by Tami Lund
“I’m not quite in a position to believe such a thing, at the moment.”
“What’s your name?” he asked abruptly.
She glared silently for a moment, and then apparently deciding she had nothing left to lose, she murmured, “Olivia. Olivia Bennett.”
“Well, Olivia Bennett, I promise you, I do not want to kill you. Unlike the pack master, I happen to have moral issues with killing people in cold blood. And I don’t really give a rat’s ass about your magic. You have about three seconds to choose to believe me.”
She took a deep breath. “I can produce light. A great deal of it. Enough to make everyone shield their eyes or else become temporarily blind. It will exhaust me to the point of near passing out, though, especially since I’ve been locked in that damn basement all day.”
“Fair enough. When I give the signal, shine the light and then run like hell. Go back through the house to the back. Don’t stop until I catch up with you.”
“What’s the sig— ” He didn’t give her a chance to ask. He could tell Quentin was growing impatient. It was now or never.
He grabbed the iron chain and pulled it from her wrists. Olivia gasped as if she had been underwater for too long.
“Now would be good,” Tanner growled at her. The crowd of onlookers had not yet comprehended that he meant to set her free, not kill her. But Quentin was coming to that conclusion—fast.
“Now!” he shouted at the Lightbearer. A moment later, he shifted into the form of a lion and lunged at his father. Just before he made contact, Tanner squeezed his eyes shut. The light the Lightbearer produced was so bright, Tanner saw dark spots in front of his eyes, despite the fact that he’d closed them before her magic flared.
Quentin gave a yell and then Tanner landed squarely on his chest, knocking him to the ground. There was more yelling, and screams and shouts of confusion, as the crowd of shifters tried to figure out what just happened. People shuffled about, arms outstretched, as their eyesight was temporarily robbed from them. Parents snatched children into their arms and began to run, clumsily, as they tripped over shrubbery and bumped into trees in the process. Others blindly bumped into one another and then reacted in anger and frustration. Small fistfights broke out, almost comical in appearance, as shifters struggled to punch one another through blurred vision.
Quentin shook his head to clear his eyesight. He roared, loud enough to rattle the windows on the manor home. Then he shifted into the form of a great black bear and threw Tanner from him. Tanner’s lion form rolled several times and like the cat he was, he landed on his feet. A quick glance around indicated that the Lightbearer was good at following directions. Either that or she’d already been swept away by someone else.
Tanner charged at Quentin again, and the two of them crashed together, claws and teeth snapping. Quentin rolled away into the crowd. Shifters scattered like bowling pins after being struck by the ball. Tanner leapt to his feet, shifted back into human form and rushed into the house.
When he burst through the back door, there was no Lightbearer to be found. “Son of a— ”
“Tanner, over here!”
He whirled around and only just jumped out of the way of the SUV bearing down on him. The vehicle came to a screeching halt. Freddy was at the wheel, and Lisa was in the passenger seat.
“Get in.”
“I can’t. I have to— ”
“She’s in the back.”
Tanner glanced into the SUV. Olivia slumped in the backseat, next to little Sofia, who stared at her in fascination, clearly unaffected by the stress of the moment.
“What did you do to her?” Tanner demanded, instantly bristling.
Freddy shook his head. “Nothing. She stumbled out onto the back porch and collapsed there. I figured you had some kind of plan, so I grabbed her and stuffed her into the car.”
“How come you’re able to see?” he asked Freddy.
Lisa answered. “We were already sneaking away, around the back of the house, when that light-bomb or whatever it was went off.” She glanced at her mate. “Freddy said you made him nervous when we talked to you, and he was worried something like this would happen.”
“I need to go get my mother,” Tanner said.
Freddy reached out the window and grabbed Tanner’s arm. “You can’t. If you go in there, you won’t come back out again.”
Tanner turned toward the house and lifted his gaze to the third level. His mother’s bedroom suite. She was up there, lying in bed, probably nervously wondering what was happening below. She’d done so much for him, and now she was dying, and Freddy was right. He couldn’t go back inside.
A lone figure came jogging around the side of the house and skidded to a halt when he saw Tanner, standing next to the SUV. Finnegan Hennigan. His shaggy hair was lighter than the majority of shifters, and had a touch of copper in it. His face was scruffy and his pale blue eyes were far too observant for Tanner’s taste.
Tanner heard Freddy swear softly, and he knew it was because Finn was one of Quentin’s guard dogs, one of the best trackers in the pack. Tanner had always liked Finn, had always been a little jealous of Finn because he and his siblings and parents were a tightly knit—and happy—family.
Now, he wondered if he’d have to kill the man.
Finn stared at him for several heartbeats and then he suddenly turned away and disappeared around the corner. Tanner distinctly heard him call out to his fellow pack mates, suggesting that Tanner and the Lightbearer had run toward the woods—in the opposite direction of where he stood next to the SUV. Not everyone, it turned out, was loyal to Tanner’s father.
“Get in,” Freddy commanded, and after one last longing look at the manor house, Tanner did as he said, sliding into the backseat next to the Lightbearer. Freddy pressed the gas pedal and the SUV lurched forward.
The Lightbearer’s eyes fluttered open. She turned and struggled to focus on Tanner. “Cici,” she whispered.
“Duck down,” Lisa commanded from the front seat. Tanner grabbed Olivia and pulled her down onto the floorboard of the backseat.
“Cici,” she whispered again. “I need Cici.”
“What’s cici?” Tanner asked.
She appeared to be struggling to stay awake. “Cousin,” she finally managed. “Left her ... in Vegas.” She slumped against him, unconscious.
Chapter 3
I’m alive.
Olivia assumed as much because she felt reasonably certain that the Summerlands would not appear to her as a little girl’s bedroom with walls painted purple, with pink and purple hearts drawn all over them. She didn’t even like the color purple. Surely the fates would not make her live with it for all of eternity.
Olivia lay on her back in a twin-sized bed and lamented the fact that there was no sunlight shining directly into the room. She could really use a nice, bright ray of sunshine right now. She was exhausted to the point that even rolling out of the small bed and making her way to a bath chamber sounded like far too much work.
As she lay there, blinking and unmoving, her thoughts sifted through the events of the last few days. It all started with her father, making that proclamation she’d been dreading for very nearly her entire life. He’d barely gotten the words out of his mouth before she turned and fled the room, sought out her cousin and best friend, Cecilia Druthers, and dragged her out into the woods that ran along the northern edge of the lawn surrounding the beach house in which she lived.
They were safe in the woods, because the woods were still within the magical wards surrounding the coterie, and they could be alone there, so that Olivia could lament what she referred to as her lot in life in private, where no one but Cici would hear.
As Olivia continued to complain, Cecilia proclaimed, “We should go on an adventure.”
“What sort of adventure?” Olivia asked hollowly. There were no adventures within the coterie, and they were strictly forbidden from ever stepping foot outside the warded, invisible walls that separated their little wor
ld from all other worlds.
“In the human world. I know the perfect place.”
Olivia knew her cousin periodically snuck out into the human world. Cecilia had the unique ability to get through just about any lock, any ward, any barrier. She also had an insatiable need for excitement, and there wasn’t much to be had within the confines of the coterie.
But Olivia never went with her, had never considered going with her. Cici used to try to convince Olivia to join her, but Olivia was far better at following the rules.
“We can’t go out there, Cici,” she whispered. “What about the shifters?”
Cecilia waved her hand dismissively. “I’ve been out there loads of times, and I’ve never once seen a shifter.”
Olivia was dubious, despite her anger and frustration over her father’s recent proclamation.
“Not a single time,” Cecilia reiterated. Then she began expounding upon one of her more thrilling experiences outside the coterie, and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, Olivia went from listening to one of Cecilia’s tales to living one herself.
Suddenly, they were running through the woods hand in hand, giggling like schoolgirls. Then she felt the telltale shimmer of magic as they stepped through the wards protecting the coterie.
“How do we get back inside?” Olivia wondered as she turned around to observe what now looked like an endless forest of trees, even though a moment earlier there had been a stream that burbled along to the edge of a cliff, where it trickled down the side and into the Great Lake beyond.
“Don’t worry,” Cecilia said with a laugh, and then they were off again, running toward the nearest town, which was inhabited by humans. Then they were boarding a bus, a massive vehicle made of painted iron and plastic and rubber. Olivia had never seen a bus before.
“It’s made of iron,” she pointed out as Cecilia tried to step inside and Olivia pulled her back.
“Just don’t touch those parts,” Cecilia advised, and then she hopped onto the bus and waved a hand in front of the driver’s face. His eyes went blank for a moment, and then he smiled and thanked them for handing him a ticket.
“A ticket?” Olivia asked as she trailed Cecilia along the narrow corridor between the seats.
“We are supposed to pay for this ride, but human currency is different from our own. It’s easier to use magic to convince the humans that I’ve given them currency, than it is to use magic to actually procure the currency.”
Her cousin sounded awfully damn worldly. She had been impressed and a little jealous. Olivia had never done anything but follow the rules, for all of her life, and now she was faced with the prospect of being utterly miserable for all the rest of it. Cecilia had been a rebel from day one, and unless Olivia missed her mark, her cousin was far happier than Olivia probably ever would be.
“Las Vegas?” Olivia said two days later, as she and Cecilia stepped off yet another bus, into a wall of breath-taking heat. Along with the heat was the unrelentingly bright sun, which was nice after being surrounded by iron for the last two days. Olivia lifted her face and closed her eyes and soaked up the regenerating rays.
“Sin City,” Cecilia said with a giggle.
“You’ve been here before?” This place was an awfully long way away from their home. Despite lamenting that she wanted some excitement in her life, Olivia was distinctly nervous and exposed at the moment. But if Cecilia had been to this place without issue in the past...
“No. I’ve only read about it. I cannot wait to see for myself if all of those tales are true.” With those words, Cecilia grabbed Olivia’s hand and dragged her down the street, toward the bright lights and neon signs and throngs of humans milling about.
“My father is going to kill me,” Olivia complained after the first several hours of exploring Vegas and discovering the human world was far more ... different than she could have possibly imagined.
“No he won’t. You’re his only heir,” Cecilia pointed out. Then she grabbed Olivia’s hand again. “Come on. Let’s go play.”
For three days, they played. They gambled in opulent casinos and dined at fabulous restaurants. They watched a multitude of shows and had a chuckle over the fact that the acrobats flying through the air were not human, but the rest of the audience had no earthly idea.
Cecilia flirted with every good looking male who crossed her path, while Olivia politely declined every offer of a drink, a dance, a front row seat.
“Live a little, Olivia,” Cecilia admonished on the third day. “Soon enough, you’ll be tied down and will never get to experiences this again.” She shuddered as if she’d said something particularly repulsive, and then she’d informed Olivia that she was taking her current companion up to their room for a little private time, and would Olivia mind giving her an hour or so?
That was when Olivia had found herself wandering about a casino alone, and when she all but stumbled into the arms of a small group of shifters who were quite possibly even more shocked to see her than she was to see them.
How long had it been since she was kidnapped from the casino? At least a full day, Olivia was certain of it. She wondered if Cecilia was okay, and how she handled it when she figured out Olivia was gone. She prayed to every fate there ever was that Cecilia had not suffered the same fate as Olivia. She doubted very much there were two shifters like the one who introduced himself as Tanner Lyons, that impossibly tall, impossibly handsome shifter who she had no business feeling either beholden or attracted to.
But for all the lights, that man was the single most attractive male she had ever laid eyes on in her life. All that shaggy dark hair that was a little too long to be proper, and those pale, pale blue eyes, the facial hair that fell somewhere between stubble and a full beard. Olivia found herself sucking in a breath as she recalled the thick, corded muscles of his arms, the wide chest, the—
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to watch as a shadow moved from where it had been standing in front of the window. The room brightened a little, although Olivia could see that there was a shade covering the window, keeping out the sunlight she needed to restore her magic. She licked her lips and held her breath and watched as the shadow walked toward her, materializing into the very shifter she’d been fantasizing about.
He stepped up to the side of the bed and silently stared down at her for so long that she began to wonder if his intention was to kill her after all.
“I’m not like the rest,” he’d sworn, and Olivia had chosen to believe him. Although, she supposed, the other option had been certain death, so why not take her chances?
“How do you feel?” he finally asked. His voice was rough and warm at the same time, like burying her bare feet in sun-warmed sand. Her thighs began to tingle, and she resisted the urge to squirm. Tanner’s nose flared and his eyes began to glow faintly. Olivia gasped.
“Your eyes,” she whispered, awed and fascinated by the glow.
He turned and looked at himself in the mirror affixed to the dresser across the room and then cursed. He shook his head and then turned back to look at Olivia. His eyes were no longer glowing.
“How do you feel?” he asked again.
“I need sunlight,” she said. No point in denying it. She’d already told him as much when she agreed to pull on her magic to create that blinding flash of light that allowed them to escape from the man who intended to kill her.
Tanner turned his head to glance at the shaded window. “We’re reasonably well hidden, but I’m sure they’re still looking for us, and I didn’t want to take a chance and leave the shades up.”
He went back to the window and used two fingers to pull the shade to the side. A small shaft of filtered sunlight fell across the bed and Olivia shifted toward it, greedily, as if it was food and she was a starved woman. She’d rarely expended quite that much magic before, and then when she did, she had always been able to regenerate immediately thereafter.
Tanner looked at her. There must have been somethi
ng telling on her face, because he cursed quietly and then lifted the shade so that a weak beam of sunlight filled the room. It wasn’t as regenerating as lying on a sunny beach, but it was better than keeping the shade closed. Olivia let out a blissful sigh and lay on her back in the pool of light.
“Where are we?” she asked, almost absently. At the moment, she didn’t particularly care about anything except the fact that the sunlight felt so good warming her light-starved body.
“Lisa’s parents’ vacation home.”
“Lisa?”
“My mama.”
Olivia’s eyes flew open and she looked into the wide, doe eyes of a dark-headed child. The little girl had one arm securely wrapped around a small stuffed tiger. The thumb of that arm was thrust into her mouth, and she sucked steadily, while she watched Olivia as if she were some sort of fascinating specimen. Olivia could tell instantly that she was a young shifter.
“You’re not dead,” the little girl said matter-of-factly.
Olivia lifted her hand and placed it on her head. “Apparently not.” She noted she was no longer shackled in irons, either. Unfortunately, she still felt low on magic, which meant another escape attempt was out of the question. For the moment.
I have to get back to Cici.
“You aren’t glowing, either.”
This was Olivia’s first experience with beings other than Lightbearers and most recently, humans. The old books claimed other magical beings could see a faint shimmer of magic surrounding the Lightbearer. Lightbearers, for their part, didn’t even notice the shimmer. Probably because it was just a part of their lives, like breathing and eating.
“My magic hasn’t been regenerated. That’s probably why,” Olivia guessed.
“How do you re-gen-ate your magic?” the little girl asked, carefully enunciating and yet still mispronouncing the word.
“Sunlight,” Tanner responded before she could. Olivia turned her head to stare rather inappropriately at the muscular thighs of an incredibly well built man. She flushed and twisted her head so she could look into his face.
