by Tami Lund
Carley wasn’t in the kitchens. Cecilia barely knew the four underchefs who were busy preparing dinner, so she quickly left and headed down the hall toward the main foyer. That area reminded her of Finn’s devastating proclamation, so she hurried through to the entertainment room. Olivia was upstairs, resting. She’d been hit with a bout of nausea a short time ago. Tanner had tucked her into bed and then headed down to the village to track down Alexa. Olivia had insisted she was fine, but he was a slightly overprotective shifter, and so she relented and let him have his way.
Cecilia wondered if Finn would act the same way toward his mate, when he took one, and she became with child. Or did he not have any interest in mating? She had no idea. The closest they’d ever come to having the conversation was when he’d informed her that she was nothing more than a good fuck. Hell, he hadn’t even said she was a good fuck.
A flash of movement caught her eye, and Cecilia lifted her gaze to the bank of windows lining the north side of the room. The sun was low in the sky, already heading toward dusk, but the sky was cloudless, and the last rays stretched across the snow-covered lawn, changing the white to hues of gold and orange.
Someone was standing out there on the lawn. Cecilia narrowed her eyes and stepped closer to the windows, pressing her palms against the cool glass. Actually, there were several people standing out on the lawn. A woman, who looked as though she was struggling with several men.
What was going on? She twisted her head to and fro, searching for the guards that typically hovered around every corner of the beach house, but none went running to the rescue of the distressed woman. Where were the guards?
She heard a scream, and her body tensed. She wanted to help the woman, but she was no fool. She had been taking Finn’s self-defense classes for less than half a year. There were at least five men out there. She and the woman would be hopelessly outnumbered. The woman screamed again.
“Cecilia!”
She forgot everything, every fear or worry for her safety. Whatever their relationship might be, Cecilia could not stand by and let the woman be attacked.
She had to help her mother.
Chapter 20
Cecilia rushed through the snow, holding her skirt up to her knees to give her better traction. She had paused long enough to throw on a pair of boots but hadn’t bothered with a coat. The wintery wind bit into her cheeks and the exposed area on her hands and arms. The thin sweater and cotton material of her dress provided almost no protection against the freezing temperatures, yet she ignored it all and ran on.
Where the hell was Finn? As annoying as his stalkerish tendencies had been before they started sleeping together, and as angry as she was over his announcement of his lack of feelings for her, she would certainly be happy to see him right about now. Thrilled. Ecstatic. If he showed up right now and rescued her and her mother, she’d probably even reward him with another round in the bedchamber, even though not ten minutes ago she’d sworn to herself that she was never, ever going to sleep with him again.
Who was she kidding? There was no probably about it.
But Finn didn’t come. She made it all the way to the small group of Lightbearers before she realized it was a trap. Her mother was tossed to the snowy ground and all five male Lightbearers turned to Cecilia. She immediately tried to run back to the house, but one of them tackled her to the ground. Her face was buried in the snow for a moment. She was jerked to her feet and wasn’t even given the opportunity to wipe the wetness from her face before four additional sets of arms were on her person, forcefully guiding her toward the line of trees running along the northern border of the beach house lawn.
She craned her neck and saw her mother struggle to her feet for a moment, before she dropped to her knees and covered her face with her hands. Was she crying? Why wasn’t she trying to help Cecilia?
They herded her into the trees before it occurred to her to fight. She began to thrash about, flailing her arms, kicking her legs, doing, as Finn had taught her, everything she could to make it as difficult as possible for her captors to hold her.
“Hurry,” she heard over her own shouts and grunts and struggles. “Under the protection of the trees, before one of the shifters becomes aware.” The voice was harsh, as if the owner was deliberately attempting to disguise it.
“No,” Cecilia ground out, because she understood what that person said: once they were hidden in the trees, no one would know where she was. No one would know to look for her.
Except Finn. He would know. He always knew how to find her. She clung to that small sliver of hope as she heard the command, “Irons.” It was hardly more than a raspy whisper.
Two Lightbearers grabbed her arms, while a third used gloved hands to slip an iron manacle over one of her wrists. As soon as the poisonous iron bit into her flesh, Cecilia dropped to her knees and cried out in pain.
“Cover her,” the same whispery voice commanded. Someone threw a cloak over her shoulders and head, the hood so large it almost entirely covered her face.
“Take her to my chamber. Hurry, before the sleeping draught wears off and the guards wake.”
“Y-you aren’t going to kill her?”
Cecilia flung her head around, knocking the hood away from her face enough for her to see the Lightbearer who had asked the question.
“Samuel?” she said in disbelief. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he helping her?
He turned at the sound of her voice, caught her eye, and quickly dropped his gaze to the snow. Even in that brief glimpse, she saw guilt scrawled across his features. What had he done? She recalled the day he’d added a sleeping draught to her wine, and then she’d woken up in his bed with no recollection from the previous four hours. Not every Lightbearer had the ability to create potions.
“Samuel?” She said his name again, but he didn’t look her way.
Had he drugged the guards, just as he’d drugged her? Why?
“Not yet,” the whispery voice responded to Samuel’s question. “She is far too useful alive at the moment. When the shifters and the king and queen and monster-spawning princess are dead, then we will readdress whether she lives or dies.”
Monster-spawning princess? The man with the creepy voice was talking about Olivia! He intended to kill Olivia and her parents—and Tanner and Finn and the other shifters too. Oh lights, he was going to kill Finn. Fear, desperation, and aching love shot through her system.
Please don’t kill Finn. Don’t kill any of them, but please, Finn most of all. As selfish as her thoughts were, she didn’t alter them.
“I can reform her,” Samuel insisted. “Just give me the chance.”
“You have had chances for months now, and you have systematically failed each and every time. Not only have you failed, but you have managed to push her into the arms of our archenemy. She has given herself over to a shifter. He intends to claim her as his own. I saw it in Carley’s head.”
Carley’s head? How had the man with the low voice gotten into Carley’s head? Cecilia didn’t even know that was possible. Of course, few knew of her ability to get through locks and wards, either. Many believed it was a lost magical ability, one that had been bred out of their kind decades ago.
Her next thought was to wonder how Carley knew she and Finn were sleeping together, but she supposed she had an answer for that, too. They hadn’t exactly hidden their affair, and much like Olivia and Tanner, they had a bad habit of simply reacting when the urge overcame them. They didn’t need a bed. A closet would do. Or the counter in the kitchen, next to the wood-burning stove. No, it wasn’t surprising at all that Carley had figured it out.
And what did he mean by “claim her as his own”? Clearly, whatever he’d retrieved from Carley’s head was wrong. Finn wanted nothing more from her than a physical release. Not a single time had he expressed any interest in having sex shifter-style.
“You would mate with a female who has sullied herself with our enemy?” the man with the whispering voice spoke again.
He wore a cloak similar to the one that had been thrown over Cecilia’s shoulders. Only his mouth was visible. Everything else was covered by the heavy crimson garment.
“Y-yes,” Samuel said, although his voice wavered, as if he was afraid of his own answer.
“Come,” the cloaked man commanded, pointing at the ground directly in front of him. Samuel waded through snow until he stood before the other man. For a moment, nothing happened. The two men simply looked at one another, while everyone else watched. The air filled with white puffs as each Lightbearer breathed, the carbon dioxide crystalizing as it left their mouths or nostrils.
In the next instant, the hooded man lifted both arms. A sword appeared. Samuel’s eyes widened as comprehension dawned. Someone screamed. Cecilia realized it was her. Pale, veiny arms swung the sword, and Samuel’s head was sliced from his body. It flipped into the air, twisting several times, spraying dark droplets of blood everywhere. The group of surrounding Lightbearers all ducked, all except the hooded one, who stood and watched as the head dropped into the snow, instantly staining it red. There was a nearly blinding explosion of light, and Samuel’s body collapsed where it stood.
Cecilia screamed again. Tears flowed from her eyes and froze on her cheeks. She struggled to try to stand, to run to his body, even though she knew he was dead. When a Lightbearer died, the flash of light was the last of his life leaving his body. The theory was that final flash was the reason shifters had begun believing they could steal a Lightbearer’s magic by killing them.
The Lightbearer closest to Cecilia pushed on her shoulder, and she fell to her knees again. The raw wound on the wrist wrapped in iron sizzled, and steam billowed from where it dropped into the snow.
“Is anyone else interested in mating with a sullied Lightbearer?” the cloaked man asked. He hadn’t moved from where he stood in front of Samuel’s body. Cecilia assumed his cloak was soaked with blood, but it was hard to tell given its color. She had the irrational thought that was deliberate. The man was as calm as if he’d just poured a cup of coffee, not killed another person.
Hatred bubbled up inside her, taking her somewhat by surprise. Cecilia was not given to strong emotions like this, although she’d admittedly never been in a situation such as this one. She had been there when Quentin attacked them in Las Vegas last summer and then again when he found the coterie a few weeks later. People had died in those two situations as well, but Cecilia had only been peripherally aware. She certainly hadn’t been standing a few feet away, claiming a front-row seat. And in those situations, the two factions had been battling. Samuel had not been given the opportunity to defend himself. In those other situations, the shifters who died had to. If they hadn’t, they would have killed Cecilia and Olivia and Dane. All Samuel had done was offer to mate with her, despite the fact that she’d sullied herself with a shifter. Just because the hooded man hated shifters.
Cecilia was irrationally tempted to shout out to him, to tell him that she’d enjoyed it, every time, that sex with Finn was far and above better than anything she’d ever experienced before him. That she was ruined forever, because she never wanted another man to touch her, ever again. Only Finn.
Only Finn.
She didn’t shout her thoughts. For one thing, they had taken her by surprise, although as soon as they flitted through her mind, she knew they were true. Even if she could not have Finn, she would never be able to give herself over to another man. It was a sobering thought, especially given their convoluted relationship.
Instead, she studied the hooded man. She presumed she was staring at the leader of the faction of Lightbearers who hated shifters so much they’d formed something of an underground cult, banded together by their misguided beliefs.
He wasn’t overly tall or wide, although it was hard to determine how thin he was, given the heavy cloak covering his body. There were no other identifying features except the fact that his arms had looked terribly pale, as if he was not exposed to the sun very often. That was strange if this man was a Lightbearer. Given his ability to summon a sword and slice off a man’s head, and the fact that he was inside the coterie and wasn’t a shifter, she had to assume he was a Lightbearer.
What sort of leader didn’t allow his followers to see his face? Was he disfigured? Perhaps he had a run-in with a shifter at some point in his life, and had scars to prove it. Although, if he was trying to rally a group to passionately hate someone, it seemed like revealing scars caused by that being would only help his cause.
Her anger, her thought processes, were not entirely her own. Finn’s emotions were in her head. Somehow, she was channeling his feelings, and they were helping to keep her calm in the face of a chaotic, highly frightening situation.
When the silence stretched on and no one spoke, the cloaked figure released the magic and his sword disappeared. “Good. Now, cover her head and take her to my chamber. We have lost precious time.”
“Chosen One,” a breathless voice called out. Cecilia turned her head and watched as Carley’s mate trudged toward them through the snow. When he was close enough, he stopped and bent at the waist, gasping for breath. He had obviously been running for quite some time.
“I thought I told you to ensure your mate does not interfere?” the hooded man asked, a touch of coolness to his voice that caused Cecilia to wince.
“She will not interfere,” Miguel boasted. “Not ever again.”
Oh no! What had he done to Carley?
After a moment’s hesitation, the cloaked man asked if Miguel had passed anyone on his way to the woods.
“The shifter. The one who impregnated the princess with his monster spawn. He appeared in a hurry and didn’t see me,” Miguel assured his leader.
Pale lips thinned. “We are running behind. The princess is already reacting to the poison we fed her. I am certain he is rushing to one of the healers. We must hurry, so we do not cross paths. I had intended for us to be in position by now, so we could attack while he was away, but I will formulate a backup plan. Come. We must get to my chambers.”
He poisoned Olivia? Cecilia’s heart began beating double time. If her best friend was dead…
While she struggled to wrap her head around everything he’d just said, two Lightbearers turned her around and began marching her through the woods, toward the cliff that separated the beach house from the village below. She stumbled and fell several times, until Miguel lost his patience and lifted her and threw her over his shoulder. It reminded her of the time Finn had done exactly the same thing. How long ago had that occurred? It felt like a lifetime.
They hurried along the edge of the cliff, two by two. As she was flung over Miguel’s shoulder, she could see the beach house and the lawn running into the expanse of trees from which they’d just come. Her mother was no longer sitting in the snow. Had they killed her too?
The entourage made it down the stairs cut into the cliff wall without incident. The last threads of sunlight were pulling away, across the icy lake, as the sun dipped below the horizon. There were no other Lightbearers wandering around. Everyone was tucked into their cottages, making dinner or preparing their younglings for bed, or bellying up to the tavern for a drink or a bite. They were going about their normal lives, while Cecilia’s was spiraling utterly out of control.
Where the hell was Finn?
A body lay in the snow, unmoving, at the base of the staircase.
Finn!
It wasn’t him. The body was too small, the hair too long and blonde. Cecilia recognized the dress on the prone figure. It was the one Carley had been wearing while she’d been working in the kitchens at the beach house, earlier today.
Everyone paraded by without pause, including Miguel. Most didn’t even glance at the body.
Oh lights above, had he killed his own mate? Anger surged through Cecilia’s system, causing her magic to flare.
“Ow. Shit.” Miguel jerked her off his shoulder and dropped her. She crumpled to the ground, not expecting such treatment and therefore n
ot prepared to stand on her own two feet.
When she looked up, she saw that he was shaking the arm that had been wrapped around her thighs. When he peeled away his coat sleeve, there was a line of angry red welts on his skin. He pulled his gaze away from the welts and caught her eye. Before she could react, he backhanded her, causing Cecilia’s head to snap to the side and bloody spittle to fly from her mouth.
“Come,” the cloaked one commanded once again.
“You bring her,” Miguel snapped to another Lightbearer before he turned and hurried after the retreating leader. The younger Lightbearer hesitated before wrapping his gloved hand around her arm and hauling her to her feet. Cecilia stumbled along with the small group as they skirted the base of the cliff, until they were swallowed amongst the swath of trees in which Cecilia’s parents’ and Finn’s cottages were situated.
“Shifter!” someone shouted, and before Cecilia could scream, the hooded Lightbearer harshly commanded, “Cover her mouth.” The younger Lightbearer who had been guiding her along wrapped his arm around her neck and slapped his gloved hand over her mouth.
Their entourage was comprised of fifteen Lightbearers plus Cecilia and the leader. The cloaked one separated Cecilia and three others, and then commanded the rest to, “Subdue the shifter, by any means necessary.”
Finn! Even Finn would be no match against a dozen armed Lightbearers. She struggled against her captor, but he refused to relinquish his hold. She kept fighting him. She had to get to Finn. She couldn’t let him die.
She was so caught up in her attempts to break free that she didn’t even realize they’d reached their destination until the front door swung open, and she was dragged inside.
Into her parents’ cottage.
* * * *
“Why are we here?” she blurted after she was hauled into the middle of the living room, and her captor finally pulled his hand away from her mouth.
The cloaked man, the one the others called Chosen One, turned a full circle before facing her. “This is where my chamber is located.”