Those wise, dark eyes gazed into his. “I believe you’ll come to find them useful allies, Llyr.”
Which, coming from Merlin, sounded like a prophecy he didn’t dare ignore. He sighed. “Very well, then.”
“Good. They’re a decent lot, especially King Arthur and his knights.” Merlin hesitated, his young face troubled. “But if there is ever trouble with them, we have created a safeguard race.”
“Another one?” He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. “Are they going to want to live on this Earth, too? Merlin—”
“Oh, no,” Nimue said quickly. “They’ll live among the humans on Mortal Earth. We call them Direkind. They’re a race of wolf-shifters.”
“If my guardians trouble you or try to enslave the mortals for whatever reason, you’ll find allies in the Direkind.” Merlin spread his hands in a graceful gesture. “They will help you deal with Magekind, should it ever come to that.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Llyr said coolly.
“I’m sure it won’t,” Nimue said. “So. We must say our farewells then.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” Merlin said. “Our work on mortal Earth is complete. We have another race to attend to now.”
“Ah. Safe journey to you, then.”
“And good fortune to you, King Llyr Galatyn,” Merlin said. He lifted a slender hand, and a dimensional gate swirled into being before them. With an offhand wave, he and Nimue stepped into it. Even as they did so, Llyr thought he saw the aliens become something…else. Then the gate was gone.
He sat a long time, wondering exactly what it was he’d seen.
ONE
The Grand Palace of the Cachamwri Sidhe, Mageverse Earth
The 1604th year of Llyr Galatyn’s Reign
Llyr opened his eyes to see a woman standing over him in slim and glorious nudity, her body gleaming in the moonlight. As is the way in dreams, he didn’t question who she was or what she was doing in his chamber. He only gazed at her and felt his need rise.
She was all lithe muscle, like a young cat, with small, sweet breasts and rose nipples rising flushed and swollen. But it was her scent that teased him to full, aching hardness—the scent of woman and deep forests and wild, ancient magic.
And passion, feral and urgent.
Yet though desire surged in response to her body, her eyes drew his soul. Almost too big for her sensual face, they shone wolf-pale under the darkness of her short-cropped black hair.
“I’m in need,” she said in a low voice that seemed to cup his sex in heat. She had the most erotic mouth he’d ever seen—full, sweetly curved, naked of paint. “Will you make love to me?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” Llyr watched hungrily as she slid onto his bed with the weightless grace of someone far stronger than she should be. “We’re going to be together,” he told her, knowing this was more vision than dream. “Soon, we’ll meet each other.”
“Not soon enough,” she said, her eyes going even paler until they glowed like molten silver. “I burn tonight.”
“Come to my arms then,” he said, reaching for her. “And I’ll make you burn even brighter.”
She slid the length of his body, her skin so hot and smooth, he gasped in pleasure. “You’re beautiful,” she murmured, tracing long, slender fingers over the curve of his chest. “Are you real?”
“As real as you, my dream,” he said, and cupped one sleek breast. She sighed and let her head fall back. He sat up and drew her astride him, groaning at the sensual delight of her silken backside settling over his thighs. A cool breeze blew into his face from the open window, blending the scent of Sidhe roses and the potent musk of her arousal. A fountain tinkled from the courtyard, a backdrop for her sigh.
Her witchy gaze captured him again, silver with magic. She bent to kiss him, her mouth wet and burning. Llyr set himself to pleasure her, swirling his tongue between her teeth. Her corner teeth were oddly sharp, but he didn’t care.
He caught the back of her head in one hand. Her hair was as soft as a cat’s fur against his fingers, and he stroked it, loving the sensation. Discovering the sensitive whorls of one delicate ear, Llyr stopped to explore. Unlike his own, it wasn’t pointed. “You’re human,” he murmured.
“Not really,” she whispered, and pulled back to look at him with those burning silver eyes.
It was then that he knew. “Oh,” he said, “that’s going to be a problem.”
King Llyr Aleyn Galatyn jolted awake to find himself naked and alone, his cock hard as a broadsword. He looked around wildly, but all he saw was the pale gleaming marble and gem-inlaid wood of his chamber. His magical lover had vanished, as if she’d never been there at all.
Which of course, she hadn’t been.
He fell back against his silken pillows with a huff of frustration, eying his rampant prick. It seemed to eye him back. “Yes, I know, I woke too soon,” he told it, smiling in reluctant amusement.
Then, with a sigh, he took his shaft in one royal hand and attended to the problem himself.
Diana London sat straight up in her bed, panting and sweat-damp.
The beautiful blond man was gone.
She rolled out of bed to stand in the moonlight, gasping with frustrated need. Every nerve burned with erotic hunger. She shut her eyes, remembering the way he’d looked sprawled across those dark sheets of his, his hair a fan of gold beneath his broad, muscular shoulders. He was built like a runner, lean and long and sculpted, with eyes that gleamed up at her like opals, filled with magical sparks of color. When they’d kissed, his wide, firm mouth moved against hers with such delicious skill, she ached even more just thinking of it.
And his cock…
Better not think about his cock. Not when she was alone with the Burning Moon blazing in her blood.
She’d never had a dream so intense, so real. So erotic. The need for release burned in her blood until her skin felt small and tight.
Diana glanced at the nightstand where she kept the vibrator that had become a necessity since her Burning Moon began. She grimaced. The dream had ignited a hunger cold plastic couldn’t soothe.
She needed to run.
Diana strode naked to the window and jerked up the sash so hard, the glass reverberated with a booming rattle. A cool breeze blew in, chilling the sweat on her body as she stared out into the night. The moon rode full over the shadowed trees behind her house. A whippoorwill called, its voice high and mournful in the darkness, sounding as lonely as she felt. Traffic sighed from the interstate. Somewhere a train whistle blew a long, wailing note.
The wooden privacy fences on either side of the yard were higher than a man’s head. No one could see her.
Stepping back, Diana closed her eyes and concentrated. Magic raced over her body in a wave of burning sparks. She caught her breath in a gasp as muscle knotted and bones and reshaped themselves. Sinking to the floor, she felt the telltale itch of fur rippling its way across her skin.
When Diana opened her eyes again, she was a wolf.
Bounding through the window, she began to run on four swift paws, trying to escape her clawing need for the dream man’s touch.
“It’s bald-faced police harassment, is what it is!” Clara Davies leaned onto the podium and glared. Her thin, wrinkled face was so flushed, Diana was half afraid she’d keel over where she stood. Even her carefully teased blue-tinted perm vibrated with her rage.
At the front of the room, the seven members of the Verdaville City Council wore expressions of polite skepticism. Diana gave silent thanks that the council was pleased with her work as city administrator, or Davies’s accusations might have met with a different reception.
Which wasn’t going to stop the old bat from trying to take Diana down anyway.
Clara pointed a gnarled finger in her direction. “That woman has ordered the police to torment my Roger. He can’t set foot out the door without one of this city’s hick cops pullin’ him over or charging him with beating up on some tramp.”
&nb
sp; “Diana,” Mayor Don Thompson said, making a show of giving her an evenhanded stare. He was a tall man who’d probably been handsome in his youth, with spadelike hands and a long nose. In her more whimsical moments, Diana suspected he used that Romanesque snout to sniff the political winds. “Is there any truth to this?”
She fought to keep her angry frustration off her face. Dealing with idiots didn’t normally bother her, but it was her Burning Moon, and her patience wasn’t what it should be. “No one is harassing Mrs. Davies’s son, Mayor Thompson. Roger has a hot temper, and he’s a bit too willing to take it out on his girlfriends, the police, and anybody with the bad fortune to encounter him when he’s drunk. Which is most of the time, judging from his three DUIs in the past six months.”
“You see?” Clara shrilled, her wrinkled face going mottled. “Lies! Nothing but lies! My Roger does not drink. I raised him to be a good Christian boy. I did my duty!”
“I’m sure you did,” Diana retorted coolly. “But he’s a man now, and you can’t control his behavior anymore.” If you ever did. “Which makes it our job.”
“Your job,” Clara sneered. “You’re not a real cop. You just like to put on that blue uniform and prance around giving people a hard time.” She turned a fulminating glare on Thompson. “I told you three years ago you shouldn’t hire her. Women have no business in positions of authority. She certainly doesn’t.”
“Now, Clara—” Thompson began.
“You listen to me, Don Thompson,” the old woman snapped, pointing a gnarled finger at him. “You tell her to quit passing herself off as a police officer and leave Roger alone, or I’m going to sue her and this city. And you, too!”
Gathering up her purse with a jerk, Clara wheeled around and stomped from the council chamber, her mint polyester slacks whispering with every step.
Well, that was over. Diana relaxed as the mayor announced the next item on the agenda, and the council segued into an argument over window treatments for City Hall.
After the confrontation with Clara, her head was pounding and her nails had grown beyond the limits of her champagne polish. She carefully fisted one hand around her Cross pen to hide them.
Most of the time, being Direkind was no big deal. The whole bit about turning into a ravening monster every full moon was a load of crap. She kept her human intellect even in wolf form, and she’d never killed anybody in her life.
In fact, eleven months out of the year, Diana actually enjoyed being a werewolf. It certainly came in handy in her job as volunteer police officer. Her nose for drugs and fleeing suspects had raised the Verdaville Police Department’s conviction rate 30 percent.
But one month a year, she went into the werewolf equivalent of heat as her hormones ran wild with the drive to mate. It was like PMS squared, with a side order of nymphomania.
All with no suitable male in sight.
That was when being Direkind seriously sucked. Her body demanded sex with such savagery, there were times she could barely resist the need to molest the first hapless male she met.
But somehow she’d always managed. She knew all too well that if she lost control, she could end up infecting somebody with Merlin’s Curse. And if he couldn’t handle it, her brother would have a duty to kill the poor bastard to keep him from exposing them all.
It was a tightrope Diana had been walking every year since she’d turned fourteen, including all five years as city manager of Verdaville and an even smaller town before that. You’d think it would start getting easier.
Instead it only got harder.
And listening to the council snipe about the merits of blinds over drapes wasn’t exactly helping. Diana jotted down notes, fighting to concentrate.
But despite her best efforts, her thoughts began to wander. The man’s powerful torso gleamed gently in the moonlight, muscles flexing in long ripples as he swept his silken blond hair back from an arrogantly handsome face. Opalescent eyes gleamed as he watched her come to him. “We’re going to be together,” he told her. “Soon, we’ll meet each other.”
Just the memory of his deep male purr drew Diana’s nipples into peaks under her blouse, making her glad for her linen jacket. When she crossed her legs in the matching charcoal slacks, she could smell her own heat.
God, if only there really was some safe, luscious sex god around to take the pressure off. The Burning Moon seemed worse this year than it ever had been before.
Glancing around the room, she saw a man in the audience staring at her, his eyes hot and glazed. Diana swore silently. Men weren’t consciously aware of her scent, but they still reacted to the pheromones her body produced during the Burning Moon. Which didn’t make the lust any easier to deal with.
“What do you think, Diana?” the Mayor asked.
Her eyes flicked back to the council table to see all seven members staring at her.
“That decision is up to the council. I’ll do whatever you direct.” After a delicate hesitation, she suggested, “Maybe this is a good time to bring the question to a vote.”
With the meeting over at last, Diana retreated to her office to pack up for the night. She was just collecting her purse when Thompson spoke from the door.
“Just wanted to let you know, we’re all real pleased with this month’s financial report,” the mayor said. “City’s in good, solid shape. Think we’ll be able to avoid a tax increase this year?”
She slung her purse strap over her shoulder and eyed him. This time of year, she never liked being alone with a man, even one a good thirty years older than she was. Not that she couldn’t handle him if he got obnoxious. Tall and wiry though Thompson was, her Direkind strength gave her the edge even in human form. Still, having to fend off a pass would certainly complicate her life.
“I haven’t finished compiling the budget, but I see no reason we’d need an increase,” she told him cautiously. “Revenues seem to be hitting the two million mark, which is enough to run the city.” Diana grimaced. “As long as the fire department doesn’t wreck another aerial truck, anyway.”
“Good. That’s real good.” Thompson’s bony face twisted into the good ol’ boy grin he often used to set opponents up for the kill. “Thing is, there’s more to running Verdaville than understanding budgets.”
Yeah? That’s not what you said three years ago, when you hired me to save your ass after you ran this town into the ground. “Oh?”
The grin faded. “You need to watch Clara Davies, Diana. Her son’s a bastard, but she’s got influence. She could stir up a whole lot of people if she takes it into her head. And we don’t need that kind of grief.”
Diana didn’t quite manage to bite the words back in time. “So, what? You want me to let Roger skate the next time he beats the snot out of his girlfriend?”
Thompson made a placating gesture with his big, spadelike hands. “Now, I didn’t say that, Diana. You’re a smart girl. You’ll do the right thing when the time comes.”
Steaming, she watched him flash that grin and saunter out of her office. I am a professional city administrator, Diana mentally chanted. Professional city administrators do not turn into wolves and bite the mayor on the ass.
Even when he really, really deserved it.
By the time Diana left the building, it was after ten P.M. and the city hall parking lot was deserted. As she locked the front doors, she looked up to scan the redbrick front of the building, automatically making sure none of the floodlights had burned out. Doric columns flanked either side of the two-story double doors, and the windows reflected her face, pale against the darkness.
Once upon a time, the structure had been the main office for a textile plant. Diana suspected its resemblance to a Southern plantation had been intended as a subliminal message from company management. Y’ all don’t get uppity, now. That message went double for the city’s employees, at least as far as the council was concerned.
“Hey, Diana!”
She turned to see a Verdaville police car pulling up to the curb beh
ind her. The blue Ford Crown Victoria bore the city’s coat of arms on its front doors, picked out in gold paint. “Hey, Jer! What can I do for you?”
The officer hooked one arm out his open window. “Chief needs you at a crime scene. Want to follow me?” Jerry Morgan was a short, stocky ex-Marine whose usual expression was a sly grin. Tonight he looked pale and tense.
Diana frowned. Jerry was a Desert Storm vet; he liked to say his tour of the Highway of Death had left him with a cast-iron stomach. Anything bad enough to make him blanch had to be pretty damn bad. “I’ll get my car,” she told him, and strode to the spot where she’d parked her ten-year-old Honda.
The trip did not take long. No drive within the Verdaville city limits did. Two minutes after leaving City Hall, they pulled into one of the mill villages that formed the core of the town.
The little clusters of homes had been built by the town’s textile plants as employee housing. Most of the four-room houses dated from the 1920s, when employees rented from the mills, picked up their mail in the mill office, and shopped in the company store. That lifestyle had slowly disappeared as Verdaville had grown. Even so, the town had been left with a gaping economic wound when the plants closed, one that still hadn’t healed two years after the last one shut its doors.
Plant closures or not, though, the villages were tight-knit little communities where everybody knew everybody else. Diana wasn’t surprised to see a crowd gathered outside the yellow police tape strung around one particular bungalow. Anywhere else, this kind of group would have worn avid expressions of morbid curiosity. Here, they visibly grieved for somebody they’d probably known all their lives.
She knew there would be relatives in the crowd, too, notified by neighbors the minute the cops pulled up—all of them ready to pounce on the first authority figure to show his or her face.
Sighing in resignation, Diana reached into her glove compartment for her badge and gun. After she and Chief Gist had reached their understanding, she’d obtained a commission as a reserve officer, training for six weeks in everything from how to shoot a gun to issuing traffic tickets. Such volunteer cops were invaluable to small-town departments that couldn’t afford much manpower, and Verdaville’s ten-man police force was no exception.
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