.
