Page 26 of Moonlight's Mate
She couldn’t help but answer his smile even though she suspected he was trying to humor her out of worrying. But there was a lot to worry about: killer fae,poisonous mushrooms, not to mention a sexy Alpha on her turf.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 8
Pacing beside Merrilee back toward her cottage, Beck passed a couple of spears to her pack mates, keeping two for himself. At the porch, he handed them the rest of the makeshift weapons. “Be sure all your strongest have one.”
They slanted a glance at Merrilee, but she merely nodded, so they took the weapons and headed down the street.
He clenched his jaw, knowing she was going to rip into him—and rightly so—for ordering her people around. Instead she opened the front door and walked in. She glanced back. “You coming?”
Surprise held him frozen a moment then he jumped after her.
Yeah, he was always scrambling to keep up with her.
In the front office space, Peter and the doctor were hunched in front of Merrilee’s computer while Keisha paced. The coffeepot from the kitchen called into late-night service dinged as if on cue, and the Beta distributed cups to everyone while Merrilee summed up the encounter at the lake.
“Okay, this seems bad.” Peter swiveled back to the computer. “Based on what Eldon here was able to tell me and some poking around, I think we might just have had a fae invasion months ago and not even known.” He pulled up two satellite images of a typical Oregon valley, lush with trees on the ridges and boasting rich bottom land with a meandering stream. The images were identical—except one had a large, elegant house lording over the valley. “These images were taken a week apart. And there’s no road. How did a house appear basically overnight?” He waited a beat. “Magic.”
Merrilee grunted. “A fae rancher glamoured a McMansion for himself in the middle of Oregon?”
“Oh, it’s real enough,” Peter said. “Even if it doesn’t appear on any records anywhere. I think this is the fae rogues’ stronghold. Look at this.” He pulled up another image of the same valley from a higher altitude. The light picked out the very faintest pattern in the long grass around which a small herd of black cows grazed. The ring looked very similar to the toadstools Beck had just stomped out.
“Crop circle,” Peter said with great satisfaction.
“So. Beef-loving aliens or fae.” Merrilee rubbed her forehead, knocking the flower out of her hair.
With lightning reflexes, Beck caught it before it hit the ground. He kept the flower, but he ran his other hand up under her hair, closing his fingers gently on the tension at the back of her neck.
For a moment, she stiffened in affront, the tiny hairs at her nape riffling against his sensitized fingertips, but as he massaged, she let out an almost inaudible sigh. Her skin, chilled from the night air, warmed to his touch.
Meanwhile, her gaze didn’t shift from the screen. “Where is it, if thisisVaile’s valley?”
Peter widened the view, skimming past other landmarks and property divisions. “Few hours’ drive from here, no more. Except for the no road thing. Which of course isn’t a problem if we walk in.”
Merrilee took another breath and knocked Beck’s hand away as she turned, one hand already at the neckline of her dress, ready to toss it away. “Let’s go then.”
He caught her elbow. “No.”
Damn it, the tension flowed back in an instant. He felt it expand all through the room, even to Nally who was not her pack. She triggered that kind of devotion in every wolf-kind she met.
He should know.
He dropped her elbow. “You’re needed here. I’ll send Orson.”
Merrilee shook her head. “Bear-kind are slower.”
“Not that much slower, and he knows more about the fae than any of the rest of us.”
She chewed her lip, and he knew she must be exhausted to display that indecision.
“I could go,” Nally offered. “I could explain most clearly what has happened.”
The hint of uncertainty gone except for the redder mark on her already red lips, she shook her head. “The Lord of the Hunt probably suspects you are here, hiding among us, and hopes to flush you out. We’re not going to fall for that.”
“But it’s my fault the fae are here at all.” Nally hunched his shoulders. “I had good intentions creating the spores, but the road to hell…”
“Not an entire road yet,” Beck reassured him. “Just a few portals to the fae realm.”
