by Tami Lund
She looked out the window, watching for any signs of movement. She would not put it past her suspicious mate to hide out, waiting to see if she was lying. Normally, she never did anything to warrant his suspicion. Today was not one of those days.
But luck was finally on her side, as she was able to slip away from her home undetected.
She hurried through the snow, heading back to the beach house. As the sun gradually set, the wind picked up, warning of another snowfall heading their way. The temperature plummeted as well, causing the stone steps to be coated with ice. Not wishing to expend too much magic in the dark and in her delicate condition, Carley did not pull on her magic to eliminate the ice on the steps. She clung to the railing and made her way slowly and carefully to the top.
Just as she was about to place her foot on the top step, a figure suddenly appeared before her, glaring down at her and causing her heart to race at double speed.
“Miguel,” she gasped, startled at having been caught. And by him, no less.
“I knew I couldn’t trust you,” he snarled furiously. “I should never have taken your parents’ money. You haven’t been worth it from the beginning.” And with no warning whatsoever, he shoved her with both hands. As Carley went stumbling down the steps, her screams were lost in the whirling wind.
*
Reid paused on the third step and turned his head to check on Carley. She was still at the top of the staircase, her hand gripping the wooden handrail, her face starkly white. The look in her eye was pure, unadulterated fear. For a scant moment, Reid thought the guy who had abused her was in the vicinity, but a swift look around told him they were alone. He hurried back to her side.
“What’s wrong? What is it, Carley? Talk to me.”
She seemed to be paralyzed. Her mind was too. It was stuck in a vast pool of liquid fear. It was so strange that he could tell, could even describe what it felt like, but he didn’t focus on that. He concentrated on trying to help her. He placed his hand over the one holding the railing, and squeezed gently.
Her gaze focused on him. The absolute fear was still there. “I fell down these steps,” she whispered. “The pain…I—I nearly died.”
Okay, now he had an explanation. He could work with that. “I won’t let you fall again,” he promised. “I’ll be right here with you, the entire way. I’ll walk in front of you, and you hold onto my shoulders. How’s that?” He would have preferred to take her back to the beach house and set her up with a stiff drink, but the woman laboring in there was her princess, and Carley cared for her. Whatever process the healers were doing to get that pup out of her belly was not typical. Everyone was nervous and stressed. He knew Carley well enough to know she would want to do something to help, even if it was just getting to the bottom of this staircase to find another healer.
Cecilia and Finn stepped up and each peered over a shoulder. “What’s wrong with her?” Cecilia asked.
“She looks like she’s seen a ghost,” Finn remarked.
“More like a bad memory,” Reid said. “Come on, Carley. You can do this. Think about—think about horses. Surely you’ve heard that saying about riding a horse. Did you ever fall off a horse when you were a kid?” His voice was low pitched and steady. Soothing. Encouraging.
“I did, actually,” Carley managed to say. “It was a pony. Tiny thing. But so was I. Frightened the daylights out of me.”
“And did you ever ride a horse again?”
She nodded and squeezed his hand.
“I—I did. M-my father refused to let me cry. He lifted me up and plopped me right back on that pony’s back. I—I didn’t have a choice.”
Reid winced. It seemed she was never given a choice. Her entire life, she had never been allowed to make her own decisions.
“Well, if you don’t want to, we don’t have to go down these steps,” he said.
“It’s the only way to the village. I—I can’t fly, like you can.” Reid could shift into the form of a bird, if he were so inclined. He never had to climb those steps, ever. If only shifters could share their magic like lightbearers could. He would gladly give his to Carley, to help her over this debilitating fear.
“We don’t have to go.”
“We need another healer,” Carley replied, her voice slightly stronger. “I don’t want her to die.”
“She isn’t going to die.” He didn’t know that for certain, but it seemed like the right thing to say at the moment.
“We need a healer,” Carley repeated, taking a deep breath. She peered over the edge of the cliff, to the village far, far below. “We need a healer,” she said again, and Reid recognized it as a way of convincing herself to get back on that horse, of her own accord. He fell silent, and let her work it through in her mind.
After long minutes, she took another deep breath and nodded succinctly. “Okay. I’m going to try. It’s just a pony, right?” Her laugh was shaky.
“Maybe a miniature horse,” Cecilia remarked, watching her closely.
Carley barked out a nervous laugh. She still clung to the railing, but Reid could tell her mind was beginning to clear.
Reid stepped in front of her. “Put your other hand on my shoulder,” he commanded. “We’ll go slow. And if you slip, I’m here to catch you.”
“Thank you,” she said gratefully, and they began the slow descent.
Chapter 11
He watched them from the cover of the forest of trees located a few hundred yards north of the beach house. The swath of trees ran from the edge of the cliff to the road leading from the human world into the coterie, and it offered a surprisingly close hiding place for a lightbearer who preferred to stay within the safety of the coterie, but hidden from the rest of his kind.
Miguel Santiago had been there when the Chosen One died. When that shifter-lover, Cecilia Druthers, had stabbed him with her sword. How the fuck had she managed to conjure a sword, anyway?
The wound hadn’t killed him, at least not right away. No, it was a shifter, the female who was living with that quirky healer, Dane Metaldyne, who killed Miguel’s leader, his idol, his savior.
Miguel had a gambling problem. All his life, he had always been willing to bet on any damn thing. The betting always involved currency, and more often than not, he usually lost. But that didn’t stop him from continuing to try, from talking the tavern owner into sporting him a hefty loan, so he could bet on the underdog in the stable master’s horse race. He’d lost, of course, and eventually, the tavern owner demanded he make good on the loan.
That, as far as he was concerned, was the beginning of all his troubles. That was when Carley’s father had approached him about mating with his daughter. They had met through the Chosen One’s meetings, which Miguel had initially gone to simply out of curiosity. By the third meeting, he’d been hooked. The Chosen One was like a god; his beliefs, his plans, were scripture. He was brilliant.
Carley, according to her father, wasn’t falling into the fold as readily as her parents would have liked. Mating her to someone who was a devout believer struck them as a good idea. Somehow, he knew about Miguel’s debt, too, and sweetened the pot by offering to pay it for him. A fresh start. The tavern owner had begun to make vague threats to Miguel’s person, so he was starting to feel desperate.
Miguel knew her by sight, although he’d never actually spoken to her before. He didn’t really have interest in women, other than for the necessary physical release on occasion. Unfortunately for him, that apparently came across in his demeanor, so he didn’t have much luck at all with the female population. The idea of taking a mate, one he could mold to do whatever he wanted, was appealing. So too was the idea of being debt free, at least until the next race or boxing match or betting opportunity of any kind.
Unfortunately, the reality had been different from his fantasy. Carley had been deathly afraid of him, that first night, after the mating ceremony. He’d taken her innocence anyway, because hell, that’s what a guy deserved when he took a mate. It hadn’t been
particularly thrilling, but he’d gotten his rocks off. He kept trying, but she never really figured out what the hell to do, so their sex life had been pretty damn boring, frankly. He still managed to get off regularly, but there hadn’t been any creativity, anything interesting about it.
Last summer, when the Chosen One stepped up his meetings, began to get serious about his plans to take over the coterie, Miguel managed to catch the attention of a young female lightbearer who was just as devout a follower as he. Well, maybe not that devout, considering she was more interested in diddling with him during the meetings, instead of paying attention. He’d actually been pissed the first day she came on to him. He’d been running late for the meeting, and as a result, had been forced to stand in the back of the room, instead of up front, where he usually stood, at rapt attention, soaking in the Chosen One’s every word, every inflection, every dire warning about outside beings.
The first time he felt something brush against his groin, he assumed it was an accident. The second time, he’d been annoyed, because he really had been trying to pay attention to the meeting. But she had been persistent, and before the meeting was half over, her hand was stuffed into his pants, he had one hand pressed against the wall, and the other guiding her wrist faster and faster until he squeezed his eyes shut and bit his tongue to keep from groaning out loud, and then he came all over himself.
For little over a month that had been a regular occurrence, and Miguel found himself looking forward to the meetings for an entirely different reason. Until the day she asked him to go home with her, and he snorted and told her he was mated. She hadn’t been pleased to learn that little bit of information.
Carley never discovered an understanding of the Chosen One’s ways either, like her parents had hoped. As a result, they’d begun shunning him, had cut off the payments they had been making to his various debtors. Soon, he was knee-deep in debt again and had a mate who didn’t like him and was a pretty lousy lay. The girl on the side had lost interest, too.
The only thing he had going for him was the Chosen One. So he shifted his focus back to the meetings, moved to the front row again, drank in the dogma like wine. The Chosen One believed in Miguel, just as much as Miguel believed in him. When he confessed his issues, the Chosen One had suggested that once he became ruler over the coterie, he might dispose of Carley, so that Miguel was free to hook up with the younger hottie, despite her refusing to acknowledge his existence by that point.
That day Carley was supposed to stay resting at the cottage, he knew, he knew damn well she wouldn’t. The stupid bitch never did what she was supposed to. Shit, she was a great cook, but did she ever cook for him? And who the hell didn’t participate in sexual activities with their own mate? She was the worst possible mate he could have ever picked. Pushing her over the cliff had been the smartest decision he’d ever made in his entire life.
When the Chosen One was killed, Miguel had taken advantage of the chaos and fled. The shifters were rounding up followers left and right, and he had no idea what they intended to do with them. Probably eat them for dinner. They were a bunch of savage beasts, after all. No way was he going to be a snack for a freaking animal.
Unfortunately, he had no clue where to go, since he’d never left the coterie before. But he knew he couldn’t stay.
He’d made it to the bottom of the steps built into the cliff before he thought about his mate. He had paused, taken a moment to revel in the fact that he was now free. Free of everything, frankly. He could do whatever the hell he wanted. He could fuck whoever he wanted. Screw that little bitch who jerked him off during the Chosen One’s meetings and then gave him the cold shoulder when she found out he was mated to another. There were plenty of other willing women in the coterie.
Or outside it, he supposed. The reality was, he had to leave, because eventually the shifters would figure out he was one of the followers. Not to mention they would undoubtedly start looking for an explanation for the death of their favorite chef. It pissed him off that she saved her best dishes for those motherfuckers. Goddamn animals.
That was the point at which it occurred to him that there was no body. She had fallen down the steps and landed at the bottom, a broken doll lying in the snow. Except she wasn’t. Panic welled as Miguel strode around the area, searching for a sign of his dead mate. She was dead, right? She could not have possibly survived that fall.
He found disturbed snow where her body had presumably landed. Footprints. Two sets. Shit. Someone found her and took the body.
She was dead, right?
He had become more and more nervous as he wandered about the area, trying to figure out what the hell to do. Did he go looking for her, to make sure she really was dead? He realized he hadn’t seen the bright flash of light that indicated a lightbearer had died. Holy hell, she hadn’t survived…Had she?
Eventually, the sounds of people at the top of the cliff had forced him to leave the scene. He had rushed to his own cottage, pulled out a bag and threw clothing into it. It was time to leave. He hated that stupid cottage, anyway. Carley had done nothing to take care of it, and Miguel didn’t think that was a man’s responsibility.
He’d made it to the top of the stairs undetected, and had been planning to steal a horse from the royal stables to help get him out of the coterie. But then he had rushed into the woods, using his magic to hide his tracks as he went. He still hadn’t had a solid plan. The only thing he had been able to focus on was Carley. Was she really still alive?
He had to know. Because if she was, he would finish her off. Stupid bitch had been the cause of all of his problems. She needed to die. The Chosen One had promised to do it for him, but he was dead now too. Miguel’s life was falling apart, and it was Carley’s fault.
So, instead of slipping from the coterie, out into the freedom the human world offered, he found an abandoned animal’s den, crawled inside, and huddled there for the rest of the night and most of the next day.
People passed nearby, undoubtedly searching for other followers, but no one thought to check his hidey-hole, and he’d been lucid enough to ward it against shifters. They probably could have sniffed him out, had he not summoned the wards.
Eventually, he began sneaking out of his hiding place, usually in the middle of the night, and pilfered food from nearby cottages. Occasionally, he even snuck into other lightbearers’ cottages and showered. His existence had been reduced to that of a wild animal, but he did nothing to change it.
He had to know if she was still alive.
And now he knew. The bitch had survived the fall. He could see it clear as day. She looked…good. Too damn good. Better than she had when she lived with him. Somebody had fixed her up nice and right. Probably that female healer who always talked excitedly about helping to birth the shifter spawn the princess had been carrying in her belly. Stupid damn healer.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that his mate was still alive—she was with a shifter. He watched with first a sense of smug satisfaction as she froze at the top of the stone steps, unable to even take that first step, petrified because of the fall she’d had several months prior.
But his satisfaction quickly turned to rage, as a shifter, one he’d never seen before, hurried back up the steps to her side. Put his hand on her back. Leaned in close. Intimately. Talked to her. Held her hand. And then slowly, slowly, he guided her down the steps, placing her hand on his shoulder and, no doubt, promising to catch her if she fell.
Fucking bitch. She’d survived the fall that was meant to kill her, and now she’d taken up with a shifter. Miguel watched their descent with blood in his eyes. And he vowed: this time, he really would kill her. She’d killed his Chosen One, after all. He had to repay her in kind.
Chapter 12
The pup was born less than two hours later. Three healers were in attendance, although Alexa was the one to actually do the job of slicing the pup from his mother’s belly. Dane and the other one, whose name Finn couldn’t recall, continually siphoned awa
y the pain while she worked. He didn’t know how the hell he ended up in the room while the process was happening, but he knew it would be a damn long time before he broached the subject of pups with Cecilia.
While Alexa sealed the wound with the precision of the most knowledgeable of human surgeons, Finn glanced at his pack master. Tanner had stood by his mate’s side throughout the ordeal. When the pup was pulled out of her body, he reflexively reached for it, but Dane beat him to the punch, muttering something about, “Cleansing the babe and running preliminary tests.” At the moment, Tanner looked more afraid than angry that the healer would not let him hold his own pup.
The sun was just dipping below the horizon when Alexa pronounced the wound sealed and then promptly passed out cold. Jake was there, catching her as she fell, and swept her into his arms and then out of the room. Finn had heard those two had split, but judging by the way Jake hovered and then realized she reached her limit even before she had, he suspected there were residual feelings still simmering. Maybe this would help them work things out. From what little interaction he’d had with them, they seemed like the perfect couple.
Dane was the next to crumble. He had been struggling with the pup, who was having difficulty breathing on his own. The third healer had just finished cleansing Olivia and the bed, and while Olivia slept, she hurried over to replace Dane as the pup’s caretaker. No one caught Dane when he fell. Finn dragged him out into the hall and down to a guest room, where he deposited the snoring lightbearer on a bed, fully clothed, and without turning down the covers. He’d probably sleep like the dead and wouldn’t even notice anyway.
Finn headed back to Tanner and Olivia’s chamber, but when he caught sight of his brother, he suggested they head down to the village to find more healers. The pup was not doing well, Tanner was stomping around like an angry bear, and the third healer was probably going to pass out soon.