by Tami Lund
“You don’t know he’s the one who gave us up.”
The look he gave her spoke volumes. He didn’t bother to add words.
“We need a distraction,” Olivia suggested.
“Like what?”
“Like you or your mother or Lisa, shifting into a bird or something, and flying out of the room, pulling them away.”
“It might pull some of them, but not all. Unfortunately for us, shifters aren’t stupid, and I know most of those shifters out there. They were trained by the best—my father.”
“Maybe we can gain the upper hand if they are divided.”
Tanner gave her a thoughtful look. “You know, a few days ago, I wondered if you weren’t a general in your Lightbearer army. Now I’m thinking I might have been right.”
Olivia chuckled. “We don’t even have an army, and I am certainly not a general. I’m just determined not to die, at least not right now.”
I want to sleep with you before that happens.
“I don’t like it, but I don’t know if we can come up with any other ideas.”
Taking that as a yes, Olivia summoned the rest of the group closer, so they could hash out a plan. Tanner, who was still watching out the window, suddenly swore.
“There’s a human housekeeper out there,” he said very quickly. “She can see the door.”
Olivia’s head jerked around to look at her cousin. “You did not ward the room against humans?”
Cecilia looked abashed. “I didn’t think it was necessary, and I didn’t want to cause undue attention when the housekeepers came along to clean the room. I never warded against humans when we were in Vegas, either,” she defended herself.
Olivia opened her mouth to berate her cousin for such foolishness, but Tanner interrupted. “Well do it now,” he demanded.
“It’s not that easy,” Cecilia protested. “And I—”
Tanner swore again. “They’re convincing her to open the door. Change of plans,” he snapped, and then he commanded the women and children to barricade themselves in one of the bedrooms.
Lisa shoved her newborn into Cecilia’s arms. “I’m fighting.”
“You just whelped your pup,” Tanner replied.
“And Dane fixed me up, good as new.”
Tanner turned to Dane. He shrugged. “She’s fine.”
“Besides,” Lisa said as she dropped into a battle stance. “Those bastards killed my mate. I want as many pieces of them as I can get.”
They all heard the telltale snick of the keycard, slipping through the locking mechanism on the door. Tanner pointed at the bedrooms. “Get out of sight,” he commanded, looking directly at Olivia.
She herded the children and Cecilia into one of the bedrooms just as the door pushed open. Ariana also stayed behind to fight.
“Help me move this dresser,” Olivia told her cousin, and they combined use of their magic to move the dresser so it blocked the closed door to the bedroom.
“I hate not being able to fight,” Olivia complained as she paced the length of the room.
“Me too.”
“I swear, we are going to train when we return to the coterie, no matter what my father says. Even if we have to do it secretly.”
“Absolutely,” Cecilia agreed, rather fiercely. Somehow, knowing her cousin was solidly on her side, made Olivia feel better about her decision.
A moment later, there was a pounding on the bedroom door. “Let me in,” Tanner’s voice commanded.
Olivia and Cecilia quickly used their combined magic to move the dresser. She pulled open the door and let out a small shriek when she saw a wall of shifters, all standing outside the open door to the hotel room.
“They still can’t see us, but they know we’re in here,” Tanner explained.
The group of shifters moved restlessly, pushing and pulling, yet unable to pass through the invisible barrier on the door.
“What happened to the human?”
“She bolted, as soon as she opened the door. She’s probably summoning the human authorities, which is bad, because when they arrive, those shifters out there will scatter, and we’ll be left to explain what the hell is going on. I don’t particularly want to deal with the human authorities, so we’re going to try to get the hell out of here before they arrive.”
“Okay. So what do we do?”
“When I say the word, I want you to pull back on the wards. Make sure the parlor is unprotected, but that this room is. Can you do that?”
Olivia glanced at Cecilia, who nodded her assent. “Yes.”
“On my command,” Tanner reiterated, and then, before Olivia could react, he scooped her into his arms, kissed her fiercely, then released her and turned away. Cecilia grabbed her arm to keep her from crumpling to the floor, snickering as she did so.
“Ready?” Tanner called. He, Dane, Lisa, and Ariana were all in position. Dane and Tanner stood facing the door, Dane with a sword in his hand. Lisa and Ariana stood on either side of the door, presumably to catch the shifters from behind when they swarmed into the room. Olivia held her breath.
“You’re going to pull back on the ward and then close that door. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Now!”
Olivia and Cecilia both pulled on their magic, adjusting the wards per Tanner’s instruction. She saw the swarm of shifters suddenly fill the parlor, saw Tanner take down one, two, three. Dane sliced his sword through the air and dark blood splattered the walls and his person. Ariana’s hand shifted into that of an animal and she slashed her sharp claws across another shifter’s throat. Lisa shifted into a lion and attacked four at once.
The door slammed shut in her face.
“You do not need to see that,” Cecilia said.
“But I— ”
“Sofia does not need to see it,” she added with a nod in the little girl’s direction. Sofia’s eyes had gone wide and she clung to her stuffed tiger with childlike desperation.
Guilt slapped Olivia in the face. Cecilia was right. After all the child had been through in the last few days, watching her mother do battle with a bevy of evil shifters was the very last thing she needed to witness.
The unmistakable sounds of fighting filtered through the closed door. Shouts and cries of pain echoed. The room vibrated and a picture crashed to the floor when someone presumably was slammed into the wall. Olivia desperately hoped it was one of the bad guys.
The fighting continued, until there was a great, furious roar, and then it felt as if the brawl intensified tenfold, until finally, everything fell quiet.
“Olivia, let me in.” It was Tanner’s voice. He sounded exhausted but very much alive. Olivia’s shoulders slumped with relief and she used her magic to move the dresser out of the way again and then she released the ward that hid them even from Tanner’s eyes.
His gaze swept over her person in a possessive way, as he carried his mother into the bedroom and deposited her on the bed.
“Put me down,” Ariana demanded. “I’m fine.”
“Heal her,” he commanded, stabbing his finger first at Olivia, then at Ariana.
Most of the group’s injuries were fairly superficial, but there was one gaping wound on Ariana’s left side, where it looked as if someone had taken a bite out of her waist.
Someone probably had.
Olivia swallowed back bile and forced herself to turn to Cecilia. “Cecilia, begin the cleanup,” she commanded. “I have no doubt the humans will be here any moment to investigate.”
She looked at Tanner. “Are they dead?”
He nodded.
“What do you do with your dead?”
“Burn them. That way, there is nothing for the humans to inspect, and potentially discover our existence.”
Olivia nodded, but before she could say anything, Cecilia handed the baby to Lisa, said, “On it,” and left the room.
Sofia rushed into her mother’s arms, oblivious to the blood and other matter splattered there.
“Sofia, n
o,” Olivia called. “At least wait until— ”
“She’s my pup,” Lisa said coldly, and then she deliberately hugged her daughter tightly.
“At least take the children into the other bedroom until I’ve healed everyone,” Olivia protested, with a wave at Ariana’s gaping wound.
Lisa gave her a cool look. “She is a shifter. She’s seen much worse. We are, after all, from Quentin Lyons’ pack.”
Olivia blinked owlishly, unsure of how to react to the woman’s suddenly harsh demeanor. While Lisa was certainly not the most cheerful person, she had not exhibited such coldness up to this point.
“Lisa,” Tanner snapped. “Knock it off. You got your revenge for Freddy’s death. You don’t need to be a bitch to Olivia.”
“He’s still dead,” Lisa retorted. “It doesn’t matter how many of them I kill, it’ll never bring him back.” On those parting words, she deliberately turned her back and ushered Sofia out of the room.
“She’s upset,” Tanner defended her. “She hasn’t had time to mourn her mate’s death.”
“I understand,” Olivia murmured. She sat next to Ariana and focused on the wound in her side.
“No, you don’t,” Tanner qualified. “But I appreciate that you are not lashing out at her for her unnecessary cruelty.”
Olivia forced herself not to react to the warmth and approval in his voice. Now was not the time.
Would it ever be the right time? She was a Lightbearer, he was a shifter; they were supposed to be mortal enemies. Yet here they were, combining forces to battle shifters who were determined to kill her and Dane and Cecilia. When she looked at it from that perspective, she supposed it was easy to tolerate Lisa’s anger and bitterness.
“Is Dane...?” she asked.
“Fine,” Tanner replied. “He took a few licks, but held his own surprisingly well.”
“He is one of the king’s guards.”
“I had the impression that didn’t mean very much, what with the wards and all,” Tanner commented as he watched her work to repair his mother’s wound.
“Dane believes in being prepared for anything,” Olivia murmured. She closed her eyes and pushed her healing magic into Ariana, focusing on the fresh injuries instead of the trace amount of poison still lingering in the woman’s body. She would have to deal with that another time. It wasn’t enough to harm her in the short term.
“You sure do know a lot about Dane,” Tanner remarked, far too casually. Olivia opened her eyes and gave him a sharp look.
“He is a Lightbearer,” she said coolly. “And we have known one another practically since birth.” He wasn’t seriously developing a jealousy complex over Dane, was he? Now, of all moments? Olivia would never understand men.
Tanner fell silent and she focused on healing Ariana once more. As terrible as the injury looked, it wasn’t nearly as difficult to heal her as it had been pulling the poison from her system, although Olivia was certainly weakened when she was done.
Ariana slid off the bed and stretched. “It sure is handy to have you Lightbearers around,” she declared, and then she hustled into the bathroom to take a quick shower and wash away the blood and residue of the fight.
Tanner and Olivia stood, facing one another, feeling awkward, as the bed loomed like a great white elephant next to them. It was neither the place nor the time, yet Olivia could not help feeling hopeful that he might...
“We need to go,” Cecilia declared a scant moment later, as she popped her head into the bedroom. “Lisa says I’ve triggered the fire alarm.”
Tanner gave Olivia one last longing look and then went to pound on the bathroom door, demanding his mother hurry so they could get the hell out of there.
It was time to get to safety. It was time to go to the coterie.
Chapter 12
“When we reach the coterie, Dane will have to open the wards for us to get inside.”
They were seated around a large round table in a quiet, family-owned restaurant. They’d managed to slip away from the hotel without drawing attention to themselves. At the first truck stop they found, they pulled over and everyone filed inside to quickly shower and clean up. Olivia and Cecilia used their magic to pull blood stains out of everyone’s clothing as best as they could, and then they were on their way again.
“How are we supposed to get there, if you are under some sort of spell that keeps you from telling me where it is?” Tanner inquired. Olivia silently cursed the fact that the shifter had paid attention when they first met, and she’d told him as much.
“I may have hedged the truth somewhat,” she said carefully, not wishing to reveal too much.
“Only Olivia can tell you,” Cecilia added, far too helpfully. “Only those who are direct descendants of the one who created the ward in the first place.”
Olivia narrowed her eyes and glared at her cousin. Tanner furrowed his brows. “I thought you two were cousins?” he asked.
“We are, but my father isn’t— ” Olivia cut her off before she could reveal far too much.
“I can get us there,” Olivia said firmly, and then she guided the conversation into less dangerous waters.
Everyone except Lisa ate heartily. She sat in the booth and rocked her babe, while Sofia clung to her, stuffed tiger in her arm, thumb firmly planted in her mouth. Dane tried to cheer her up, but she turned to Tanner instead. Olivia knew it was because Tanner was familiar, but that still made it no easier to watch as she let her head rest on Tanner’s shoulder in what Olivia considered a very intimate gesture.
The shifter attack had no doubt brought back terrible memories for Lisa, and Tanner commented earlier that she had not yet mourned her deceased mate. Olivia hated that Lisa lost her mate, and that Sofia lost her father. She hated that Tanner lost one of his best friends. She hated that any of it happened. And selfishly, she hated watching Tanner with his arm around Lisa, offering her comfort, lifting Sofia into his arms to carry her out to the car. She hated it, because she was jealous. And she hated herself for feeling jealous, when Lisa deserved whatever small comfort she could get, whether it was from Tanner or someone else.
“Why Dane?” Tanner wanted to know, when Olivia said that Dane could open the wards and let them into the coterie.
“He is one of the king’s guards,” Olivia explained. “There are only a few Lightbearers with the ability to open and close the wards.”
Tanner looked as if he found it difficult to believe Dane had been bestowed so much power.
After they stopped for lunch, the rest of the motley pack fell asleep in the back of the SUV, leaving Olivia and Tanner momentarily alone. It was time to have what Olivia expected would be an extremely uncomfortable conversation.
“About this morning...” she started, and before she could continue, Tanner spoke.
“It’s my fault,” he said grimly. “I shouldn’t have trusted those kids I met at the grocery store. I was trying to get them to put me in touch with the pack master, so I could introduce Lisa and my mother. I wasn’t sure I could convince my mother to stay, but I’d hoped at least Lisa could start a new life there. My instincts were obviously off.” He growled the last, gripping the steering wheel as he said it.
Olivia tilted her head and watched him. That hadn’t been what she meant to discuss, but she couldn’t very well change the subject now.
“Where were you planning to go?” she asked curiously.
He shot her a quick glance before turning back to watch the road. “With you,” he said shortly.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “With me? What do you mean, with me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was going to see you safely back to the coterie, at least. I couldn’t very well leave you to fend for yourself, could I?”
“Oh,” Olivia said, disappointment flooding her system. “Right.”
He leaned toward her, while keeping his eyes on the road. His arm slipped over the console and his hand cupped her thigh. Warmth spread through her like butter melting on a hot
griddle.
“But now, I’m going with you because of what happened before those shifters attacked. Because I sure as hell intend to finish what we started this morning.”
He squeezed her thigh. Pleasure spiked through her system.
“Oh. Right.”
The conversation wasn’t so awkward after all.
* * * *
They arrived at their destination around dinnertime. Tanner pushed on the brake and shifted the SUV into park. “This is it?” he asked as he looked around.
It looked as if the road simply ended. An expanse of beach and then Lake Michigan was to his left, and endless miles of pine forest spread out before him and to the right for as far as the eye could see. The road simply ended at the line of trees.
“Yes,” Olivia replied, looking around distractedly.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“The guard,” she replied.
A moment later, a figure materialized out of the emptiness. By this point, they all knew he stepped through from the other side of the wards protecting the coterie, but to Tanner and the rest of the shifters in the vehicle, it looked as if he appeared out of thin air.
“Dane,” she muttered as she watched the man tentatively approach.
“I’m here,” Dane said from the backseat. He climbed out of the SUV.
“I’ll be right back,” Olivia said to Tanner, and she hurried out of the vehicle before he could ask any more questions.
She followed Dane as he strode up to the guard and offered his hand to shake. “Samuel. You look well.”
“Where’ve you been?” Samuel asked by way of greeting. He angled his head to try to see who else was inside the SUV, but the sun was shining at the wrong angle and it was impossible from their vantage point.
“Rescuing Cecilia again,” Olivia said with a forced laugh.
Samuel shook his head. “Your cousin needs to settle down,” he said sternly. “She needs a good man, someone to keep her occupied and keep her inside the coterie.” He looked as if he would be happy to volunteer for the position. “Where’d she go this time?”
