Finn ensured Cecilia, Dane, and the king made it safely to the top of the stairs built into the wall of the cliff. He insisted they hide in a cluster of bushes, made Dane summon his sword, and then he shifted into the form of a hawk and swooped to the bottom, where Lisa stood guard over Tanner, who was still losing blood at an alarming rate. But he refused to let Dane heal him any more, because he wanted the healer to preserve his strength so that he could heal Olivia. Tanner wouldn’t even consider the idea that she might already be dead.
Finn could understand.
“Let’s go,” he said, commanding his pack master, which felt weird, to say the least. But Tanner was barely conscious, holding on only by the need to get to his mate. “Shift. You’ll heal faster. A bird,” he added, in case Tanner wasn’t lucid enough to realize they needed to make it to the top of the cliff.
It took three tries before Tanner was finally able to pull on his magic and shift, and then he flapped around madly, disoriented, and Finn was half-afraid he would fly into the cliff wall and render himself unconscious again.
Then they were at the top, shifting back into human form. While he still looked deathly pale and weak, at least Tanner’s wounds had begun to heal and he no longer swayed on his feet. The spark was back in his eye, the glow, in fact, that occurred when all shifters felt strong emotions. Finn knew his own eyes were glowing when Cecilia burst from the bushes and rushed toward him as if he’d been gone for weeks, instead of just a few minutes.
“We saw someone,” she whispered as she clung to him. “They’re at the house. Finn, if Olivia is still alive, you have to save her.”
“She’s still alive,” Tanner muttered, and he began stalking toward the house. Finn grabbed the back of his sweater and pulled him to a stop.
“Maybe we can be a little more stealthy about this?” he suggested.
Tanner glowered, but obediently returned to the cover of the cluster of bushes.
“I’m going to scope it out,” Lisa said. “See what we’re up against.” Before anyone could protest or argue, she shifted into the form of a fox and disappeared into the night.
“Be careful,” Dane called after her. If the circumstances weren’t so dire, Finn might have laughed at the ludicrousness of the situation. Dane telling Lisa to be careful was like Finn telling Cecilia not to ever leave the coterie again.
“Pole barn,” Finn said, nodding at the large structure standing out in contrast to the snow-covered landscape. He guided the group along the edge of the cliff, holding tightly to Cecilia’s hand as they walked. The memory of her going over that cliff a few days ago was still fresh in his mind.
Lisa caught up with them just as Finn ushered everyone inside the building. “It’s a good number,” she gave her report without preamble. “Looks like they’re scouring the house looking for something.”
“Or someone,” Finn amended. Probably the royal family, considering the list he’d found in Cecilia’s parents’ basement. He squeezed Cecilia’s hand tighter and hoped that meant they still believed Olivia was alive.
Tanner cracked his knuckles and looked as if he was about to charge toward the house. Finn released Cecilia’s hand and splayed his palm on Tanner’s chest. “We need a plan. How many are there, Lisa?”
“I counted upward of twenty, but that was just on the main level. They aren’t very organized, though. You and I could probably pick off a fair number, one by one, before the rest got wind.”
“That makes the most sense. There aren’t enough of us to go into full-on battle.”
“Yeah, and your girlfriend and the king are pretty much useless.”
Quick as a blink, Finn flung around, grabbed Lisa, and pushed her back against the pole barn, his arm pressing into her windpipe. She struggled and gasped for air and cursed him, and he did not let her go. Finally, she stopped struggling and dropped her arms and her angry gaze, an act of submission.
He pulled his arm away, and she dropped to her knees, gasping for breath.
“Don’t fucking insult her again, Lisa.”
Dane helped her to her feet, pushed his healing magic into her until she was as good as new. She shook out her mane of dark hair and glared at Finn, but she did not say another word.
“Actually, your plan won’t work,” Cecilia interjected. “When a lightbearer dies, there’s a great explosion of light. You’ll alert practically the entire coterie.”
Finn’s heart swelled with pride, as he didn’t bother to resist smirking at Lisa.
“Fine,” Lisa said grudgingly. “We knock them out, one by one. Which means we have to act quickly, if we want to find the princess and the queen and get them out alive.”
“Where is Tanner’s mother?” Cecilia wondered out loud.
“With my pups. At our house,” Lisa replied, her gaze sliding to Dane before shifting back to Finn, clearly waiting for instructions. For the moment, he was in charge, and they all knew it.
So he began issuing orders.
“Dane, you’re in charge of the king, Cecilia, and Tanner.” He desperately wanted to keep Cecilia with him, so he could personally ensure her safety, but he was smart enough to realize that would only drop her right smack in the middle of the danger.
“Hide inside one of the trucks. If they figure out you’re in here, just drive through the goddamn garage door and don’t stop until you’re past the wards, got it? That’s about the only place I can think you’re safe right now.” He knew hiding and running went against every fiber of Tanner’s being, and it was a mark of how badly he was injured that the pack master did not protest.
“These bastards want to kill anyone who’s sympathetic to shifters, and the king is target number one,” he added, even though he now understood that Cecilia was the primary target. Her brother had become obsessed with either killing her or pulling her to his side. Finn wasn’t entirely sure, although he suspected the ultimate goal was to turn her away from shifters and humans alike. Otherwise, Cedric surely would have killed her by now. For twelve years he’d been toying with her, tormenting her. Hell, he’d probably been doing it for her entire life. His torture was very likely the reason she’d slipped from the coterie that very first time.
How would Cedric react if he knew that?
“I’m going with you,” Tanner said, a look of sheer determination in his eyes. Apparently he’d been wrong about Tanner’s willingness to hide instead of fight.
“Me too,” Cecilia announced.
Finn ground his teeth and muttered several choice curse words. “You protect them,” he said to Tanner, stabbing his finger at Cecilia and the king. He deliberately did not include Dane, hoping that lightbearer would realize he was actually the one who would need to protect the rest. Tanner was still far too weak to stave off much more than a pitiful excuse of a lightbearer with little or no battle training. Not that he would ever say as much to the man.
“And you are staying as far away from your brother and the rest of those psychos as you can get. In fact, I’m half tempted to send you outside the coterie right now, because I know they won’t follow you.” He glared at Cecilia, practically challenging her to argue.
Which he should have known was a bad idea.
“I know them better than you do. And I know where Olivia would likely be hiding.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared right back at him.
“No.”
“It will be faster.”
“No.”
“I’ll listen to everything you tell me to do.”
“Fat chance. And no.”
“I can summon a sword.” She proved her words correct by doing just that, except she could hardly control the weapon once it was in her hands. Finn plucked it away before she accidentally hurt someone.
“Let me put it to you this way: even if you were proficient with that sword, I wouldn’t take you with me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you to get hurt. Now stay here. Tanner?”
Tanner clamped his hand down on Cecilia’s shoulder. She pouted and glared. Finn wanted to kiss her, but he refrained. Later, he promised himself. When this is over, I’ll kiss every centimeter of her body. By the time I’m done, she won’t be able to resist mating with me.
He and Lisa shifted into the form of arctic foxes and took off at a run. He knew they disappeared into the snowy, dark backdrop within seconds.
* * * *
“This is stupid,” Cecilia muttered. She sat in the backseat of a truck, inside the pole barn, with Uncle Sander fidgeting next to her, Tanner lightly dozing in the passenger seat, and Dane sitting at attention in the driver’s seat. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles were white.
“You don’t even know how to drive,” she pointed out.
Finn and Lisa had been gone for less than twenty minutes. They could hear nothing from their vantage point, so she had no earthly idea what was happening, whether they were winning or losing the fight.
“Lisa has been giving me lessons,” Dane replied.
Cecilia looked at her uncle. He sat next to her, wringing his hands and staring out the window of the unmoving vehicle. She turned back to Dane. “Do you think Olivia is still alive?” she whispered. Sander turned away from the window, clearly interested in Dane’s answer.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It depends on what sort of poison they used, and how much. Tanner said she was complaining of severe nausea. Generally, poison meant to kill would do its job very quickly.”
“You have a theory,” Cecilia prompted.
Dane glanced at Tanner. His eyes were closed and his head rested against the passenger side window. “I think…I think they deliberately made her sick. I think they knew, or at least suspected, that Tanner would seek a healer, thus leaving the beach house and its inhabitants unprotected.” He shifted his gaze to the king. “I doubt they anticipated you would come to me, your majesty.”
“What about the guards?” the king asked.
“Drugged as well,” Cecilia explained. “A sleeping draught.”
“That means my daughter, my unborn grandbabe, and my mate are all trapped, without any means of protection.”
Cecilia and Dane exchanged a look. He was right, but neither wanted to say it out loud.
Tanner abruptly surged from sleep. “Olivia,” he shouted, looking around with wide, wild eyes. “Olivia.”
“Finn will find her, Tanner,” Cecilia assured him.
He didn’t hear her. He was too busy scrabbling at the door, trying to get to the handle, to push it open. “Why are we sitting in a truck in the pole barn?” he asked.
“Finn thought it was the safest place for us to hide,” Dane explained. “You agreed,” he reminded him.
“Fuck hiding. My mate is in danger.”
Although he wasn’t one hundred percent, he looked markedly better than he had when they found him earlier. Cecilia decided that was good. Because if Olivia was in danger, then so too was Finn.
“Let’s go,” she said, and she leaped out of the extended cab.
“Cecilia,” Dane called out. She rounded the truck and met Tanner as he climbed out of the passenger seat.
“Protect the king, Dane,” she commanded. Although she had no right whatsoever telling him what to do, she knew he would listen nonetheless. Dane took his responsibilities to the king seriously.
Tanner didn’t say a word. He simply started walking away. Cecilia hurried to catch up.
“Finn will kick my ass if I let anything happen to you,” he remarked after determining it was safe to slip out of the pole barn. “For that matter, so will Olivia.”
“Let’s just worry about finding them. I’ll handle Finn later.”
“I’ll bet you will,” Tanner said on a snort and then they fell silent as he led them across the small expanse of lawn separating the house from the pole barn.
They slipped into the kitchens and then ducked into a walk-in pantry. “Where do you think she would hide?” Tanner whispered.
Cecilia studied him while she considered his question. His complexion was still gray, his lips outlined in white. His eyes were bloodshot; his face was covered with bruises and cuts that still seeped blood. Dane had used his healing magic to close up the gaping wounds on his chest and arm, but both were still bright red and crusted with blood.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, clearly seeing the concern in her eyes. “Think, Cecilia. Where would she go? I know she would have realized at some point that she was in danger. But where the hell would she hide?”
“I know,” she blurted. “The nursery. Let’s go.”
“The nursery? Why the hell would she go to the nursery?”
“Because Uncle Sander, in a moment of surprising genius, suggested the builders add a secret safe room that is only accessible with an incantation that he intends for only a select few to be aware of. Your pup is his heir, after all.”
“You’re right,” Tanner said as he followed her out of the pantry, toward the servants’ staircase. “That is surprising. And fucking brilliant.” He sounded impressed by his father-in-law’s forethought. It was probably the first time since they’d known one another.
At the top of the stairs, Cecilia turned right, toward Tanner and Olivia’s suites. She was three steps down the hall, when she was abruptly grabbed from behind and pushed up against the wall, tucked into a darkened corner. Her magic flared, and then Finn’s face appeared in her line of vision.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” he demanded, his voice pitched low. His eyes glowed as brightly as they did when he and Cecilia made love.
“Do you not understand the seriousness of this situation?” he snapped when she did not respond. His hands glowed where they gripped her shoulders.
“I know where she’s hiding,” Cecilia attempted to explain.
“Good,” a coarse, whispery voice said. “Because we have thus far been unable to find her.”
Finn twisted around to face Cedric, pressing his back against Cecilia so that she was almost entirely hidden from view. She leaned to the side, peeked around his shoulder and watched as Tanner shifted into the form of a lion and without warning attacked the group of lightbearers crowded around her brother. They fell and scattered like bowling pins, while Cedric deftly stepped out of the line of fire and commanded another group to surge forward. Blasts of light exploded, indicating another lightbearer was dead, and yet more appeared and jumped into the fray.
There were so many. Cedric had done far too good a job of recruiting, although as Cecilia had had time to think on it lately, she supposed he had likely been recruiting for upward of ten years. Ever since he faked his own death.
“Help him, Finn,” she whispered, knowing only he could hear her.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s you he wants. And I’m not going to let him have you.”
Was he honestly choosing her over his own pack master? From what little she understood about his species, she knew that went against everything he believed, everything he had ever been taught.
They were more alike than she would have thought. But she couldn’t let Tanner die.
“Go,” she said, giving his shoulder a push. “Help him. I’ll run the other way. I swear. I’ll run right back to the pole barn and get in the truck, and Dane and Uncle Sander and I will leave the coterie. You have my word, Finn. Just please save him!”
He turned his head to the side but did not fully look at her. She felt his hand squeeze her hip. And then he was gone, another lion leaping into the fray. Cecilia waited until he’d led the group a short way down the hall, and then she ran in the opposite direction, toward the king and queen’s chambers. She knew there was a staircase at that end of the hall that would lead her down into the kitchens and then outside, where she could skirt around the house and run to the pole barn. While she was desperately afraid for Finn and Tanner, she made up her mind to do exactly what she’d promised Finn. It was the least she could do, given his decision to protect her over his pack master.
She made it to the top of the staircase before he caught up with her. In truth, she had sensed someone was following her. And if she was really being honest with herself, she would admit that she even knew it was him.
“Cedric,” she said when he grabbed the back of her dress and gave it a jerk, so that she was pulled abruptly to a stop.
It wasn’t him.
“Father?” Her voice dripped disbelief. Her father had followed her? Why?
“I have her,” he called out. Cedric’s face appeared over his shoulder.
“Good. It is time to end this, once and for all. She will never accept the truth. I see that now. There is only one solution.”
Her father used his left arm to push her back against the wall, while he raised his right arm and summoned a sword.
“You’re going to kill me?” she whispered, staring into his eyes.
“You would not listen. Over and over, you disobeyed us.”
“Therefore the solution is to kill me? Your own daughter?”
“I have another child,” her father said, as calmly as if it was perfectly logical to consider killing his own child. “Cedric has always followed the way of the lightbearers. He is a role model for the rest of us. He should be king. It only makes sense.”
“This is all a plan to make you king?” she asked, looking at Cedric. “You killed Samuel and mother and who knows how many others—just so you could become king? What makes you better qualified for the position that your uncle—a direct descendent of every previous king we’ve ever had?”
Cedric waved his hand, dismissing her words. “I am technically next in line anyway. The queen did not bear a son, and Olivia did not mate with a lightbearer and bear a son. That monster growing in her belly cannot rule our coterie. It is blasphemy.”
“I would choose Olivia and Tanner’s son over you any day,” Cecilia snapped.
“Which is why you must die. Do it,” he commanded his father. “Do it and destroy any evidence of your and mother’s failings.”
“No,” Cecilia cried, her gaze flying back to her father’s face. All she saw there was blind faith, the belief that whatever words his son spoke, they were the truth, above everything else. Even the fact that he’d created the woman he was about to slay.
“Father,” she whispered, staring up at him. The hand holding the sword shook, but he did not release the magic. Instead, he lifted the sword, as if he intended to slash sideways, through her neck, just as Cedric had killed Samuel.
“No!” someone else cried, and as the sword swung, that person leaped between Gerard and Cecilia, and his sword sliced through the torso of his own mate.
“Lacey,” he cried, releasing the magic so that his sword disappeared, and catching her as she fell. The front of her dress was already soaked with blood. More blood dribbled over her lips.
“Lacey,” he said again, his gaze darted from her to Cedric and back again. “I thought—I thought you were dead,” he whispered.
“My daughter,” she said on a gurgle, as bloody spittle bubbled from her mouth.
“Mama,” Cecilia whispered, her wide eyes staring at her dying mother.
“I am so sorry…I love you, Cici…” It was the first time her mother had ever called her by the affectionate nickname Olivia had come up with when they had been younglings.
“I love you too, Mama,” Cecilia whispered. Her eyes filled with tears, and she choked on a sob. So many pointless deaths, all because of her brother’s misguided beliefs. Where had it all gone wrong? How could they have raised two so very different children?
The answer was, unfortunately, easy. Cecilia had not been raised by them, not really. The king and queen had taken her under their wing, had raised her in a way that allowed her to have her own beliefs, develop her own opinions. Although they too had once been afraid of shifters, they were open-minded enough to adjust their beliefs, to accept their daughter’s babe as the future heir to the throne, despite the fact that he would be half shifter.
Maybe, had she mated with someone else, Lacey would have been as open-minded. Now Cecilia would never know.
There was a blinding flash of light as the last breath left her mother’s body, and then she was dead, lying in her mate’s arms, her lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. He continued to hold her as her blood soaked his shirt.
“Enough,” Cedric’s voice burst from him, all attempts at whispering gone. “She is dead. Now do the same to Cecilia. Kill her.”
Gerard did nothing for several seconds. And then he stood, still cradling his mate’s body in his arms. “No,” he said, his voice raw with emotion. “I must tend to my mate.”
Without looking at either Cedric or Cecilia, he walked down the stairs and disappeared from view.
“I should know better than to presume others could do anything as well as myself,” Cedric said, his sneering voice as cold as ice. He pulled on the magic and a sword appeared in his hand.
Without consciously thinking about it, Cecilia did the same thing. He smirked. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”
She squared her shoulders, and using both hands, held the sword before her. It didn’t even shake. “You killed Samuel. And our mother.”
“And your shifter lover, by this point,” he said, his pale eyes like chips of ice. “And the father of the princess’s spawn.”
“Finn is still alive,” she retorted. “I can feel it.”
“Well, if we get lucky, he will feel it when I slay you.” He lifted his sword, preparing to strike.
“I don’t think so, asshole.”
Cedric whipped around to face the owner of the voice. Lisa stood at the top of the stairs, with the queen and Olivia each peering over a shoulder.
“Cedric?” Olivia gasped. “But—how? You died—over ten years ago!”
“Obviously not,” Lisa drawled. “Magic or no, no one can come back from the dead. Trust me, I know.”
“Ah, you brought the princess and queen to me. Excellent. Now I will not have to burn down the house to kill them. I had been looking forward to making it my own residence.”
He started up the steps, his sword at the ready.
“No,” Cecilia cried, and she stabbed out with her own sword. She felt it as the tip greeted flesh, and after a moment’s resistance, pierced it, going all the way through until it stuck out through his belly. Shock caused her to release her hold on the sword and lift her hands to her mouth.
Cedric twisted around and stared at her, his own shock spelled out on his face. “You…You…” He looked down at the steel protruding from his body. It was dark with his blood, seeping around the wound and soaking his scarlet cloak, intermingling with the dried blood from when he’d killed Samuel.
“You bitch,” he snarled. “I’m going to kill you, I swear it. Whether I die from this wound or not, my last goal in this life is to destroy you!”
“Why?” Cecilia cried. “Why do you hate me so?”
“Because you ruined everything for me,” he snapped, stabbing his finger at her. “Our parents adored me, paid all of their attentions to me, lavished me with their love. And then you came along, and suddenly I had to share them. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you didn’t even appreciate it. Forever disobeying them, forever doing exactly as you pleased, without a care for their opinions or beliefs or—” His voice abruptly cut off on a gurgle as Lisa grabbed the hilt of the sword and jerked it up, widening the hole in his gut.
Cedric’s mouth opened and closed several times, and his fingers curled into fists, and then there was an explosion of light as he crumpled to the stairs. Cecilia shifted to the side so as to avoid his body as it rolled down the steps.
“Sibling rivalry’s a bitch,” Lisa said into the ensuing silence. “And some idiots just don’t know when to stop. Everybody good here?” She looked at Cecilia, then shifted her inquiring gaze to Olivia and the queen.
Olivia dropped to her knees and retched. Her mother patted her back and clucked sympathetically.
“Whelping’s a bitch, too,” Lisa added, then she climbed to the top of the staircase. “Let’s go. I’m sure your respective mates are ready to see for themselves that you all are safe and sound.”
Cecilia obediently followed, even as she thought, But I don’t have a mate.