Light Beyond the Darkness

by Tami Lund

  “What was he waiting for?” Tanner wondered, after he’d gotten over his tirade.

  “Carley,” Reid replied with absolute conviction.

  “They’re mated, after all.”

  It was like a damned song, stuck on repeat in his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about the words Mica had uttered.

  After they’d returned from searching for Miguel, he admitted to Tanner and Finn that he knew Carley was mated. Finn blustered an apology, which made Reid angry all over again. Everyone knew except him. Fates, he felt like ten times a fool. He should sign off women for good. They were nothing but trouble. Miserable, terrible, horrible trouble. It wasn’t even worth the mind-blowing sex.

  Was it?

  “I didn’t know her that well,” Finn explained. “She’s distantly related to Cecilia, but they weren’t close. Cecilia’s family’s pretty fucked-up. Not exactly friendly with one another.”

  Cecilia explained further. “Her parents are just like mine were. Miserable people who always view the world as a glass that’s half-empty. I don’t think they ever intended to have children, and Carley was an unwanted surprise. I was too young to comprehend it at the time. At least my parents always dumped me off on my other aunt and uncle, the king and queen, so I had that love to sustain me. But Carley had no one.”

  Reid fought the natural inclination to feel sorry for a woman who grew up in a loveless household. “She had her mate,” he ground out through gritted teeth.

  Cecilia gave him a thoughtful look. “Sometimes, things happen here in the coterie. They aren’t exactly right, but it happens nonetheless.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Hers wasn’t a love match. Far from it. In fact, if the rumors hold even a grain of truth, Carley’s parents paid a substantial debt for Miguel, in exchange for him taking her to mate.”

  She’d glanced at Tanner at that point, and then explained further, for Reid’s benefit. “Olivia was once betrothed to Dane, not because she wanted to be, but because her parents thought he would give her healthy babes, an heir to the kingdom. We don’t always get to make the choice, if our parents determine they know better than we do.”

  “She didn’t have a say? Not at all?”

  Cecilia shook her head and looked thoughtful. Then she leaped up and declared she needed to run an errand. Finn automatically stood as well, and insisted on going with her. Reid was left alone with Tanner, who up to that point had sat quietly, not contributing, but listening to the conversation.

  “I’m sorry for what my father did to you,” he said after they left. “I suspect if he’d never…abused you, your perspective would be different right now.”

  Reid turned away from the sympathy and guilt in that shifter’s eyes. “Does it matter? She’s still mated to another.”

  * * * *

  When Cecilia returned later that evening, she was fairly bursting with news. “I was right. They paid him to take her,” she announced unceremoniously. This announcement was made over dinner, with Reid, Tanner, Olivia, and Finn present. The king and queen had taken dinner down to the village, to Nona, who was still laid up in bed, recovering from her most recent fall. Tanner’s mother had taken dinner in the nursery, happy to babysit her grandpup while his parents enjoyed their quiet meal.

  “Carley’s parents,” Cecilia explained patiently. “Miguel was heavily in debt and looking for a fast way out. Except it gets worse. Carley’s parents were also followers of the Chosen One, er, Cedric. They were apparently frustrated with her unwillingness to go to meetings, to believe like they did.”

  “Just like your parents,” Finn interjected.

  “I have such a screwed-up family. Anyway, Miguel needed money, fast, and they were tired of battling with Carley. So they paid his debt, he mated to their daughter, and she became his problem, instead of theirs.”

  Reid felt his resolve to hate her weaken. She had suffered so much abuse, both mental and physical for, he suspected, most, if not her entire life. He hated even thinking this way, but he could almost see why she hadn’t told him about Miguel. Initially, she probably simply tried to pretend her past was gone, behind her, never to be thought of again. And when that past caught up with her, it was too late. She and Reid had been heavily involved in an affair. A serious affair.

  A love affair.

  Love. She probably never even believed in the emotion. She sure as hell wouldn’t have expected it to happen to her. He thought about how timid she’d been in the beginning, how long it took him to coax her into his bed. He felt guilty, but at the same time, a sense of pride that he’d shown her what she’d experienced was not the way it was supposed to be.

  Sex. Love. They were meant to be enjoyed, shared with someone else. Someone you loved back.

  Did she love him? Did it matter anymore? He couldn’t have her, not entirely, not fully. And here he’d been hesitant to ask her to mate because of his own issues. Shit, those scars on his back were hardly worth concerning himself over, given all she’d gone through.

  * * * *

  Later that evening, when most of the coterie was tucked away in their beds, Reid sat in an armchair in the living room of the cottage Finn and Cecilia shared. His brother sat on the couch perpendicular to him. They both had a glass in their hands, each half-full of amber liquid. Cecilia had retired to bed a short time ago, leaving the brothers alone to enjoy their bourbon.

  “What do you plan to do after we find Miguel?” Finn asked as he sipped from his glass.

  Reid shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe I’ll head to Tennessee, crash with mom and dad for a while, until I figure it out.”

  “Is that what you really want?”

  What he really wanted was Carley. Despite it all, he still wanted her. But she was mated to another, so he couldn’t very well have her, could he?

  “What else is there?”

  “You could stay here.”

  Reid shook his head.

  “What the hell happened, Reid?” he asked quietly. “When Quentin…you know…”

  “Whipped me?” Reid said bitterly. Whether it was the bourbon or the circumstances, Reid was finally sick and tired of keeping it inside.

  “Her name was Ginger. Young. Incredibly hot. Sexy as hell.” He remembered it all. The way she pranced around the house as if she owned the place, wearing skimpy clothing that showed off her young, honed body. Teasing every male in sight and then prancing up to Quentin’s bedroom whenever he summoned. She had been a female in heat, and they had been a pack of horny dogs. And she had been absolutely, unconditionally off-limits.

  She had enjoyed it, for a time. The attention, the thrill of being the pack master’s latest lay. But she was less than half Quentin’s age, with twice the stamina, and the fact that she too could look but not touch had quickly gotten old.

  “Quentin wasn’t doing it for her, she told me. She flirted constantly, sometimes with him in the room even. It was a dangerous game, for both of us. One day, we were alone in the house. She came on to me. Even then, I resisted.” He closed his eyes, remembering.

  “But she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Started rubbing herself on me, grabbing my ass, my dick. Then she fucking hops up onto his pool table and spreads her legs and she’s not wearing a damn thing underneath. Begging me to fuck her, telling me I’m so much younger, so much bigger than Quentin.”

  He stared into his glass, remembering. The excitement. The desire. In retrospect, it all paled compared to what he felt for Carley, and yet he’d still be unable to resist. The thought did not sit well.

  “What single guy could resist something like that?” Finn mused out loud.

  Reid shook his head. “A single guy who knew what his pack master was capable of. Shit, Finn, he treated us like dogs. How the hell could I have forgotten that?”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, just because Quentin was a prick. He shouldn’t have been screwing with her in the first place. He was mated, remember?”

  They both fell silent for a w
hile. Eventually Finn asked, “How did he find out?”

  “I was fucking her on the pool table when he got home.”

  Finn let out a low whistle.

  Reid’s smile was brittle. “We were both so lost in the moment that we didn’t even hear him come inside. Didn’t know he was there until he grabbed me by the collar and punched me in the face.” He touched his slightly crooked nose and took a healthy swig from his drink.

  “He made me lay down on the table on my stomach. Had two of his guard dogs hold me there. Flogged me with my own goddamned belt,” he whispered. “Whipped me until I passed out from the pain. I woke once and saw him taking Ginger from behind, right in front of me. She was crying. I’m pretty sure he beat on her some before screwing her. I know he did, at some point, because she was in pretty bad shape for a long time afterward. The next thing I remember was waking up at Mom and Dad’s house.”

  “I can’t believe you kept working for him after that.”

  “I didn’t exactly have a choice, did I? He barely gave me a week to recover before demanding I come back to work. He never said a word about it, either. It sure as hell seemed like I was always having to stand guard outside the door while he was getting laid after that, though,” he said bitterly. “I think that was his way of reminding me. Which was hardly necessary. I didn’t touch another woman for a year after that, and then it was never a shifter from our pack. I sure as hell wasn’t taking that chance again.”

  “Carley didn’t have a choice either,” Finn pointed out.

  “Maybe not. But she sure as hell had a choice when I hit on her, didn’t she? She could have told me right off the bat. But she didn’t. That was her choice,” he said bitterly.

  “You can be pretty damn persuasive when you want to be,” Finn pointed out. “Maybe she didn’t feel like she had a choice.”

  Reid glared into his nearly empty glass. Was Finn right? He’d said the words to Carley himself.

  “It is not acceptable that you have no room in your life for me.”

  Even he hadn’t given her a choice. The poor woman had never been able to make her own decisions throughout the duration of her life.

  He downed the rest of his bourbon and pushed out of the chair, telling Finn he was heading to bed. Finn had graciously offered him the spare bedroom in his cottage, and Reid had taken him up on the offer. It was lonely without Carley, but what else was he supposed to do?

  “They’re mated, after all.”

  Chapter 19

  The following morning dawned brightly, with sunshine pouring into every uncovered window within the coterie. Lightbearers woke feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, soaking up the sun’s rays as the perfect antidote after several days of gloomy, stormy weather.

  The snow was fading away, as well, as the temperature pushed into the fifties. Crocuses and snowdrops dotted the landscape, appearing as if by magic. Tulips and daffodils pushed through the cold, wet earth. The rain from the past two days had gone a long way toward helping to remind everyone that spring was indeed heading their way.

  Miguel Santiago lay in the middle of the bed in the cottage he’d once shared with his mate. He lay there, his body still, his eyes closed, letting the sunlight pour into his body, rejuvenating him. The trip back to the coterie had been grueling, spurred by the poor weather and the excruciating pain on his face and in the hand he’d accidentally put through the windowpane on the kitchen door at Carley’s home in Chicago. The first time he looked at his face after the bitch threw that scalding coffee at him, Miguel had flown into a rage and broken the mirror, injuring his hand all over again.

  He was disfigured. If he’d been at the coterie when it happened, he could have gone to a healer, who would have both stopped the pain and fixed his face. After three days, though, he wasn’t sure what a healer could do for him.

  Without opening his eyes, he lifted his injured hand and gingerly touched his cheek, then his forehead. He felt the puckered skin and winced as his own touch caused it to hurt anew.

  Carley survived a spill down the side of the cliff. A healer ought to be able to fix his damn face. The problem was, he was afraid to go to the healer who fixed Carley. She may be the best in the coterie, but she was also sympathetic to the shifters and would undoubtedly alert them to his presence.

  He forced his eyes open. He might have to take the risk. He needed to get himself fixed, and he needed to get back to Chicago. He needed to kill Mica for double-crossing him. He needed to kill Carley for her role in the death of his precious Chosen One. But what he relished most of all was the idea of killing the shifter that his errant mate has been banging for who knew how long.

  While he still worshipped his wonderful, albeit dead, Chosen One, Miguel mused that the man had been going about his plan all wrong. They shouldn’t have focused on killing the lightbearers who were choosing shifters over their own kind. They should have been trying to kill the shifters themselves.

  Miguel climbed out of bed and stripped out of his clothing, letting the articles fall to the floor as he made his way to the bathroom to take a shower. More anger coursed through his system as he thought about the fact that if he still had his mate, she would clean up after him. And she would have summoned a healer who would fix him.

  The shower was agonizing. The warmth felt good on the rest of his body, but every time a drop hit his face and hand, it was pure torture. He needed a healer, and he needed one soon. He washed quickly and turned off the water, drying himself with a towel and then heading back to the bedroom to change into clean clothes.

  It was time to get fixed, so he could get on with his plans.

  *

  “Carley,” Alexa said in surprise when they passed each other in the upstairs hall at the beach house. “You’re back. That was quick.”

  Carley grimaced. “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Something I need to handle on my own.”

  Alexa reached out and touched Carley’s arm. “If you ever need to talk…”

  Carley shook her head again. “I’m okay. Well, I’m not really, but I’ll figure it out.”

  Alexa wanted to press, but she needed to get to her appointment with Olivia’s little one. One of the other healers in the coterie had overextended herself the day before, and Alexa wanted to stop by and give the healer some of her own healing magic—along with a firm lecture about the importance of stopping before she reached the point of passing out. Healers were no good to anyone if they weren’t conscious and able to work their magic. Alexa’s day had suddenly become quite busy, and she was anxious to get on with it. So she let Carley go and continued down the hall to Olivia and Tanner’s bedchamber, and her first appointment of the day.

  The visit turned out to be a swift one. The pup was doing remarkably well, given his precarious entrance into the world. Olivia was doing well also. The wound where Alexa cut her to pull the pup from her womb was healing nicely. There was almost no visible scarring. She was confident Olivia would be able to bear more children, should she and Tanner wish to do so.

  “We’ll see,” Tanner said ominously. “I’m not sure I can handle the stress of watching my mate go through that again.”

  “Now that we know what to expect,” Alexa insisted, “it won’t be so hard next time. We will cut the pup out at the first signs of labor and be done with it.”

  Tanner didn’t look pleased at the idea of slicing open his mate again, but he did not press the subject.

  Alexa bid them both good day and hurried from the beach house, down the stone steps to the village below. She spotted her ex-lover, Jake, meandering along the path to her left, which was the way she needed to go, but as she had no wish whatsoever to see him at the moment, she turned to the right instead, and headed toward the cover of a small patch of trees.

  This path led her near to Finn and Cecilia’s home, which reminded her once again of Carley. Did Cecilia know her cousin was back? Alexa considered stopping in to inform her, but decided
against it. She really needed to get to the other healer and get her fixed up before she made her rounds of the coterie, checking on her current patients and tending to any new ones that cropped up.

  It was at the edge of the woods, just as she was about to step into a swath of yellowed, tall grasses that separated the trees from the beach beyond, that she was accosted. One moment she was hurrying along, the next, she was grabbed from behind.

  An arm circled around her neck and squeezed tightly as she flailed and gasped for air. Another hand wrapped around and grabbed one of hers.

  “Heal me,” a gruff voice commanded, and Alexa’s hand was lifted and placed upon a face that was puckered with some sort of markings. Her reaction was instantaneous. It was almost impossible for a lightbearer healer to resist healing someone once they’ve touched that person. The healing reaction occurred, almost unbidden.

  Such as what happened in this case. Alexa sucked in a breath, gasped as the pain hit her.

  Burned, she thought as her body automatically sucked the pain and injury from whomever was standing behind her, squeezing her neck so that she could get just enough air to breathe.

  The injuries were several days old, so Alexa knew she would not be able to fix the already-formed scars entirely. But her healing magic did pull away the pain, and fixed the wounds as best as she could. If she was doing so willingly, and understood the extent of the injuries, she might be able to do more, but doing this blindly, the person was lucky to get what she had.

  “Stop,” she ground out as she fought to pull her hand away. “That’s all I have,” she rasped. Her head was swimming. If she did not stop soon, she would pass out, just like the lightbearer who she meant to visit this morning.

  Finally, the man released her, and Alexa dropped to the wet ground on her hands and knees, wheezing and gasping for breath.

  “Thanks, you good-for-nothing bitch,” a male voice growled, and then he was gone. She could hear him running through the undergrowth.