Moon Shimmers(36)

“Do you think he’ll cause problems for anybody who comes to the beach?” I asked. “We can’t just run away and not deal with the aftermath, if there is one.”

“I think we can contact Chase and have him talk to the sheriff or cops or whoever’s in charge up here and maybe they can shut down the beach for a few days until things blow over.”

“I’m going to talk to Grandmother Coyote about this,” I said. “I don’t want anybody else hurt if we can help it, and that sucker is now both awake and angry.”

With that, I shifted gears and we headed back the way we had come, toward Seattle.





ONCE WE WERE back on the mainland, off the island, we found a service station and stopped to both get gas and give the men a chance to change out of their wetsuits. I stayed in the car, my thoughts back with the Primordial Fae. How many of his kind were out there in the world, sleeping until something startled them awake again? He was huge and deadly, but not evil. Danger didn’t always wear the face of a sociopath or villain.

“You’re worried about K’thbar, aren’t you? That he might rampage across Camano Island?” Trillian asked me as they returned to the car. He was riding shotgun.

I eased back onto the road, maneuvering past a stalled vehicle as I slowed down to make sure nobody was hurt. The driver was standing beside the passenger door and when he saw me, he held up his cell phone and waved me on.

“Yeah, I am. I had hoped to get through this without waking him up, but I have no clue what’s going to happen now. He didn’t come ashore after us, so I’m hoping he really is water-bound, but I don’t want to take any chances.” I fell silent again.

Truth was, I was thinking about more than K’thbar. We now had all nine of the spirit seals. Everything was getting more real by the moment. Once I had the Keraastar Diamond, I had no idea what I was supposed to do about the Keraastar Knights. Everybody seemed to assume that I’d know what to do, but I had no clue. And according to legend, the Knights were supposed to go up against Shadow Wing. If that was true, then did it mean I’d be leading them into battle? There were so many variables to my near future that I wanted to curl up in my bed and just hide until it was over and settled.

But instead of telling him what I was thinking, I just said, “We owe Shimmer a big favor. She put her life on the line for us. We’re going to have to figure out a way to thank her. She doesn’t have a stake in this—not really. And yet she helped us out, and she probably saved my life down there by catching me when the blast shot me through the hull.”

“Speaking of which, how are your bruises feeling?” Morio leaned into the front seat, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.

“Painful. I now know what a battering ram feels like.” I snorted. “It’s an event I could happily go through life without ever experiencing again. And I still have to run with the Hunt tonight.” I had been so rattled that the energy of the approaching full moon hadn’t registered, but now that I was in the car and safe, I began to feel the magnetic call of the Moon Mother.

“I, too, my love,” Morio softly said.

“True.”

Ever since Morio had been initiated as my Priest-Consort under the Moon Mother’s eyes, he had been swept up in the Hunt with me. It was something special we shared, just like I shared a beneath-the-skin connection with Trillian that had been forged years ago during the Eleshinar Ritual, when we had been tattooed body-wide to connect our spirits. The tattoos had faded into our cells, vanishing below the surface of our skin, but the bonding ritual had drawn us together. And with all my husbands, I had been soul-bound. We had chosen to create a quartet that, should one of us be killed, we all would know. As time went on, we would also be able to find the others if they were lost or captured.

My stomach rumbled. “I’m starving. Trillian, grab me a candy bar out of the glove compartment?” I kept a variety of energy bars and candy bars around. Even with half-human heritage, my appetite was huge. All the Fae ate more than humans, and we burned it off.

He fished around in the glove compartment and brought out an Almond Joy, unwrapping it for me and handing me the pieces. I liked sweets, but they weren’t my favorite—I preferred savory—but the energy would do me good and I had developed a taste for the coconut and chocolate mix.

As I ate, my body responded to the food, and finally, I was clear-headed enough to drive the rest of the way home without worrying.





FIRST THING I did was put in a call to Chase and ask him to check with Camano Island to see if there had been any incidents reported at the state park. They had responded no, and so I decided to pay a quick visit to Grandmother Coyote. I entrusted Delilah and the men to watch over the spirit seal while I was gone. I’d take care of my injuries when I returned, I promised them.