The king of the lightbearers lived in an oversized beach house perched on a cliff overlooking the entirety of his kingdom, which was comprised of several large clusters of homes, a village square, and acres of pastures where various animals were raised. All but the pastures were located at the bottom of the cliff, on the shore of the lake. When the lightbearers first settled in this remote area, some five hundred years ago, that first king determined his home would be at the top, and everyone else would be below.
A team of twenty laborers were tasked with building a staircase into the cliff face, so the king and his subjects could easily get to one another. The staircase lasted longer than that original home, but even that had to be repaired every so often. Each stair was wide and made of slate, and a wooden rail ran the length of the staircase. At this time of year, it was an easy ascent, although a long one.
Olivia’s father waited at the top.
He was still an attractive man, she noticed, as she forced herself not to cringe under his disapproving glare. His hair was still blond; his eyes were the same bright blue as her own. His face was fairly weathered, more from the sun than anything else. His reign had been, until now, calm and with very little trouble. In fact, the only real issue of his incumbency was his mate’s inability to produce more than one child.
“Daughter,” the king said in a grim voice.
“Hello, Father.”
“I see you’ve managed to make it safely back to the coterie, thanks to Dane.”
Olivia grimaced. “It is not what you think, Father.”
“A shame. Come. Your mother has been beside herself with worry. She’s already planned another half-dozen parties. I have no idea how she will fit them all in before the end of summer.”
The queen of the lightbearers planned parties as stress relief, and as the solution to the depression she could not shake over her own inability to bear more than one child. She was mated to a king, and was expected to provide him with a son. She felt personally responsible for the fact that Olivia was their only child.
Sander Bennett gave his daughter one of his kingly disapproving looks and then held open the door so she could precede him into the beach house. He led her upstairs to where her mother sat on a wide, wooden balcony that jutted from her personal sitting room.
“Olivia.” Genevieve let out a small shriek and pulled Olivia into her arms. “Where in the world have you been? I cannot believe you left the coterie. Have you lost your mind? There are all sorts of dangers out there. Shifters come to mind, for one.”
Ho boy, were shifters dangerous. Dangerous for her sensibilities. Dangerous to her virtue. Olivia had never known how much she liked danger, until Tanner stepped into her life.
And then she sobered. Somehow, some way, she had to convince her parents that shifters were not dangerous—at least, the ones she’d brought into the coterie weren’t. The rest, well…There was a reason she needed her parents to believe Tanner and company weren’t dangerous.
It was because the rest of them were.
“I’ve been thinking,” Olivia started. “And I’m thinking our take on shifters might be wrong.”
Her mother and the servant who’d just stepped out to ask them if they wanted drinks stared at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head. Olivia lifted her hand and touched her face, just in case.
Still only one.
Cecilia burst out onto the balcony just then. “Hey, Olivia. Hello, Auntie Genevieve.” She bent at the waist and gave the queen a warm peck on the cheek. “What did I miss?”
“I was just telling mother that our take on shifters might be a little…off,” Olivia suggested.
Cecilia gave a very unladylike snort. “A little? Lights above, we had no idea what they were truly capable of. Did you know that they still hold to that ancient belief that if they kill us they will inherit our magic?”
Genevieve looked startled. Olivia mentally slapped herself upside the head. Usually, Cecilia was the perfect partner in crime. Apparently, getting caught in very real danger had affected her senses.
“Okay, look, forget I said anything,” Olivia backpedaled. Maybe she’d try again tomorrow. Let her parents get over the stress of her disappearance first.
* * * *
“Oh-oh-oh!” Olivia gasped and arched against him, clawing her nails down Tanner’s back as he pressed her back against the stone face of the cliff next to the beach. He pumped energetically, pushing them both toward a fantastic release.
Just a short time earlier, she’d barely stepped into Dane’s small, overcrowded cottage before Tanner grabbed her arm and dragged her away, down to the beach, and into the small niche in the cliff that they’d found the day before.
“Ye-e-e-s-s-s-s,” she hissed as her orgasm caused her inner muscles to cling to him, to milk him to his own climax.
Afterward, as they sat side by side, leaning back against the rocks, trying to collect their collective breathes, Tanner reached over and twined his fingers into hers.
“It’s barely been twelve hours since I saw you last,” she teased breathlessly.
“I was hoping you’d come back last night,” Tanner said as he lifted their twined hands and studied them. Once again, his body shimmered, just like it had yesterday after they’d made love for the first time.
“I like sleeping with you. Sleeping, as in lying in the same bed and actually sleeping together,” he admitted.
“Where did you sleep last night?” she asked curiously.
“On the sofa. My mother and Sofia slept in one room, and Dane and Lisa slept in the other.”
“What?” Olivia asked, as she sat up straight and stared at him. “Lisa and Dane?” They seemed more unlikely of a couple than Olivia and Tanner.
Tanner shrugged. “Dane wanted to sleep in his own bed, and Lisa didn’t want to give it up. I’m sure it’s innocent. Your boy Dane strikes me as more of a brotherly figure than a lover, and Lisa did just whelp. And just lost her mate,” he added.
Olivia slumped back against the rock again. “It still seems strange.”
“You know what’s strange? A small pack of shifters living in a lightbearer coterie. Dane says the only way we’ll be accepted here is if the king gives his blessing.”
Olivia gave him a surprised look. “You want to be accepted here?”
He shrugged again. “You’re here,” he said simply.
It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her.
A short time later, after they’d returned to Dane’s cottage, she found herself momentarily alone in the kitchen with Dane. “Do you think my father would accept them?” Olivia asked him as she watched him make a sandwich for Sofia.
“He’s your father,” Dane pointed out. “What do you think?”
“I think my father is terribly old fashioned,” she said miserably.
* * * *
For a week, they carried on in a similar vein. Each morning, Olivia headed to Dane’s house, where she spent the day with him and Tanner and the rest of the small group. At least once during each day, she and Tanner managed to sneak off for a bit of alone time. Olivia found she wished that alone time occurred more frequently, but it was next to impossible with the number of people who currently resided in Dane’s small cottage. Unfortunately, sneaking Tanner up to her parents’ house was, of course, out of the question.
At least, it was until Tanner came up with the brilliant idea to shift into the form of a hawk and soar up to the top of the cliff. He was waiting for her when she retired to her bedchamber that evening.
“How did you find me?” she asked, clearly delighted to see him. She literally leaped into his arms just as soon as she closed the door.
He grinned and dropped a kiss onto her nose. “I’m a shifter. We’re pretty resourceful like that. This is a nice place,” he said as he looked around, while carrying her to the bed. “What’s your relationship to the king?”
Her breath caught in her throat at the curious note in his voice. “You—you know about the king?”
“That he lives in this house? Yes. The real question is, why do you live here? Unless you happen to be related to the king. And since you told me that lightbearers live with their parents until they are mated, that sort of makes me wonder…am I about to sleep with royalty?”
She giggled when he dropped her onto the bed and then pounced on top of her. “I hate to burst your bubble, but you’ve been sleeping with royalty for a week now. And so have I,” she added.
He straddled her legs and began to unbutton the row of tiny buttons on the front of her dress. “No, you haven’t. I gave up my claim ten years ago. So what’s the deal? How come you didn’t tell me?”
She watched his face as he concentrated on the tiny buttons. “I was afraid you wouldn’t sleep with me,” she admitted.
“Why? Worried I might think you’re too good for me?”
She decided not to tell him that she was an only child and the only way her father could pass along the throne was once she was mated. Or that her father had already picked out that mate.
It might ruin the mood.