Light Beyond the Darkness (17 page)

“What is it?” she asked.

Genevieve shook her head.

“Carley,” the healer commented, as if noticing her for the first time. “You’re back. And you look well. Are you—”

Carley nodded. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. It’s Olivia we’re concerned about.”

“I would still like to examine you when this is done. Where have you been? Have you taken care of yourself? Have you…” Her gaze dropped to Carley’s flat abdomen. Carley lifted her hand, pressed it there.

“Not now. Please. The princess. What if—what if she is suffering from the same issue the queen had?”

That pulled Alexa’s attention away from Carley. Her head shot up and a fearful look, chased by a thoughtful expression crossed her face. “I’ve never…cut someone before,” she whispered, low enough that Olivia would not hear.

But Tanner heard. With shifter swiftness, he was there, towering over the group of lightbearers, glaring at each of them in turn. “What are you suggesting?” he demanded.

Alexa, to her credit, did not shrink away from him, despite the imposing image he portrayed. “She should have given birth hours ago. Both mother and babe are beginning to suffer. It may be the only way.”

Olivia began to whimper, Dane called out that she was having another contraction, and Alexa and Tanner rushed to her side. This one was longer than the others, and despite Dane’s best efforts pulling the pain away, the laboring mother screamed and cried and begged for it to end. It was so difficult watching the normally confident, relaxed princess writhe in agony and beg, although for what, was not clear.

“I can’t,” she sobbed when the contraction finally subsided. “Don’t make me do that again.”

Tanner climbed onto the bed and hugged her tightly, his gaze lifting and all of his shifter intensity focusing on Alexa. “Do what you must to save my mate and pup,” he commanded.

“What is he suggesting?” Dane demanded, although it was clear by his suspicious tone that he already knew. “She could…she could die,” he said, without waiting for an answer.

“She
will
die if we do not,” Alexa responded. “And the babe is in distress. His heart rate is too slow. We need to get him out. Sooner than later.”

“Do it,” Tanner said, his voice a near shout. Tears glistened in his glowing eyes, and he clung to his mate as if he never intended to let her out of his arms.

Alexa straightened and twisted her long blonde hair into a bun behind her head. She began issuing orders. “Everyone out.”

“I’m not leaving my mate.”

“Everyone except Tanner, Dane, and I,” she modified. “Jake, you guard the door. I don’t care what you hear in here, do not let anyone in until I tell you. Do you understand?” Before he even began herding the remaining lightbearers out the door, she had already shifted her attention to Dane. “Are you ready for this? We are both about to do a crash course in human-style surgery.”

The last thing Carley heard before Jake ushered her out the door was, “We won’t let her die.”

Cecilia clutched Jake’s arm. She was another one Carley had never seen so distraught. “Can they do it, Jake?” she asked, her voice pleading.

“If anyone can, you know Alexa can. And she and Dane will probably damn near kill themselves to try to save her. If you want to help, Cecilia, go find additional healers. Those two are both already exhausted, and I imagine slicing someone open and sewing her up again will deplete whatever they have left.”

Cecilia nodded, grabbed Carley’s arm and dragged her down the stairs to the king’s library, where they found Finn and Reid, not discussing tactics, but arguing over baseball.

“Why are you arguing over that?” Carley asked.

“Because they’re playing tonight,” Reid explained. “And Finn’s going to owe me fifty bucks when the game’s over.” He smirked at his brother.

Cecilia rolled her eyes. “We’re going to head down to the village, to find another healer. The birth isn’t going well,” she announced. “They are going to have to cut the babe out.”

Both men reacted as if she’d said they were the ones to be cut, and they winced accordingly.

“Is that normal?” Reid asked.

Finn strode over to his mate and demanded, “Is this what will happen to you?”

Cecilia stroked his chest. “I have no idea what will happen to me, since I cannot predict the future. And you can stop stressing about it this instant, since I am not currently with child. As for whether this is normal, Reid, the answer is no. It is highly abnormal, actually.” She gnawed on her lower lip, clearly worried for her cousin.

“Tanner must be going out of his mind,” Finn commented.

“I would say that is an accurate description,” Cecilia replied. “And Alexa and Dane have already been working half the night and day. We need to find another healer or two, to relieve them when they burn out their magic.”

“Let’s go,” Reid said, as he leaped to his feet and headed for the door. Carley was so impressed by his willingness to help, that she did not even think of her aversion to the staircase in the cliff until they were standing at the top. The beach house perched on a massive cliff, overlooking Lake Michigan and the lightbearers’ village, which was built on the edge of the beach below. At the moment, the stairs were dry, and clear of snow and ice. But it was still a fairly treacherous walk down a very steep incline.

All the memories of the last time she’d climbed these steps suddenly flooded Carley’s mind, rendering her utterly immobile, as everyone else started down the stairs.

* * * *

Carley felt the compulsion on her mind and automatically fought against it. But she was so tired, her magic was so depleted, and there was just not enough sun in the day to regenerate it. Within minutes she sagged against Miguel, who nearly let her collapse to the ground before hauling her to her feet again.

“What is it?” he asked, his eyes watching the hooded man hungrily.

“They did question her,” the hooded man said slowly. “And she is right. She told them little. But they told her a great deal. Enough to confirm suspicions she already had.” He stood, a fluid, graceful movement. Everyone in the room took a step away, giving him plenty of space.

“Miguel,” the hooded man said. “Keep your mate in line. We would not want her to get ideas into her head and try to thwart our efforts. The rest of you, come with me. It is time to set my plan into motion.”

And then they filed out the door, leaving Carley alone with Miguel. She was so tired, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep until the sun rose again the next morning. But Miguel was fairly vibrating with rage.

“Because of you, I have to stay here and babysit,” he spat angrily. “What did he get out of your head?”

Carley staggered over to the couch and sank down onto it. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. It seemed to be her phrase of the day.

“You must know something,” Miguel said hotly. “Why else would he be afraid that you could ruin his plans? I should be with him. I should be standing next to him, doing his bidding. I shouldn’t have to be here, with you.” He sounded mightily unhappy about the fact that he was stuck home with his mate while everyone else went off to do who knew what.

“Go,” Carley said weakly. “I don’t know anything. And I’m far too tired to go anywhere anyway.” She laid her head on the cushion and closed her eyes.

Miguel hesitated, obviously warring with indecision. He watched his mate, without speaking, for long moments. And finally, he abruptly turned and left the house.

Carley waited for the count of ten, and then her eyes popped open and she pushed herself off the couch. No way was she going to sit here and sleep. Not when Cecilia and Olivia and those nice shifters might be in danger. She didn’t know why, but she felt a certain camaraderie with Olivia—possibly because they were both now pregnant. Whatever the reason, she knew, without a doubt that she had to do something.

She looked out the window, watching for any signs of movement. She would not put it past her suspicious mate to hide out, waiting to see if she was lying. Normally, she never did anything to warrant his suspicion. Today was not one of those days.

But luck was finally on her side, as she was able to slip away from her home undetected.

She hurried through the snow, heading back to the beach house. As the sun gradually set, the wind picked up, warning of another snowfall heading their way. The temperature plummeted as well, causing the stone steps to be coated with ice. Not wishing to expend too much magic in the dark and in her delicate condition, Carley did not pull on her magic to eliminate the ice on the steps. She clung to the railing and made her way slowly and carefully to the top.

Just as she was about to place her foot on the top step, a figure suddenly appeared before her, glaring down at her and causing her heart to race at double speed.

“Miguel,” she gasped, startled at having been caught. And by him, no less.

“I knew I couldn’t trust you,” he snarled furiously. “I should never have taken your parents’ money. You haven’t been worth it from the beginning.” And with no warning whatsoever, he shoved her with both hands. As Carley went stumbling down the steps, her screams were lost in the whirling wind
.

*

Reid paused on the third step and turned his head to check on Carley. She was still at the top of the staircase, her hand gripping the wooden handrail, her face starkly white. The look in her eye was pure, unadulterated fear. For a scant moment, Reid thought the guy who had abused her was in the vicinity, but a swift look around told him they were alone. He hurried back to her side.

“What’s wrong? What is it, Carley? Talk to me.”

She seemed to be paralyzed. Her mind was too. It was stuck in a vast pool of liquid fear. It was so strange that he could tell, could even describe what it felt like, but he didn’t focus on that. He concentrated on trying to help her. He placed his hand over the one holding the railing, and squeezed gently.

Her gaze focused on him. The absolute fear was still there. “I fell down these steps,” she whispered. “The pain…I—I nearly died.”

Okay, now he had an explanation. He could work with that. “I won’t let you fall again,” he promised. “I’ll be right here with you, the entire way. I’ll walk in front of you, and you hold onto my shoulders. How’s that?” He would have preferred to take her back to the beach house and set her up with a stiff drink, but the woman laboring in there was her princess, and Carley cared for her. Whatever process the healers were doing to get that pup out of her belly was not typical. Everyone was nervous and stressed. He knew Carley well enough to know she would want to do something to help, even if it was just getting to the bottom of this staircase to find another healer.

Cecilia and Finn stepped up and each peered over a shoulder. “What’s wrong with her?” Cecilia asked.

“She looks like she’s seen a ghost,” Finn remarked.

“More like a bad memory,” Reid said. “Come on, Carley. You can do this. Think about—think about horses. Surely you’ve heard that saying about riding a horse. Did you ever fall off a horse when you were a kid?” His voice was low pitched and steady. Soothing. Encouraging.

“I did, actually,” Carley managed to say. “It was a pony. Tiny thing. But so was I. Frightened the daylights out of me.”

“And did you ever ride a horse again?”

She nodded and squeezed his hand.

“I—I did. M-my father refused to let me cry. He lifted me up and plopped me right back on that pony’s back. I—I didn’t have a choice.”

Reid winced. It seemed she was never given a choice. Her entire life, she had never been allowed to make her own decisions.

“Well, if you don’t want to, we don’t have to go down these steps,” he said.

“It’s the only way to the village. I—I can’t fly, like you can.” Reid could shift into the form of a bird, if he were so inclined. He never had to climb those steps, ever. If only shifters could share their magic like lightbearers could. He would gladly give his to Carley, to help her over this debilitating fear.

“We don’t have to go.”

“We need another healer,” Carley replied, her voice slightly stronger. “I don’t want her to die.”

“She isn’t going to die.” He didn’t know that for certain, but it seemed like the right thing to say at the moment.

“We need a healer,” Carley repeated, taking a deep breath. She peered over the edge of the cliff, to the village far, far below. “We need a healer,” she said again, and Reid recognized it as a way of convincing herself to get back on that horse, of her own accord. He fell silent, and let her work it through in her mind.

After long minutes, she took another deep breath and nodded succinctly. “Okay. I’m going to try. It’s just a pony, right?” Her laugh was shaky.

“Maybe a miniature horse,” Cecilia remarked, watching her closely.

Carley barked out a nervous laugh. She still clung to the railing, but Reid could tell her mind was beginning to clear.

Reid stepped in front of her. “Put your other hand on my shoulder,” he commanded. “We’ll go slow. And if you slip, I’m here to catch you.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully, and they began the slow descent.

He watched them from the cover of the forest of trees located a few hundred yards north of the beach house. The swath of trees ran from the edge of the cliff to the road leading from the human world into the coterie, and it offered a surprisingly close hiding place for a lightbearer who preferred to stay within the safety of the coterie, but hidden from the rest of his kind.

Miguel Santiago had been there when the Chosen One died. When that shifter-lover, Cecilia Druthers, had stabbed him with her sword. How the fuck had she managed to conjure a sword, anyway?

The wound hadn’t killed him, at least not right away. No, it was a shifter, the female who was living with that quirky healer, Dane Metaldyne, who killed Miguel’s leader, his idol, his savior.

Miguel had a gambling problem. All his life, he had always been willing to bet on any damn thing. The betting always involved currency, and more often than not, he usually lost. But that didn’t stop him from continuing to try, from talking the tavern owner into sporting him a hefty loan, so he could bet on the underdog in the stable master’s horse race. He’d lost, of course, and eventually, the tavern owner demanded he make good on the loan.