Page 61 of Broken Veil
Mary hooted and slapped his shoulder. “Listen to you.” She turned to Naida. “You might be a stranger, but not for long. I’m Mary, and if you need anything, you’ve only to call on me.” She took Naida’s hand, and the moment their skin touched, Mary stilled. Her smile fell. “Mother of God, what’ve I done?”
“You are right—I am not human,” Naida whispered. “But you’ve no obligation, Mairi a gael. I can see that your heart is as bright as your smile.”
Mary seemed to relax, but her joy turned to suspicion when Godrik and Cadell walked from around the back of the van, carrying duffel bags and an odd collection of weapons. “Duncan, what’s going on?”
“Och, Mary.” He scratched his beard and winced. “I don’t suppose Andrew’s noticed anything… odd about the place, has he?”
“Not that he’s mentioned to me, but you know how tight-lipped the man?—”
“Duncan!”
A man half as tall as Godrik but nearly as wide walked out from the side of the house, pointing at Duncan.
“You arse!” the burly man said. “You bring a dragon, a wolf, and a fae to this house and you don’t even call to warn us?”
Naida turned to Mary with wide eyes. “Your husband is an ogre?”
Laura and Carys spoke at once. “A what?”
Duncan regularly referred to his grounds keeper as an ogre, but Carys had always considered it a playful insult or a figure of speech.
“Oh, he’s quite tame.” Mary scrunched up her nose. “Tame-ish.”
“Tame… for an ogre?” Naida murmured.
“Wait, ogres are real too?” Laura’s face was a picture of delight. “This country is fantastic!”
“Andy, I can explain.” Duncan raised his hands. “There was a misunderstanding, and Carys thought she was making a bargain with a fae—a dangerous but reasonable bargain—and it ended up being… a little more complicated.”
“There’s a damned fae fort rising in the south. There’s a sea monster in Yorkshire.” Andy pointed his finger and shoved it under Duncan’s nose. “And now you’re bringing a Shadowlands menagerie to my woods, and I find imps and redcaps sneaking through the trees. I had to smash two of the buggers this morning. What the fuck is going on?”
“Technically they are my woods,” Duncan said. “But you’re correct. The Morrígan is loose in the Brightlands and trying to weaken the gates from this side.”
Andy’s face went pale, and Carys wasn’t sure, but there might have been a slight greenish tinge to his skin.
Lachlan added, “So things are starting to sneak through. That sea monster in Yorkshire was one of them.”
Mary walked over and Andy grabbed her around the waist, gripping her to his side as he bared teeth that were distinctly lesshuman than Carys would have expected for the average Scottish groundskeeper.
Right. So ogres were definitely a thing that existed.
“Andy, calm down,” Duncan said. “That’s why we’re here. We need help and?—”
“I had enough of the bloody fae when I left that place.” Andy glanced at Naida. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Naida already had her shoes off and had walked onto the lawn in front of the manor house. “Your woods are very beautiful. I can tell the trees are deeply happy with you as their steward.”
Andy said nothing, but his expression softened.
“This is my fault.” Carys stepped forward. “And I’m so sorry that I have brought anything bad to Murrayshall House. Or the woods. But I’m trying to figure out a way to get the Morrígan back to the Shadowlands so the Brightlands stay safe from giant serpents and ancient Celtic war gods.”
Andy nodded. “Appreciate that.”
“We should go through the gate tonight,” Duncan said. “But right now I need something to eat and bed.” He grabbed Carys’s hand and led her inside the house. “The rest of you, make yourselves at home.”
Duncan hadhis eyes closed and his feet sticking out of the tub in the bathroom of the vast suite that was the laird’s bedchamber at Murrayshall House.
“Carys?”
