Light Beyond the Darkness (3 page)

The shifter narrowed his eyes. The good thing about the overly bright kitchen was that the humans probably hadn’t noticed his glowing eyes. She watched as he clenched his jaw, trying, she assumed, to tamp whatever magic caused them to glow. What had Cecilia told her about a shifter’s glowing eyes? She couldn’t remember. So much of her life within the coterie was a blur these days. Most of the time, she was grateful for it.

“You’re welcome,” he said shortly, biting off the words as if he was literally chewing them. Then he abruptly turned and allowed Vivian to herd him out of the kitchen. She knew he allowed it because she was absolutely confident that this man would not be herded by anyone, even spunky, uncompromising Vivian, unless he determined to do it all on his own.

“You okay?”

Carley turned sharply at the sound of her friend’s voice. Vivian, with her blue-black hair, heavy, dark makeup, and ungodly number of piercings, actually gave her a sympathetic look. Sympathetic was not a normal emotion for the hardcore human.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Carley said stiffly as she rubbed her special blend of herbs onto a thick filet, before wrapping it in bacon.

“No, you’re not,” Vivian stated. “I’ve never seen you so out of sorts, other than that first day we met, when I could have sworn the hounds of hell were on your trail.”

Carley nearly stabbed herself with the toothpick as she tried to secure the bacon around the piece of meat. At the time, she’d believed the hounds of hell really were after her.

“He just…surprised me, that’s all. You know how I don’t like surprises.”

That much was true. She hated surprises, mostly because she was still half-afraid someone was going to show up at dawn and drag her from her bed and her new life. She didn’t ever think about what would happen next. She’d never be able to sleep if she did.

“Do you know him?”

Carley shook her head. “I know of him,” she hedged. She knew of his kind, of course.

Since the dawn of time, his kind and hers had been mortal enemies, spurred by the belief that to kill a lightbearer was to inherit their magic. It was only little less than a year ago that lightbearers and shifters had come together in an entirely different light. Today, the princess of the lightbearers, the only offspring of the king of the lightbearers, was mated to a shifter. Olivia was due to birth her first child any time now. The first interspecies babe ever to be born, according to the history books. That anomaly of a child would grow up and eventually become the king of the lightbearers.

She had no proof whatsoever that the shifter who just left her kitchen was a friend of the lightbearers, like Tanner or Finn. According to Cecilia, there were still plenty of evil shifters out in the world, the ones who believed they could kill a lightbearer and inherit her magic. Carley never dreamed that one of them would stumble into her restaurant. She’d thought hiding in the middle of a large, crowded city full of humans was the perfect guise. But then again, she wasn’t exactly an expert at running away and hiding. She’d only done it once, after all.

“We’re all walking home together tonight,” Carley said, her voice taking on a little more of its natural quality again. “I don’t care if someone has plans. Just get me home first.
Please
.”

Carley, along with nearly half the kitchen staff, the dishwasher, and a handful of servers, lived in an old rental home a few blocks from the restaurant. Her roommates did it because none could afford the rent alone. Carley did it for the protection of being surrounded by humans. Shifters, so she hoped, would hesitate to attack a lightbearer who was surrounded by humans. She hoped the same was true for other lightbearers who might try to attack as well.

Her human roommates assumed she had some sort of phobia about being alone. She’d heard them whisper behind her back about “depression issues.” Fair enough assessment. Frankly, she didn’t care what they thought, so long as they catered to that particular quirk.

“You got it, boss,” Vivian said with a mock salute, and then she focused on sautéing green beans, almonds, and tiny pearl onions in a giant wok.

* * * *

It was two in the morning before they finally left the restaurant via the secure back door. As usual, as soon as they stepped out of the brightly lit kitchen, Carley felt that familiar deflating feeling as her magic began a slow, steady drain. Unlike some of her coworkers, she was never up for partying after work. Half the time, she could barely stumble to her bed before she passed out with her head buried in the pillows. The artificial lights in the kitchen, even at full volume, just barely maintained her magic after the sun went down. The absence of light at the end of each shift was a more severe energy drain than a normal, gradual dusk at the end of the day.

“You need to move someplace warmer, with more sun,” said Roman, the dishwasher, in his heavy accent. “Like Mexico,” he said, pronouncing it “Meh-he-co.”

“Why do you say that?” Carley asked as they trudged down the slushy sidewalk, a motley group of restaurant workers, chattering amongst themselves.

“You have that seasonal disorder,” he said. “The sunlight affects your moods.”

Carley laughed. “You have no idea how true that is.” But it wasn’t just her moods—it was her very life. Carley’s kind could not function without sunlight to feed their magical energy. If she was cut off from sunlight for too long, she would die.

“If only,” she added, feeling wistful. She and Roman often daydreamed together about moving down to his home country and opening a bar at one of the resorts where the humans went to vacation. She would make fabulous Mexican dishes and he would serve up his signature margaritas, and Carley would be able to soak up all the sun she could possibly want or need.

But then she would be too far from her friends and family, her own kind, and even though she’d run away, she hadn’t gone far, in the hopes that someday…

“You always say that,” Roman chided. “But at this time of year, what holds you back? You barely see the sun, and it’s colder than any human being deserves to be. Why not?”

Instead of answering directly, she turned the question around on him. “What about you? If it’s so cold here, why are
you
here? Isn’t your family in Mexico?”

He frowned. “Some of them. Most are in this country now. Mexico is not a safe place, not where I grew up.”

Carley barked out a disbelieving laugh. “And yet you want you and me to throw everything to the wind and move down there?”

“Not to my hometown,” Roman insisted. “To one of the resort areas. Those places are safe. Tourists provide too much income to the government, so it makes sure they are safe, so long as they stay in the right areas.”

“We’re home,” Carley announced at that point. “Thank you all for another fabulous night of cooking.”

She climbed the stairs, holding the ancient wrought-iron railing tightly to maintain her balance. There was a new moon tonight, so Carley did not even have those weak slivers of light to pull from. She was near to collapsing and needed to get to her bedroom in a hurry before she made a fool of herself in front of her friends and coworkers.

“’Night,” she said as she stumbled down the hall to her bedroom.

The house was a three-story structure, attached to other three-story structures of similar form and styling. A sidewalk ran along the front of the block, and each house had a tiny patch of lawn out front and an alley running behind. It had been built in the 1920s, designed in the Victorian style, with lots of crown molding and fancy scrollwork details. The floors were lovely, refinished wood. The rooms were small and separated by solid walls, instead of the more modern fashion of having one giant great room that encompassed living, dining, and cooking.

The old-fashioned layout worked well for the large group of occupants. It allowed a reasonable modicum of privacy, despite the number of people living within such close quarters.

The top two floors were dedicated to bedrooms, with a shared bathroom on each level. Carley’s bedroom was on the second floor, at the end of the hall. It was a choice she’d made deliberately. It would be nearly impossible to sneak into her bedroom without alerting someone else in the house.

She made a quick pit stop in the bathroom, but was far too exhausted to shower, so she dragged herself into her bedroom, striped down to nothing and then literally fell face-first onto the bed. She was out within seconds.

Less than six hours later, the sun rose high enough in the sky to throw its energizing rays through Carley’s bedroom window. She sighed in her sleep and rolled over onto her back, flinging one arm across her face and the other across the bed. She lay there, sleeping, bathed in a pool of sunlight, her body recovering from the overuse of magic the day before.

Reid watched from his perch on the roof of the building next door.

When she rolled over, exposing those luscious, full breasts, that smooth alabaster skin, the gentle curve of her waist before it flared into perfect-for-grabbing hips, his cock went instantly hard, making his position even more uncomfortable than it had been for the past few hours.

He’d dozed, fitfully, as he sat on the roof and watched her sleep, but it was damned cold at night in Chicago, and no matter what animal form he took, he still could not get warm. Just as he finally asked himself what the hell he was doing and what did he mean to gain from this stupid, cold vigil, the sun lifted over the edge of the building, and its rays poured into the open window where the lightbearer lay sleeping in the nude, without even a sheet as a barrier between her body and his hungry gaze.

This is what I was waiting for
.

Wide-awake now, he stood and stretched, working cold and kinked muscles even as they protested the movement. And then he continued to watch, although she did nothing at all but sleep.

She is so beautiful in rest.
He surprised himself with the thought. He wasn’t normally one to put much thought into something like sleeping. It was necessary, it happened, and then you woke and went on with your life. The idea that this one woman was worth simply watching while she slept was strange, very strange indeed.

As he adjusted his swollen crotch, he knew that watching her was not all he wanted to do. No, he wanted much, much more from the beautiful, magical lightbearer. He recognized the signs of shifter-born obsession, but he didn’t care. Even reminding himself of the scars that were a direct result of dallying with a forbidden woman didn’t help.

He wanted to sleep with the lightbearer. He wanted to lie on that bed with her, between her legs, and connect with her in the most primal way known to living beings.

Well, maybe not quite
that
primal. He certainly did not want to mate with her. He just wanted to fuck her until both their heads were spinning and they were too damn tired to do it even one more time.

He watched for a while longer, until his stomach rumbled loudly, reminding him that the last time he’d eaten had been the steak Carley had made for him last night—which even cold had been delicious. Not to mention the added benefit of his date having deserted him while he had been in the kitchen, discovering there was a lightbearer in his vicinity.

He reluctantly turned away from the sight of her gloriously naked body, shifted into the form of a bird, and flew away. First, he would find a hearty breakfast. Then he would retire to his own bed for a while, and then he would begin formulating a plan of attack. The lightbearer wouldn’t even know what hit her until he was already buried deep inside. Then, he doubted very much she would care, because he fully intended for her to be just as caught up in the moment as he knew he would to be.

*

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

His laugh was loud, mocking. He’d presented such a perfect front to her parents, which made the cold, harsh reality that much harder to believe. But she had no choice. She was living that cold, harsh reality now.

“Are you kidding me? You’re still an innocent? I got a hell of a bargain, didn’t I?”

“What do you mean?” she asked. If what he implied was true, his words would cut deeply, all the way to the bone. To her heart.

He snorted and then pulled off his shirt and tossed it to the floor. “Your parents sold you to me, Carley Druthers. They were sick of having you around, but apparently couldn’t find any takers. I wasn’t exactly looking for a mate, but I sure as hell needed my gambling debts paid off. I suppose taking a mate is a fair price to pay. And now that you’re mine, I can do whatever the hell I want with you.”

Carley shrank away from him as he unsnapped his pants and then pushed them down his legs. He wore a pair of briefs underneath, and there was a bulge behind them that made her eyes widen. Her parents had done an amazing job of maintaining her innocence. Too amazing.

“Get undressed,” he commanded in that same harsh voice.

“I-I-I…” She began stuttering as her face flushed and her tongue suddenly stopped functioning.

“I said get undressed.” He reached for her, grabbed the front of her dress, and pulled. The fabric tore away, leaving a gaping hole that showed off the pale pink bra she wore underneath.

“I hate pink,” he snapped, and he cupped her shoulders and roughly turned her around. With a complete lack of decorum, he removed her bra and then twisted her to face him again, and gave her a shove, sending her sprawling on the bed on her back. She scrambled to sit up, but he’d lost all patience by that point.

He lay on top of her, the weight of his body making her feel as if she was suffocating. She gasped for breath and instinctively began wiggling, trying to get out from under him.

“Yeah, keeping doing that,” he said, and then she felt his hand as he gathered her skirt and pushed it out of the way. His hand was on her panties then, and a moment later, they were torn from her body and tossed over his shoulder.

This was what her girlfriends all mooned over every day?