Light Beyond the Darkness (25 page)

He nuzzled her hair and sighed as his hand lifted to cup her chin. “Carley,” he murmured as he pushed her hair out of the way so he could kiss her neck. “Let me take you like this,” he whispered as he rolled his hips.

Wet heat pooled between her thighs as she squirmed beneath him. With Reid’s hot, hard body pressing into her from behind, it was hard to resist this temptation. She imagined it would be good…damn good. Everything he’d introduced her to so far had been damn good, hadn’t it? She squirmed again, and his hand slid under her body to cup her breast.

“Yes.” He grabbed his erection with the other hand and positioned it. “Mate with me, Carley.” His voice was an urgent whisper.

Mate with him?
Realization dawned and with it came panic and fear. She rolled onto her back, so quickly that Reid was left crouching with a confused look on his face and his dick in his hand.

“You—you want to mate with me?” Her voice was a squeak. She blinked up at him, her chest rising and falling with her erratic breathing.

He propped himself up on one elbow. “I…yes. That was my intention.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry. I think I was still half-asleep.” He peeked at her through his fingers. “You okay?”

“I…I think so.”

“Do you want to talk about this?”

“What, exactly do you want to talk about?”

“Uh…what just almost happened?”

Carley shook her head. “No. I don’t want to talk about it. It—it’s too soon. Don’t you think?”

Reid rolled over onto his side. “I don’t think so. We’re perfect together. I know you can see it.” He touched her face, offered a small, encouraging smile.

If she weren’t so damn frightened of him discovering her secret, Carley would have found his admission sweet, charming…wonderful.

“We both still have a lot of issues, Reid.”

He shrugged. “So? Doesn’t everybody?”

She’d always believed she was the only one with issues.

“Let’s just…let’s go slow, okay? Okay?” she repeated when he didn’t immediately answer.

He rolled onto his back. “Okay,” he finally agreed. He didn’t sound happy about her request. She needed to remedy that, so she rolled onto her stomach and climbed on top of him.

“Speaking of going slow,” she said, and then she kissed him, while reaching down to grasp his erection.

She was far more tempted than she should be by his attempt to mate with her. But they couldn’t. So she settled for slow and seductive, sweet and gentle, with her on top, and him lying on his back, his hands cupping her breasts, while she controlled the pace, and brought pleasure to them both.

When it was over, Reid lay sprawled on his back, breathing heavily, with a sated and boneless Carley draped across his midsection. “We should definitely go back to my place tonight,” he said. “I’m pretty sure the entire damn household heard that.”

“Oh lights.” Carley groaned. She’d become so wanton with Reid that she forgot all else when they were in the troughs of passion.

Maybe he was right.

What about Miguel?
Her inner voice whispered the reminder.

But we’re in Chicago now. He won’t find us here
.

A knock on the bedroom door interrupted her inner argument.

“Carley? You awake?”

“Yes,” she called out as she smirked at Reid.

“There’s someone here to see you.”

Carley’s gaze flew to Reid. Someone to see her? The only people she knew in Chicago were the ones who lived with her. Who could it be?

“Someone from the coterie,” Reid said, answering her unspoken question. He slipped out from underneath her and quickly dressed. “Although I would think they would just call.”

“I don’t have a phone,” Carley replied as she too quickly dressed.

* * * *

“Mica?”

Carley stood in the arched doorway leading to the living room and stared at the lightbearer who stood on the other side of the room, near the large bay window overlooking the street. She had nothing on her person except a coat, boots, and the clothing on her back. Her hands twisted round and round as she turned at the sound of her name.

“Hi,” she said with a small, awkward wave. Roman and one other person were the only ones awake and downstairs at the moment. Roman regarded her curiously, while the other human nursed a cup of coffee and read the newspaper on his laptop.

“What are you doing here?” Carley asked without moving into the room.

Mica’s gaze darted around the room again. “Is there somewhere we can…talk?”

“Coffee’s on in the kitchen,” Roman supplied helpfully. “Mornin’, Reid.”

Reid nodded at the stocky Hispanic man as he followed Carley and Mica through the house and into the kitchen. When he pushed the swinging door closed behind him, Mica gave him a wide-eyed look.

“He—he lives here, too?” she asked.

Carley felt her face heat. “Not exactly. Um…”

“So it’s true? What Miguel said? You’re…” She waved her pointer finger back and forth between them.

“Who’s Miguel?” Reid wanted to know.

Carley overrode his question with a far more panicked one of her own. “You talked to Miguel?”

Mica flushed and cleared her throat. “I…uh…” She burst into tears, sobbing into her hands, her shoulders shaking with the impact. Both Reid and Carley stared at her until Roman and a sleepy-eyed Sean came bustling into the room.

“What did you do to her?” Sean asked, throwing Reid an accusatory glare as he walked over and folded the sobbing lightbearer into his arms. She went willingly, wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her head in the crook of his shoulder as she continued to cry.

Reid gave the younger human a strange look, but Carley knew him well enough to know Sean would have reacted that way to anyone who was crying. Clumsy, dorky he might be, but the young man had a heart of gold.

“We have no idea why she’s crying,” Carley explained to Roman, who busied himself with pouring the last of the coffee into a cup and then making a fresh pot.

“But you do know her?”

“Somewhat,” Carley hedged. “I actually just met her when Reid and I went back to visit…”

“Carley’s family,” Reid finished smoothly.

Roman nodded sagely. Mica’s sobs finally subsided. Sean offered her a paper towel, and she mopped her face and blew her nose. She did not step away from the circle of his arms.

Reid stared at the two of them. “Do you know Sean?”

Mica shyly looked up at the concerned human and then took a step away, out of his arms. He did not look pleased with the movement.

“N-no,” she stuttered as she shook her head. “I just—I just—” She looked as if she was about to cry again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sean asked, looking directly at the younger lightbearer. Her curling blonde hair was a tangled mess, her eyes were swollen and red from crying, her face was splotchy, and Sean stared at her like an adoring puppy.

Mica shook her head and said, “I’m so sorry, Carley. I didn’t know. I mean, I didn’t realize. I had no idea.” She waved her hand between Carley and Reid again.

*

Reid folded his arms over his chest and said, “I don’t think we quite understand.”

He would have liked to kick the humans out of the room, but he doubted the overprotective Sean would allow it at this point. He’d already glommed onto the watering-pot lightbearer. The only positive to the situation, Reid determined, was that he suspected Sean would no longer look at Carley with those puppy-dog eyes.

“Miguel. I believed him, Carley. I believed him. But then when you showed up at the coterie, and you had this—this—”

“Reid,” Carley supplied. Reid knew she blurted the word to keep Mica from using the word
shifter
, as she probably might have otherwise. He doubted the frightened lightbearer had much experience with humans, and therefore was not used to having to watch her words.

“Reid,” Mica repeated, wide eyes taking in his overly tall and wide stature. He dwarfed both Roman and Sean, besides the two females in the room. His brief experience in the coterie had shown him that, with little exception, even male lightbearers did not tend to breach the six-foot mark, let alone have the shoulder width of most shifters he knew.

“He seems so nice,” Mica whispered. “They all do. And so attentive and loving. The way Tanner treats Olivia and the babe. And Cecilia and Finn. I mean, they snip at each other all the time, but I think it’s some kind of game for them, you know?”

“Yes,” Reid said drily. “We know.”

“The queen adores the one that had white hair. Tanner’s mother. Even that younger female one. Well, she’s certainly an exception,” Mica said with a wrinkle of her nose.

“Lisa,” Reid supplied. “She’s always been something of a bitch.”

Mica nodded, still wide-eyed. “But her children, they are so adorable, and the queen just loves them so. The little girl, she’s so polite and quiet. It’s nothing like what Miguel said.” She shook her head as if she could not quite understand.

“Who’s Miguel?” Reid asked again, although he suspected he might know the answer.

At the same time, Carley asked, “How do you know Miguel?”

Mica averted her gaze, looking at the tile floor instead of at Carley.

“I—I went to a couple of meetings. I—I thought—I mean—it sounded believable, at first. I wasn’t working at the beach house at the time, so I didn’t have firsthand experience with the—the—” She stopped abruptly and glanced at first Sean and then Roman.

“You didn’t have firsthand experience with those who now live at the beach house?” Reid guessed.

Mica nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly. I had no idea they were so—so nice. I thought…I mean, the Chosen One, he was so…
convincing
.”

Reid looked at Carley. Finn had told him about the Chosen One and how a group of lightbearers had formed a sort of cult after Tanner, Finn, Lisa, and Tanner’s mother joined the coterie. The Chosen One believed lightbearers and shifters should not mate, that shifters were still the enemy, and that lightbearers should only mate with their own kind. First, Finn’s own pack master tried to kill the woman he loved, then one of her own kind did. Reid figured it was no wonder his brother rarely let the woman out of his sight.

“So you met Miguel at the meetings?” Carley asked.

Mica nodded and once again averted her gaze.

“Mica, why are you here now?” Reid asked, deciding to cut to the chase.

“He saw you,” Mica whispered, looking at Carley. “When you were at the coterie last week. He saw you. He was inside the beach house. He—he knows, Carley. He
knows
.”

She glanced at Reid, but whatever the hell she saw on his face caused her to quickly shift her gaze away. He could only imagine. He hoped to hell his eyes weren’t glowing, considering there were two human witnesses standing nearby.

“I think it’s time I had a little more detail about this Miguel character,” he said, his voice surprisingly even, given the way his insides were churning with suppressed rage. The rage was mixed with guilt. He never should have pushed her to go back to the coterie. Had she not, her abuser never would have seen her, never would have—if he was guessing accurately—renewed his interest in her.

Roman grabbed the coffeepot, poured dark liquid into two cups, then handed one to Sean. “Why don’t we give them some privacy?” he suggested. Sean grumbled, but Reid gave him a cold stare, and he grabbed the cup and followed Roman out the door.

“Wait,” Reid said, once they were gone. “He was inside the beach house? While we were there?”

Mica nodded.

“Did you let him in?” Carley asked.

Mica began sniveling again.

“Are you the one who drugged me, Mica?” Reid demanded. He knew damn well his eyes were glowing now. Good thing the humans left when they did.

Mica nodded miserably as tears began leaking from her eyes again. “I didn’t realize…”

Carley sucked in a breath. “You set it up,” she said in a breathy voice. “The market. You meant for me to run into Miguel!”

Mica shook her head. “I didn’t know what he planned, I swear. He just—he just gave me the potion and told me to slip it to the sh—”

“Reid,” he cut her off, just in case someone out there in the living area had exceptionally good hearing.

Mica nodded. “And then to get Carley out of the house. He said he would take it from there. I thought—I thought—” She dissolved into tears again, covering her face with her hands and sobbing loudly. Someone pushed against the swinging kitchen door, and Reid slapped his hand against it, to keep him from entering.

“Not now, Sean,” he called, knowing damn well it was the younger human on the other side. “You thought what?” he demanded, glaring at the nearly hysterical lightbearer.

It took a few tense moments, but Mica finally answered him. “I thought that he only meant to try to work things out with Carley. He never said he wanted to kill her. They’re mates, after all. I thought he wanted to try to win her back.”

Reid’s entire world tilted precariously, to the point where he felt as if he were balancing on the edge of a chasm and one misstep would send him tumbling over the edge.

“They’re mates, after all.”

It was as if Carley herself was a jigsaw puzzle, and he’d been missing a few key pieces.

“They’re mates, after all.”

The pieces fell into place. The abuse, Carley’s inability to leave, the pregnancy. The fear of returning to the coterie. The strange looks that passed between her and Cecilia, Cecilia and Finn. It wasn’t just a former lover who had abused her.

“They’re mates, after all.”

Flashbacks of the time Quentin’s concubine seduced him sifted through his mind, unbidden but unstoppable. Fucking her on Quentin’s prized pool table. His stomach dropping to his knees when Quentin walked into the room and discovered them. The pain—hell of hells, the pain. He could actually taste it again. His stomach roiled.

He’d let his dick lead the way back then, and he’d sworn to never do it again.

And look what he’d done—again. She had a goddamned mate. A mate. She let him seduce her; she played the game; she came willingly to his bed. And she stayed there. Pretended it meant something. Pretended she didn’t have a mate.