by Tami Lund
Olivia gave her cousin a blank look. Cecilia rolled her eyes.
“What generally happens when two beings couple, without taking precautions?”
Olivia gasped. Her eyes widened and her hand automatically strayed to her flat abdomen. Cecilia gave her a satisfied smile.
“But I am not,” Olivia protested. “When Alexa healed me, she said I was infertile from healing Ariana.”
“I cannot imagine Alexa shared that bit of information with your father.”
Olivia fell silent again. Cecilia was right. It was high time her father learned far more about her personal life than she would ever have dreamed of telling him, under normal circumstances.
Being mated to two men was certainly not normal, however.
Chapter 27
“She’s gone, Tanner.”
Even though the caller hadn’t identified himself, Tanner recognized the voice as that of the Lightbearer, Dane Metaldyne.
“Oh good, Dane,” Tanner said with relief in his voice. “I’m glad you called. Listen, I need to get back into the coterie, and I can’t—wait—what did you say?”
“I said she’s gone,” Dane said patiently. “Olivia. And Cecilia, actually.”
“Gone, as in left the coterie?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell are they thinking?”
“Most likely, they were thinking that they needed to go after you. Well, Olivia was undoubtedly thinking that way. Cecilia most likely went along for the ride. She’s like that. Always looking for a good time, and convinced it can’t be had here, inside the coterie.”
“Why did you let them leave?” Tanner demanded.
He could practically see Dane’s affronted look, through the phone connection.
“I didn’t,” Dane protested. “I didn’t even realize they were gone until the king alerted me. He’s convinced you stole them away, by the way. If Olivia intended to convince her father to accept you as her mate, this is certainly not the way to go about it. In fact, he said— ” Tanner cut him off.
“Tell me what you know. Where did they go?”
“To find you, I assume. I don’t know how they planned to go about it, though. I doubt they’ve been gone an hour, and I cannot imagine why they would choose to leave in the middle of a rainstorm— ” Tanner disconnected the call with a furious curse.
“Problem?” Rick Pantera asked, sounding only mildly curious. He and his two children all watched Tanner’s reaction.
“Yes,” Tanner replied, and he quickly explained that Olivia was the Lightbearer he’d rescued from his father two weeks ago, and that she and her cousin had just left the coterie unprotected, to go in search of him.
“And why would they leave the protection of their coterie to go search for you?” Rick wanted to know.
Tanner didn’t want to tell him.
“She’s in love with you,” Leah guessed. “And she’s upset that you’re gone.”
The look on his face must have confirmed Leah’s suspicions.
“You’re sleeping with a Lightbearer?” Rick asked. “I suppose you truly do not hold to your father’s belief that to kill them is to inherit their magic.”
“No.”
“He cares about her, too,” Leah said. For being so foolish about her own love life, she was awfully damn perceptive about Tanner’s.
“We mated,” he admitted.
Leah looked bemused. Rick looked surprised. Andy looked determined.
“And she happens to be the only child of the king of the Lightbearers,” he added, although he kept it to himself that she was also, by Lightbearer law, mated to Dane.
Rick whistled. “You don’t do anything half-ass, do you?”
Tanner grimaced. “It wasn’t on purpose. I only intended to see her safely back to her coterie.”
“And she just happened to fall into your bed in the process?” Rick suggested dryly. Tanner bristled. Andy interrupted them.
“I’m going with you.”
Tanner and Rick both looked at Andy. “Where?” Tanner asked dumbly.
“I assume you’re going after her?”
Tanner shook his head. “You aren’t going with me. Forget it. I fight my own battles.”
“You need a pack behind you,” Rick said. “As I understand it, Quentin’s pack is the largest in the nation, possibly on the continent. You don’t stand a chance alone. Andy is a good, solid fighter. As are most in my pack. They are yours.”
Tanner shook his head, refusing their help.
“It’s a great insult to the pack leader to deny his offer,” Andy pointed out.
“Why would you help me?”
Rick’s eyes glowed. “Shifters have developed a poor reputation amongst the magical community. Perhaps, in the old days, it was warranted. But we are not all like your father. We do not kill lightly, and we help those in need. Your mate is walking into the lion’s den, quite literally. I could not live with myself if I did not help you.”
“She isn’t my— ” Tanner stopped abruptly, because damn it, she was his mate. And he would do whatever it took to save her. Because if she died, his heart and soul would die with her.
He had to save her.
Chapter 28
Finnegan hated his pack master.
He also hated himself for continuing to do his pack master’s bidding. But it was damned hard for a shifter to walk away from his pack. Damn near impossible. They were hardwired to need to belong. If he left, he would be on his own, and Finn was more afraid of that than he was of his pack master.
Besides, nearly his entire family, with the exception of his sister, who had managed some years ago to get away by mating with a shifter from Tennessee, were a part of Quentin’s pack. If Finn left, he was certain the pack master would punish his family for his insubordination. Finn was the best tracker in the pack, and he knew Quentin recognized that fact. He would not let Finn go without a fight.
Now, Finn was leading a mission to track down Quentin’s son Tanner, a man who, once upon a time, had been his friend. He and Tanner grew up together, trained together, learned together. Chased girls together. Dreamed about leaving the pack together. When Tanner had actually done it, without even inviting Finn to go along with him, he had been furious. Damn the bastard for getting out and leaving the rest of them behind to suffer Quentin’s obsession and fury.
He hoped to hell he found Tanner alone, without any of the three Lightbearers he’d had with him in Vegas. Finn thought about the two female Lightbearers. Both delicate, tiny females, but with impressive inner strength nonetheless. Not at all Finn’s type of female, yet when he’d touched the one—he thought he heard the other call her Cici—the magic he’d felt had shot straight through his veins to his groin, sending all his blood rushing there, too. In the middle of a battle for their lives, and all he’d wanted to do was screw the damned woman.
There were only four of them on this particular mission, although Finn figured it would probably suffice, because Quentin had sent along his biggest, baddest, most brutal guard dogs to hunt down his own son, with express instructions to, “Kill the son of a bitch.”
As much as Finn resented Tanner for leaving all those years ago, he didn’t want to kill him. Unfortunately, the three other shifters with him would have no such qualms. They were as dedicated to Quentin as any shifter could possibly be. If Finn didn’t figure out a way to warn him, Tanner wouldn’t stand a chance, Lightbearer swords or no.
Quentin had commanded them to head to Iowa, because he’d received word that Tanner was there, but Finnegan had used his superior tracking skills, instead of the pack master’s verbal direction. His tracking ability led them to a fairly deserted bit of sand dunes located on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, but that was where the trail ended. Literally, Tanner’s scent simply disappeared. So did the trail, Finn noticed. There was nothing but a thick wall of pine trees in front of them, and for some reason, they could not proceed forward.
“We should’ve gone to Iowa,” C
liff commented, and Finn didn’t miss the snide tone of his voice.
“He’s here,” Finn insisted. He knew it, even if the trail was cold. Or, rather, had disappeared.
“This place is weird,” Cliff commented. The four shifters stood on the sand and peered around. A nasty summer storm pounded rain into the sand all around them. It was late afternoon, but it might as well be midnight, dark as it was. They were soaked to the skin.
Finn turned a full circle and wiped a hand over his wet face. “They’re here,” he decided. “There’s magic in the air. It’s a trick or something.”
“I don’t see nothin’,” Ethan complained.
“That’s the point,” Finn snapped impatiently. He turned and abruptly stalked away, toward a small copse of trees that were not an illusion and had somehow managed to survive the sandy environment.
“Where’re we going?” Ethan wanted to know.
“To hide,” Finn said shortly. “We hide, and we wait. There is something here. Sooner or later, it will make itself known.”
* * * *
Ethan, who still smarted from the beating he’d endeared as a result of the failed mission in Vegas, did not like Finn. Ethan had always coveted the position of lead tracker for Quentin, the man who was a freaking God who could make anyone do anything he damn well wanted. But Ethan wasn’t as good as Finn, who didn’t even really have to work at it, yet was the best damn tracker anyone had ever seen. Jealousy was a powerful emotion, and Ethan had plenty of it.
As they headed off toward the nearest stand of trees, Ethan pulled out his phone and fired off a text to the pack master. Quentin needed to know they’d come to the shores of Lake Michigan, instead of to Iowa as they’d been instructed. And he made sure to clarify that it had been Finn’s decision to go against their pack master’s command.
Chapter 29
“Cici.”
“Shh.”
“Cici.”
Cecilia whirled around, annoyance flashing in her bright blue eyes. “Olivia, really. We are supposed to be quiet.”
“Sorry,” she muttered. She hadn’t been very good at the whole escape-from-the-coterie routine the first time, either, but Cecilia hadn’t been so adamant about remaining quiet that time. “Why do we have to be so quiet?”
Cecilia nervously glanced around. “Well, we are far more exposed going this way, rather than through the woods to that small town located northeast of the coterie,” she explained in a hushed voice. “But to tell you the truth, I just feel ... I don’t know. Like we’re being watched.” She shivered, and Olivia knew it was not from the wetness seeping into her protective clothing.
Olivia frowned and looked around at the drenched, semi-barren landscape. The lake loomed to the west, the swirling and frothing waters barely visible through the pouring rain. Everywhere else, there were sandy dunes, impressive mounds that were twice as large as they appeared. When the lightning flashed, they could see dark shadows that she determined were clusters of trees.
There were no other Lightbearers out in this weather. When they slipped through the magical wards of the coterie, Olivia had hardly noticed because there was so much electricity in the air from the storm. She and Cecilia had covered themselves with rain slickers, but the water repellent clothing had not lasted more than ten minutes before each was soaked to the skin. As summer storms went, this one was a doozy.
“Maybe we should go back and wait until the storm lets up,” Olivia suggested. She didn’t particularly want to wait a single minute longer to see Tanner, but Cecilia’s senses were rarely off, and she was awfully nervous. Sneaking away in the middle of a terrible storm had seemed like a brilliant idea several hours ago.
“You need to stop moping around,” Cecilia had chided while they’d been inside, concocting this crazy plan.
“How am I supposed to do that?” Olivia asked. “My mate is out there somewhere, beyond the wards of the coterie. How is he even supposed to get back inside? How am I ever going to see him again?”
“Maybe you are already with child,” Cecilia had commented as she cocked her head and looked at Olivia’s abdomen. “You are certainly acting as unreasonably as pregnant women do. If you are so concerned, why do we not go find him?”
Brilliant idea, while they’d been safely, warmly, and dryly ensconced inside the sitting room at the beach house. Reality, unfortunately, was vastly different.
“We’re already outside the coterie,” Cecilia pointed out, pulling Olivia out of her musings. “If we go back now, they’ll never let us slip away again. Your father will chain you to your bed until Dane puts a babe in your belly.”
Olivia lifted her hand and pressed it to her belly. It wasn’t Dane’s babe she wanted in her belly. Before they left the coterie, they’d stopped by Alexa’s cottage and Olivia had asked her to confirm whether or not she was with child.
“Olivia, it has only been a few days since I pulled the remaining poison out of your system,” Alexa had chided. “Even if you are with child, I will not be able to tell so soon. Maybe next week.”
Disappointment lanced through her system, but Olivia did not let it deter her. When I find Tanner, we’ll make love three times a day. Soon, I won’t be lying when I tell my father I am carrying his pup. The idea of making love with Tanner three times a day had spurred her to agree to leave the coterie in the middle of the raging storm.
“Fine,” Olivia said as she hunched her shoulders and ducked her head against an onslaught of wind-driven rain. “Let’s hurry and find shelter then, at least until this blows over.”
“Too bad we aren’t shifters,” Cecilia remarked. “We could just turn into a wolf or something and get to our destination three times faster.”
“Yeah, we are pretty damn fast.”
Both women whirled around at the sound of the male voice. Lightning flashed, and four figures were momentarily illuminated before the world went nearly black again.
“Run!” Olivia screamed, and she grabbed Cecilia’s arm and followed her own direction. She tried to turn back to run toward the safety of the coterie, but Cecilia ran toward the water instead. Not wishing to be separated from her cousin, Olivia followed Cecilia’s lead.
She could hear the sounds of pounding feet behind her, and she knew they would never outrun their pursuers. Then she heard a thud and a shout of pain, followed by the sounds of a scuffle.
Olivia felt the brush of something against her leg, but just as quickly as she felt it, the hand was jerked away, and she heard more sounds, as if someone was fighting. Cecilia screamed and Olivia glanced over her shoulder to see that one of the shifters had caught her. Cecilia fell face-first into the sand and quickly rolled and began kicking at her attacker. Just as it appeared he had the upper hand, another figure appeared behind him, grabbed his head and sharply twisted it to the side. The attacker collapsed into a heap at Cecilia’s feet and did not move again.
Cecilia scrabbled away like a crab, staring not at the dead shifter but at the one who stood over her, not moving and dripping with rain, sweat, and blood. Olivia rushed to her cousin’s side and pulled Cecilia to her feet.
“I won’t hurt you,” the man said.
“W-who are you?” Cecilia stuttered.
“Finnegan Hennigan. Formerly of Quentin Lyons’ shifter pack.”
Both women gasped and took a step backward. Olivia recovered first. “Wait. What do you mean, ‘formerly’?”
“I left the pack.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
Olivia and Cecilia exchanged a wary look. “Why?”
“That isn’t important. Getting you to safety is. I’m pretty sure Ethan called for backup a few hours ago. We need to get out of here.”
“We’re going to Wyoming,” Olivia announced bravely.
Finnegan barked a humorless laugh. “Lady, that’s about the dumbest thing you could do. Wyoming’s the last place you need to be.”
“Tanner’s there,” Olivia insisted. “I have to find him.”
“Tanner isn’t in Wyoming. He’s here, somewhere. I tracked him to here, and then his scent just disappeared.”
“Because I think he went back to Wyoming.”
“Why do you think that?”
Olivia hesitated. “He was upset when he left. I do not know where else he would go.”
Finnegan gave her a curious look. “You carry his scent, in the way mates carry one another’s scent.”
Olivia blushed and was glad for the darkness, so Finnegan could not see it.
“What is behind that magical barrier over there?” he asked with a wave of his hand.
“None of your business,” Cecilia announced primly.
Olivia saw Finnegan roll his eyes. “That’s probably our best chance at hiding from whatever’s coming.”
Olivia glanced over her shoulder and then turned back to look at Finnegan. Lightning flashed, and she saw that his intense blue eyes were looking at Cecilia. “We cannot go back to the coterie,” she explained. “Not without Tanner.”
“What’s coming?” Cecilia wanted to know.
“Your worst nightmare,” Finnegan replied. “And this time, he’s really pissed.”
“Quentin,” Olivia breathed, while Cecilia blustered about Finnegan having no idea what her nightmares were about.
“Yeah. That’s the one,” Finnegan confirmed.
“The lake,” Olivia said, and without waiting for an answer, she lifted her soaked skirt and began running toward the great, angry water in the distance. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Cecilia had not moved to follow, until Finnegan grabbed her arm and forcibly dragged her along.
“Stop touching me,” she snapped.
“Stop being pig-headed and move,” he suggested.
They argued all the way to the lake. Mercifully the distance was less than a mile. Just as they reached the point where dunes faded into rocky shoreline and cliffs began to protrude from the water’s edge, Finnegan clamped his hand over Cecilia’s mouth to cut off whatever scathing comment she’d been about to make about his person.