Into the Light (20 page)

“We are following the king’s orders,” Samuel explained. He walked next to her while Micca followed just a step behind.

When they reached her chamber, Olivia gave Samuel an imperious look. “I mean to go inside and change my clothing. Do you plan to follow?”

Samuel looked aghast. “I would never—”

“Good,” Olivia said, and she opened the door and hastily closed it in his face. She wasn’t terribly surprised to turn around and find Cecilia standing in the sitting chamber.

“This is terrible,” Cecilia cried dramatically. “What are we going to do? They are saying Uncle Sander plans a public execution. And what about Dane?”

Olivia walked over to the desk and her own secret stash of faery wine. She pulled out the crystal decanter, poured the burgundy liquid into two tiny crystal glasses. After corking the decanter, she offered one glass to Cecilia, then walked over and dropped onto the settee that faced the fireplace.

“He is going to pardon Dane, but only after everyone in the coterie understands that he has been properly punished for his transgressions.”

“And what of the others?”

“I have no idea, although I highly doubt my father would perform a public execution. The man cannot abide violence.”

“So what do you think he will do?”

“No idea,” Olivia repeated. “We’ve never experienced a situation like this before, not in five hundred years.” She opened one eye to look at her cousin. “He says he knows more than I do about shifters because he’s read a bunch of books about them. He also knows that I’ve been sneaking healer journals from the library.”

“Speaking of that,” Cecilia said. She walked over to the settee and held out her hand. It contained a small, thin book. The ancient, leather-bound tome looked as if it hadn’t been preserved very well. “Crazy enough, I found this in my parents’ cottage. I thought it would be amusing to read. It’s called
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Dangerous Shifters
.”

“What a ridiculous title,” Olivia spat. She did not take the book. “Unless it tells us how to get out of this sort of situation, I’m not in the mood to read what is undoubtedly a very slanted view of shifters.”

Cecilia placed her wineglass on a side table and gently opened the book. The pages were so thin and delicate, Olivia was mildly surprised they did not simply disintegrate in her hands.

“Did you know they fight with one another to claim the title of pack master? How barbaric.”

“I’ve heard that, yes,” Olivia said absently.

“They can live as animals, without ever shifting into human form,” Cecilia continued to read.

“Perhaps I could convince my father to let them be our pets. Do you think he would choose that as a form of punishment?”

Cecilia chuckled at her wry tone. “Doubtful. Oh, here is a very interesting tidbit about sex.”

“Oh? What’s that?” That shifters were utterly amazing at it?

“It says that if a male shifter wants to mate with a female, he simply asks her permission, and then they have sex shifter style. Once it’s over, they’re mated.”

“Shifter style?”

Cecilia nodded and pointed at the book. “There’s a picture.” She lifted the book to show Olivia. The picture was a basic sketch of a male and female, having sex like animals, with the woman on all fours and the man entering her from behind.

Just like she and Tanner almost had the day Cecilia walked in on them. Olivia clutched at the arms of her chair. “What else does it say? What if a shifter inadvertently has sex like that? Are they still mated?” Her voice was breathless.

Cecilia skimmed the text. “Both parties have to consent, and they have to ask their pack master’s consent as well.”

“What if the shifter isn’t part of a pack?”

“Doesn’t say. But I suppose if there’s no one’s permission to ask, that part is null and void. Oh, and it actually clarifies that you must have an orgasm—now I like that—but really, that’s all there is to it.”

“Do all shifters know about this? I mean, is this a practice that has been lost through the ages?”

Cecilia shrugged. “This book is pretty old, but it implies this is the way it has always been. I would imagine every shifter is aware, just as we are all aware of our need for sunlight.”

If that was true, then Tanner had meant to mate with her just a few days previous. Excitement warred with despair in her system. How was she to get them out of this situation? And if she succeeded in freeing Tanner, how would she convince her father that she wanted to mate with him?

She wanted to mate with a shifter.

Cecilia lifted her eyes from the book and gave Olivia a calculated look. “It just occurred to me that when I walked in on you and Tanner the other day, you were—”

Olivia waved away the rest of the sentence. “Yes, but I did not realize what it meant at the time.”

“And now that you do?”

Olivia looked into her cousin’s eyes and said, “I would consent.”

The book fluttered to the floor, as Cecilia lifted both hands to cover her mouth. Her eyes were wide as she stared back at Olivia. “Are you in love with him?” she whispered.

Olivia considered her question. Was she? She had never been in love before, so it was hard to tell if these feelings she felt were real, but if she was willing to mate with the man, despite the fact that they were two entirely different species…

“Yes, I believe I am.”

Cecilia suddenly grasped Olivia’s arms and pulled her to her feet. The dredges of the wine in the glass Olivia held splattered onto the rug. Neither woman paid any attention.

“Then we must go rescue them,” Cecilia declared.

Sofia would not stop crying. Neither Lisa nor Ariana could comfort her. Tanner had even tried, as awkward as his attempt had been. The only one who had been remotely successful was Dane, who risked injury to himself by thrusting his iron-manacle-covered arms at the pup so that he could pat her head. But when Sofia realized she could not crawl into his lap, she wailed even louder.

Dane stopped straining against the manacles and fell back against the wall to which he was chained.

“Why don’t you heal yourself?” Tanner asked as he watched Dane inspect the burns on his arms.

Dane shook his head. “I cannot. Healers can only give their healing magic to others, not to ourselves.”

“That’s weird,” Tanner remarked.

Dane shrugged. “While we continue to try to decipher it, I do not think we will ever truly understand the magic. There is a portion of the king’s budget specifically dedicated to studying the nuances of the magic. I have suggested to him that he eliminate that funding and spend the currency on healing instead. There is still a great deal about that art that we do not understand, and it is infinitely more important, I think, than understanding the whys, hows, and wheres of the magic itself.”

“The king discusses his budget with you?” Tanner asked. Dane must be high up in the hierarchy, if that was the case.

“Yes,” Dane said shortly. He did not expound.

Tanner looked around at their surroundings. They were locked in what was essentially a barn located behind the beach house. Everyone except Lisa’s newborn pup, who the guards had allowed to be cradled in her arms, was chained with iron manacles. They had even fitted little Sofia with a pair of manacles that were magically shrunk to fit her tiny wrists. When the guards realized iron did not have the same effect on shifters as it did on lightbearers, they added special wards to the barn and doubled the contingency of guards around the perimeter.

Tanner did not note out loud that he seemed to have developed an aversion to iron. He suspected it was a side effect to sleeping with Olivia. He glowed on occasion and iron made him feel mildly ill. Good thing she was worth it.

As soon as the guards left them alone, Tanner had tried to shift, but was unsuccessful. Whatever magical wards they used, it somehow negated what little magic a shifter bore.

Tanner did not like feeling helpless. It went against every fiber of his being. Shifters were not helpless. Shifters were the top of the food chain. He was a Lyons, for the love of fate.

He caught himself when he realized what he was doing. He wasn’t a Lyons, not in that way. He was just Tanner, a lone shifter who had somehow adopted a motley pack of shifters and lightbearers. A lone shifter who had somehow managed to hook up with the daughter of a king.

Hopefully, that would mean something.

He had not yet met the king. Nor had Olivia come calling, although he suspected she was forbidden to do so at the moment. Once she’d admitted to him that she was indeed a princess, they had talked freely about her life as such, and she admitted that being a lightbearer princess was not as glamorous as it sounded.

“He doesn’t listen to my opinion,”
she’d complained.
“And he forbade me from
training to be a healer. That is the worst aspect, because I truly have a talent for healing. It is a loss for the entire coterie, not just me.”

Tanner didn’t like to see her unhappy. He wished he could talk to the king, man to man. Try to reason with him. Why would a father deny his daughter the one thing she wanted most? Especially when that one thing was actually a boon for the entire species.

He thought about their relationship and wondered if she cared enough to plead for his freedom. If she did, would her father deny her that too?

He was back to feeling helpless again.

“This is a strange prison,” he remarked to Dane, an attempt to distract himself from Sofia’s relentless crying.

Dane shrugged and then winced when the iron brushed against his already burned skin. “There is not much in the way of crime within the coterie.”

Tanner wondered if, when this was all over, the king would decide to build a sturdier prison. Just in case.

“Tell me about your king,” he suggested. Maybe if he had a little insight, he would come up with a way to get out of this situation.

“He is a good man,” Dane stated. “He cares for his subjects. He wants everyone to be happy.”

“What about Olivia? Doesn’t he care about her happiness?”

“Of course he does,” Dane said indignantly. “She is his daughter, after all. His only child.”

“Then what’s with the refusal to let her be a healer?”

Dane’s demeanor became uneasy, edgy. Tanner wondered what he was hiding.

“She has certain obligations,” Dane said haltingly. “As the only child to the king and queen.”

“I get that,” Tanner said impatiently. “But she can still be a princess
and
a healer.”

“That is not how it works in our world. Once she is mated, her entire focus must be on producing an heir. A babe. A male babe, so the king has someone to pass the crown to.”

Tanner lifted his brows in surprise. “She is the only child, but she cannot be queen?”

“She can be queen, but she cannot rule. Only the king rules.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Dane shrugged. “It is the way of our world.”

“It’s still bullshit.”

“As it happens, I agree with you. But we are not the ones in charge.”

“Too bad,” Tanner grumbled. If he were in charge, he sure as hell wouldn’t be in his current predicament.

A short time later, a guard entered the barn. He threw Tanner and the small pack of shifters a nervous look and then strode over to where Dane sat on the cold stone floor.

“I’m to take you to the king,” he announced to Dane. The guard pulled thick leather gloves over his hands before clumsily freeing Dane from the iron manacles. As he led Dane away, Tanner gave the lightbearer’s back a solid glare because Dane did not even try to escape.

“We have to get the hell out of here,” Lisa complained. She’d bitched and moaned for the first hour or so of their captivity, but then she’d turned her focus to trying to comfort her pups and hadn’t spoken since.

“Where do you suppose they’re taking Dane?” Ariana wanted to know.

Tanner shook his head. “No idea.”

There wasn’t much else to say, so they fell silent, save for Sofia’s steady crying. Tanner stiffened and mentally prepared for battle when, a long time later, the doorknob twisted again. He wondered if they would take each prisoner one by one to their destiny. If that was the case, he would ask them to take him first, so he could plead for the release of the others. His life for theirs. It was a fair enough trade, right?

A lone figure slipped into the room, smaller than any of the guards and wearing a dress to boot.

“Olivia?”

Relief flooded her eyes when she lifted them to meet Tanner’s. She hurried across the room, clutching her skirt in a peculiar way. When she was close enough, he saw that she held an iron key within the folds of her skirt, so that it would not touch her person. Clumsily, she unlocked the manacles around Tanner’s wrists.

As soon as he was free, he swept her into his arms and, completely disregarding their audience, kissed her, fully and possessively. She melted into him.

“Oh Tanner,” she said with a sigh. “I have so much to say to you.”

“Later,” he promised. He pulled the key from her hand and then cursed and let it clatter to the floor. He shook his smoking hand and hissed in pain.

Olivia grabbed his hand and looked at the red and blistered palm. “I did not think shifters had an aversion to iron as we do.”

“They don’t,” Lisa supplied. She lifted her manacled wrists. “Think you can free the rest of us now? My daughter is going to be traumatized for life.”

“Yes, of course,” Olivia said. “I cannot heal you until we are out of this room,” she explained to Tanner. “It is warded against magic.” She bent and used her skirt as a barrier to pick up the iron key. Within moments, the entire entourage was free.

“How did you get in here?” Tanner demanded. Considering the way her eyes kept darting to the closed door, he had a feeling this was more of an escape than a declaration by the lightbearers that the shifters were to go free.

Olivia waved at the door. “Cecilia has a gift for not only getting into locked rooms, but also for distracting those of the male gender, when it serves her purposes. Come, we need to get out of this room.” They followed her to the door.