Light Beyond the Darkness (10 page)

“What?” There was accusation in that word, as if she’d done something wrong.

“Your back,” she whispered.

He scowled. “It’s fine. It was a long time ago.”

She sank down on the edge of the bed. “I suspected something terrible had caused you to leave your pack, but I had no idea…”

“It’s not exactly something I like to talk about.”

“That’s why you didn’t take your shirt off last night.”

He didn’t reply.

“Will you tell me?”

“No,” he said shortly, and then he reached over the side of the bed, snagged his shirt from the floor, and pulled it over his head.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he muttered as he climbed out of bed and pulled on the lounge pants he’d discarded last night. “You didn’t do it.” He walked into the bathroom.

A moment later, she heard the sound of running water, indicating he’d turned on the shower. She wanted to join him, but she wasn’t sure he would welcome her. She had no idea how to deal with something like this. She’d always been the one with issues. Everyone else had always seemed so…normal, without any sort of horribly checkered past.

She pulled on her clothes and left the bedroom. When Reid walked into the kitchen a short time later, she was pulling an omelet off the stove.

“Steak and cheese,” she said as she slid a plate across the kitchen island. “For you.”

“Thanks,” he said as he sat down and dug in. “It’s good.”

“Thank you.”

They ate in silence for a short while. Carley tried to gauge Reid’s mood, tried to determine if he was angry with her.

“Stop,” he finally muttered.

“What?”

“Stop overthinking it. It’s something from my past. I’ve let it go, and you should too.”

“I…” It seemed obvious to her that he had
not
let it go. She did not want to, either. She wanted to know what happened. She wanted to know if she could help him deal with it and then truly let it go.

“I’m usually much more careful about letting anyone see my back.”

“I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to let me see the scars.”

“I’m not at all comfortable letting you see them,” he said sharply. After a pause, he said, “I think I was just comfortable enough sleeping with you that I wasn’t conscious of what I was doing.”

She smiled. And decided to let it go after all, at least for now. She liked getting along with Reid far too much to press about something that he clearly was not ready to deal with.

“I like that,” she said.

After breakfast, they cleaned the kitchen together, and then Reid rearranged his living room—much to Carley’s giggling delight—so his furniture was positioned to catch the most possible sunlight streaming in through the patio doors.

“It’s a good thing I live on the top floor,” he commented as they cuddled together on the couch. “I would have a hard time leaving all the blinds open if I thought someone else could see you walking around naked all the time.”

“I’m not naked,” Carley pointed out.

“Do you want to be?”

His question was flip, but she turned around and climbed into his lap. “Yes,” she said breathlessly as she tugged off her shirt.

“I think I’ve created a monster.”

“Are you complaining?”

“Nope.”

He lay down on the couch on his back. Carley found she had a real fondness for the woman-on-top position.

*

Afterward, they lounged on the couch, basking in the flood of sunshine pouring through the windows. Reid was on his back, with Carley lying on top of him, her chin resting on one hand, while the other used her magic to draw designs on the shirt covering his chest. The designs glowed and sparkled like glitter for a few moments, before fading away. He watched, fascinated.

“I bet it’s awfully handy to have so much magic,” he remarked after she’d drawn a swan and a wolf and then convinced the swan to chase the wolf down to his abs and up the back of the couch.

“You have the ability to change forms at will,” she replied.

“Yeah, but that’s it. Your magic manifests in so many other ways.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s just a part of who I am. What I am. I don’t know any different.” She drew a series of hearts. “We really can share our magic, you know,” she whispered, without looking at his face.

He didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to respond. Despite having grown up under Quentin Lyons’ influence, Reid had never once believed the man’s theory about stealing a lightbearer’s magic.

“Killing us doesn’t do it, so relax,” she teased. “All killing does is, well, kill us. But our magic, we can decide to share it. Or, what seems more likely, is that we inadvertently share it. That’s how I understand it happened with Olivia. And Cecilia.”

“Olivia and Cecilia?”

She continued to trace patterns onto his shirt. Despite the fact that they’d just had vigorous sex a short time ago, the touch of her finger, the feel of her magic, was making him hard again.

“Olivia is our princess. She’s mated to Tanner, who once was the heir to a pack of shifters from somewhere out west. Wyoming, I believe.”

“I’m aware of them,” Reid commented drily. Obviously she did not recall their conversation last night, when he’d asked her about his former pack master’s son.

“Cecilia is her cousin. She is actually my cousin as well, although it’s more distant, and we are not nearly as close as she and Olivia. Anyway, Olivia shares her magic with Tanner. Which makes sense, as he is her mate. We now understand that usually, when we mate, we share our magic with each other, although no one really noticed before, because we all have magic anyway.”

“Interesting theory.”

Carley frowned. “But Cecilia shares her magic with Finn, too. I’ve seen it. And they aren’t mated, at least, they weren’t before I—”

“Finn?” he interrupted, his lust-coated brain finally catching up with her words.

His brother’s name was Finn. The last time Reid saw him, Finn had been leading yet another one of Quentin’s missions to seek out the lightbearers. It had been Quentin’s last mission. The pack master had been killed, and Reid had assumed his brother had died, too. As soon as word came back that the pack master was dead, he’d grabbed the bag he’d had packed since shortly after the
incident
, and he left. He hadn’t spoken to a single shifter from his former pack since. That was nine months ago.

“Finn?” he repeated.

Carley was oblivious to his sudden tension. She continued to trace patterns on his chest, but his body no longer reacted to the pleasurable sensation. Suddenly, he just wanted to know. Was his brother alive?

“They weren’t mated when I left,” Carley explained. “And yet, he shared Cecilia’s magic. It was obvious they were in love. At least, it was to everyone except them.” She giggled. “I think they were both in denial, even after they started sleeping together.”

Finn? His brother was not only alive, but…in love? With a lightbearer? Although this ought not to surprise him, given that Reid was currently lying on the couch, swathed in a pool of sunlight, the world’s most beautiful lightbearer draped across his body.

“What does he look like?”

“Who?”

“Finn,” he snapped impatiently.

Confusion crawled across her face, as she finally looked up at him and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Tell me what Finn looks like.”

She studied his face, his features. Something else bloomed on her face. Something like…

“Actually…he looks a lot like you.”

While Carley was at work, Reid allowed the memories, the emotions, to take over. It was the first time since the day he walked away from his pack that he allowed himself to be immersed in his shifter side. Other than the bare minimum requirement to survive, he didn’t even shift anymore. Recalling the horror of the
incident
was bad enough. Recalling all that he’d left, all that he’d expected to never see again, was too much to bear.

His brother was alive.

He was certain of it, especially after her comment about Finn’s appearance. There weren’t a whole lot of redheaded shifters in the States. And not only was he alive, but he was living within the lightbearers’ coterie, and according to Carley, was in love with—and possibly even mated to—a lightbearer.

Reid couldn’t decide how he felt about that. Relief, of course. His family had once been as tight as relatives could be. It was only after the
incident
that Reid began to distance himself, not only from his family, but from everyone. This obsession he’d developed for Carley, this was the first time since that fateful day that he’d allowed anyone at all to get close to him. And yet, he recognized that he was still keeping her at arm’s length. They might share a bed; they might share amazing orgasms; he might feel more comfortable around her than he had with anyone in a very long time—but there were still limits to how much he could give to another person.

What else was he feeling at the moment? Finn—or Finnegan, as he’d been dubbed at birth—had been one of the favorites, when Quentin ruled their pack. He had almost unparalleled tracking skills, so the pack master had always kept him close at hand, and let Finn get away with far more than lesser shifters. Reid knew this firsthand. All Reid had done was sleep with one of Quentin’s many, many bedmates, and he’d been flogged to within an inch of his life.

He tried not to dwell on it, but the memories swamped him anyway. It had been so long since he allowed himself to think about the details, to recall that horrible day that had changed his life forever.

He hadn’t exactly been looking to get laid by the young, sex-kitten shifter. Quentin had chosen her as his latest plaything, so Quentin’s guards had to endure it when she strutted around in barely there clothing, even when he wasn’t home. At the time, Reid had thought he was the only one. But now that the memories were forcing themselves to the forefront of his mind, he realized that hadn’t been the case at all.

He’d been the one who got caught.

* * * *

“You don’t even look at me when I’m in the room,” she said, her full red lips pouting.

She was dressed in her signature look: a tight wraparound shirt with a deep V-neck, and a little black leather skirt that did not allow her enough room to bend over without showing off her…assets. Assets that were strictly off-limits. She belonged to Quentin, at least for now. Maybe, after the pack master tired of her—because Reid knew he would, eventually—maybe then Reid would consider what she so blatantly offered. Except then she would be the other shifter’s castoff, and did he really want to dally with that?

“You’re Quentin’s,” he said, simply, because really, that explained everything.

“I don’t belong to anyone.” She strutted through the room, her hips swaying far more than necessary under that barely there skirt. Reid’s gaze locked on her ass, despite his intention not to look. But damn, she was fucking hot. And she knew it.

“You’re the pack master’s girlfriend. That makes you off-limits.” Thank the fates they were alone in the house at the moment. If anyone overheard this conversation, it would surely get back to Quentin. Shifters were notorious rumormongers. Reid had to suppress a shudder at the idea of what the pack master would do to him if he found out he was talking so openly with the man’s latest paramour. Reid didn’t have quite the same standing in the pack as his brother, Finn, did. If he pissed off Quentin, that man would show no mercy.

“I’m the pack master’s occasional fuck,” she amended. “Too occasional. And because of that, I can’t get it from anyone else.”

They were in the lower level of Quentin’s three-story mansion, in the playroom. The room contained a pool table, which was one of the pack master’s favorite toys, when he wasn’t fucking pretty young shifters. Reid had been idly practicing his game when she walked in. When he bent at the waist to take another shot, she deliberately walked behind him, slid her hand across the ass of his jeans. His dick gave a hopeful jump, and he cursed his own body’s reaction, even though it was purely instinctual. She was smokin’ hot, and she was making it damned obvious she was interested.

But she was off-limits.

“Plus, he’s old.” Reid caught the wrinkling of her pert nose, out of the corner of his eye. “His chest hair is gray. Actually,
all
of his hair is gray.”

“Happens to the best of us, I’m sure.” He took his shot, didn’t even come close to hitting the pocket. She was too distracting. With a resigned sigh, he began pushing the rest of the balls into the pockets.

Playing guard dog in Quentin’s house when no one was around was damned boring, and he tended to migrate down here to practice his game, even though he suspected the pack master would be pissed if he knew. Generally, other shifters were only allowed to use the table when Quentin was around. And then they all understood the unspoken rule: the pack master always won.

“I’m too young to be sleeping with someone who has gray hair.”

“You should have thought of that before you hooked up with him.” Not that she had a choice, once Quentin set his sights on her. Still, if she hadn’t wanted to pique the pack master’s interest, she could have avoided it. There were plenty of females in the pack who managed to avoid his wandering gaze. But young, hot females who strutted around half-dressed and boldly flirted with the shifter were exactly his type. She had gotten precisely what she wanted, except she had lost interest faster than Quentin had.

“He isn’t here right now,” she said, stating the obvious. If he were, they sure as hell wouldn’t be having this conversation. They wouldn’t have any conversation. She’d probably be flat on her back in Quentin’s bed. Or, more likely, on her hands and knees.

The pack master loved to fuck shifter style, even though technically, in a shifter’s world, the only person he was supposed to take that way was his mate. Although Reid suspected that Quentin’s mate was probably more relieved than repulsed by his propensity for sleeping with other women. It undoubtedly kept him out of her bed.

Arianna Lyons had once been a beautiful, vibrant woman. More than thirty years mated to the aggressive, domineering pack master had taken their toll. She had turned into a frail, aged woman, and every time Reid saw her, he wondered if it would be the last.