Into the Light (30 page)

He was getting old. Ten, twenty years ago, he would not have let his troubles interfere with his own personal pleasure. In fact, he used to use sex as a means to alleviate the stress of managing the largest pack of shifters on the continent. To alleviate the stress of seeking the lightbearers because he knew—he
knew
—they still existed. All he needed was one, and his damned son had taken her away from him.

Disgusted with himself, Quentin grabbed the woman by the hair and pulled her away. He tucked his still-limp cock back into his pants and turned his back on her.

“Go.”

“But—” She began to protest and he cut her off with a menacing growl.

“Go, before I take out my anger on you.”

She scrambled to her feet and fled the room, and Quentin thought,
I am getting old. Now I’m giving them warning before I abuse them.

But his heart wasn’t in it. The one he wanted to abuse was his son. The one he wanted to kill was the lightbearer he’d made off with more than two weeks prior.

Quentin had clearly underestimated his only legitimate son. All these years, he thought Tanner was just being stubborn—a trait he inherited honestly. He claimed he didn’t believe Quentin’s assurance that lightbearers were very much alive and that someday, Quentin would capture one, and inherit it’s magic.

All this time, Tanner had been hunting the lightbearers himself, and had been significantly more successful than he ever had been. He knew he would never forget that sense of shock and disbelief when he and his guards and trackers cornered Tanner in that parking structure in Vegas—only to realize he had three lightbearers, not one.

Three
.

Quentin shook with barely suppressed rage and jealousy. Jealousy over his own son, the one who had all but betrayed him when he left the pack ten years ago. Instead of trying to get away from Quentin and his beliefs, Tanner had been on his own hunt. And he’d found
three
lightbearers
.

Quentin had been so furious when they returned from Vegas—injured, limping, and wholly unsuccessful, that he’d taken out his wrath on the very ones who he’d handpicked to go with him in the first place. It was their fault, after all. He’d chosen them for a reason and they’d failed.

Damn it. Damn his son.

Quentin couldn’t even turn to the boy’s mother to take out his frustration on her, as he’d tended to do over the years. She had disappeared too, and Quentin was almost certain she was with Tanner. The damned shifter was forming his own pack, slowly but surely, probably with the intention of toppling Quentin the old-fashioned way, instead of just inheriting the pack like he was supposed to. That irked, because he knew he could never defeat Tanner in hand-to-hand combat. Not anymore. His son was as strong as Quentin had once been, when he was in his prime, and unfortunately, Quentin was quite a few years past prime at this point.

Damn it to hell. There had to be another way. He had to get to Tanner, kill those lightbearers, and then kill his own son.

There were plenty of other shifters in the pack who would suffice as pack master. It pissed Quentin off that his own damned progeny wouldn’t do it, but he knew now that he had to get over it. Even though he’d never once acknowledged any of them, Quentin wasn’t stupid. He’d spread his seed far and wide within the pack and even amongst the nearby human whorehouses. There were plenty of illegitimate offspring around him. He just needed to figure out which one was the strongest. Which one would carry on his legacy, in the way he expected.

His phone vibrated, and he walked over to where it lay on a nearby table. The name
Duane
glowed on the screen, which surprised Quentin. As far as he was aware, the entire group of shifters he sent to Iowa had been killed. Yet another strike against his damned son.

He pushed the Talk button but the call disconnected almost immediately. Frowning, Quentin placed the phone back onto the table and turned away. A minute later, his phone vibrated again, indicating he had a text message from an unknown number.

He’s still in Iowa. I found him. Not Duane. He’s he

Quentin stared at the garbled message on the screen, trying to decipher what it meant and who sent it. He did not recognize the number, but a quick Internet search indicated it was an Iowa number, owned by someone named Charles Wezel. A search within the private files he kept in his phone indicated there was a small shifter pack in central Iowa, run by a shifter named Rick Pantera. He made a couple of calls and learned that Charles Wezel was a shifter who went by the moniker Chuck, and that he belonged to Rick Pantera’s pack. After that, the facts began to come together, like pieces of an intriguing puzzle.

When Duane came to him two weeks ago, bursting with excitement and swearing that Tanner and the lightbearer were in Iowa, Quentin had patiently questioned him and learned that on one of his many scouting expeditions, Duane had ended up in a bar in Iowa, where he met a couple of shifters who promised to let him know if they ever came across a lightbearer. And they’d come through for him.

Considering that not a single one of his shifters had returned from the trip to Iowa two weeks ago, Quentin had determined two things: that they’d found Tanner, and that he was far more lethal than Quentin had initially believed. Either that or the lightbearer’s magic really was as potent as he believed.

Now, he received a call from Duane, but no one was on the line. And that was followed immediately by a cryptic text message from the member of some other pack. Quentin grabbed his phone and replied to the text, but he received a message informing him that the text was undeliverable.

Interesting. He bellowed for Larry, the shifter who was always hovering nearby, ready to do Quentin’s bidding. “Get Finnegan and the others who returned from Vegas,” he commanded. “It’s time for them to redeem themselves.”

Finnegan had been injured by a sword, which Quentin had watched the male lightbearer conjure from thin air. Despite his injuries, Quentin had beaten on him, just as he had the others he’d taken to Vegas, because it had been their fault the damn lightbearers and Tanner had gotten away.

Three times. Three lightbearers. And soon, there would be three deaths, and Quentin would be three times stronger than anyone else in the entire world.

“He’s gone.”

“If he isn’t, he’s hiding awfully damn well. Of course, he’s a shifter, so I suppose that’s entirely possibly.”

“He isn’t hiding.” Olivia was absolutely certain of it. Tanner had flown away three days ago and hadn’t been heard from since.

When he discovered that Tanner left, the king tried to banish Lisa, Ariana, and the pups from the coterie. But Genevieve had absolutely refused to let her mate do it. She’d fallen utterly and completely in love with Lisa’s pups and had spent the last three days showering them with attention as only a grandmother could.

Despite this, Lisa gave Olivia the cold shoulder, clearly blaming her for the fact that Tanner had left. Ariana gave her sympathetic looks whenever they crossed paths, and Olivia wasn’t sure which she hated more. Lisa’s anger often sparked her own, but Ariana’s sympathy simply made her feel terribly guilty.

Dane packed a small bag and moved into Olivia’s private chambers, much to her father’s delight. When Olivia initially refused to let him into her chamber, he said, “Be reasonable, Olivia. We need to keep up appearances for now. At least until we can figure out a way out of this mess.”

She reluctantly let him into the suite, but she made him sleep on the settee.

When her father tried to tease her about the night of the mating ceremony, she’d coldly informed him that if there was a babe growing in her belly, it was most certainly
not
Dane’s. He’d been so flustered by her comment that he’d choked on a grape and Dane had to quickly leap to his feet and pull on his healing magic to dislodge the offending fruit.

The coterie was in a tizzy over the continued presence of the shifters. Lightbearers flocked to the beach house to look at the shifters as if they were some sort of circus sideshow. Some were simply curious, others utterly fascinated. Some were frightened, others were repulsed, and petitioned the king to send them on their way anyway, innocent babes or not. For the first time in five hundred years, the coterie was divided, and the king was forced to deal with the fallout.

“This is my fault,” Olivia bemoaned, as she and Cecilia sat on the balcony jutting from her bedchamber and soaked up the few rays of sunlight that were filtering through the clouds. Another storm was brewing over the lake, and the day seemed to be growing darker rather than lighter.

“Well, if you want to get technical, it’s really my fault. I’m the one who convinced you to go to Vegas. Everything sort of started there, seems to me.”

Olivia leaned her head back against the lounge chair. “I don’t know how to fix this. My father is going out of his mind trying to keep the peace, my mother has planned so many parties, there aren’t enough days in the year. I’m half-afraid Dane is going to decide to try to
muddle through
having sex with me, and Tanner’s mother swears she has no idea where he might have gone.”

Cecilia giggled. “Muddle through? Who muddles through sex?”

“Dane, apparently. At least that’s what he said when I tried to talk him out of this whole business.” Olivia’s tone was grim.

“You do realize Dane has absolutely no backbone, right? And that your father is his king, so he will do whatever your father tells him to do.”

Olivia lifted her head and then let it drop back against the headrest again. “Which means he will be a lousy king.”

“Which means
you
will really be the king, and Dane will be the figurehead.”

“I do not want to be king. Or queen for that matter. And I most certainly do not want to be mated to Dane. I’m not even sure I technically am.”

“Uncle Sander performed the mating ceremony. I was there. You are mated.”

Olivia did not respond. Something in her nonresponse caused Cecilia to sit up straighter and peer at her. “What are you not telling me?” Cecilia asked suspiciously.

Olivia slanted her eyes to the side and watched as the wind wreaked havoc with the rolling waves of the lake. After another few moments, she sighed.

“I mated with Tanner. Just a few hours prior to the party, in fact.”

“I should have known,” Cecilia gasped. “Every time I walked in on you, the two of you were assuming the position.” She paused and then with slyness in her voice asked, “Was it good?”

Olivia blushed. “Far more enjoyable than our mating ceremonies, I can assure you.”

Despite the current mood, both women shared a giggle over that comment.

Cecilia turned contemplative. “I wonder what it means?” she mused. “By shifter law, you are mated to Tanner. By lightbearer law, you are mated to Dane.”

“Considering I am a lightbearer and currently residing within the coterie, I imagine our law overrides the other.”

“Perhaps not,” Cecilia commented. “Have you coupled with Dane yet?”

Olivia made a strangled noise of disgust.

“Since you’ve obviously coupled with Tanner, it seems to me that there is a way you could persuade your father that he is truly your mate.”

Olivia turned and gave her cousin a blank look. Cecilia rolled her eyes.

“What generally happens when two beings couple without taking precautions?”

Olivia gasped. Her eyes widened and her hand automatically strayed to her flat abdomen. Cecilia gave her a satisfied smile.

“But I am not,” Olivia protested. “When Alexa healed me, she said I was infertile from healing Ariana.”

“I cannot imagine Alexa shared that bit of information with your father.”

Olivia fell silent again. Cecilia was right. She had no idea if her father knew or even suspected that she and Tanner had an intimate relationship, let alone that she could be carrying his pup in her belly.

But she determined that it was high time he found out.

“She’s gone, Tanner.”

Even though the caller hadn’t identified himself, Tanner recognized the voice as that of the lightbearer, Dane Metaldyne.

“Oh good, Dane,” Tanner said with relief in his voice. “I’m glad you called. Listen, I need to get back into the coterie, and I can’t—wait—what did you just say?”

“I said she’s gone,” Dane said patiently. “Olivia. And Cecilia, actually.”

“Gone, as in left the coterie?”

“Yes.”

“What the hell are they thinking?” he demanded, but he suspected he knew the answer, even as Dane replied.

“Most likely, they were thinking that they needed to go after you. Well, Olivia was undoubtedly thinking that way. Cecilia most likely just went along for the ride. She’s like that. Always looking for a good time and convinced that it can’t be had here, inside the coterie.”

“Why did you let them leave?” Tanner demanded.

He could practically see Dane’s affronted look, through the phone connection.

“I didn’t,” Dane protested. “I didn’t even realize they were gone until the king alerted me. He’s convinced you stole them away, by the way. If Olivia intended to convince her father to accept you as her mate, this is certainly not the way to go about it. In fact, he said—” Tanner cut him off.

“Tell me what you know. Where did they go?”

“To find you, I assume. I don’t know where they would go, though. I doubt they’ve been gone an hour yet, and I cannot imagine why they would choose to leave in the middle of a rainstorm—” Tanner disconnected the call with a furious curse.

“Problem?” Rick Pantera asked, sounding only mildly curious. He and his two children all watched Tanner’s reaction.

“Yes,” Tanner replied, and he quickly explained that Olivia was the lightbearer he’d rescued from his father two weeks ago, and that she and her cousin had just left the coterie unprotected, to go in search of him.

“And why would they leave the protection of their coterie to go search for you?” Rick wanted to know.

Tanner didn’t want to tell him.