by Tami Lund
But he saved me, she reminded her inner warning system.
For his own purposes, her inner warning system shot back.
She cleared her throat and pushed into a seated position. He may have recently saved her from certain death, but the fact remained that he was a shifter. The son of the pack master who meant to kill her in an attempt to steal her magic. But his son insisted he had no interest in doing so. He saved her from his father, but she was still wary. What if he simply wanted her for himself?
“Do you feel better?” he asked.
Olivia shook her head. “It will take some time for me to fully regenerate,” she admitted. “Especially with such little sunlight. Are we in a forest?” If she soaked up enough light, she would have enough strength to get the hell away from this shifter and—wait—why was she staring at a young child?
“Is this your daughter?” she asked in confusion. If the shifter meant to kill her, why had he brought along his child? Talk about morbid.
“She’s mine.”
Olivia shifted her focus to the other male in the room. She hadn’t even realized he was there until he spoke. Tanner’s presence was too all encompassing. The other man walked across the room and offered his hand to shake.
“Freddy Bearrans.”
Olivia’s gaze slid to Tanner, as if seeking his reassurance that it was safe to shake Freddy’s hand. When Tanner gave her a sharp nod, she realized what she was doing and thrust her hand into Freddy’s. She did not need Tanner’s assurance about anything, damn it. Even if he had rescued her, he was still a shifter.
Of course, so was Freddy. And the little girl. Olivia recalled reading a children’s book once, one written by a human author. It was about a girl who fell down a rabbit hole and ended up in a bizarre new world. Is that what happened to her?
In an attempt to assert herself in some way, Olivia demanded to know where they had taken her. She held her breath, waiting to see if either Tanner or Freddy would tell her.
Freddy appeared startled by her commanding voice, whereas Tanner arched one sexy-as-sin black brow, and Olivia wondered when in the name of the lights she’d become attracted to bad boys. She’d never even met one until Cecilia coaxed her into going to Vegas. And look where that got her.
“I’m not quite sure you are in any position to be the boss here,” Tanner commented. Freddy began inching toward the door, while the little dark haired girl continued to stand next to the bed, staring at Olivia. It occurred to Olivia that she was likely sleeping in the little girl’s bed.
Which reminded her of yet another children’s tale.
Olivia blew out a breath and gave him an irritable look. “If you mean to kill me to try to steal my magic, assuming the process actually does work—and I don’t believe it will—you won’t get very much in my current state. I’ve little left at the moment.”
The little girl turned her head to regard Tanner. “You mean you can’t steal her magic?” she asked, all shifter innocence. Which, as far as Olivia was concerned, was an utter oxymoron.
Tanner’s gaze shifted from the little girl to Olivia and turned stormy. “How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t want your fu— ” He glanced down at the child. “ —magic.”
“Fine,” Olivia replied. “Just know that I need light, as much as possible. I’ll die eventually anyway if you keep me from the light for too long.”
“Really?” He seemed surprised by this information.
“Really. Unlike most beings, our magic has to be constantly renewed by sunlight, and it is directly connected to our life force. Without light, I die,” she said with a shrug.
Tanner narrowed his eyes and watched her steadily, without speaking.
“Your eyes are glowing again,” Olivia remarked.
He scowled and turned his head to the side.
“That happens when we get emotional,” the little girl piped up.
Olivia gave her a surprised look. Tanner looked as if the only emotions he possessed were anger and more anger. And sexy, but Olivia supposed that wasn’t technically an emotion.
“What’s your name?” the little girl asked.
“Olivia.”
“I’m Sofia,” she announced proudly.
“Nice to meet you, Sofia,” Olivia said politely. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
Sofia shook her head and pointed at Tanner. “I didn’t rescue you. He did. My mommy says the pack master was going to make him do a very bad thing to you, but he rescued you instead.”
“That was very diplomatic of your mommy to say that,” Olivia said carefully.
“The pack master wanted him to kill you, to take your magic,” Sofia continued, and Olivia’s eyes widened in surprise. Shifters, it appeared, shared much more gruesome information with their children than Lightbearers would. But of course, nothing terrible or deadly had happened within the coterie in five hundred years, so other than the old tales of wars and near-decimation of their species, there weren’t many gruesome tales to tell.
“But my mommy says Tanner won’t do it, because he’s a good man, unlike that other son of a— ”
“Hey, hey,” Freddy said hastily, cutting off his daughter before she repeated words his mate should not have spoken in front of her. “I think we get the gist, sweetheart. Come on, why don’t we go find your mom? Let Tanner and the nice Lightbearer talk?”
“He isn’t going to kill her, is he?” Sofia gave Tanner a worried look. “I like her,” she pronounced.
Freddy chuckled while Tanner affected an outraged look. As he herded his daughter out of the bedroom, Freddy commented, “I think she’s safe enough ... at least from dying.”
Olivia decided not to try to decipher that comment. Instead, she turned her head and focused on the sunshine again. It was weak, and she could see through the now open window that they were indeed surrounded by trees, but it felt so good against her skin, she wanted to let out another deep sigh. She bit it back instead. She had enough experience with the opposite sex to understand the look she saw in Tanner’s glowing eyes.
A shifter attracted to a Lightbearer? It was as crazy as … as … as a Lightbearer attracted to a shifter. She closed her eyes to keep from looking at him.
After a few moments of silence, Tanner spoke. “Who’s Cici?”
Olivia’s eyes shot open. “Why? What happened to her?”
“I have no idea. You were muttering about her before you passed out last night.”
Olivia couldn’t decide if she should feel relieved or not. If Tanner didn’t know anything about Cici, then hopefully that meant the shifters hadn’t found her. That was only a small relief, however. Cici, alone in a place like Vegas, was a frightening thought all on its own. Her cousin Cecilia had a tendency to find trouble no matter whether she tried to avoid it. Not that Cecilia tried very hard to do that.
“Where are we?” Olivia asked again. When the shifters kidnapped her, they’d wrapped her wrists with iron chains and shoved her into the back of a large motor vehicle. The ride had been excruciatingly long, so Olivia was reasonably certain that she was no longer located in the same city in which she’d started.
“Wyoming,” Tanner replied. “Quentin does not allow his pack members to stray far from home, even for vacations. This place has been in Lisa’s family for a couple generations.” He strode back to the window, stood there looking out.
“It was the first place I thought of, when we left the pack meeting. But we’re still far too close to Quentin. As soon as you are regenerated or whatever the hell you call it, we need to get out of here.”
Olivia could feel her body soaking up the magical energy of the sun. It was akin to a dried out sponge soaking in water. Unfortunately, it was a much longer process for her to feel saturated again. Especially given the weak sunlight she had to work with.
“I need a few hours,” she said. That would hardly be sufficient, but she did not want to waste any more time than she had to. She needed to escape from these shifters and get back to Cici
.
“Food would speed along the process,” she thought to add. Might as well see how hospitable they were willing to be.
Tanner looked as if he was struggling with some sort of internal decision, but then he pursed his lips and turned and strode from the room. Olivia found herself staring at an ass that made her appreciate the jeans he wore far more than the standard cotton or wool pants that the men of the coterie generally wore.
As soon as he pulled the door closed, Olivia pushed into a seated position. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and then sat there for a moment, soaking up a little more sunshine. She was not even remotely regenerated, but she was smart enough to seize an opportunity when one presented itself.
She was tugging at the windowsill when Tanner walked back into the room. In the blink of an eye, he was across the room, pulling her away from the window. Magic flared between them when he touched her. She was so surprised, she did not even resist as he led her back to the bed and none-too-gently pushed her down onto it. She looked down at her arm, where his hand had been wrapped a moment ago.
“Must be something between shifters and Lightbearers,” he said, as if he knew what she was thinking.
But she hadn’t felt that strange flare of magic when any of the other shifters touched her. She decided to keep that bit of information to herself, until she understood precisely what it meant.
“What the hell were you doing?” Tanner demanded, anger flashing in his eyes.
“Trying to escape,” Olivia said defiantly.
He narrowed eyes that were so pale, they appeared translucent. “How many times do I have to tell you—I’m not the enemy here.” He jabbed his finger at the window. “We’re on the side of a mountain. The only civilization for miles is a pack of shifters. Quentin’s shifters. And just so you’re clear, I doubt very much I’d be able to rescue you from my father a second time.”
He shook his head, clearly disgusted. Olivia’s hackles rose. She stood up and smoothed the front of her wrinkled and torn dress. Normally, she would use a burst of magic to set it to rights, but at the moment, she had precious little magic to spare. Tanner shifted his stance so he stood between her and the door.
“Food,” she said, waving at the plate he’d set on the dresser when he entered the room. “I am hungry.”
He let her walk over to the dresser. She could feel his gaze on her, watching her, studying her. Like a predator. She flushed when she realized the idea of being Tanner’s prey was more enticing than it was frightening. What in the name of the fates was wrong with her?
The meal was heavy on meat and utterly lacking in vegetables, but Olivia decided that was okay because the protein would give her added strength.
“What is your intention?” she asked as she ate.
“To get you the hell away from here, as soon as possible. Besides the fact that my father wants to kill you, I don’t like putting Freddy and Lisa in danger either. If Quentin figures out they’ve been hiding us, they’ll be punished.”
Olivia was fascinated by the look of guilt that swept across his face. She hadn’t quite expected to see that sort of emotion in a shifter. Even this one.
“Lisa is Freddy’s mate?” she guessed, recalling, only vaguely, that a woman’s voice had instructed another to get her into the SUV, when she’d collapsed on the back porch after exhausting all of her magic in order to escape from the pack master.
Tanner nodded.
“Why are you helping me?” Olivia asked, unable to resist.
Tanner hesitated, which was curious. Were his intentions really so pure after all?
“On principal,” he finally said. “I left the pack ten years ago, because I did not believe in my father’s obsession with finding and killing Lightbearers in order to inherit their magic. I did not even believe you all existed anymore, let alone that we could inherit your magic.”
“Now that your father was at least partially right—we do exist, obviously—you refuse to let him be any more right,” Olivia guessed.
She could tell that her assessment angered him. His eyes started flashing, and for the briefest moment, she was half afraid he would shift into the form of some carnivorous animal and eat her for lunch. He clenched and unclenched his fists, clearly trying to get his temper under control.
“Do you want to live or not?” he demanded hotly.
“I’d prefer to live, actually,” she admitted primly.
“Then do what you need to do,” he growled. He pointed at the bedroom door. “There’s a bathroom across the hall, if you need it. I’m going to go talk to Freddy, figure out the best way to get out of Quentin’s territory without being spotted. You have one hour.” He strode from the room, clearly leaving it up to her as to whether or not she wanted to test his theory and escape again on her own.
Olivia decided that, for the moment at least, she would heed Tanner Lyons’ advice. But just as soon as she was safely away from this pack of shifters, she would escape at the first available opportunity.
Chapter 4
There’s no honor or chivalry left in this world.
Tanner’s mother had said those words to him, when he was eleven years old, and had asked her why, if his father was mated to his mother, had he seen the man doing inappropriate things with another woman.
Clearly, his mother was wrong. Otherwise, why the hell was he going to such lengths to protect a woman he did not know, a woman who did not remotely trust him? He’d left the bedroom for less than ten minutes, and Olivia had tried to escape through the damn window. His blood chilled at the thought of what would have been waiting for her out there, had she succeeded.
He was half tempted to turn back around and check to see if she was stupid enough to try it again. But when he heard the telltale sign of the faucet turning on in the shower in the hall bathroom, he let out a sigh of relief and headed toward the kitchen, where Lisa and Freddy were nervously eating their own lunches. At least little Sofia did not appear to be affected by the stress level in the house. Tanner had scarfed his own lunch down before taking a plate back to the Lightbearer, because his gut had been right in warning him not to leave her alone for too long.
The guilt hit him again, as he stepped into the red and white kitchen and felt the tension in the air. Everybody knew what Quentin was capable of. Even little Sofia had been exposed to his violent side, because Quentin was an attention whore, and he knew well that if he ensured his pack feared him, they would not betray him.
Except Tanner, his own son. And now, by default, Freddy and Lisa.
“You shouldn’t have helped us escape,” he said yet again as he strode across the room and stared broodingly at the window framed by red and white checked curtains. For the moment, they were relatively safe, but he knew that would not last long. Quentin no doubt had every decent tracker in the pack searching for them. He only hoped no one had seen him jump into Freddy’s SUV when they’d escaped from the manor house.
He recalled seeing Finn step around the corner, pause and then turn away again. Someone had seen them. But he turned away, instead of toward them. Tanner hoped that meant he had wanted Tanner to escape.
“Get over it already,” Lisa replied. Her personality hadn’t changed much in ten years, Tanner reflected.
“We’re your friends. If you think we were going to stand by and watch you kill yourself over some stupid Lightbearer, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”
Tanner’s lips quirked into a reluctant smile. “You thought I was an idiot before all this?”
“Yes,” Lisa replied. “Because you left us behind ten years ago. You should have taken us with you. We could have survived.”
Tanner thought about the conversation he’d had with his mother, ten years ago, shortly before he left the pack.
“He’ll let you go,” she said. “But he’ll kill anyone else who tries to go with you. Three shifters make a pack, Tanner. He would see it as a challenge to his authority. You going on your own is nothing more than sowing your
wild oats, and that, he would be willing to overlook. But only that.”
He certainly wouldn’t be able to overlook Tanner stealing a Lightbearer from under his nose. If Tanner hadn’t been excommunicated before, he sure as hell would be now. What would Quentin do, without a legitimate heir to take over the pack?
“What’s the plan now?” Freddy wanted to know.
“I need a vehicle. Does your cousin still run that garage in town?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you get me a car?” Tanner glanced at his watch. “Within the hour?”
Freddy pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Probably, but he won’t bring it up here.”
“That’s okay. We’ll meet him. Is that old industrial park still there? Out heading toward the highway? Is it still abandoned?”
“Of course it’s still abandoned. Quentin won’t let humans live this close to his pack, no matter what they intend to do with the land.”
“Good. Tell him we’ll meet him there. We need probably half an hour to get out of here, and another hour and a half to get out there.”
Freddy made the call. When he disconnected, he said, “Done. What’s next?”
“Thanks,” Tanner said, feeling grateful and guilty all at the same time. “As soon as the Lightbearer is out of the shower, we’re leaving.”
“Olivia,” Sofia piped up.
Tanner blinked at the young shifter.
“Her name is Olivia,” Sofia explained.
“Right,” Tanner said. “Olivia.”
He would rather continue to refer to her as the Lightbearer. It didn’t have quite the same affect on his body as saying her name out loud did, and Tanner didn’t much care for the way his body reacted to the damned woman.
She’s a frigging Lightbearer, he reminded himself. Shifters weren’t supposed to be attracted to Lightbearers. Besides that, the woman was refined and elegant and bossy as hell, all traits that Tanner did not normally associate with women to whom he was attracted.
