by Tami Lund
“If you think I’m going to give up the location of the coterie, you are sadly mistaken. Even if I wanted to or was coerced to do so, I could not. We are all under the influence of a very powerful spell. It does not allow us to disclose the location, even under duress. You would simply have to kill me.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Tanner spat irritably, and then he frowned. “What’s a coterie?”
“Where we live. A secret place that no one has discovered for five hundred years.” Her voice was slightly boastful.
“But it’s not in Vegas. So why were you in Vegas? Presumably alone?”
She hesitated again, and then apparently decided she had nothing to lose. “The coterie is like a tiny village. We are self-sustaining, all inclusive. We live our lives exactly as the king instructs us. It can become terribly oppressive.”
She complained like a petulant child. Tanner couldn’t help smiling. “And you prefer to have fun, regardless of the potential danger.”
“There hasn’t been a shifter attack in centuries,” she pointed out.
“You just said your coterie is so well hidden no one has found it in five hundred years.”
The woman frowned and said nothing.
“My name is Tanner Lyons. What’s yours?”
“Why do you care? You’re only going to kill me.” The shimmer of magic surrounding her body brightened for a moment. Tanner’s eyes flared briefly as he felt the impact as if she’d touched him, instead of simply glared at him.
He shook his head and made an exasperated sound. “I told you I’m not going to kill you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think like the pack master. I didn’t even believe you all existed, let alone that you can share your magic.” And it would be a damn shame to kill someone so pretty.
“Then set me free,” she challenged.
“Shh,” he said as he cocked his head to listen to a sound only he could hear, thanks to his intensified shifter hearing. “Someone’s coming.”
The Lightbearer shrank into herself, curling her body into a tighter ball as she watched the basement stairs with growing trepidation. Quentin had obviously made quite an impression on her.
Then he was there, the man himself. Tanner’s sire, not that he was particularly pleased or honored by that fact. Long, pitch-black hair, a well-groomed beard shot with silver, and muscles to rival any twenty-year old, Quentin Lyons was without a doubt a force with which to be reckoned. If not for the silver in his beard and the fact that his eyes were black, whereas Tanner’s were a pale blue, the two men could be twins.
Tanner knew the only reason he’d been able to defy the pack master ten years ago was because he was Quentin’s only legitimate offspring, and his father was under the delusion that he would step up and take over the pack someday.
Not likely.
“Ah, the prodigal son returns,” Quentin drawled, his dark gaze sweeping over Tanner, as if searching for an indication that he’d decided to change his ways since the last time the two men met.
Tanner fought, as always, to remain passive in front of the dominant shifter. Do not let him know he gets to you.
“Mickey made it difficult to say no this time.”
Quentin chuckled. “As I knew he would. I told him it was his life or you. I am pleased he chose you. How did he do it?” At least he didn’t pretend Tanner wanted to be there.
“Produced a bit of fabric from the woman’s dress,” Tanner said as he thrust his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the Lightbearer in the cage behind him.
Quentin nodded thoughtfully. “The boy is smarter than I gave him credit for. Perhaps it is time for a shift in the ranks.”
Tanner hoped not. A shift in the ranks was meant to be an honor, but to get there, Mickey would have to fight one of Quentin’s strongest guards in a dogfight that would probably kill one of them. Tanner’s money, unfortunately, would not be on Mickey to survive.
Quentin’s gaze shifted to the Lightbearer. “I did it,” he murmured, his voice reverent. “I was right.”
“You were right that Lightbearers still exist,” Tanner said carefully. Be that as it may, Tanner still could not accept the idea of killing this woman in cold blood, just on the off-chance that Quentin might inherit her magic.
“Can you see the magic, son?” Quentin’s eyes had begun to glow, a steady, dim light that was indicative of his excitement.
“It’s her magic,” Tanner said. “If you kill her, you kill the magic as well.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You don’t know that you will inherit it, either.”
“The legends were right about their existence,” Quentin pointed out. “Why would you think they wouldn’t be right about the magic?”
Tanner shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. No magical beings have ever had the ability to share magic. Ever, in the history of magic. Leave her be. Let her go.”
Quentin’s eyes shifted to focus on Tanner. “You aren’t leading this pack yet,” he growled.
Tanner bit back his own growl. Telling his old man that he had no intention of ever ruling his pack would send the man into a rage, as Tanner well knew from past experience. And if his father flew into a rage, the petite Lightbearer was most certainly as good as dead.
“You won’t inherit her magic if you kill her,” he tried again.
“You’re right,” Quentin surprised him by saying. “You will.”
Chapter 2
Hell of a way to figure out his father’s grand plan. Quentin didn’t want the Lightbearer’s magic for himself—he wanted it for Tanner. In a stroke of shocking genius, Quentin had at some point come to the realization of his own mortality. The magic would be wasted on him, he determined, because he was growing too old to manage this large pack of carnivorous shifters.
So give it to Tanner instead. Made perfect sense.
The process would also cement Tanner’s position within the pack, and would prove to the world that he really was Quentin Lyons’ prodigy, in every sense of the word.
Tanner wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the plan. He considered simply leaving again, but he couldn’t. If he left, they would kill the Lightbearer anyway, and she’d done nothing to deserve such a fate. Nothing other than escape from what she considered her boring life, at the wrong time, in the wrong place.
Damn it, he had to stay.
This wasn’t how he intended for his life to play out. In truth, when Tanner left the pack ten years ago, he’d gone just far enough to be out of his father’s reach, just far enough that he could integrate himself into human society and separate himself from the pack. His intention had been simple: to live his life, on his own terms. Without the pack, without the psychosis of his father’s beliefs hanging over his head.
They found him periodically, over the years, just as they had today. Until today, Tanner had steadily refused to return to the pack, and just as soon as the messenger left, he packed up and moved. Again.
It was hard for a shifter to leave the pack. Shifters were by nature pack-like creatures. They did not like to be alone. They thrived in an environment that lent itself to close quarters, to regular intrusions by other people.
But Tanner made it work. It was better than turning into his father. Except now that was exactly what his father intended for him to do.
Quentin waited until just before dusk to pull the Lightbearer out of her underground prison. “She’ll have a little light to regenerate her magic,” Quentin explained. “But not enough to escape before you kill her.”
Despite his verbal assurance, Quentin ensured her wrists were bound by iron chains. Just in case.
The pack master summoned his pack to a mandatory meeting. While they waited for everyone to gather, Tanner stood off to the side, next to the manor house, and watched his family and friends pour onto the grounds. Some caught sight of him and hurried over to welcome him back. Others averted their gaze, probably feeling guilty for accepting his father�
�s ways. Shortly before he left the pack, Tanner had tried to convince those he felt closest to, to come with him, to start a new life out from under Quentin’s thumb.
Not even his own mother would take the chance.
“He’ll kill us all, Tanner. You go. He’ll let you go, because you are the one person in this world he remotely respects. But the rest of us, we don’t have that choice.”
Tanner doubted Quentin’s allowing him to leave had anything to do with respect. The only one Quentin ever respected was himself. Egotistical bastard. So much so that he never stopped believing Tanner would return someday.
“You’re just sowing your wild oats,” he said, seven years ago when he arrived on Tanner’s doorstep himself, instead of sending one of his messengers. “You’ll be back. You’re pack. No one leaves the pack. Especially not the future pack master.”
Fates be damned, was Quentin right? Here he was, ten years later, back in the pack and waiting for his father to introduce the fabled Lightbearer—and expecting Tanner to kill her.
Tanner’s childhood best friend, Freddy, and his mate, Lisa, stepped up to greet him. Freddy held a young female pup in his arms. Lisa’s belly was fat with their second pup.
“Tanner, it’s so good to see you,” Lisa said warmly, as she awkwardly reached over her protruding belly to hug him.
He embraced her, gave her a squeeze to let her know he was genuinely happy to see her. “Look at you. Freddy managed to make an honest woman of you after all, huh?”
The three of them were once called the Three Musketeers, although Tanner always referred to himself as the third wheel. For as long as he could remember, Freddy and Lisa had been in love with one another.
Lisa laughed and patted her belly. “I finally let him catch me. This is Sofia. She just turned four.”
Sofia, in the way only a four-year-old could, nodded solemnly. “Are you going to kill a Lightbearer, mister?”
“Sofia,” Lisa hissed, while guilt immediately took over Freddy’s face.
“Don’t tell me he turned you two,” Tanner said darkly. His closest friends. They were some of the very few who had been willing to go with him ten years ago. But Tanner’s mother was right—Quentin would have hunted them down and killed them. If they’d gathered enough shifters to create a large enough pack, they could have stood a chance. But the three of them—Tanner knew they’d never make it, not with Quentin after them. So he’d convinced them to stay. Had he sealed their fates?
“Hell no,” Lisa said. “But Freddy likes to tell our daughter stupid faery stories.”
“Lightbearer stories, Momma,” Sofia admonished. “And they aren’t stupid.”
“What they are is not true,” Lisa said. She turned to Tanner, gave him an earnest look. “It isn’t true, is it? He didn’t really catch one, did he? I thought they were extinct?”
“Afraid he proved us all wrong,” Tanner admitted glumly. “And now he thinks I’m going to kill her so I can inherit her magic.”
Freddy gave him a considering look. “Well, if they really do exist, maybe the legends about inheriting their magic are real too.”
“I don’t give a fuck if they are real or not,” Tanner said hotly. An image of the beautiful caged Lightbearer popped into his head. “I’m not going to kill some innocent woman on the off-chance I might inherit her magic.”
Lisa reached over and covered her daughter’s ears with her hands. “Do you have a plan?” she whispered.
Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. But just in case, you guys should stay to the back of the crowd, so that you can make a fast escape. Especially you,” he said sternly, looking at Lisa. “No offense, but you look like you’re about to whelp any minute now.”
Lisa smiled. “I am about to whelp any minute. I’m due within the week.”
“You shouldn’t even be here.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “You think a little thing like imminent whelping is a good enough excuse to ignore a summons from Quentin Lyons? You’ve been gone too long, Tanner.” She gave him another quick hug and then dragged her mate away to join the crowd gathered in the wide yard that was shadowed by the mountain protruding from the west.
Quentin stepped out onto the porch of his home. He was dressed for the occasion in a loose fitting black button down shirt and a pair of black slacks. His silver beard stood out in stark relief against his tanned skin and dark clothing. His dark eyes glowed with anticipation.
He lifted both arms and the crowd fell almost instantly silent. Quentin ruled with an iron fist. No one wasted time before obeying his commands.
He spoke eloquently, reviewing what he considered pertinent pack news. Tanner knew his game; the man was building the anticipation within the crowd. The rumor had already spread far and wide. Everyone in the crowd wondered, Is it true? Has he really captured a Lightbearer?
How I am going to get out of this mess?
Tanner noticed his mother wasn’t present. He’d gone to visit her earlier in the day, after Quentin informed him that he would be the one to kill the Lightbearer. She had her own suite in the manor home, on the opposite end of the house from Quentin’s own elaborate private quarters. Tanner had been shocked to find her bedridden, pale and thin as a starved child. Her hair had gone white and her face was sallow, her pale blue eyes shadowed by great, deep circles.
“Mom,” he gasped as he fell to his knees next to her bed. “What happened to you? Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”
Ariana Lyons lifted her frail, veined hand and petted her son’s thick black hair. “I had hoped I would be gone before you came back. I thought that might ensure you never did.”
“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with you?”
Ariana shook her head and refused to tell him. “Go,” she commanded, although her voice was too weak to hold much force. “Leave here now and never come back. That man is cursed. I do not want you to turn out like him.”
“I’m nothing like him,” Tanner insisted, even as he wondered, Am I?
Ariana reached out to her son, squeezed his hand with her own. “I know. And I want you to stay like that. Go away from here, Tanner. Go back to your life with the humans. Find a girl. Mate with her. Give her sturdy, strong, happy pups.”
Tanner gave his mother a wane smile. “Humans call it marriage. They birth babes, not pups. And I doubt very much I would ever be able to convince one to mate with a shifter. Which is okay, because I don’t want to find a mate.”
I don’t want to take the chance that I really might turn into Quentin. My bloodline ends with me.
“You deserve to be happy.”
“So do you. I’m going to get you out of this place. Take you to a human hospital. I’m sure they can fix you.”
“No,” Ariana said. “No. It’s too late for me. I’ve made my bed. I’ve protected you, my one and only pup. But you aren’t a pup anymore. You can protect yourself now. I can die in peace.”
“Don’t talk like that, mother,” Tanner pleaded. He did not want to think that his leaving the pack did this to his mother. The guilt would surely kill him. How many times over the years had he wondered, Did I do the right thing by leaving?
His thoughts returned to the moment, just as Quentin began to hint at his great surprise. With a flourish, the pack master motioned at the front door of the manor home, and it opened from the inside.
The Lightbearer walked as if she were royalty. She held her head high and refused to avert her gaze, while the crowd of shifters stared at her as if she were a freak show at the circus. Her blonde hair was still disheveled and dirty, her face and arms were scratched, indicative of a fight before she’d been subdued, and her dress was torn and stained. Yet she walked as if she were treading on a plush velvet carpet, as if she wore an elegant gown and headed toward her rightful place on a throne.
Tanner’s respect level ratcheted up a notch. I have to save this woman.
The gathered shifters gasped and made small shriek
ing noises before they began chattering amongst themselves. The noise rose to a low roar, until Quentin called for quiet.
“Yes,” he said, with glowing eyes and a great flourish of his arm. “It is what you think it is. A Lightbearer. All these years I have searched. I have never given up. And I was right!” His voice rose to a shout as the excitement level of the crowd increased with his words.
Quentin expounded some more on his decades-long search for the Lightbearers. Through it all, the Lightbearer remained stoic, standing with her back ramrod straight, her eyes staring into the crowd, her face a blank mask.
“My son,” he said as he waved his arm in Tanner’s direction.
Tanner’s only acknowledgement of the introduction was to step up onto the wide front porch. He walked over to the Lightbearer and stood next to her. She did not even glance his way. Stubborn. As far as she was aware, he was her only friend among a pack of wolves—literally—and she didn’t even give him so much as a frown of acknowledgement.
His respect level rose again.
“My son, my blood. My heir. Tanner Lyons is to be your next pack master. But first, he will demonstrate his loyalty to the pack by killing this Lightbearer. And when he does, he will inherit her magic. He will be the most powerful shifter of all time. My son!” His voice rose to a shout again as the Lightbearer jerked her head around to finally greet Tanner with an angry glare.
This wasn’t my idea, he wanted to shout at her. Instead, he stepped closer to her, so that they were an arm’s length apart. The pack of shifters, encouraged by Quentin, were clapping and shouting their encouragement for Tanner to kill the Lightbearer.
“I don’t suppose you have the ability to disappear, do you?” he asked in a low voice that only she could hear over the din.
She glared up at him and said, “Hardly,” in an impressively haughty voice.
“Can you create a gun? Bomb? Smoke screen? Anything we can use as a distraction so we can get the hell out of here?”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t want to kill me?”
Tanner’s eyes narrowed. “Of course I don’t want to kill you. I thought we’d already established this?”