by Tami Lund
“Rehabilitation,” the king said, grimacing. “It is an exceedingly unpleasant process, and not one we enact with much frequency, but it is the only solution I can think of.”
“Death comes to mind,” Finn suggested, seemingly lightly. But the comment was anything but light. Cecilia and his pack master both had very nearly lost their lives, thanks to those bastards who blindly followed Cedric. As far as he was concerned, he’d kill them all himself.
“We are no longer part of a shifter pack,” Tanner reminded him. “And if you’ll recall, I didn’t kill my father’s followers after his death.”
“This community is too small to just disperse them and hope for the best,” Finn replied.
“Your soon-to-be-mate will be fine,” Tanner said mildly. “At least, I presume you want to mate with her? Considering you chose her life over mine yesterday.”
Finn turned his head and looked out the window.
“If it helps, I would have done the same.”
“Me too,” the king added, surprising both shifters with the determination in his voice. “And I am happy to perform the mating ceremony. Er, the Lightbearer mating ceremony,” he amended, a blush staining his cheeks.
“I grant permission as well,” Tanner added.
“We still have to work through the aftermath,” Finn said. He didn’t acknowledge their permissions. He wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. Cecilia had been so distant, so quiet in the eighteen hours since Cedric died and the battle finally ceased. He couldn’t even read her emotions, although she had been sleeping for a vast majority of the time.
“You’ve done plenty,” Tanner said. “Why don’t you go to her? She needs you now, undoubtedly more than ever. You know more than any of us how hard it is to deal with taking the life of someone close to you.”
“Quentin wasn’t close to me.”
“He was still your pack master.”
* * * *
Something compelled her to pull from sleep, even though her mind, her body, didn’t particularly want to. Her body was exhausted from all that had happened over the course of the last few days. Her mind, well, it wanted to sleep forever. If she stayed asleep, she wouldn’t have to face the realities of her life.
Her parents were dead. Her brother was dead—officially, this time.
Olivia was fine, but she was mated to Tanner, and expecting her first child in five months’ time.
Her cousin Carley was at death’s door, and when Cecilia had fallen into Olivia’s bed and curled up and gone to sleep, she had no idea if Carley would still be alive when she woke.
She was all alone in the world.
Soon, Olivia and Uncle Sander and Aunt Genevieve would be too consumed with the newborn pup to notice whether Cecilia was even in the vicinity. And she had no one else.
She’d fancied at one point that Finn might be that someone else. That he might be hers, despite what he’d said when Samuel had asked her to mate with him. But now that the battle was over, that the bad guys had been defeated, doubt had crept into her mind.
They argued, they disagreed, they had nothing at all in common, other than an appreciation for regular sex. Finn could find that anywhere, and eventually, he could find all the rest of it too, with someone else. Probably with another shifter. Now that Cedric was gone, he could go back to his sister’s pack, make his home there. She burrowed more deeply under the blankets, not wishing to wake and deal with those unpleasant thoughts. Her new reality.
“Fine. If you won’t wake up, I’ll just pick you up and carry you to my cottage in your nightgown.”
Her eyes shot open. “Finn?”
“Why is it I always have to reduce myself to threats to get you to react to me?”
“What threats?”
He shook his head. “Come on, get up. Olivia’s still asleep, and I don’t want to wake her.”
“I’m not ready to get up yet.”
“Too bad. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To my cottage.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to talk to you, and I want to do it in private.”
Now he too is leaving me. She shrank away from him. “No. Tell me here. I’m not leaving.”
His gaze darted to Olivia’s sleeping form and then back to Cecilia. With a gusty sigh, he crouched on his haunches, next to the bed, and placed his hands on the sheet next to her.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m tired.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re trying to avoid dealing with reality.”
Damn it, she hated that he knew her so well. Especially considering he was about to tell her he was leaving.
“So?” she challenged. “What do you care?”
“I’ve been there, Cici.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because. Because … Only those close to me can use that nickname.” She lifted her chin defiantly.
“You don’t think we’re close? After all the things we’ve done together? The fact that I can feel your emotions? And share your magic?”
Her cheeks flamed. “I’m sure that will go away.”
“What will?”
“Me, giving you my magic. I don’t know how to control it, since I didn’t even know I could do it in the first place.”
“Why do you want it to go away?”
She glared. “Because you’re leaving. Why would I want to share my magic with someone who will be five hundred miles away?”
The look on his face shifted to confusion. “Leaving? What the hell are you talking about?”
“You—you’re planning to move to Tennessee. To join your sister’s pack.”
He blinked owlishly. “No, I’m not. Where the hell did you get that idea? If I want to go anywhere, it’s to a deserted island, somewhere in the Caribbean.”
“Oh, because that’s even better, since you’ll be three times farther away,” she retorted, completely irrationally. Didn’t the man have any idea what he was doing to her heart?
“With you.”
“With … me?” It took her several long seconds to comprehend. And even then, she wasn’t sure she truly understood. “What do you mean, with me?”
He made a noise of annoyance and then stood up and scooped her into his arms, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her so that her feet dangled several inches off the ground.
“I mean, I want to take you away, go on a vacation. Just the two of us. Somewhere where you can regenerate your magic and your emotional wounds can heal. Somewhere where it’s just the two of us, and I can convince you that you are worth more than your brother and parents combined, and that they were fucked-up individuals, and you did nothing wrong in that battle yesterday.”
It was her turn to blink owlishly. After a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “Would this vacation involve sex?”
Finn laughed. They both heard a sniffle and shifted their attention to Olivia, who sat on the bed, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “Sorry. Ever since I began whelping, happy endings always make me cry.”
Finn laughed again. Cecilia joined him.
Epilogue
“Hey.”
Cecilia turned her head and watched as Finn bent at the waist and offered her a mug of coffee. “Thank you.” She accepted the cup and continued to watch as he folded his tall, muscular frame onto the blanket next to her. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You left the bed,” he said simply. She understood. She always felt a little better, a little more secure, calmer, when he was there. Especially when he was touching her.
“Besides, I knew you’d sneak out here to greet the sun.” He squinted as he looked at the horizon. The bright yellow mass was just beginning to peek over the wavy line that separated the dark blue of the ocean from the paler blue of the sky.
Cecilia smiled. “Silly of me, I know. Down here, it’s as if the sun never stops shining. My magic has never felt stronger. I’m not sure I ev
er want to go back.”
“I think you do. Despite everything that happened, family is too important to you to stay away.”
He was right, of course. Olivia, her aunt and uncle, Olivia and Tanner’s unborn pup, even Tanner had become family to her.
“Thanks, by the way, for going to my sister’s house with me first, before we came down here to paradise.”
Cecilia smiled. “Of course. Your new niece is utterly adorable.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty cute. Looks just like my sister did when she was a pup.” He paused and then added, “I noticed the two of you were getting along better than the last time we visited.”
“I showed her a couple of cooking tips I picked up from Carley. Now that they have three pups, she said she needs every shortcut she can find. And I think she’s finally accepted that you’re going to stay in the coterie.”
Finn nodded and sipped his coffee. “Ben said they’re planning to come visit for a week next summer.”
“That will be nice.”
They fell silent, sitting side by side on the beach, watching the sunrise and drinking coffee. After a few moments, Cecilia asked, “Do you think…?”
“Carley’s still alive? I don’t know. But if she is, we’ll find her. Alexa said she’d healed her almost entirely before she disappeared, so there’s hope.”
She liked that he could finish her thoughts, without her having to speak them out loud. “Do you feel guilty for spending this week down here, when so much is still unresolved back at the coterie?”
“Nope. You needed this. We needed this.”
Cecilia very deliberately placed her coffee mug in the sand and twisted her body so she faced Finn on the blanket they shared. “Do you want to know what I truly need?”
He arched an auburn brow.
“To mate with you.”
She’d shocked him. It gave her a little frisson of pleasure to know that she could, especially considering they could feel one another’s emotions. She had been worried he would have figured it out by now.
He tossed his coffee mug into the sand and leaned toward her, pressing his fists into the blanket. “Are you sure?”
“I have never been so sure of anything in my life, Finn.”
He crawled forward, pressing her back into the blanket as he did so. She lay down and stared up at him, towering over her on his hands and knees. “I was under the impression we had to be in a different position to mate,” she said, her voice breathless with anticipation, excitement. Desire.
“We’ll get there.” He leaned down and kissed her. When he pushed up onto his hands again, her bikini top was lying on the sand next to her.
“You’re slick,” she teased.
“I’m determined,” he responded.
“Shouldn’t we go inside?”
“No one else gets up at this ungodly hour. Although, if you get up and run toward the cabana right now, I can promise you that we’ll be mated in about ten seconds flat. Chasing our prey makes shifters seriously hot.”
She giggled and snuggled deeper into the folds of the sun-warmed blanket. “I’ll remember that for future reference. But for now, if you aren’t worried about getting caught, I’m not.”
“I have every intention of getting caught. Forever.” He leaned down again, nuzzled her breast for a moment before sucking the nipple into his mouth. She arched and gurgled, her hands fisting the blanket.
When he pulled away, she flipped over onto her stomach. “I can’t take it anymore,” she complained, wiggling her ass while thrusting it into the air, inviting him, tempting him, promising him.
She felt his hand smooth over the roundness, then slide up her spine to massage her neck, before slipping back down again. His fingers caught the waistband of her bikini bottoms, tugging it down over her legs. His hand trailed back up her leg, cupped the inside of her thigh, and then stroked the cleft of her ass, his fingers grazing the moisture gathered there.
“So wet,” he murmured. “And so damn sweet.” She heard him smack his lips, and she groaned.
“Finn…”
“Yes, Cici?”
“Please…”
“Are you ready?”
She dropped her face to the towel and curled her fists. “Just do it, Finnegan,” she said with a growl.
He chuckled and smoothed his palm over her ass again. “Patience, sweetheart, patience.”
“You’ve been torturing me for hours,” she complained.
He chuckled again. “It’s been maybe five minutes.”
“I can’t take much more. I think I’m going to combust. Just do it already!”
“Are you always going to be so bossy?” She heard rustling as he shimmied out of his swim trunks.
“Only if you insist upon torturing me about every—ah! Yes-s-s…” Her voice dissolved into a groan as he thrust into her, impaling her, filling her, mating with her.
“Mine,” he said as he pulled out and thrust again.
“Yes!”
“Forever,” he said on another thrust.
“Yes!”
He bent over her, so his lips were near her ear. As he continued to thrust, continued to bring them both closer to the brink, he whispered, “I love you, Cici.”
As she exploded with her orgasm, Cecilia threw her head back and shouted, “I love you, Finn!”
When she was coherent again, Cecilia turned her head and regarded her new mate, who was lying half on top of her, with his eyes closed and his face inches from her own on the towel.
“I liked that,” she whispered.
“I’m glad I could accommodate you,” he mumbled without opening his eyes.
“Does this mean we can do it that way any time we choose?”
Finn opened his eyes and smiled. “This means you can do whatever the hell you want to, so long as it’s with me. Forever.”
“Including use a feather?”
Finn groaned and then said, “Yes. Even that. Anything you want, Cici.”
She kissed his unshaven cheek. “I’m so glad you’re my mate.”
The End
Paranormal Romance by Tami Lund ~
Lightbearer Series
First Light (prequel)
Broken Light (prequel #2; Part of the Claiming My Valentine anthology releasing February 2017)
Into the Light
Dawning of Light
Light Beyond the Darkness
Change in the Light
Cupid’s Light
Twisted Fate Series
Of Love and Darkness
Prim and Proper Fate
Prisoner of Fate – releasing July 2017
Resist
(Part of the Vampire Blood Courtesans Series, written by multiple authors)
All’s Fair: Love & Warlocks
Mirror, Mirror
Contemporary Romance by Tami Lund ~
Sexy Bad Neighbor
(co-written with Misti Murphy; releasing February 2017)
Tough Love Series
Naked Truth
Undercover Heat
Delicious Deception
Candy Crush
The Bartender
Love Gumbo
Separation Anxiety
All above books can be purchased through most online retailers, with the exception of Separation Anxiety, which is a free read available only on Tami Lund’s website.
http://tamilund.com
If you read one of Tami’s books, consider leaving a review on the retail site from which you purchased it. Thank you!
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Tami Lund is an author, a wine drinker, an award winner, and a lover of romance. She writes happily ever afters, one book at a time. You should sign up for her newsletter for updates, sales, free reads, and a regular dose of her quirky sense of humor: http://www.subscribepage.com/Tami_Lund
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