by Tami Lund
Four months after Tanner stepped in, the coterie was a vastly different place. Tanner and Finn and a few other Lightbearers had built several greenhouses, so they could grow vegetables and fruit year-round. Tanner had purchased cattle, sheep, chickens, and other livestock from the humans, then they’d erected a couple of barns to protect their growing animal population from inclement weather.
The elders, who had been alive when the previous king ruled, were teaching the younger Lightbearers how to sew, to build furniture, to once again become as self-sufficient as they had been before Sander Bennett took over. And in between all of this, Finn and Tanner taught them how to fight, how to defend and protect themselves. How to depend upon themselves, instead of someone else. Even the king and queen participated in Finn’s defensive-training sessions.
Most Lightbearers embraced their new lives. Like all beings, they appreciated having such control over their own lives, their own destinies. There were a few who had become so spoiled that they protested, simply because they did not want to put forth the effort. Those were the ones Finn relished breaking, so that he could build them up again, to be stronger, self-reliant individuals.
There was also an exclusive group that resisted every effort Tanner and Finn put forth, simply based on the fact that they were shifters and not Lightbearers. It did not matter to this group that the intent was to protect them. If the idea came from a shifter, it was considered wrong, evil, against their beliefs. These were the ones that Tanner and Finn had not yet figured out how to handle.
Cecilia had gone quiet and was no longer struggling against him. He spotted a Lightbearer guard hurrying toward them and figured that was the reason why. Reluctantly—which annoyed him that he would feel that way—Finn lifted her off his shoulder and placed her onto her feet before forcing himself to release his hold and step away. He determinedly ignored his body’s protest at the loss of contact.
“What are you doing with Cecilia?” the guard demanded as he came to a halt a few feet away, clearly leery of getting too close.
Finn decided that was a smart move. He didn’t much like Samuel Umber, although he didn’t really have any basis for that opinion. The guard was pleasant enough, and he was bigger than most of the other Lightbearer males Finn had met. He was also one of the few who appeared eager to learn whenever Finn or Tanner summoned the guards to training. Still, Finn could not get over his instinct not to trust the guy.
“Doing as the king commanded. Whether or not she wanted to come with me.”
Samuel shifted his attention to Cecilia. “Are you harmed in any way?” he asked, his voice going deceptively soft.
“For the love of fate, I didn’t injure the damn woman.”
Cecilia looked at Finn. She appeared to be having some sort of internal struggle. Then she deliberately stepped closer to Samuel, wrapped both arms around his bicep, and batted her eyelashes, giving him an adoring look.
Finn’s temper spiked. It was so instantaneous, he was momentarily taken by surprise. He fisted his hands as he felt the magic of the shift course through his veins, urging him to turn into some sort of wild animal and tear this guy limb from limb. He actually growled before he caught himself.
What the hell was he doing? He blinked the world back into focus and pulled himself out of the jealous rage or whatever the hell he was feeling.
Cecilia tossed him a triumphant look, and he realized that her actions had been deliberate, that she’d intentionally meant to get a rise out of him. He had a renewed urge to toss her over his shoulder again, although he wasn’t sure what the hell he would do with her once he had her there.
“Samuel, would you mind escorting me to the beach house to see my cousin, please?” Cecilia cooed at the lovesick, slack-jawed guard.
“Y-yes, of course,” he stuttered, his tongue tripping over the words.
Finn was disgusted. Grown men did not act that way around females, no matter how badly they wanted to bed them. It was, frankly, embarrassing to his sex. He would let Samuel know as much during their next practice session. It was the least he could do.
He watched as Cecilia and Samuel walked toward the beach house. One of them was using magic to melt away the snow as they walked. Probably the guard. He did not tear his gaze away until Samuel held the door open and Cecilia sashayed inside. He decided she was safe enough, for the moment, so he turned and ran toward the cliff. He leaped off the edge and shifted into the form of a hawk at the same time.
He soared through the air for a short while, enjoying the feel of the wind, the sense of freedom. He was careful to stay within the confines of the magical barriers, which shimmered just above his head, a steady reminder that he wasn’t really free. He would only be free if he soared through those barriers, to the other side, to the human world.
Then he could be free, could do whatever the hell he wanted. But then he would be alone, too, without a pack, without a pack master.
He couldn’t do it.
He was a shifter, and shifters needed to be part of a pack. It was something about their wiring. Whatever it was, it had caused him to stay with Quentin Lyons’ pack long after he should have left, and if he could endure Quentin Lyons, he sure as hell could endure the coterie. After all, the only issue was Cecilia, and she wasn’t really an issue so much as a pain in his ass.
He aimed his beak at the ground and soared over the side of the cliff, toward the village located at the bottom. It was time to pay a call on Daisy. He needed to release some pent-up energy.
Badly.
Chapter 2
“Lights above, I didn’t think we’d ever get away from him,” Cecilia complained as she flopped onto her cousin’s bed and began flipping through the human baby magazine lying there, while Olivia wandered over to stand in front of the full-length looking glass perched on two wooden, clawed feet next to the door to her closet.
“I’m happy to use my whelping as an excuse to pull you away from overzealous suitors any time,” Olivia replied as she stripped out of her dress and critiqued her naked body in the looking glass.
“Whelping?” Cecilia said with amusement in her voice.
Olivia twisted to the side, her eyes on the image of her belly. “It’s what shifters call pregnancy. And babes are pups. I cannot believe how quickly I’ve adapted to the lingo.”
“Being mated to a shifter helps, I’m sure,” Cecilia drawled.
“Just do not say the word pup in front of my father,” Olivia warned. “I’m still not convinced he will name my future son as heir to the throne, considering he won’t be a full-blooded Lightbearer.”
“I think Uncle Sander has come a long way since Tanner and Finn and the others moved into the coterie.”
“Not long enough,” Olivia murmured, and then said abruptly asked, “Do I look fat?”
“You look perfectly normal for a female who is—how far along are you?”
“Four months.”
“You look perfectly normal,” Cecilia assured her. “And if you’d stop wearing dresses with obvious waists, no one would even know you’re with child.” She flipped the magazine closed and slid off the bed, heading over to Olivia’s closet to find a dress that would better suit her current state.
“Are you kidding? The entire coterie knows every single detail of this pregnancy. My mother gives daily updates to anyone who will listen, and many who probably would rather not but feel obligated to do so, because she is the queen. She’s so excited, you would think it was her having a child, not me.”
“She is about to be a grandmamma,” Cecilia reminded her. “And still suffers bouts of depression as a result of her intention to have a hoard of younglings and ultimately only having one. A female, at that.”
“Well, assuming my father names him as heir, and assuming I have no issues with my pregnancy, we have solved one of the problems.” She splayed her hands on her midsection.
Cecilia looked at her from the depths of the walk-in closet. “Are you truly afraid?”
Olivi
a shrugged one shoulder, feigning indifference, Cecilia suspected. But she could see the underlying worry in her cousins’ eyes. “Tanner isn’t, or at least he’s doing a marvelous job of hiding his fears from me. But the reality is, we have no idea what to expect with this preg—er—whelping.”
Her concern, unfortunately, was justifiable. Not in all of their shared history had a Lightbearer and a shifter ever mated, let alone produced a child together. Cecilia knew her cousin was worried, although she rarely expressed those fears to anyone but Cecilia, and her mate, Tanner.
“Alexa insists the babe is a Lightbearer,” Cecilia pointed out in an effort to soothe Olivia’s worries. Alexa was one of the resident Lightbearer healers and was, without a doubt, the best in the coterie.
“Yes, but she also believes it is a shifter,” Olivia replied.
“Which makes perfect sense, of course, considering you are the mother and Tanner is the father.”
Olivia lifted her eyes and looked at Cecilia through the looking glass. “What if I cannot sustain this pregnancy?” she said, whispering her deepest, darkest fear.
Cecilia, who was not very good at dealing with such serious topics, ignored her question. She pulled a maxi dress with an empire waist out of the closet and offered it to Olivia.
“Try this one,” she encouraged. “And stop worrying. Alexa says it’s bad for the babe. Or pup. Whatever.”
Cecilia observed her cousin’s body as she switched dresses. Olivia’s waist was wider, and her stomach was just beginning to round. She thought about Finnegan’s comment from earlier in the day. He no doubt thought Olivia was gorgeous right now. Not that she wasn’t, but it was slightly annoying that he didn’t find Cecilia’s waiflike figure attractive. No other man had ever complained about her figure before.
“Even if he is a shifter, which of course makes sense, we know he won’t come out looking like an animal. We were both there when Lisa birthed little Freddy.”
Olivia analyzed her image in the looking glass. “Much better, thank you,” she announced with a satisfied nod. She looked at Cecilia through the glass again. “Tanner has already come up with a dozen names. All boys, I might add.”
“Well, we know you are carrying a male.”
“Yes, but he intends to use all of them,” Olivia said with a laugh. She lifted her skirt and turned away from the looking glass. “Come, let’s go down to the party.”
Cecilia chuckled and then sobered. “I really don’t want to stay for the party. Why can’t I just sneak out the back?”
“Because your parents will be here, too. My mother has invited a hundred of her closest friends and the obligatory family.”
“What is she celebrating today?”
Genevieve Bennett had a reputation for throwing lavish parties for just about any reason she could think of. It was her way of battling the depression she suffered due to her lack of producing more than one child for her mate, the king. Considering that the Lightbearer king would only declare a male offspring as heir, the queen had felt as though she let him down when she could not get pregnant again after birthing Olivia. Unfortunately, when Tanner took over managing the budget, he severely limited the number of parties the queen was allowed to throw.
“I have no idea,” Olivia replied. “Tanner insists he doesn’t know either, which is strange, considering she has to have his permission to do it.”
Cecilia thought longingly of the small tavern in the human town that was less than a mile outside the protective wards. No doubt Finn would be at the party. He loved the head chef Carley’s cooking, and the queen adored the shifters who had taken up residence within the coterie. Not to mention, he would assume Cecilia was at the party as well, so he would not think to watch her too closely.
It was the perfect opportunity for slipping away.
“Finn told Tanner he caught you trying to sneak out of the coterie again today,” Olivia said, bringing up precisely the subject Cecilia was thinking of.
“Tanner has been relaxing the rules when it comes to leaving,” Cecilia protested. “Why must I still remain inside?”
“He allows the guards to leave, so that they can scout the surrounding area and make sure there are no threats nearby,” Olivia qualified. “Which I think is a brilliant idea, by the way.”
“I’ve been practicing self-defense.”
“That is a far cry from becoming a guard, and you well know it.”
Cecilia threw herself onto the bed and sighed gustily. “I’m convinced Finn exists to make my life miserable. I even flirted with Samuel earlier, just to get away from him. That’s how he ended up escorting me back here and then wouldn’t leave.”
A giggle burst from Olivia’s mouth. “Oh no.”
“I know.” Cecilia grimaced. “I’m afraid he has visions of mating again. I am certain he is even now paying a call upon Uncle Sander, trying to convince him to mate the two of us.”
“My father won’t agree,” Olivia said firmly. “Not without your consent. He learned his lesson when he attempted to mate Dane and I.”
“He only learned his lesson because you were already mated to Tanner, and Tanner led him to believe you were already with child, although if that were true, then you are about to suffer through a ten-month pregnancy. Plus, Tanner had just given him a check that would help him save face as king,” Cecilia pointed out. “I don’t have any such backup.”
“He still will not,” Olivia insisted. “He cares about you as if you were his daughter too. He will want you to be happy. And Samuel would not make you happy.”
“Being mated to Samuel would make me want to leap off the cliff at the first available opportunity,” Cecilia muttered.
* * * *
Occasionally, being assigned to Cecilia Duty was worth the hassle. Today was turning out to be one of those instances. When Finn left Cecilia earlier, he’d flown straight to Daisy’s cottage, only to discover she wasn’t home. He then headed back to the beach house, although he purposely avoided going anywhere near Cecilia. Instead, he sought out Tanner, who was happy enough to spar with him. When they were both exhausted and sweaty and ready to call it quits, Tanner suggested Finn join the queen’s party.
“Olivia’s mother is putting on what she calls an intimate dinner party.”
“What does that mean?” Finn asked, suspicious of the way Tanner said the word intimate.
“No more than a hundred people.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Finn replied. Mingling in close quarters with a hundred Lightbearers he barely knew did not sound like his idea of a good time.
“Carley’s cooking.”
That was the reason Finn had changed his mind. Carley was the best chef Finn had ever experienced in his life. If Carley was cooking, he supposed he could endure damn near anything, even playing nice with Cecilia, who would of course be there. She was always at the beach house. She and Olivia were as close as sisters, and the king and queen had all but raised Cecilia, according to Tanner.
“Her parents have some pretty fucked-up views about Lightbearer segregation,” Tanner told him not long ago. “They’ve always been that way, but it’s gotten worse now that there are shifters living here. And Cecilia has always had a contentious relationship with them.”
Finn supposed that would explain why Cecilia was forever attempting to sneak out of the coterie, her own safety be damned. Classic rebellion-against-the-parents motivation, even if she was nearly thirty years old and still doing it. He wondered if her parents’ beliefs were why she wasn’t yet mated.
He hadn’t been kidding when he said she attracted males like flies. It wasn’t just a particular kind of male, either. It was all of them. She could have her choice of any of the single male Lightbearers of her acquaintance, including that lovesick bastard, Samuel, whose voice he swore he could hear as he wandered through the halls of the beach house waiting for the party to start.
Actually, that was Samuel’s voice. He thought he heard the king, too. His curiosity piqued, Finn follow
ed the sound of their voices, until he stood outside the library. The door was slightly ajar. He looked through the small opening and saw Samuel, standing with his back to Finn, and the king, sitting behind his desk, looking world-weary and slightly harassed.
“I will discuss it with Cecilia, Samuel,” the king said. “And if she agrees, I will perform the ceremony.”
“We should not wait for her compliance,” Samuel insisted. “I would rather do it sooner than later. Even this evening. I understand the queen has planned another party. A mating ceremony would be the perfect addition.”
A mating ceremony? What the hell was Samuel up to?
The king stood and stepped out of view. When he returned into Finn’s line of vision again, he held a tiny crystal glass in one hand. The glass was full of burgundy liquid, and as Finn watched, he tipped it back and swallowed the contents. Faery wine, he suspected. Tanner told him the king kept a stash hidden away in his library. Tanner also mentioned that the stash never seemed to deplete, which suggested the king still maintained a connection with the land of the fae, despite Tanner’s request he sever those ties.
“I’ve learned my lesson in that respect, Samuel. I tried to do the same thing to my own daughter, and the result was disastrous.”
“Yes,” Samuel agreed. “Now she is mated to a shifter.” His tone implied he found that idea to be highly unfavorable. Finn had never noticed that Samuel held the same beliefs as the small faction of shifter-hating Lightbearers that he and Tanner were well aware existed. Yet his tone insinuated exactly that.
“Cecilia needs someone with a firm hand, to keep her in line,” Samuel continued. “She requires discipline, someone who can teach her self-restraint. She needs a babe in her belly, so that she can learn to settle down and stay where she belongs.”
Finn almost laughed out loud. If Samuel thought any of those things would win over the stubborn, bullheaded, independent Cecilia Druthers, he was sadly mistaken. Their mated life would be living hell, without a doubt. Although Finn was positive that Samuel would be the miserable one, because if those two were involved in a battle of wills, he knew damn well Cecilia would win. Hands down.