by Tami Lund
Tanner joined them a few minutes later, and Cecilia ate in silence while the two men discussed training the Lightbearer guards. Finn didn’t look at her, nor did he acknowledge what happened last night—the kiss or the way she had drunkenly thrown herself at him. Part of her was relieved because she was so utterly embarrassed by her own behavior.
But a small part was disappointed. Obviously, the kiss meant nothing to him. Obviously, he felt none of the same overwhelming emotions she felt. Clearly, this annoying attraction was one-sided.
She felt a distinct sense of relief when he and Tanner pushed away from the table and announced that it was time to head to training. When Tanner leaned over Olivia’s chair and kissed her for far longer than was necessary, given they had an audience, Cecilia purposely avoided looking at Finn at all.
After they left, she stared out the window at the snow-covered lawn. “Perhaps I will move downstate to join that pack of shifters myself,” she muttered miserably.
* * * *
Samuel was at practice. For the first time since last night, Finn felt his spirits lift a little. Finally, he had an outlet for all this pent-up energy swirling around inside him like a damn tornado. Samuel gave him a stiff nod and then stepped into formation, and Finn let his thoughts wander back to the night before.
Let his thoughts? Hell, he couldn’t stop them if he wanted to. Cecilia. That kiss. He had been so wrapped up in kissing the damned Lightbearer that he’d been a hairbreadth away from fucking her up against the wall, right there in the open. In fact, the only thing that had stopped him was his shifter hearing had detected Samuel when he stepped out of the tavern and began wandering around outside, presumably looking for them. Finn had forced himself to pull away from Cecilia, out of her embrace, to detach his lips from hers. He’d been so disoriented, so overwhelmed, that he’d only been able to stagger a few steps before he dropped his hands to his knees and focused on just keeping upright, let alone not rushing right back into her arms.
The damned woman had him by the balls, and she didn’t even know it. At least, he thought she didn’t. He hoped she didn’t. Otherwise, he was in trouble. If she had any inkling whatsoever of the power she had over him…
What would be so bad about sleeping with Cecilia? He asked himself that question as he waited for the rest of the disorganized, haphazard guards to fall into formation. Unfortunately, he had plenty of answers.
For one thing, he needed to focus on getting these guards whipped into shape, so if there was another shifter attack, they would be able to defend themselves, and the coterie. Now that Tanner was in charge—even if it was from behind the scenes—and was due to become a father in five months’ time, he was determined that the guards truly lived up to their station.
Before Tanner came along, the Lightbearers had relied on the magical wards surrounding their exclusive little community for protection. Although they referred to themselves as guards, in truth, they were more responsible for maintaining the peace inside the coterie, rather than protecting the inhabitants from the dangers that lurked outside.
Things changed when Quentin Lyons figured out Lightbearers still existed. While he had not been able to get through the wards, he knew the general coordinates, and even that little bit of knowledge was too much, in Finn’s book. Quentin might be dead, but he’d left plenty of shifters behind who had blindly followed him for decades. Finn had no doubt at least some of them would try to band together and carry on his legacy of hate. The Lightbearers needed to be prepared for anything.
The females are even worse than the males, Finn mused as he ran the group through a series of stretches. Sander Bennett, the king of the Lightbearers, was a sexist ruler who believed females should be protected, not learn to protect themselves. Thankfully, Tanner had put a stop to that ridiculous practice almost immediately.
Three hours later, after the guards had been dismissed and an entirely different group of Lightbearers lined up for training, Finn wished Tanner had not put a stop to that practice. Finn was in charge of overseeing defensive training for the entire village, including the females, who were now given the directive that they too had to learn to protect themselves. Unfortunately for Finn, Cecilia fell into this group.
She wore a dress, like all the women did. Finn had wanted them to wear slacks at first, but then when he realized that most only ever wore dresses, he changed his mind and determined that they should learn to fight while wearing their normal clothing, so they would be more comfortable and defending themselves would feel natural.
The Lightbearers were a beautiful group of magical people. Most had pale hair and brightly colored eyes that sparkled like gems. Thanks to their magic, the females could fix their hair, add a little enhancement to their faces, hide an unsightly bulge, without so much as a spare thought. Finn was faced with rows of handsome females, all made up as if prepared for a night on the town, rather than the opportunity to get down and dirty and learn how to fight.
Even with all the viable competition, though, Cecilia stood out as if she were a beacon, the lone lighthouse at the tip of a jutting piece of land. But instead of warning off sailors so that they would not crash their ships into the rocky shore, she was a damned siren, summoning Finn, calling to him. Instead of proper defensive techniques, he was thinking about various bedroom positions. None of the other women existed. Just Cecilia.
“You going to teach them anything today?”
Tanner stood slightly behind Finn, his arms crossed, a smirk on his face. His mate had determined that despite her pregnancy, she was more than capable of going through Finn’s training. Tanner had not wanted her to, but she’d won that particular battle, and now stood at attention next to Cecilia, waiting for Finn to tell her what to do.
Finn kicked himself into gear. As he paced in front of them, he gave them a lecture about safety, about being aware of their surroundings at all times. He deliberately looked at Cecilia when he gave this speech. She glared back. Was she pissed about last night? Was she angry that he’d pulled away, or angry at herself for kissing him in the first place?
Probably the former. He and Cecilia could barely tolerate one another under normal circumstances, and since she had gone to the tavern with Samuel in the first place, Finn supposed it was entirely possible that she had intended to go home with the Lightbearer last night. The overabundance of wine she drank had obviously confused her, and she’d hit on Finn, when she meant to hit on Samuel.
He ran them through a series of stretches, like he had with the males.
Not that he would have let her change directions. That was why he took her to the beach house last night, because he knew damn well that if he left her to her own devices, she would have gone home with Samuel. While he tried to convince himself he didn’t want her, he sure as hell didn’t want Samuel to have her either. Something about that particular Lightbearer struck him as off, although he had no proof to back up his suspicion.
He thought about the brutal training he’d given the Lightbearer guard, and he couldn’t help but smile. Samuel would regret his decision to join today’s training for at least a week.
He went through a series of demonstrations, showing them how to kick, how to punch, how to extract themselves if someone had hold of some part of their bodies. When it was time to demonstrate with a partner, he deliberately chose Lisa, who had joined the training just for kicks. Lisa already knew all this shit. She’d been raised in the same pack as he, and Quentin had excused no one from learning hand-to-hand combat.
He and Lisa expertly demonstrated everything Finn had just explained, and then he had everyone pair up and practice. He walked through the practicing duos, correcting as necessary, offering words of encouragement, suggesting ways to do something just a little bit better or faster or smarter.
He deliberately avoided Cecilia and Olivia, who had paired up together, even though they were both very clearly doing a certain kick incorrectly. Tanner finally scowled and walked over and showed them what they were doing wr
ong.
When practice was over and everyone was dismissed, Finn wiped his face with a towel and headed toward the staircase built into the cliff, so he could go back to his cottage and take a steaming hot shower. He was contemplating shifting into a bird and flying down to the bottom, rather than walking, when he heard someone call his name. He turned and bit back a groan as he watched Cecilia wade through the snow, heading in his direction.
She was spitting mad, and when she was close enough, she stabbed him in the arm with her finger so hard magic flared for an instant.
“Don’t you dare do that again,” she said, her stormy blue eyes reflecting her anger.
“Do what?” What the hell had he done this time?
“You purposely ignored me for that entire training session,” she accused.
“There were a hundred other females there. I couldn’t possibly talk to every single one of you individually.”
“I was deliberately doing those moves incorrectly. You knew I was doing them wrong. And you purposely avoided me. I need to know how to defend myself just as well as any of these other females. Your job is to teach me.”
“You need it more than any of those other females,” Finn shot back at her. “No one else feels compelled to sneak out of the coterie, despite having already come face-to-face with the very real danger that’s out there.”
“Then teach me.”
“Fine. You want me to teach you?” He swiftly looked around, then nodded at the nearest stand of trees. “Let’s go. There’s a clearing over there. It’s plenty big enough for me to kick your ass.” He turned and stalked toward the trees. He knew she followed, because he could actually feel her. Her magic, her anticipation, her excitement. He could even smell her arousal, and it pissed him off because now he was getting aroused too.
When they reached the clearing, he rounded on her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded. “We’re practically screaming at each other and you’re fucking turned on.”
Her face pinked. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m excited about actually learning something for once. So far, I haven’t been terribly impressed by your teaching skills.”
“I have a few things I’d like to teach you,” he muttered.
She lifted her chin a notch and gave him a challenging look. “Go ahead.”
Neither one of them was thinking in terms of defense at the moment, and he damn well knew it. He struggled with maintaining control, but it was useless. He didn’t want to be in control. No, wait—yes, he did.
“First of all, you need to learn when a guy wants a woman to be submissive,” he said. He circled his arm around her waist and pulled her tightly to his body. Her eyes grew wide as they stared at his lips. The anticipation was so thick in the air he could scarcely breathe.
“I have never been submissive a day in my life.” She growled, an actual, legitimate growl that would have done a shifter proud. She licked her lips, and then she twisted both hands in his hair and pulled him to her, kissing him with such exuberance that he didn’t even realize they’d dropped to their knees for a good, solid half a minute.
Okay, maybe he didn’t want to be in control.
“Damn, Cici,” he murmured as he broke the kiss so he could nibble a trail across her cheek to her ear.
For once, she didn’t snap at him for using the intimate nickname. Instead, she dipped her head and nipped at his shoulder. He growled and pushed her down onto her back on the snow- and leaf-strewn ground. They wrestled for a few moments, until she successfully rolled him over onto his back and straddled his hips. Her hands fisted in his hair, and her lips demanded he respond. She was a hell of a dominant woman.
He never knew he liked dominant women before.
He was so caught up in the experience that he didn’t hear the slight sound of an arrow being notched, didn’t notice that someone else had joined their intimate party, until the arrow came flying toward them. Luckily, he heard it at that point and reacted purely on instinct. He rolled over on top of Cecilia and flattened them both to the ground. The arrow zoomed over his head, barely two inches away.
Cecilia pushed at his chest. “I can’t breathe,” she gasped. “Get off.”
“Shh. There’s someone out there.” He shifted slightly, so as to relieve the pressure on her sternum. She sucked in a breath but mercifully fell quiet.
He listened and sniffed at the air, forcing himself to block out the tantalizing scents of Cecilia’s arousal. Now was not the time. Seemed like it never was. Damn it.
He scented magic, Lightbearer magic. That wasn’t surprising, considering they were inside the coterie, but also because the arrow that just missed his head had been steeped in Lightbearer magic.
He heard the sounds of someone moving through the underbrush, growing fainter and fainter, indicating that whoever shot at them was moving away. Finn wished he could shift into the form of an animal so he could chase after the person and figure out who the hell had just tried to kill him, but he wasn’t willing to leave Cecilia alone in the middle of the woods.
When he was certain they were once again alone, he cautiously lifted his head and looked around. When no more arrows came whizzing by, he stood and pulled Cecilia into a standing position. She used her magic to restore order to her dress and hair and then asked him what happened.
“Someone took a potshot at us.”
“Potshot?” She arched her eyebrows in that cool, sexy way she had. He wished like hell they could pick up where they’d just left off, but he was too worried for her safety to do so.
He spotted the arrow, stuck in a tree a few feet away. He stalked over, jerked it out of its resting place, returned to Cecilia’s side, and lifted the arrow to eye level.
“Does this look familiar?”
She frowned. “Why would that look familiar?”
Finn regarded the basic shaft, the standard white feathers, the smooth, unadorned arrowhead.
“Sometimes archers personalize their arrows, whether for vanity or to make it easier to identify them.”
“I don’t see any personalization whatsoever,” she commented. “And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. I have no idea whose arrows look like what. Wait—are you saying someone shot an arrow at us?” Her voice rose with her disbelief.
“Let’s get back to the beach house,” Finn said, and he guided her that way. After a few moments of silence, he mused, “I wonder if it was your boy Samuel, pissed off because of what we were doing?”
“Samuel wouldn’t do that,” Cecilia defended the bastard. “And for your information, he is not my boy. I don’t have feelings for him.”
“He sure as hell wants you. And I get the impression it’s because he’s already had a sampling, at least once.”
She flushed, confirming his suspicion.
“How long ago?” he demanded as they cleared the trees and headed across the lawn toward the beach house.
She rolled her eyes. “Ages. Trust me, I’ve hardly spoken to him in the past ten years.”
He was unaccountably jealous that Samuel had touched her at all, even as he felt relieved that whatever they’d once had, it had been a decade ago. It was curious that Samuel was renewing his interest all of a sudden, but then again, Finn had a feeling that he’d be the same damn way, and so far, all he’d done was kiss the woman.
He found Olivia with the queen and Tanner’s mother, Arianna, in a room located in the wing in which Olivia and Tanner maintained their private quarters. The small gathering of females were discussing the merits of turning that particular room into a nursery for Tanner and Olivia’s pup. Finn turned Cecilia over to her cousin and then strode away to seek out Tanner to inform him of what happened.
* * * *
“I couldn’t help but notice that you and Finn are on speaking terms again,” Olivia remarked later that day. She was studying for her first healer’s exam, and Cecilia had obligingly offered to quiz her. A fire danced in the stone fireplace in the main sitti
ng room, staving off the chill of the early winter day.
Cecilia thought about how angry she’d been earlier in the day, when Finn kept deliberately ignoring her and Olivia during practice. She hated the fact that it bothered her at all, because in truth, she should have been grateful for the distance between them. She had still been smarting from the way she threw herself at him and he had so casually pushed her away, as if he felt nothing whatsoever for her.
Then she goaded him after practice, letting her anger and frustration talk for her. Only she hadn’t been talking about practice, and they both knew it. They ended up in a tangled embrace on the ground in the woods, and Cecilia had been wholly unable to feel any regret whatsoever for the situation. Her body craved Finn like a normal, sane woman craved food and water.
I’m desperate, she told herself at the time. I haven’t lain with a man for far too long. My body just wants release.
She had herself more than half convinced that if they simply had sex, all those strange, overpowering emotions and feelings would go away.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to find out, as someone took that very inconvenient moment to shoot an arrow at them. Who, she wondered, even as she regretted the fact that she still had not been able to couple with Finn.
I just need the release, she sternly reminded herself yet again. If she kept repeating it, maybe, hopefully, it would become true.
“I wouldn’t say that, necessarily,” she answered her cousin. “We still can barely tolerate one another.”
That much was true, at least when their lips were not locked. But when he responded to her kisses, when his lips trailed along her cheek and nibbled on her ear, the very last thing in the world she wanted was to argue with Finn.
She wanted to climb on top of him and ride him like a wild stallion, except she didn’t want to tame him or break him. Not ever.
She conjured a fan and waved it as she read off a question and waited for Olivia to piece together the answer.