Into the Light (33 page)

She
was the reason the doubt was gone.

He wanted to go to her, to pull her into his arms, to tell her what a fool she was to come after him. He wanted to inspect her body for injury and then fix whatever was broken, even though he had no idea how to do so. But he’d done it before, so he figured he could find a way to do it again.

Most of all, he wanted to tell her he loved her, and he wanted to assure himself that she loved him too. He wanted her to tell him that she had not really mated with Dane, that the entire thing was a hoax, that she was his, forever and always.

First, however, he had to deal with Quentin.

“Forfeit,” he demanded when Quentin remained silent.

Quentin’s eyes lifted and flared as he spotted something behind Tanner. “Finnegan,” he barked. “Attack. Kill the lightbearer.”

Finn, who had been limping toward them across the rain-soaked sand, hesitated, clutching his hand to his chest, his gaze darting from man to man. He was clearly torn between obeying the pack master’s command as he had for his entire life, and standing by his friend. Tanner held his breath, worried that Finn would do as Quentin commanded. He well knew how difficult it was for a shifter to disobey a direct order from his pack master.

“Kill her,” Quentin commanded again.

Tanner saw the red stain on the front of Finn’s shirt. He looked weak, as if he were barely holding on, yet there was the unmistakable shimmer of magic around his person. Lightbearer magic. As Olivia and Cecilia were currently the only lightbearers in the vicinity, the only conclusion was that Olivia had healed him, at least somewhat. Enough, at any rate.

Tanner wondered about Finn’s allegiance. He was part of Quentin’s pack, and Tanner well knew how rigidly the pack master controlled them. Finn had obviously convinced Olivia that he was one of the good guys, or else why would Olivia have healed him? But was he really? Had it all been an act, to get her to heal him so that he could rejoin the fight? Tanner tensed and waited to see what Finn would do.

Finn’s gaze shifted between Quentin and Tanner. Several moments passed. The only sounds were of the waves crashing into the sand, and of the rain, steadily pouring from the sky. Finn finally focused his attention onto Quentin.

“Kill him then, goddamn it,” Quentin roared, stabbing his finger at Tanner.

Finn suddenly very deliberately strode across the sand, walked right up to the pack master, grabbed his head with both hands, and twisted. The sound of cracking bones was deafening against the backdrop of pouring rain.

He dropped the lifeless body of his pack master and then stood there, next to Tanner, neither looking at him nor moving, clearly waiting for Tanner to make the next move. For long moments, nothing happened.

Finn finally spoke. “He would not have forfeit.”

“I know,” Tanner said quietly.

Finn hesitated again and then said, “I’m not a pack master. I don’t want it. I’ll go back and tell them you killed him.”

Tanner understood what he offered. It was a great compliment in the world of the shifters. Finn was throwing his loyalty fully and completely behind Tanner. The problem was, Tanner didn’t want it.

He shook his head. “I’m not going back to the pack.”

“Why?”

Tanner glanced toward the lake. “My home is elsewhere now.”

Finn watched Tanner for a few moments, and then shifted his gaze to Quentin’s lifeless body. “Your mate healed me.”

“She isn’t my—” He stopped, didn’t bother to deny it.

“I swear my allegiance,” Finn said as he dropped to one knee. “To you and your mate.”

Tanner blew out a breath. Why was he so reluctant to accept his role as pack master, when everyone around him was so determined that he
was
their pack master?

“You’re welcome to join me in the coterie,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “I believe you’ve more than proven your loyalty. I have to warn you, though. It’s very different from pack life.”

“How so?”

“Well, first of all, we have to convince the king to let us stay.”

Olivia was fine. She was alive. She was currently resting in her private chambers, where Dane hovered over her, and where Tanner had not been allowed to go, but she was alive. He decided to cling to that one small fact, to keep himself from doing something crazy like forcing his way into her chamber so that he could touch her, maybe give her a little more healing magic. Just in case.

He’d saved her again. Twice now, he’d saved the woman’s life, by using her own magic to heal her, because she’d been fading too fast and the lightbearer healer had not been able to reach them in time. She’d dumped so much of herself into Finn that she hadn’t been able to sustain herself after Quentin wounded her.

Tanner should be relieved for that fact, because if she had not done so, Finn would not have appeared at that crucial moment and killed Quentin. Tanner hated to admit it, even to himself, but he was afraid that he would not have been able to do it. Whatever else the man was, he had still been Tanner’s father, had helped create Tanner, had, in his own twisted way, helped shape Tanner into the man he was today.

As noble as that act may sound, Tanner knew that if Quentin had not been killed, he would not have given up his obsession. He would have come after Tanner and the lightbearers again—and again and again. He would not have relented until he was dead. Tanner knew it was a fact. Quentin had to die, and Finn had done the task. Not only had he done the task, but he’d then thrown his allegiance behind Tanner.

His motley pack was growing again.

The king had not been happy to learn there was yet another shifter who intended to reside within the coterie, even if he believed it was a temporary arrangement.

“My mother, Finn, and I have to return out west,” he informed the king, when that man grudgingly thanked Tanner for once again saving his daughter’s life. “We have to inform the pack that their leader is dead, determine what they should do now. I want Lisa and her pups to stay here, and I want your word that they will be safe, and treated fairly.”

Sander had looked terribly unhappy, but he’d muttered, “My mate would have it no other way.” He had accepted that as the king’s word.

While Ariana and Finn prepared to leave, he shifted into the form of a bird and flew into Olivia’s bedchamber. Dane hovered over her bed, watching over her like a mother hen. He did not look remotely surprised when the bird shifted into the form of a human.

“You aren’t going to hit me again, are you?”

Tanner felt a stab of guilt. He raked his hand through his hair. “No,” he said shortly. Probably, he should apologize. It wasn’t something he was particularly good at. He opened his mouth, but Dane spoke first.

“I’m surprised it took you this long to come to her.”

“The king was determined to keep me away,” he muttered.

Dane pursed his lips and watched Olivia’s sleeping form. “He cares about her, you know. A great deal. She is his only offspring.”

“She is my mate.”

“The king would argue that she is mine.”

Tanner bristled.

“But I do not want her.”

He relaxed again.

“I care about her, of course. She is like a sister, just as Cecilia is. We were raised together. The king decided when we were just younglings that I would make a good suitor for Olivia, so he ensured we were playmates. And Cecilia, of course, was practically raised within the beach house, partially because she and Olivia got on so well, and partially because her family is so…rigid. I believe the king felt he was protecting her by all but taking her in himself.”

He paused, and Tanner let him gather his thoughts. His eyes strayed to the sleeping form on the bed, and he ached to go to her, to touch her, to crawl into the bed and couple with her again. But he held himself back. He sensed that Dane had more to say, and needed him to hear it.

“But the king’s plan backfired, in a way,” Dane continued. “Instead of young lovers, we became more like siblings. Perhaps if he had waited and pushed us together after the burst of adolescent lust had bloomed…Perhaps we would feel differently about one another. Instead, when Olivia gave herself over to another for her first sexual experience, she came to me and told me every detail, as a confidant, not as a future lover.”

“Why didn’t you tell the king?”

Dane shook his head. “I did. So did Olivia. And if that wasn’t enough, the fact that I was terrible at every single aspect of ruling a kingdom that he tried to teach me should have been. But Sander Bennett is blinded by his determination to protect his people, to try to keep his mate from blaming herself for not giving him a son, to try to be the king that he himself knows he is not.”

That surprised Tanner, especially after the conversation he’d had with the king in the library, when he learned the coterie was nearly bankrupt. “You think the king knows he is lousy at the job?”

“Without a doubt,” Dane confirmed. “And he is deathly afraid someone will realize it. Someone who is strong enough to take over his position and take away everything that has been in his family for over five hundred years.”

A lousy ruler who was also a terrible financial manager and was so desperate for his subjects to like him that he ran the kingdom into bankruptcy. Maybe it
was
time someone else took over ruling this kingdom.

Dane excused himself a short time later, leaving Tanner alone with Olivia. He stood next to the bed, staring down at her, until she began to fidget and moan and thrash about as if she were caught in a very bad dream. Then he shed his clothing and crawled into the bed next to her. She immediately rolled toward him and curled into his warmth. He wrapped her tightly in his arms and held her, closing his eyes and breathing in her tantalizing scent. He badly wanted to couple with her, but he knew she was not ready. She needed to heal, and rest. So he settled for simply holding her, until he was nudged awake by a hand on his shoulder.

He blinked open his eyes and looked up into his mother’s sympathetic ones. “It’s time,” she whispered.

He nodded and reluctantly released his hold on Olivia. He climbed out of the bed, pulled his clothing back on, and turned to look at her one last time. His mother touched his arm again.

“She’ll be fine.”

Her words did little to reassure him. He didn’t want to be assured she would be fine. He already knew that. What he wanted was for her to be
his
.

He turned away and strode toward the balcony doors, shifting into the form of a bird as he walked. Ariana followed suit. Finn flew from where he’d been perched on the roof of the beach house. Together, the three of them flew out into the night sky, out of the coterie, and away from the lightbearers.

“It’s been three weeks.”

“I know.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, thanks for the advice,” Olivia muttered sarcastically.

Cecilia rolled her eyes.

The two women were in the gardens, plucking green beans. A great deal had changed over the course of the last three weeks. Sander had met with Olivia and Genevieve and grimly announced that they were officially bankrupt. There was no more currency. There were no goods, no way to provide the residents of the coterie with a means to live their daily lives.

Genevieve had been shocked and appalled—“How will I throw my next party?”—but Olivia had not been remotely surprised. Genevieve’s parties were expensive affairs, and the king had never asked his subjects to contribute to the financial well-being of the royal family. In fact, she now realized that for her entire life, the king had constantly been the one to give, while everyone else in the coterie took, without ever providing something in return. She had been too busy worried about his decision to mate her to Dane to truly think about how asinine his way of ruling was, and besides, until now, it had never seemed to be a problem.

She felt guilty for not having realized sooner.

“He would not have listened to you,” Cecilia had assured her on that first day, when the king released all of the servants except for Carley. Cecilia was right, of course, but Olivia still felt as though she should have tried.

“Well, when
you
take over as ruler, you will be able to change things,” Cecilia had suggested.

“My firstborn son will be the ruler, not me,” Olivia had replied listlessly. “That is, if there is even anything left to rule by then.”

“Ask your subjects to grow their own crops, to raise their own cattle, and donate a portion of their goods or services to the royal family,” she had suggested to her father, spurred by desperation. “We keep them safe, we keep them organized and well-fed, and maintain a decent lifestyle for all. It’s the least they can do in return.”

Her father had given her a cool stare at that point. “You think our subjects truly believe we keep them safe?” he’d asked. “After we allowed shifters into our coterie?”

“What will happen to everyone we’ve dismissed?” Olivia had asked her father that first evening.

His face and his tone had been grim. “I fear they will have to look outside the coterie for means to support themselves.” It was as if he’d given up all hope.

Olivia was beginning to feel the same way. “He isn’t coming back,” she said, speaking her greatest fear.

“You do not know that,” Cecilia replied.

“I do not know that he intends to return, either,” Olivia retorted. “He did not say goodbye when he left. In fact, he said nothing at all. He just left. And he took his mother with him.”

“And Finn.”

“It only makes sense that he went back to Wyoming to run the pack there.”

Cecilia chewed on her lip and did not reply. Olivia assumed it was because both women suspected the same thing.

Olivia suddenly dropped her basket of beans and stood up straight. “I’m going to Wyoming,” she announced.

Cecilia gave her a surprised look. Olivia nodded firmly.

“If Tanner is going to live in Wyoming, then so am I.”

“What about Dane?”

“What about him? In my mind, we aren’t mated.”