“He’s gone.”
“If he isn’t, he’s hiding awfully damn well. Of course, he’s a shifter, so I suppose that’s entirely possibly.”
“He isn’t hiding.” Olivia was absolutely certain of it. Tanner had flown away three days ago and hadn’t been heard from since.
When he discovered that Tanner left, the king tried to banish Lisa, Ariana, and the pups from the coterie. But Genevieve had absolutely refused to let her mate do it. She’d fallen utterly and completely in love with Lisa’s pups and had spent the last three days showering them with attention as only a grandmother could.
Despite this, Lisa gave Olivia the cold shoulder, clearly blaming her for the fact that Tanner had left. Ariana gave her sympathetic looks whenever they crossed paths, and Olivia wasn’t sure which she hated more. Lisa’s anger often sparked her own, but Ariana’s sympathy simply made her feel terribly guilty.
Dane packed a small bag and moved into Olivia’s private chambers, much to her father’s delight. When Olivia initially refused to let him into her chamber, he said, “Be reasonable, Olivia. We need to keep up appearances for now. At least until we can figure out a way out of this mess.”
She reluctantly let him into the suite, but she made him sleep on the settee.
When her father tried to tease her about the night of the mating ceremony, she’d coldly informed him that if there was a babe growing in her belly, it was most certainly not Dane’s. He’d been so flustered by her comment that he’d choked on a grape and Dane had to quickly leap to his feet and pull on his healing magic to dislodge the offending fruit.
The coterie was in a tizzy over the continued presence of the shifters. Lightbearers flocked to the beach house to look at the shifters as if they were some sort of circus sideshow. Some were simply curious, others utterly fascinated. Some were frightened, others were repulsed, and petitioned the king to send them on their way anyway, innocent babes or not. For the first time in five hundred years, the coterie was divided, and the king was forced to deal with the fallout.
“This is my fault,” Olivia bemoaned, as she and Cecilia sat on the balcony jutting from her bedchamber and soaked up the few rays of sunlight that were filtering through the clouds. Another storm was brewing over the lake, and the day seemed to be growing darker rather than lighter.
“Well, if you want to get technical, it’s really my fault. I’m the one who convinced you to go to Vegas. Everything sort of started there, seems to me.”
Olivia leaned her head back against the lounge chair. “I don’t know how to fix this. My father is going out of his mind trying to keep the peace, my mother has planned so many parties, there aren’t enough days in the year. I’m half-afraid Dane is going to decide to try to muddle through having sex with me, and Tanner’s mother swears she has no idea where he might have gone.”
Cecilia giggled. “Muddle through? Who muddles through sex?”
“Dane, apparently. At least that’s what he said when I tried to talk him out of this whole business.” Olivia’s tone was grim.
“You do realize Dane has absolutely no backbone, right? And that your father is his king, so he will do whatever your father tells him to do.”
Olivia lifted her head and then let it drop back against the headrest again. “Which means he will be a lousy king.”
“Which means you will really be the king, and Dane will be the figurehead.”
“I do not want to be king. Or queen for that matter. And I most certainly do not want to be mated to Dane. I’m not even sure I technically am.”
“Uncle Sander performed the mating ceremony. I was there. You are mated.”
Olivia did not respond. Something in her nonresponse caused Cecilia to sit up straighter and peer at her. “What are you not telling me?” Cecilia asked suspiciously.
Olivia slanted her eyes to the side and watched as the wind wreaked havoc with the rolling waves of the lake. After another few moments, she sighed.
“I mated with Tanner. Just a few hours prior to the party, in fact.”
“I should have known,” Cecilia gasped. “Every time I walked in on you, the two of you were assuming the position.” She paused and then with slyness in her voice asked, “Was it good?”
Olivia blushed. “Far more enjoyable than our mating ceremonies, I can assure you.”
Despite the current mood, both women shared a giggle over that comment.
Cecilia turned contemplative. “I wonder what it means?” she mused. “By shifter law, you are mated to Tanner. By lightbearer law, you are mated to Dane.”
“Considering I am a lightbearer and currently residing within the coterie, I imagine our law overrides the other.”
“Perhaps not,” Cecilia commented. “Have you coupled with Dane yet?”
Olivia made a strangled noise of disgust.
“Since you’ve obviously coupled with Tanner, it seems to me that there is a way you could persuade your father that he is truly your mate.”
Olivia turned and gave her cousin a blank look. Cecilia rolled her eyes.
“What generally happens when two beings couple without taking precautions?”
Olivia gasped. Her eyes widened and her hand automatically strayed to her flat abdomen. Cecilia gave her a satisfied smile.
“But I am not,” Olivia protested. “When Alexa healed me, she said I was infertile from healing Ariana.”
“I cannot imagine Alexa shared that bit of information with your father.”
Olivia fell silent again. Cecilia was right. She had no idea if her father knew or even suspected that she and Tanner had an intimate relationship, let alone that she could be carrying his pup in her belly.
But she determined that it was high time he found out.