Into the Light Read online

  “We must immediately plan a party to celebrate your good health,” Genevieve announced.

  Sander looked pained. “Really, Genevieve, that isn’t necessary— ”

  For once, Olivia agreed with her father. “I do not think I am quite up to a party right now, mother.”

  “Not right this second of course,” Genevieve said airily. “Perhaps in three days’ time? I am sure Carley can pull something together by then.”

  Carley was the head chef in the beach house kitchen, and no doubt could pull something together that quickly. As much as Alexa was a miracle worker with injuries, so Carley was a miracle worker with food.

  “I do not want a party, Mother,” Olivia insisted, but she was not at all surprised when her opinion fell upon deaf ears. Planning parties was therapy for Genevieve, and she’d experienced a great deal of anxiety recently, with the discovery of shifters within the coterie and then her one and only child being shot through with magical arrows.

  “Cici,” she said wearily, when her mother launched into planning her next party anyway, despite both Olivia and Sander’s protests.

  “On it,” Cecilia murmured, and she approached the bed and swept Genevieve away, the woman chattering on about guest lists, the menu, and the color of flowers for the centerpieces. Alexa assured the king that Olivia was fine and would suffer no ill effects from her injuries, and then she excused herself and slipped from the chamber, leaving Olivia alone with her father.

  They both fidgeted uncomfortably. Olivia threw back the covers and pulled a billowing silken wrap over her nightgown. She made a quick trip to the bath chamber. Her father was still waiting when she returned. She wandered over to stand near the French doors that were open to the balcony.

  Sander finally spoke. “The guards stated that you helped the shifters escape. That is why they shot you.”

  Olivia glanced over her shoulder. He still stood next to the bed, but he steadily watched her from across the room.

  “They spoke the truth,” Olivia admitted.

  “Why?”

  She turned back to the balcony. The breeze off the lake was steady and cool. She could hear the waves crashing onto the shore at the bottom of the cliff.

  “They are not the enemy, father. They are my friends.” One of them is my lover.

  “You are the princess of the Lightbearers,” her father reminded her for what she was certain was the billionth times. “You have an obligation to the coterie. To me. I do not, as of yet, have an heir to whom to pass the crown. Do you have any idea what that does to your mother?”

  “It isn’t my fault she couldn’t bear any more babes,” Olivia said sullenly, and she immediately regretted saying it, as her father sucked in a sharp breath and magic flared in the room. Whatever else he was, Sander Bennett was fiercely dedicated to and protective of his mate.

  “It may not be your fault,” he said coldly. “But it is your responsibility now. You must settle down, take a mate, bear a son. It is time for you to stop this foolishness, Olivia. You and Cecilia … I have given you both far too much free rein. I see that now.”

  “Father...”

  Sander shook his head. “It is time for you to fulfill your obligations, Olivia. You must bear a son, so that your mother and I can be assured the kingdom will continue to flourish.”

  Chapter 19

  He took on the form of a hawk and swept in through the open balcony doors, slipping into her bed in the middle of the night. When his feet lightly hit the ground, they were shaped as human feet. By the time he reached the bed, his human form was naked, and eager to couple with her again.

  Take her like a shifter, his body and mind urged him. Make her yours.

  He flipped back the covers and slid between the sheets, crowding her, all but covering her with his own body, as she lay in the middle of the bed, curled into a ball, sound asleep. He was pleased when she turned into him in her sleep, and sighed as she melted into his body. He wanted this. He needed this. Every night, for the rest of his life.

  Tanner smoothed his hand over her body, over the silken nightgown, and felt a moment of peace. His trip downstate had been, overall, successful. The leader of the shifter pack that resided outside of Detroit, Josh Tigre, agreed to accept Lisa and her pups and Tanner’s mother into his pack. In fact, he even agreed to let them reside in his massive mansion, until they determined where they wanted to live.

  Tanner expected a little resistance from both of them, but he figured it would be minor. Once they met Josh and his pack, they would be pleased to join it. Josh ran his pack far differently from the way Tanner’s father ran his pack. Lisa needed to be around other shifters, to raise her pups amongst shifters. His mother did not have the same obligation, but he would insist she go too. It was only a few hours from the coterie, so they could visit as often as they chose.

  Sander Bennett had made it perfectly clear that his forced hospitality would only be extended for a brief time. Tanner had not yet figured out a way to inform the king that one of the shifters in the small pack would not be leaving.

  “What about you?” Josh had asked, shortly before Tanner took his leave to return to the coterie.

  “I do not need a pack,” Tanner had replied. “I have been without one for ten years. I will be fine.”

  “That is not the impression I have.”

  Josh was sharper than Tanner initially gave him credit, which, in retrospect, was actually a good thing. It reaffirmed his decision to send Lisa and his mother to join his pack.

  “Oh?” he said carefully.

  Josh nodded. “You smell like magic. Not shifter magic, but something else. I’ve heard the old stories, but I don’t think that is the case here,” he said shrewdly.

  Tanner looked out at the waning sun. Funny how his body now craved the sunlight. Just like a Lightbearer.

  “It isn’t,” he admitted. “We cannot inherit their magic by killing them. I’m told that when they die, there is a great flash of light, as the magic leaves their system. Probably where the legends began.”

  “And yet...” Josh waved at his person, indicating, no doubt, the faint glow of Lightbearer magic.

  On a sigh, Tanner said, “I am sleeping with a Lightbearer. I assume that’s how I developed this glow.” He liked Josh; he was trusting Josh with his mother’s life and Lisa and her pups’ lives, but he was not prepared to admit to him that he intended to take a Lightbearer to mate. He figured he should have the conversation with Olivia, first.

  Once again, Josh proved his shrewdness. “Sleeping with? I can’t imagine a Lightbearer would give a shifter her magic just because they are sleeping together.” There had been a slight mocking tone to his voice.

  He’d left shortly after that conversation, feeling both the urge to return to Olivia and the desire to get away from Josh before he learned too much. The last thing he wanted was a bunch of shifters sniffing around the coterie, with the express purpose of sleeping with Lightbearers for their magic. It wouldn’t be quite as bad as his father’s obsession, but it would be bad enough.

  Olivia stirred and her beautiful blue eyes fluttered open. Those rosebud lips lifted into a smile. “I thought it was suddenly warmer in here,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep.

  He brushed hair out of her face and cupped her cheek. “How do you feel?”

  She stretched, like a cat, and Tanner took a moment to appreciate the way her breasts pressed against the front of the thin material of her nightgown. As he watched, her nipples peeked. He glanced up and saw that she was watching him watch her, a smugly pleased look on her face. He deliberately smoothed his hand down over her neck, her chest, to her breast. He cupped her there and let his thumb skim over the tight bud.

  She sucked in a breath. “Good,” she finally replied.

  “Good enough?” he asked as he let his hand drop farther, until he cupped her ass and pulled her closer. She lifted her leg and draped it over his thigh. He rolled his hips, rubbing his erection against the apex of her thighs
.

  “Oh yes.” She gasped as she arched into him.

  He rolled her over onto her back and covered her body with his own. Grabbing the hem of her nightgown, he flipped it over her head and tossed it to the floor. “I like you like this,” he said as he lifted his upper body and cupped both naked breasts.

  “Me too,” she said. Her arms snaked around his waist, her fingers skimmed over his back. He could feel the trail of magic in their wake. He looked into her face.

  “You gave me your magic.” It was a statement.

  “Inadvertently,” she replied, blinking up at him. “I had no idea I even could give away my magic. But I’m glad I did. Alexa says I would have died if you had not healed me.”

  “I won’t let you go,” he said fiercely. He dropped his head and kissed her, hungry, demanding. She melted beneath him.

  He gave another thought to rolling her onto her stomach and mating with her, but when she lifted her hips and his erection slid through wetness, he lost all sense of rational thought. Or irrational. He plunged into her, needing to feel her, needing to couple with her, to assure himself that she was still alive and well … and most importantly, his.

  She raked her fingers across his back again, this time more sharply, and he hissed from the pleasure/pain sensation. “Harder,” she commanded, digging her nails into his ass and pulling him close. He pressed into her, tried to make it last, and failed. He grabbed her hips and pistoned into her over and over, until she cried out her pleasure, sending him soaring over the edge of ecstasy himself.

  With a gusty, sated sigh, he rolled over onto his back and sank into the pillows. She immediately rolled onto her side and curled into his body and he slipped his arm around her waist and held her there. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought, Tomorrow. I’m going to mate with her tomorrow.

  * * * *

  “Olivia.”

  He whispered her name against her ear, sending the small hairs dancing and her senses reeling. His hands were on her body, one on a breast, rolling her nipple between finger and thumb, the other stroking the fire building between her legs. His erection pressed into her backside. They were front to back, lying in bed, the morning sunshine beaming in through the balcony doors.

  “I need this,” he murmured as his fingers took her higher and higher.

  “Mmm.” She canted her head, revealed her neck, an invitation for him to nibble there. He accepted the offer.

  “I need you,” he whispered.

  “Mmm.”

  “Forever.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I need you to say it,” he demanded. “Forever.”

  “Don’t stop,” she complained when he pulled his hand away to position his erection at her opening.

  “Say it,” he repeated.

  “Tanner…”

  “Forever.”

  “Yes…”

  The door burst open and Cecilia rushed into the bedchamber. “Olivia, oh my lights, Olivia, you aren’t going to believe—oh!” Cecilia pulled up short, her eyes widening as she took in the sight upon Olivia’s bed.

  Tanner rolled over from where he’d been kneeling behind Olivia and grabbed the sheet, pulling it into his lap.

  “Again?” Cecilia demanded.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” Tanner growled.

  Olivia rolled over into a seated position. She too was frustrated with Cecilia’s poor timing—Tanner was about to mate with her!—but it really was comical.

  “What is it, Cici?”

  Cecilia’s gaze darted from Olivia to Tanner and back again. The worried look in her eyes concerned Olivia. Cecilia was rarely worried. She was as carefree as it was possible to be. Olivia envied her that ability. Would she, too, be so carefree, if she didn’t have the weight of the future of the entire coterie draped about her shoulders?

  That particular thought made her feel guilty for what she and Tanner had been about to do. She really should not mate with the shifter, until she’d figured out a way to convince her parents it was okay.

  Unfortunately, she did not see how that was possible.

  She was a Lightbearer, he was a shifter. Two entirely different species. Was it even possible to mate? Could they procreate? If they did, what would they produce? Even if their children looked like perfectly normal Lightbearers, Olivia could not see how her father would accept her firstborn son as the heir to the kingdom, not with shifter blood running through his veins.

  There were so many questions, and not nearly enough answers. The only thing that was certain was that Olivia wanted no one but Tanner. And she had no idea how to tell her father this.

  “Is something the matter, Cici?”

  Cecilia’s gaze darted back and forth again, and Tanner guessed, “She wants to talk to you in private.”

  Cecilia’s head bobbed. Tanner glared at her. “Can you step into the other room for a minute, so I can get dressed?”

  She turned and fled from the bedchamber. Olivia gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry...” she started to say, but Tanner reached out and laced his fingers into her hand.

  “We probably shouldn’t have started that anyway, not without talking about it first,” he said, and she could tell he was uncomfortable discussing the topic. She wondered if it was because he’d never considered taking another woman to mate before. The thought made her feel ridiculously pleased.

  “I know what it means,” she said quietly.

  His gaze shot up and caught hers. She nodded.

  “Cecilia found this old book, a history of shifters. Written by a Lightbearer, so there’s a very slanted view, of course. The process of taking a mate was described, with pictures.” She smiled shyly.

  He looked appalled, and then he raked his hand through his disheveled, sleep-tousled hair. “Well, I guess you get the gist then...” He trailed off and watched her carefully. He cleared his throat and asked, “Would you...?” He looked highly uncomfortable. Olivia suspected talking about these sorts of topics was not Tanner’s strong suit.

  She decided to make it easier on him. She cupped his scruffy cheek with one hand and offered him her most sincere smile. “Without question.”

  The look in his eye indicated he would like nothing more than to proceed along that end immediately, so she scooted away from him on the bed. “But not now. I need to speak with Cecilia,” she said, reminding him that Cici was just a few yards away in the sitting chamber, probably eavesdropping on their conversation. Tanner slanted a look toward the closed door and scowled.

  “Tonight,” she whispered, her eyes full of promise.

  He reached out, snagged her around the waist and hauled her close. “Tonight,” he promised, and then he kissed her until her toes curled and she was panting and more than ready to go ahead and do it now, right now, this moment —

  “Olivia, what is taking so—Oh for the love of the light,” Cecilia complained, as she once against burst through the door and found Olivia and Tanner in a compromising position.

  “Do you two ever do anything else?”

  * * * *

  If Tanner found it odd that he’d been summoned to the king’s library—just him—he did not let on. He figured the king probably wanted an update on the process of the shifters moving out of the coterie.

  When he arrived at the library, it was empty. The guard who escorted him bowed regally and informed him the king would be along shortly. Then he retreated down the hall. Tanner stood in the doorway and surveyed the room. He hadn’t really paid all that much attention the first time he’d been summoned to this room, but now that he was alone, he wandered along the perimeter, idly perusing the collection of books.

  The shelves were overflowing. Many of the volumes looked to be exceptionally old. The king of the Lightbearers, it would seem, appreciated the written word.

  One thick and very old book looked as if it had been unceremoniously shoved back onto the shelf. It stuck out at an odd angle, as if it didn’t quite fit in the area in which it had been placed. Tanner pulled i
t from the shelf and read the title: A History of Magical Beings. He found it amusing that someone believed they had encompassed the lengthy and very differing histories of all magical beings into one book, even if it was a thick tome.

  He assumed the book was written by a Lightbearer. He was curious to see what Lightbearers had to say on the subject of shifters. According to Olivia, they had a very slanted view, which wouldn’t surprise him in the least.

  Gently, because the book was very old, Tanner opened it and flipped to the chapter that covered shifters. As he began to read, he sat down in the chair positioned behind the one desk in the room. He frowned when his knee bumped the desk drawer, which wasn’t quite closed all the way. When he pushed at the drawer, it still would not close, so he pulled it open to see if he could determine what was in the way.

  A leather bound ledger was the culprit. He pulled it out of the drawer, intending to reposition it so that the drawer closed properly, but he fumbled both books and, deciding A History of Magical Beings was probably more fragile, he let the ledger fall to the floor and caught the older book instead.

  As Tanner reached down to retrieve it, he noticed the rows and rows of numbers, running down the pages of the book. Upon further inspection, he realized it was, most likely, the king’s financial ledger. The one the king had been writing in the last time Tanner had been summoned to this room.

  According to the journal, the coterie was broke.

  Dismissing the historical book, Tanner placed the ledger on the desk and began studying it with a more critical eye. This did nothing to dissuade him from the very real fact that the coterie was broke, and judging by the way Sander Bennett kept his books, there was literally no way out for the Lightbearers. Within months, probably less than six, there would be no money left in the royal coffers, not the way this household spent it.

  What would they do? According to everything he’d learned, the Lightbearers kept to themselves. They did not associate with the human communities that surrounded the coterie. In fact, most Lightbearers living within the coterie had never left their sanctuary. The old tales and legends were very real here, just as real as they were within Tanner’s father’s pack.