Page 36 of Moonlight's Mate

Page List

Font Size:

The circle appeared just outside the ring where Beck had burned the last one with iron, and he realized the mushrooms must have left spores he hadn’t seen. He hefted his spears, one in each hand. Next time, he’d be more thorough.

Merrilee did not move as the Lord of the Hunt strode from the circle, on foot this time, a myriad of fae behind him with their pale corpselights, and a line of his black-winged hunters behind them, as if in silent reminder about how the fae made corpses.

Beck’s muscles tensed, itching to throw the spear. But did they really want a war?

While the rest of the fae halted, the Lord of the Hunt approached Merrilee. “Well, Queen of Mutts, where is my alchemist?” At his voice, the evening chill seemed to spread in half-visible streamers across the parking lot.

“We found him,” she said.

An ember glinted deep in the fae lord’s stare. “And his treasure?”

She inclined her head. “Also found. And I am claiming him and his prize as my own.”

The fae stalked toward her. “You have no notion of what you are doing.”

“That has never stopped me before.” From somewhere in the folds of fiery silk, she produced two blades. The iron was rudely cast and brutal-looking, but the knives floated in her hands like dark flowers as she crossed them over her white-wrapped breasts.

The fae halted. “You move fast. The humans are never so quick to believe.”

She smiled. “You should see me when I’m mad.” The smile vanished, like a torch doused, leaving only cold determination. “We are not human, old hunter. You call us mutts? Maybe. We run through the night and the day with the same pleasure, creatures of both worlds.” She took her own step toward him. “And iron has never bothered us.”

The fae lord stiffened. Though his booted feet held firm, his antlered head canted back, away from the approaching blades. “What the alchemist has unleashed is not a thing of this world. It should be returned to our realm.” For a moment, his tone sounded almost plaintive.

“Where you can use it to open the way back here at your whim? I think not.” She took another step.

Beck swallowed a shout of alarm and sprang after her, flanked by a handful of his people on one side and a few of hers on the other.

Their arrow of iron forced the fae lord to retreat. But if the lurking black wings took to the air, there weren’t enough werelings to contain them.

The fae shook his antlers with obvious dismay. “If you think our queen will be stopped by mere threats—”

“Not mere threats.” She strode toward the fae,spreading her arms with blades at the ready. “And definitely not alone.”

She pointed at the lake.

From the water a bubbling circle appeared, rapidly widening with arching sparks, an algae bloom of silver and violet unfurling across the dark surface.

And from the middle burst a horse and right behind a confusing clash of black and white wings so it almost seemed the horse was flying.

The fae lord reeled back at the sudden appearance. His scream was piercing. “Traitor!”

The hunters behind him launched skyward, their leathery pinions battering the air like a sudden storm.

Beck and the other werelings raced to Merrilee’s side as the newcomers emerged from the lake, shaking off mere speckles of water as if they’d only come through a drizzle, not a mountain lake. A dozen fae were led by the traitor—Vaile, the rogue hunter, with a white-winged woman behind him—plus the rider who fired a stinging round of buckshot toward the fae lord’s circling killers.

Beck smelled the iron burning the air even as one of the killers screamed in pain, wing-pierced. Orson must have brought the human Josh Reimer along. As if his name had conjured him, Orson and the rest of his quartet lumbered from the lake, already in the midst of the verita luna,their grizzled hides gleaming with diamond droplets.

The fae lord and his followers milled, caught between the iron-armed werelings and the new arrivals whose spore-sprouted entrance had been hidden by the dark waters.

Beck caught Merrilee’s arm. “You were scattering the spores in the lake. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Nally wasn’t sure it would work, if Vaile would be able to find the portal from his valley.” She shrugged him off. “I might have gotten pulled into the fae realm instead.”

His heart thrashing in his chest, Beck grabbed for her again.

But the Lord of the Hunt was not finished, even as Reimer’s rifle boomed again and another killer spiraled out of the sky while the werelings advanced with their spears. “I’ll take you back with me, traitor,” the horned fae shouted. “Queen Ankha will have her way.”

“Not this way,” Beck growled. “This is our valley.”