Page 7 of Moonlight's Mate
He was arrogant, but he wasn’t stupid.
She forced herself to exhale slowly, as if she could force out the scent of him lingering in her chest. If the stock tank had been nearby, she might have voluntarily jumped in to wash herself clean.
She shifted, letting the verita luna cover her bare skin. When her momentary blindness cleared, Beck was standing, watching her, the wariness still in his eyes. He did not shift, wisely, since in her present state she might have struck.
Instead, she ran.
Chapter 3
Beck watched her flee. Although she would no doubt object to the wordflee.Her tail was flagged high with fury. But he’d only spoken the truth.
He just couldn’t seem to keep his mouth closed—not any more than he could keep his jeans buttoned—around Merrilee Delemont.
Trudging back down the mountain with his damp T-shirt in his hand, he listened for the soft thud of paws in the forest around him. But he heard nothing beyond the usual night rustlings. She had probably continued up the mountain. Her pack’s small village of log cabins, A-frame cottages, and a tiny restaurant with incongruously fine dining was clustered near a picturesque high lake that was a popular destination for hikers, anglers, photographers and horseback riders up for a daytrip from town. There were no formal guest accommodations, of course; Merrilee didn’t encourage sleepovers.
He made a low noise in the back of his throat, his indignation keeping him warm despite the cool night breeze.
At the line of trees behind the bar, he paused in the shadows to make sure no one was hanging around—he was still naked since he had no interest in donning the muddy, spit-slimed shirt—and he finally heard an out-of-place noise back near the dumpster and his Harley where he’d shifted.
If Merrilee was messing with his favorite pair of comfortable, old, button-fly jeans…
He raced toward the disturbance, thinking only as he rounded the corner that Merrilee on the prowl never made noise unless she wanted to be heard.
And he came face to—face to eyeball?—with a keg-sized, three-legged spider thing perched on the dumpster. Like no shifting creature he’d ever seen before, its body was roughly oblong and dotted with long, stiff hairs. One of its skinny, barbed legs was thrust through a limp cabbage he’d thrown out.
The impaled cabbage looked far too much like a head. Creepy.
Almost as creepy as the single palm-width eyeball atop its body. The sclera glistened white as a broken bone in the moonlight.
He skidded to a halt, nonplussed. The spider thing, disturbed from its snacking, flung the cabbage at him.
He dodged easily, glad Merrilee had gotten his blood pumping earlier, and the old produce flapped past. The spider thing scuttled off the dumpster, its hard-tipped claws clattering loudly in the still night. It sprang away, tipping over the Harley.
Okay, now he was creeped out and pissed. And a little worried. The Fat Boy was a big machine, and the spider thing had dumped it like it was a vintage Vespa.
The creature scrambled toward the street, Beck in pursuit.
Creepy things were not allowed to creep around his territory.
So late at night, the town was quiet, slumbering, only a few porch lights still glowing. Good thing. He didn’t want the unsuspecting human population to see this obviously unnatural thing.
Plus, he wished he’d stopped to put on his pants.
The spider ran straight down the middle of the road. For a three-legged thing, it was fast, preternaturally so.
But then, so was he. He realized, when it rotated as it ran to eyeball him again and then put on a fresh burst of speed, that it was at least semi-sentient.
He’d lose the creature if he shifted. In the blurred time he needed to cross into the verita luna,it could dart any direction and be gone. But he wasn’t sure he could keep up.
He needed to hasten the shift and hold his focus for those crucial moments. He just needed a concentration point… He thought of Merrilee, stumbling unaware upon this creature as she sneaked back to steal his jeans.
Between one footfall and the next, he shifted.
The pain and dazzle of the verita luna almost made him stumble. Only furious stubbornness kept him on the pavement.
As his vision cleared, sure enough, the spider thing was veering toward an alley.
Beck lunged, right behind it, with all four paws digging into the gravel.
