by Tami Lund
DAWNING OF LIGHT
Lightbearer Series Book 2
Cover Artist: Monica La Porta
Editor: LSP
Copyright: 2017 by Tami Lund
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Dawning of Light
The Lightbearers are a group of magical beings who have lived for five hundred years hidden away in their magically protected coterie. Now that the princess of the Lightbearers is mated to a shifter, their peaceful lives have been turned upside down.
In this second installment of the Lightbearer Series, shifter Finnegan Hennigan is doing his damnedest to keep Lightbearer Cecilia Druthers out of trouble. His job is made all the more difficult by the fact that Cecilia doesn't want to stay out of trouble.
Despite their mutual annoyance, sparks ignite between this odd couple. As it becomes increasingly more apparent that someone is out to get Cecilia, the flares of attraction become impossible to resist, and soon, Cecilia and Finn tumble into, well, a closet together. And then the bed. And if Finn wants to keep her there, he's going to need to keep her alive.
Which means figuring out who the hell keeps trying to kill her.
Dedication
Sheri—you make me believe others will love the Lightbearers as much as you do!
Chapter 1
“You aren’t my father.”
“Thank the Fates for small favors.”
Cecilia lifted her chin. “And you aren’t my mate.”
“Thank the Fates for big favors.”
She narrowed her eyes and glared at the shifter who’d uttered the perceived insult. “So stop telling me what to do.”
He grinned. His name was Finnegan Hennigan, and he was a refugee from Quentin Lyons’ now defunct pack from out in Wyoming. Quentin was dead, although his belief that killing a Lightbearer meant you inherited her magic was dying a significantly slower death. Or so Cecilia assumed. Otherwise, she could not imagine why Tanner Lyons, now essentially the ruler of the Lightbearers’ coterie, would insist she couldn’t leave the safety of the magical wards surrounding the Lightbearers’ home, unless accompanied by Finn.
She didn’t want Finn to accompany her anywhere. He was bossy and rude and called her Cici sometimes, because he knew damn well that nickname was reserved only for her dearest and closest friends. Finn certainly did not qualify, and she told him so at every available opportunity.
He was also far too handsome, with his coppery hair and unshaven jawline, those blue eyes that were slightly darker than those of most shifters. From what she’d learned about shifters, they either had black or pale blue eyes, rarely anything in between. Naturally, he had to be unique.
He was huge, too, towering over nearly every male Lightbearer in the coterie, intimidating them, no doubt on purpose. Tanner had assigned him as a trainer, to whip the Lightbearers into shape, teaching them how to fight, how to defend themselves. Finn was ruthless about it. Ruthless and obnoxious. He found it amazing—and not in a good way—that no one other than the guards had ever had any sort of defensive training before. Cecilia had tried to explain that the magical wards that hid them from the outside world had always been enough, and he’d retorted, “What the hell happens when you’re outside the coterie?”
She didn’t tell him as much, but normally, when she was outside their magical community, she was enjoying the company of one of the human males who lived in the nearest town. Usually, they were naked by the end of the evening. She didn’t have to protect herself, except maybe from sexually transmitted diseases, and, she supposed, pregnancy. She didn’t want to protect herself from anything else. Cecilia had needs and desires, and she most certainly could not fulfill them with someone living inside the coterie.
“I speak with the authority of your king,” Finnegan replied, still grinning. “That means, actually, I do get to tell you what to do.”
“Uncle Sander would never assign you to watch over me,” Cecilia said with a sniff. “He would assign Dane or Samuel.” She gave an involuntary shiver at the mention of Samuel’s name. It would be a difficult choice, if she had to choose Finnegan or Samuel. Whereas Finn was just a giant, obnoxious pain, Samuel was utterly smitten with her and determined that they should be mated. Since Cecilia had no interest in mating with anyone she supposed she would choose Finn. But it was certainly grudgingly.
“Probably not,” Finn acknowledged. “But Tanner would. And since he speaks for the king…” He let his voice trail away, and at Cecilia’s outraged look, he shrugged. “Your king should not have run this place into near bankruptcy. If he hadn’t, Tanner wouldn’t have had to give over every dime to his name to save it, thus indebting the king for life.”
“Tanner gave that money with no strings attached. I was there. I heard him utter the words.”
“So was I. Which means I heard the part where he informed the king that he would from this point forward be nothing more than a figurehead, while Tanner calls the shots from the background.”
He was right, which only irritated her further. She hated losing their little sparring matches. “We should never have allowed shifters into our coterie,” she muttered.
“If you hadn’t, you’d probably be dead right now.”
Again, he was right, damn it. Before he’d ever moved to the coterie, before he swore his allegiance to Tanner, Finn had saved both Cecilia and Olivia from members of his own pack on more than one occasion. Cecilia hated the idea that she owed him her life. She hated it so much so that she felt an almost overwhelming urge to get away from him.
She contemplated using her magic to summon a great flash of light that would temporarily blind him, so she could escape from his overprotective clutches. But if she did that, it would almost surely deplete nearly all of her magical stores, and even Cecilia was willing to acknowledge that slipping into the human world without a full store of magic at her disposal was not a good idea.
The largest threat to Lightbearers was dead, but that did not mean other shifters and even other magical beings did not bear ill will toward their kind. They had lived for five hundred years within their magically hidden home, essentially cut off from the rest of the world. They had no earthly idea what dangers lurked out there.
“Fine,” she grumbled, turning away from him and stomping back through the woods toward the beach house where the king and queen lived. Thanks to the thick canopy of evergreens, the coating of snow on the ground in this heavily wooded area was far easier to manage than it was on the expanse of lawn she would eventually have to cross in order to get back to the beach house.
Finn fell into step beside her. She deliberately ignored him. It was not, unfortunately, easy to do. She could practically feel the higher-than-average body heat radiating off him. Shifters’ body temperatures were naturally several degrees warmer than a Lightbearer’s. Olivia said it was like snuggling with her own personal heater in bed, except he was big and powerful, with sharply defined muscles and yet a soft touch.
Cecilia glanced sideways at her counterpart. His shoulders were ridiculously wide, his chest sharply defined, and his backside was far too grabbable in those just-tight-enough jeans he wore. If his pers
onality wasn’t so damn bossy and domineering, she was half-afraid she would be attracted to him.
“If it helps, I don’t like Cecilia Duty any more than you do.”
She abruptly stopped walking and turned to stare at him. “Cecilia Duty?” She all but choked on the words.
He grinned again, the bastard. She wanted to slap him. He was forever foiling her plans to escape the coterie and then finding great joy in his successes.
“It’s an apt name, don’t you think?”
“Is that what Tanner says?”
Finn shook his head. “Nope. He calls it guard duty. But guard duty’s a piece of cake compared to constantly tracking you down and keeping you from endangering yourself.”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” she said with all of the haughtiness she’d inherited as a result of being raised side by side with the Lightbearer princess.
Finn snorted. Cecilia narrowed her eyes again. “You are the most annoyingly frustrating male I have ever experienced in my life. And trust me when I say I have come across some exceedingly annoying men.”
“I’m sure you have. You attract them like damn flies.”
Unfortunately, she couldn’t disagree. He was right. She did have the uncanny ability to attract the worst possible type of male.
“I’m surprised you aren’t falling at my feet, begging for my attentions,” she retorted, figuring it was the best insult she could come up with at the moment. She began walking, and Finn fell into step beside her again.
“You aren’t my type.”
“Oh, really? What is your type?”
“Not annoying. Not disobedient. Not intent upon putting herself into danger on an all-too regular basis. And not so damn skinny.”
Cecilia stopped walking again. She flung around to face him, fisting her hands on her hips. “So damn skinny? What the hell does that mean?”
He waved at her person. “You. You look as if a stiff wind could knock you off your feet. You look like you weigh next to nothing. Females your age ought to have more meat on their bones.”
“Females my age?” she repeated indignantly. “I’ve just passed twenty-seven summers. What does my age have to do with my weight? Which, by the way, is perfectly fine,” she said with a sniff.
Finn shook his head and then promptly picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He wrapped his arm around the back of her thighs and began walking at a brisk pace toward the beach house. Cecilia screeched and shrieked and in general protested the caveman-like ministrations.
* * * *
Finn ignored her protests. He’d caught her—again—just as she was about to slip through the magical wards. Honest to fate, he’d never met someone so intent upon putting herself in danger as Cecilia Druthers. The coterie was the safest place on the planet for the Lightbearer, so she naturally wanted to be anywhere but there. And then she had the nerve to act like there was something wrong with him for wanting to keep her safe.
The process of returning to the beach house was excruciatingly slow, because she felt the need to stop every few feet and attempt to give him a dressing-down. He considered just telling her outright not to bother, because he really didn’t give a rat’s ass what she thought about him.
Finn cared about the opinions of a few select individuals. His parents and his siblings. His new pack master, Tanner Lyons. And…that was pretty much it.
Tanner wanted him to protect Cecilia from herself, so that’s what Finn planned to do. Cecilia, unfortunately, wasn’t a fan of being protected. Well, Finn didn’t particularly relish the task either, he just did it because his pack master told him to.
He would much rather be warming the bed of the Lightbearer named Daisy. She’d caught his eye three days ago when she sauntered up to him and commented that she heard shifters were big in all the right places. He hadn’t bothered to resist showing her that what she heard was true. He’d lived in the Lightbearers’ village for four months at that point, and had been more focused on adjusting to his new life than tending to his own physical needs.
Daisy was just the sort of female Finn was attracted to, although he could admit that she too was on the thin side. Most of the Lightbearer females were petite and thin. He supposed he was getting used to it by now, but he had still been half-afraid he was going to break her when they tumbled into bed together. Finn was a pretty damn big guy.
The first Lightbearer Finn had ever encountered was Tanner’s mate, Olivia, when Tanner’s father had captured her and intended to kill her for her magic. The first Lightbearer Finn had ever come into physical contact with had been Cecilia Druthers, the king of the Lightbearers’ niece. The first time they’d touched, magic flared between them, hot and potent. It had shot straight to his groin, and he’d developed a hard-on, right in the middle of a battle during which he was pretending to be Quentin Lyons’ tracker, but really was trying to help Tanner and his Lightbearers escape. Damned inconvenient, to say the least.
Especially considering he wasn’t even attracted to the woman. At least, he shouldn’t be. He didn’t want to be. He didn’t mind sleeping with Daisy, and in fact, it had been a thoroughly enjoyable evening because she’d made it clear that she was only interested in one thing. Finn hadn’t felt any urges toward her, other than the basic urge to get laid and have an orgasm. There sure as hell hadn’t been any flare of magic, and his skin hadn’t shimmered afterward, like Tanner’s did almost all the time, now that he was mated to Olivia.
With Cecilia, Finn felt that flare of magic every time they touched. It was addictive. It made him want to keep touching her. It made him think about taking her in the way of shifters, making her his mate.
Which was damned fucked-up.
Finn didn’t want a mate, and he sure as hell didn’t want a Lightbearer mate. While he didn’t hold to his former pack master’s beliefs about killing Lightbearers for their magic, he did hold to the belief that shifters should mate with shifters. Even if his new pack master was mated to a Lightbearer.
But that was different. Tanner had left his father’s pack ten years previously. He’d been living amongst the humans, had forsaken pack life. It was undoubtedly easy for him to turn to a Lightbearer instead of his own kind. Finn had stayed with Quentin’s pack long after he wanted to, because he knew no other way of life.
It was hard for a shifter to change, to choose something new. They were hardwired to be pack-like creatures, just as they were hardwired to want to screw a female shifter-style, if she was attractive enough.
No wonder there were so many fucked-up shifters in the world. One date, enough mutual attraction, and a couple of orgasms later, they were trapped together, ’til death do they part.
Prior to sleeping with Daisy, Finn would have assumed it was simply Lightbearers in general. Something about their magic was enticing to shifters. It made sense, considering Quentin had spent forty years obsessing over finding them, based on an ancient tale about inheriting their magic. But when he woke up the morning after he and Daisy hooked up, Finn hadn’t felt any different from the night before, except for the satisfaction of having found his release a couple times.
What was the difference between Cecilia and Daisy? Both were fair-haired and fair-skinned, both had blue eyes, with delicate features and a slight stature. Cecilia had a long, elegant neck and a petite body that, while it wasn’t truly sensual in the way a large-breasted, heavy-hipped woman would be, was still arousing in a way that enticed and baffled Finn’s senses. He tried to tell himself it was because of the magic, but he suspected that wasn’t entirely true.
Daisy, on the other hand, did not quite have that regal stature, that sense of carefree confidence that seemed embedded into Cecilia. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was why Finn found himself attracted to Cecilia, when he didn’t even really like her. Maybe he secretly wished he could develop that carefree attitude, that absolute confidence that the world really wasn’t such a bad place after all.
Or maybe living
amongst the Lightbearers was beginning to fuck with his head.
Not a day passed by that Finn didn’t consider up and leaving the coterie, setting out on his own, maybe searching for a new pack to join. He’d left one that had a crazed dictator for a pack master and had more or less stumbled into this convoluted pack of Lightbearers and shifters. But what if there was something else out there, something better?
If he hadn’t been assigned to Cecilia Duty, it might not be so bad. But Cecilia was determined to break every rule the king of the Lightbearers ever imposed, and Finn’s responsibility was to ensure she did not injure herself in the process.
Frustrating didn’t begin to describe his new life.
He broke free of the swath of trees and waded through the shin-deep snow surrounding the king’s beach house. If Cecilia were in a better frame of mind, she could use her magic to carve a path for him, but considering she was still shrieking about his caveman behavior, he doubted that was going to happen.
The massive white house with blue trim and shutters was perched on a cliff that overlooked the village and then Lake Michigan beyond. Two sides of the oversize beach house were surrounded by several hundred feet of snow-covered lawn and then thick forest, and the fourth led to acres of rolling fields that were used for growing vegetation and raising various animals that provided both meat and other necessities, such as milk, eggs, and cheese. Thanks to Tanner, the Lightbearers were slowly becoming self-sustaining, something they should have been all along.
Unfortunately, the king had run the coterie into near bankruptcy because he had been afraid his subjects would not like him if he did not provide essentially everything to meet their expected standard of living. Few had grown their own vegetables or sewn their own clothing or taken care of leaks in the roof. The king had paid to take care of it all. And never asked for anything but their bought loyalty in return.
