He took on the form of a hawk and swept in through the open balcony doors, slipping into her bed in the middle of the night. When his feet lightly hit the ground, they were shaped as human feet. By the time he reached the bed, his human form was naked, and eager to couple with her again.
Take her like a shifter, his body and mind urged him. Make her yours.
He flipped back the covers and slid between the sheets, crowding her, all but covering her with his own body, as she lay in the middle of the bed, curled into a ball, sound asleep. He was pleased when she turned into him in her sleep, and sighed as she melted into his body. He wanted this. He needed this. Every night, for the rest of his life.
Tanner smoothed his hand over her body, over the silken nightgown, and felt a moment of peace. His trip downstate had been, overall, successful. The leader of the shifter pack that resided outside of Detroit, Josh Tigre, agreed to accept Lisa and her pups and Tanner’s mother into his pack. In fact, he even agreed to let them reside in his massive mansion until they determined where they wanted to live.
He expected a little resistance from both of them, but he figured it would be minor. Once they met Josh and his pack, they would be pleased to join it. Josh ran his pack far differently from the way Tanner’s father ran his. Lisa needed to be around other shifters, to raise her pups amongst shifters. His mother did not have the same obligation, but he would insist she go too. It was only a few hours from the coterie, so they could visit as often as they chose.
Sander Bennett had made it perfectly clear that his forced hospitality would only be extended for a brief time. Tanner had not yet figured out a way to inform the king that one of the shifters in the small pack would not be leaving.
“What about you?” Josh had asked, shortly before Tanner took his leave to return to the coterie.
“I do not need a pack,” Tanner had replied. “I have been without one for ten years. I will be fine.”
“That is not the impression I have.”
Josh was sharper than Tanner initially gave him credit, which, in retrospect, was actually a good thing. It reaffirmed his decision to send Lisa and his mother to join his pack.
“Oh?” Tanner said carefully.
Josh nodded. “You smell like magic. Not shifter magic, but something else. I’ve heard the old stories, but I don’t think that is the case here,” he said shrewdly.
Tanner turned and looked out at the waning sun. Funny how his body now craved the sunlight. Just like a lightbearer.
“It isn’t,” he admitted. “We cannot inherit their magic by killing them. I’m told that when they die, there is a great flash of light, as the magic leaves their system. Probably where the legends began.”
“And yet…” Josh waved at his person, indicating the faint glow of lightbearer magic.
On a sigh, Tanner said, “I am sleeping with a lightbearer. I assume that’s how I developed this glow.” He liked Josh; he was trusting Josh with his mother’s life and Lisa and her pups’ lives, but he was not prepared to admit to him that he intended to take a lightbearer to mate. He figured he should have the conversation with Olivia first.
Once again, Josh proved his shrewdness. “Sleeping with? I can’t imagine a lightbearer would give a shifter her magic just because they are sleeping together.” There had been a slight mocking tone to his voice.
He’d left shortly after that conversation, feeling both the urge to return to Olivia and the desire to get away from Josh before he learned too much. The last thing he wanted was a bunch of shifters sniffing around the coterie, with the express purpose of sleeping with lightbearers for their magic. It wouldn’t be quite as bad as his father’s obsession, but it would be bad enough.
Olivia stirred and her beautiful blue eyes fluttered open. Those rosebud lips lifted into a smile. “I thought it was suddenly warmer in here,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep.
He brushed hair out of her face and cupped her cheek. “How do you feel?”
She stretched, like a cat, and Tanner took a moment to appreciate the way her breasts pressed against the front of the thin material of her nightgown. As he watched, her nipples peeked. He glanced up and saw that she was watching him watch her, a smugly pleased look on her face. He deliberately smoothed his hand down over her neck, her chest, to her breast. He cupped her there and let his thumb skim over the tight bud.
She sucked in a breath. “Good,” she finally replied.
“Good enough?” he asked as he let his hand drop farther, until he cupped her ass and pulled her closer. She lifted her leg and draped it over his thigh. He rolled his hips, rubbing his erection against the apex of her thighs.
“Oh yes.” Her voice was breathy.
She arched into him. He rolled her over onto her back and covered her body with his own. He grabbed the hem of her nightgown and flipped it over her head and tossed it to the floor. “I like you like this,” he said as he lifted his upper body and cupped both naked breasts.
“Me too,” she said. Her arms snaked around his waist, her fingers skimmed over his back. He could feel the trail of magic in their wake. He looked into her face.
“You gave me your magic.” It was a statement.
“Inadvertently,” she replied, blinking up at him. “I had no idea I even could give away my magic. But I’m glad I did. Alexa says I would have died if you had not healed me.”
“I won’t let you go,” he said fiercely. He dropped his head and kissed her, a hungry, demanding kiss. She melted beneath him.
He gave another thought to rolling her onto her stomach and mating with her, but when she lifted her hips and his erection slid through wetness, he lost all sense of rational thought. He just plunged into her, needing to feel her, needing to couple with her, to assure himself that she was still alive and well…and most importantly, his.
She raked her fingers across his back again, this time more sharply, and he hissed from the pleasure-pain sensation. “Harder,” she commanded, digging her nails into his ass and pulling him close. He pressed into her, tried to make it last, and failed. He grabbed her hips and pistoned into her over and over, until she cried out her pleasure, sending him soaring over the edge of ecstasy himself.
With a gusty, sated sigh, he rolled over onto his back and sank into the pillows. She immediately rolled onto her side and curled into his body and he slipped his arm around her waist and held her there. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought, Tomorrow. I’m going to mate with her tomorrow.
* * * *
“Olivia.”
He breathed her name against her ear, sending the small hairs dancing and her senses reeling. His hands were on her body, one on a breast, rolling her nipple between finger and thumb, the other stroking the fire building between her legs. His erection pressed into her backside. They were front to back, lying in bed, the morning sunshine beaming in through the balcony doors.
“I need this,” he murmured as his fingers took her higher and higher.
“Mmm.” She canted her head, revealed her neck, an invitation for him to nibble there. He accepted the invitation.
“I need you,” he whispered.
“Mmm.”
“Forever.”
“Mmm.”
“I need you to say it,” he demanded. “Forever.”
“Don’t stop,” she complained when he pulled his hand away to position his erection at her opening.
“Say it,” he repeated.
“Tanner…”
“Forever.”
“Yes…”
The door burst open and Cecilia rushed into the bedchamber. “Olivia, oh my lights, Olivia, you aren’t going to believe—oh!” Cecilia pulled up short, her eyes widening as she took in the sight upon Olivia’s bed.
Tanner rolled over from where he’d been kneeling behind Olivia and grabbed the sheet, pulling it into his lap.
“Again?” Cecilia demanded.
“Don’t you ever knock?” Tanner growled.
Olivia rolled over into a seated position. She too was frustrated with Cecilia’s poor timing—Tanner was about to mate with her!—but it really was comical. Especially because it frustrated Tanner so, while Cecilia blatantly refused to learn her lesson about barging through closed bedchamber doors.
“What is it, Cici?”
Cecilia’s gaze darted from Olivia to Tanner and back again. The worried look in them concerned Olivia. Cecilia was rarely worried. She was as carefree as it was possible to be. Olivia envied her that ability. Would she, too, be so carefree, if she didn’t have the weight of the future of the entire coterie draped about her shoulders?
That particular thought made her feel guilty for what she and Tanner had been just about to do. She really should not mate with the shifter until she’d figured out a way to convince her parents that it was okay.
Unfortunately, she did not see how that was possible.
She was a lightbearer, and he was a shifter. Two entirely different species. Was it even possible to mate? Could they procreate? If they did, what would they produce? Even if their children looked like perfectly normal lightbearers, Olivia could not see how her father would accept her firstborn son as the heir to the kingdom, not with shifter blood running through his veins.
There were so many questions, and not nearly enough answers. The only thing that was certain was that Olivia wanted no one but Tanner. And she had no idea how to tell her father this.
“Is something the matter, Cici?”
Cecilia’s gaze darted back and forth again, and Tanner guessed, “She wants to talk to you in private.”
Cecilia’s head bobbed in a nod. Tanner glared at her. “Can you step into the other room for a minute so I can get dressed?”
She turned and fled from the bedchamber. Olivia gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry…” she started to say, but Tanner reached out and laced his fingers with hers.
“We probably shouldn’t have started that anyway, not without talking about it first,” he said, and she could tell he was uncomfortable discussing the topic. She determined it was because he’d never considered taking another woman to mate before, and that thought made her feel ridiculously pleased.
“I know what it means,” she said quietly.
His gaze shot up and caught hers. She nodded.
“Cecilia found this old book, a history of shifters. Written by a lightbearer, so there’s a very slanted view, of course. The process of taking a mate was described, with pictures.” She smiled shyly.
He looked appalled, and then he raked his hand through his disheveled, sleep-tousled hair. “Well, I guess you get the gist then…” He trailed off and watched her carefully. He cleared his throat and asked, “Would you…?” He looked highly uncomfortable. Olivia suspected talking about these sorts of topics was not Tanner’s strong suit.
She decided to make it easier on him. She cupped his scruffy cheek with one hand and offered him her most sincere smile. “Without question,” she assured him.
The look in his eye indicated he would like nothing more than to proceed along that end immediately, so she scooted away from him on the bed. “But not now. I need to speak with Cecilia,” she said, reminding him that Cici was just a few yards away in the sitting chamber, probably eavesdropping on their conversation. Tanner slanted a look toward the closed door and scowled.
“Tonight,” she whispered, her eyes full of promise.
He reached out, snagged her around the waist, and hauled her close. “Tonight,” he promised, and then he kissed her until her toes curled and she was panting and more than ready to go ahead and do it now, right now, this moment—
“Olivia, what is taking so—Oh for the love of the lights,” Cecilia complained, as she once against burst through the door and found Olivia and Tanner in a compromising position.
“Do you two ever do anything else?”
* * * *
If Tanner found it odd that he’d been summoned to the king’s library—just him—he did not let on. He figured the king probably wanted an update on the process of the shifters moving out of the coterie.
When he arrived at the library, it was empty. The guard who escorted him bowed regally and informed him that the king would be along shortly. Then he retreated down the hall. Tanner stood in the doorway and surveyed the room. He hadn’t really paid all that much attention the first time he’d been summoned to this room, but now that he was alone, he wandered along the perimeter of the room, idly perusing the collection of books.
The shelves were overflowing with books. Many looked to be exceptionally old. The king of the lightbearers, it would seem, appreciated the written word.
One thick and very old book looked as if it had been unceremoniously shoved back onto the shelf. It stuck out at an odd angle, as if it didn’t quite fit in the area in which it had been placed. Tanner pulled it from the shelf and read the title: A History of Magical Beings. He found it amusing that someone believed they had encompassed the lengthy and very differing histories of all magical beings into one book, even if it was a thick tome.
He assumed the book was written by a lightbearer. He was curious to see what lightbearers had to say on the subject of shifters. According to Olivia, they had a very slanted view, which wouldn’t surprise him in the least.
Gently, because the book was very old and felt very fragile, Tanner opened it and flipped to the chapter that covered shifters. As he began to read, he sat down in the chair positioned behind the one desk in the room. He frowned when his knee bumped the desk drawer, which wasn’t quite closed all the way. When he pushed at the drawer, it still would not close, so he pulled it open to see if he could determine what was in the way.
A leather-bound ledger was the culprit. He pulled it out of the drawer, intending to simply reposition it so that the drawer closed properly, but he fumbled both books and, deciding A History of Magical Beings was probably more important, he let the ledger fall to the floor and caught the older book instead.
The ledger fell open, and as Tanner reached down to retrieve it, he discovered it was a financial ledger. Upon further inspection, he realized it was, most likely, the king’s financial ledger. The one the king had been writing in the last time Tanner had been summoned to this room.
According to the ledger, the coterie was broke.
No wonder the king was so nervous when he thought I would ask for payment in exchange for having saved Olivia’s life.
Dismissing the historical book, Tanner placed the ledger on the desk and began studying it with a more critical eye. This did nothing to dissuade him from the very real fact that the king’s coffers were nearly depleted. Not only that, but, according to this ledger, there had been nothing but withdrawals, for years and years and years. No deposits. Where were the deposits? And who were all of the withdrawals going to? Each one was only noted with initials, but Tanner assumed they were to the same person or same company because they all occurred at steady, regular intervals.
But there were no deposits. He couldn’t get past that. How had the king not realized that he was going bankrupt? What the hell was he going to do? Was it just the king, or did this affect the entire coterie? Tanner had a sinking suspicion he knew the answer to that question. Considering there wasn’t a single deposit, that meant his subjects did not financially support the king. If he asked for support now, would they give it to him?
What would they do? According to everything he’d learned, the lightbearers kept to themselves. They did not associate with the human communities that surrounded the coterie. In fact, most lightbearers living within the coterie had never left their sanctuary. The old tales and legends were very real here, just as real as they were within Tanner’s father’s pack.
If the king’s financial state reflected the state of the entire coterie, the lightbearers would most likely be forced to leave the safety of their protected environment to seek employment or other means of raising funds.
Tanner thought about Josh Tigre’s pack. Maybe he could call on Josh, ask for his assistance in protecting the lightbearers as they ventured out on their own. The irony that a pack of shifters would protect them from another pack of shifters was not lost on Tanner. But he’d been absolutely convinced that Josh held none of the beliefs Tanner’s father did.
Even if Josh did agree to help protect the lightbearers, Tanner was not confident it would be enough. There would still be a threat. There would always be a threat. If not the shifters, then the fae. The fae did not visit this world often, but when they did, they would be well aware of any lightbearer who happened to be wandering about outside the coterie.
Even humans were a threat, to some extent. Humans lived blissfully unaware of the magical community. If they were to suspect that lightbearers, shifters, and the like existed, well, with social media and immediate access to news feeds, Tanner could only imagine how quickly packs and the coterie would be overcome with reporters and the paparazzi, not to mention the scientists and analysts and who knew what else.
Maybe the humans were the worst of the threats. Hell, just about the only type of being that wasn’t a threat were vampires, and that was only because a lightbearer’s blood was poison to a vampire. Tanner assumed that was a result of a lightbearer’s magic coming directly from the sun, which was also poisonous to vampires.
According to what he was looking at, the lightbearers within this community were going to have no choice but to step outside their coterie, to intermingle with the humans. To get jobs to support themselves, and their king, if they so chose to continue in that vein.
How long would that last? Once the lightbearers had a taste of democracy, of the American way, how long would they continue to support their king, to look to him as their leader? Sander might be a decent enough guy, but thus far, Tanner wasn’t overly impressed with his leadership skills. And his financial management skills were clearly nonexistent.
Not to mention his sexist decisions. Refusing to acknowledge his one and only daughter as the heir to his kingdom simply because she was female. Olivia was one of the smartest, bravest women Tanner had ever met. In his opinion, she would be a far better ruler than her father could ever be.
Sander’s refusal to train any of the women within the coterie to defend themselves, just on the basis that they were female, was another point of contention with Tanner. Even the men weren’t trained very well, in his opinion. They might be able to summon swords and arrows with magic, but they lacked the skill, the grace, of a contingency of guards who practiced daily, who worked well together, who were prepared for any threat.
The king of the lightbearers needed a strong CFO and an even stronger head of security. Unfortunately, Tanner suspected it might be too late.
The sound of footsteps pulled Tanner from his musings, just a moment before the king walked through the door and into the library, too fast for Tanner to slip the ledger back into the desk drawer, if he even intended to do so in the first place. When Sander spotted him, Tanner was seated at the desk with the ledger open in front of him. His palms were flat on the desk. He figured his anger was likely spelled out on his face. He wasn’t trying to hide it.
“What are you doing sitting at my desk?” Sander demanded.
Tanner continued to sit there, waiting for Sander to notice the ledger lying on the desk. It did not take long.
“How dare you look at that,” Sander blustered as he stormed into the room and then hesitated, his hand hovering over the desk, as if he wanted to snatch away the ledger but was afraid to do so.
“Go ahead,” Tanner encouraged. “Take it.”
Sander looked as if he was afraid Tanner might bite his hand if he did. Tanner thought that it wasn’t such a bad idea.
“I’ve already looked through the entire thing. You’re broke.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tanner ignored that comment.
“Is the entire coterie broke, or just you?”
“That is none of your business.”
“Why are there no deposits?” Tanner waved at the leather-bound book, lying open on the desk in front of him.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the king repeated.
“Yes I do. I can read. I can do basic math. Withdrawal after withdrawal after withdrawal for – what?” He flipped to the first page, peered at it for a moment. “More than forty years, with no deposits? You don’t have to be very smart to realize that just doesn’t add up. I can’t believe you lasted this long. Where is all the money going? And why aren’t there any deposits?”
Sander’s mouth thinned until his lips all but disappeared, and then he bit off each word as he spoke. “The money supports my kingdom.”
Tanner looked down at the ledger again. “You subsidize every household in the coterie?” When Sander blanched, he added, “Every single one? Why?”
He didn’t really expect an answer. So he was surprised when Sander stiffly said, “To make my subjects love me.”
Tanner stared at him. Sander turned his head and looked at the window.
“My father ruled before me. He was a…a tyrant, or very near to it. Many in the coterie were unhappy. In fact, rumors persisted for years after his death that it was not of natural causes. I needed to prove to my subjects that I was not like him.”
“So you bought their loyalty.”
Tanner took his non-reply as affirmation.
“How? Why would the coterie even need currency, if you are completely self-sufficient? Shouldn’t you use some sort of barter system?”
Sander looked supremely uncomfortable. He paced to a small, delicate table situated in front of one of the windows and bent over. When he straightened, he held a tiny wine glass in his hand. The glass was full of burgundy liquid. After one swift glance at Tanner, he downed the contents.
“The currency does not go directly to my subjects,” Sander admitted after a few moments of silence. “It pays for the goods I provide them.”
“So you’re buying stuff from outside the coterie and giving it to the residents?” Tanner guessed.
“Yes.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Food. Clothing. Furniture. Everything.”
“Everything?”
Sander nodded and then bent over and poured himself another glass of what Tanner presumed was wine.
“Why? Why not insist everyone grow their own crops, make their own clothing and furniture? You can’t tell me lightbearers have no discernable skills.”
“Why make them do for themselves, when I could provide nearly everything they needed?”
“Because you’re broke,” Tanner practically yelled at the man while waving at the proof lying on the desk. “Where does everything come from? The food, the supplies?”
Sander’s look turned dodgy. Tanner narrowed his eyes and steadily watched the fidgeting king, silently waiting for an answer.
“The land of the fae, mostly. There is a portal” – He hesitated – “Down by the water. In a little-used area. Few know of it.”
“Mostly?”
Tanner felt as though he was a father, scolding a child and trying to get that child to admit that he’d stolen cookies from the cookie jar.
“And the humans,” the king finally confessed.
“So you’re a hypocrite, besides being a lousy financial officer.”
Sander opened and closed his mouth several times and then snapped it shut and simply glared at Tanner.
“You’ve made your subjects completely and wholly dependent on you. And you lied to them, telling them they were not allowed outside of the coterie, when you or some trusty servant obviously left the coterie on a regular basis. Your subjects aren’t going to love you very much when they learn that after forty years, they not only have to learn to fend for themselves, but they’re going to have to do it out outside the coterie.” He knew the words were cruel, but he did not take them back.
Sander poured a third glass of wine.
“Does your family know?”
“No one knows,” Sander said as he scowled at Tanner. His shoulders slumped. A guilty look crawled across his face, and then he downed the contents of his wine glass. He seemed unsteady on his feet, after only three small glasses of wine.
“What kind of wine is that?” Tanner asked suspiciously.
“Faery wine. I maintain contact with the queen of the fae.”
“Obviously,” Tanner drawled. That explained the king’s apparent near-drunkeness. Faery wine, as Tanner understood it, was extremely potent. Something about faeries and their high tolerance for spirits.
“I could have made it last,” Sander abruptly insisted. “But my mate likes to plan parties.”
Tanner did not point out the obvious, that currency and goods were finite unless replenished regularly. Instead, he said, “Olivia says it’s therapy for her.”
Sander became instantly angry. “Olivia should not be sharing such personal information with the likes of you,” he said hotly.
“Olivia is sleeping with the likes of me, and I figure you can’t get much more personal than that,” Tanner pointed out.
He hadn’t meant to be so abrupt with his announcement, but his recently acquired knowledge made him feel bolder around the king. The lightbearer was barely hanging on by the tips of his fingernails and could fall from the ledge at any moment. If something wasn’t done, there wouldn’t even be a kingdom for Olivia’s firstborn son to inherit.
Sander sputtered and turned red in the face.
“Don’t tell me you hadn’t figured that out by now,” Tanner commented.
Sander drained his fourth glass of wine. “No,” he admitted. “I hadn’t.”
“Oh. Well, she is,” Tanner said lamely, feeling slightly abashed.
Sander squeezed the stem of his wineglass so tightly, Tanner wondered that it didn’t break.
“I expected better of my daughter,” he said coldly.
Tanner didn’t say anything, just watched him steadily.
“She is a princess. The only child of the king of the lightbearers.”
“As I understand it, you won’t declare her heir because she’s female.”
“Don’t tell me it isn’t the same with your kind.”
“Haven’t you read your own books?” Tanner asked, waving at the ancient volume still lying on the desk. “With my kind, that right is based on blood link to the pack master, regardless of their sex. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be the firstborn.”
Sander pursed his lips. “I do not know what your intentions are toward my daughter, but this cannot—”
“I intend to mate with her,” Tanner said, cutting him off.
Sander went red in the face again and began sputtering incoherently. Tanner decided then and there that he and the king would never be fast friends. They’d be lucky to tolerate one another over the obligatory family dinner. He wondered if Olivia would insist upon living here in the beach house once they were mated, or if she would be open to getting their own place, so he would not have to deal with the stiff, angry king on a daily basis.
“You need help,” Tanner pushed forward. “You need a business manager, and you need someone to lead your guards, to train them properly. You aren’t going to have a choice. You are going to have to let your lightbearers go out into the human world to fend for themselves. The only way to truly protect them is to ensure your guards are solidly trained.”
“They managed to catch you just after you escaped,” Sander said coolly.
“We managed to escape in the first place,” Tanner pointed out. “And then they managed to put a handful of arrows through their own princess.”
The reminder infuriated him. The idea that he had almost lost Olivia…It would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
Sander pursed his lips again and fell silent for a moment. Then he snidely said, “You think you have all the answers? What are you that you think you can tell a king what to do?”
“I am a pack master,” Tanner replied, even though technically, it wasn’t true. “I come from the largest shifter pack in North America. And my pack isn’t anywhere near bankruptcy.”
Sander reddened and sputtered and poured a fifth glass of wine, although he did not drink it. Instead, he paced in front of the windows and muttered under his breath and probably assumed Tanner couldn’t hear or understand what he said. But Tanner’s shifter hearing allowed him to do just that. He heard Sander mutter that he felt trapped—“Just like the wild animal he is.”
He also mumbled about Olivia’s near-death experience and how it had given him quite a fright. Tanner heard him complain that his mate had been nearly inconsolable when she’d first learned of “the accident” as Sander called the attack. She’d immediately begun planning a ridiculously lavish party.
There wasn’t even enough money in the coffers to pay for that one party, let alone the normal cost of living for the king’s family.
“You’re going to have to demand your subjects start fending for themselves. They are going to have to grow their own crops, raise their own cattle or pigs and sheep. They’re going to have to learn, and they won’t have a choice, because you’re going to tell them they have to. You’re their king. They have to listen to you.”
Sander looked newly outraged, probably at discovering Tanner had heard his mutterings. But then the faery wine apparently kicked in, because he suddenly developed a backbone. He narrowed his eyes and glared at Tanner.
“I want you and your pack of shifters out of my coterie,” he hissed.
Tanner’s demeanor did not change. “I have found a pack for Lisa and her pups and my mother. I will let them know today and make the necessary arrangements to get them moved out.”
“And what of you?”
He steadily watched the king. “I will let Olivia make that decision.”