Page 22 of Moonlight's Mate
Nally gave him an arch, professorial look. “Haven’t you wondered why werelings are almost pathologically healthy, happy and whole?”
Merrilee shook her head. “Pathologically?”
Nally started to pace, revving up to lecture mode. “How can werelings, who should by rights suffer the worst sort of dissociative disorders and existential alienation, be so all together most of the time?”
Beck slanted a glance at Merrilee, who lifted her brow. They were both thinking of one wereling who wasn’t “all together.”
Nally didn’t seem to notice the silent exchange. “Because”—he continued on the same breath as he wheeled to face them again—“they are perfectly in tune with the magic inside them.”
Beck shook his head in a human gesture of denial, while Merrilee said, “It’s not magic.”
Nally waved his hand again, more vigorously. “Please don’t pretend that the words themselves make any difference,” he said, repeating her. “The verita luna—our Second Truth—gives us a unique access to a deeper reality to open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts.”
His animation faltered. “There are some—traumatized humans, werelings who can’t find their verita luna,and others—who might be saved by my discovery.”
Beck sensed the wave of sadness that gave the lone wolf-kind’s scent a minor note. Merrilee must have felt it too because she let her disbelieving stance soften. “So you produced a psychedelic mushroom to imitate the sensation of being a wereling?”
Nally shook his head. “Not just imitate. Become.”
Her hands clenched into fists. “What do you mean, become?”
“The spore therapy can trigger the verita luna in werelings who have troubles with shifting.” He shuffled his bare feet in the loam. “And it seems to initiate a similar effect in humans.”
Beck’s surprised whine was half lost in Merrilee’s incredulous, “What? Impossible.”
Nally hastened on. “The spores shouldn’t affect the fae.Except they can apparently hijack the ‘journey facet,’ as I call it, and open portals on a whim between their realm and ours. Which is how I accidentally summoned them to my lab. It seems the fae queen wants my discovery as part of her scheme to take over the sunlit world.”
Merrilee sputtered. “Take over?”
Nodding, Nally pocketed the vial again. “Her emissary offered me everything my heart desires. Except…” His plain brown eyes darkened. “Except they couldn’t give me what I really wanted.” He lifted his chin. “And I know better than to make midnight deals with fairies. I gathered the spores, pretending I was willing to trade, but instead I flung a handful of iron fillings I’d been using for some electromagnetic experiments at the fae.I grabbed the spores and I ran. And now I’m here.”
The story seemed to deflate him, and he sank back to the stump.
Merrilee looked at Beck, who flattened his ears to echo the worry in her eyes.
Reaching for the whiskey bottle, Nally said, “The emissary mentioned—just an angry aside, but I take good notes—that some fae who had fled their queen’s rule had taken up residence out this way. I thought if I could find this Vaile’s valley, I might find a haven.”
Beck exchanged another glance with Merrilee, and she shook her head slightly. “Doesn’t ring a bell with either of us. But our people will start sniffing around.”
Nally glanced up. “You’ll help?”
“A fae fight spilling out into our world? That’s a change, and I want to know what it means.” She paused, head cocked.
Beck lifted his head, matching her tension. Then he heard it too.
A howl, drifting on the wind. Faint, far away.
And afraid.
Chapter 7
Merrilee knew Beck and Nally were close behind, but she didn’t glance back, not even when she smelled blood from the doctor’s tender paws. Her pack cried out for her, and she would not slow.
Still, despite the impulse hauling her homeward, she sensed Beck’s powerful presence behind her like the bow of a shockwave giving her fresh energy when the night’s miles wore at her.
They crested the ridge above the valley—she and Beck side by side, with Nally a short way behind. She scanned the village. All the house lights blazed, and an unfamiliar line of lights—coldly wavering—spiraled through the darkness near the lake.
They raced down the hill toward the back of her cottage, shifting as they hit the edge of the trees.
