Dawning of Light (30 page)

He looked at Cedric, as if seeking the answer from him. Cedric smirked at Cecilia.

“You’ve been trying to kill me,” she blurted. “My own brother. And you let him do it,” she accused her father. It was all so impossibly surreal, so not right. And yet…it was. Her own family had been trying to kill her.

And it wasn’t the first time. After she’d recovered from being locked in the basement for three days, they’d insisted they hadn’t intended to kill her, had only meant to punish her. She had accepted their explanation, because she had no reason not to. Now, she began to doubt everything, her entire childhood, all of the small incidents that had often left her injured, sometimes even scarred, but miraculously not dead.

“They were meant to be warnings,” Cedric said dismissively. “I had hoped you would connect the attacks to the shifters, and turn to Samuel for help. He would have then mated with you and brought you into the fold. Then neither of you would have had to die. Now…”

Cecilia shifted her pleading gaze to her father.

He looked at Cedric. “What would you command, Chosen One?”

“He isn’t the Chosen One,” Cecilia cried. “He’s Cedric. Your
son
. Why aren’t you listening to me?”

“No more talking,” Cedric commanded. “Put her in my chamber.”

“No!” She reached for the door. Her father wrapped his arms around her from behind, trapping them against her sides. “No,” she cried again as she attempted to struggle out of his grasp.

Cedric’s smile was thin. “Come,” he commanded, and with a sweeping motion, he turned away from her and strode to the basement door. He opened the door, holding it and watching with malicious enjoyment as his father awkwardly made his way through the room, dragging Cecilia’s struggling body. Despite her redoubled efforts, he was winning the battle, and soon he stood at the top of the stairs, while she kicked and twisted her body and cried and screamed and then begged him not to do it.

“
Please don’t, please, not the basement. Anything, anything, anything else. Please, no—
”

She felt a push on the middle of her back and then the absence of her father’s arms. Then she was free-falling. She hit the stairs and instinctively curled into a ball as she rolled to the bottom of the staircase. Before she had a chance to even open her eyes, the door closed, and her entire world went black.

And then she felt something touch her.

She screamed. Although it had been twelve years ago, the memories of that time her parents had locked her in the cold, dark basement were as fresh and clear as if it happened yesterday. Long suppressed—and she’d thought forgotten—memories slammed into her mind’s eye, reminding her of the misery, the sheer terror, the aching pain as her magic slowly leeched from her system.

At first, she’d simply sat on the bottom step, certain that they were only trying to teach her a lesson, and in about twenty minutes, they would open the door, ask if she intended to ever leave the coterie again, and then release her. An hour passed, then two. She had climbed to the top of the stairs and clawed at the door until her nails were broken and bleeding. She had returned to the bottom and felt her way around the perimeter of the room, searching for something, any means of escape. She recalled finding the bathroom that she never knew before existed, and the small kitchenette with a fridge stocked with food. The light bulb inside the compact refrigerator had been removed.

On the second day she had not eaten. She had no appetite. The process of the magic leaving her system had felt as though someone were draining all of the blood out of her body, one slow, steady drip at a time.

By the third day, she had not even been able to crawl to the bathroom. In theory, she should have lasted longer than that, but she’d expended nearly all of her store of magic slipping in and out of the magical wards, so had been low when this torture began. It had occurred to her on that third day that it was lucky she was so low on magic. Otherwise, this misery would have gone on for twice as long. At that time, she hadn’t realized they intended to release her that day. She’d been certain she was going to die. All because she’d discovered her ability to slip in and out of the coterie without detection, and had gotten curious as to what was on the other side. At the time, she hadn’t realized that her ability to slip through wards was the same ability to open locked doors. Otherwise, she could have freed herself that very first day.

Just as she could now, if she weren’t psychologically paralyzed.

“Cecilia.”

She screamed again and scrabbled away from the voice, speaking to her from the darkness. The nightmare was even worse this time. Last time the silence had been so absolute, she might have welcomed the voices.

“Cici. Stop. Listen to me. I’m here.
Cici
.”

She continued to crawl around the room on all fours, desperately trying to get away from the voice that just kept following her. She screamed again and then heard a curse. She bumped into the wall, could tell it was a corner, and she huddled there, pulling her knees up tightly against her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She barely felt the sting of the iron as it burned into the flesh covering her kneecap.

Suddenly the room filled with light, so blindly bright that she instinctively lifted her arms to shield her eyes, even as she felt her body greedily soak up the artificial magic-and-life-filled brightness.

And then there was a body there, another being. Big and strong and definitely male. He crowded her, blocked out part of the light as he pulled her into his arms, dropped to the floor, and cradled her in his lap, the entire time murmuring soothing words that she hardly comprehended. She was too busy trying to wrap her confused brain around the fact that there was another person with her in the basement.
This
person.

“Finn?”

He was losing her.

It was so surreal that he could tell. But he could. It wasn’t even that he could sense her emotions. He could actually
feel
them, as if he was having the exact same emotional reaction. Except he wasn’t.

Finn didn’t have any sort of fear of dark places, and certainly not a learned one. His magic didn’t need the sun to regenerate. He wouldn’t die if he was locked in a closed, dark space for long enough.

But she would. And she knew it. She’d experienced this before. Had come far too close to dying.

Tanner had told him the story of how her parents had locked her in the basement as punishment, about how they’d had to call a healer to revive her because they’d left her down there for too long. The king had explained that he’d investigated, but Lacey and Gerard had insisted they only meant to teach her a lesson, not attempt to kill her. According to the healer who saved her, Cecilia’s magic should not have run out so quickly, unless it had been low to begin with. Knowing Cecilia, she probably had expended her magic almost to the point of no return before she’d been tossed into the basement that first time, twelve years ago. She was, after all, a damned stubborn woman who tended to react first and think later.

If her parents knew her at all, they would have known that.

“I’m not going to let you die, Cici.” He murmured the words, willing her to believe him, while she sat curled in his lap, shivering and staring, unseeing, at the wall of artificial light.

Fates above, his life was never going to be easy, was it? Not if Cecilia was in it. And if he hadn’t been sure he wanted her in it before this, there was no question now. He was alternately relieved to see her, desperate to console her, and furious that someone would deliberately do this to her. That was all on top of the very nearly overwhelming urge to couple with her, to mate with her, to ensure she was his forever and ever. It almost felt as though ten different people were living in his head, and they all had differing opinions. How the hell did Tanner handle it? He’d have to ask.
After
they got the hell out of this place.

He cradled her in his lap like a child, holding her in the circle of his arms, squeezing just tightly enough so that she felt secure, while he stroked her hair and babbled, talking about sunlight and happiness and making love on the beach on a tropical island. He promised to book a flight just as soon as they were safely out of this basement, but she needed to come back to him so that he could do it, because he sure as hell wasn’t going alone.

“What are you talking about?”

Her voice was weak and shaky, but she sounded coherent. And the tumultuous emotions banging around in his head seemed to be receding. At least, those belonging to Cecilia anyway. He pulled away just enough to look down into her face. She was pale, the gray pallor accentuated by the starkly bright lights. Her eyes were huge, blinking up at him, still clouded by confusion and fear.

“Finn?” Her fingers tightened where they’d been clinging to his shirt. He winced as her grip relieved him of a few chest hairs.

“I’m here, Cici. I’m right here.”

“What are you doing here? How do you—did you figure out this was where they were taking me?”

He winced again. She sounded so hopeful, so certain that he’d been plotting to save her. Guilt swamped him, because he hadn’t known a damn thing. Hadn’t realized something was wrong until he’d heard the sound indicating that Cecilia and whoever the hell else was upstairs had been just about to enter the front door to the cottage. He’d been too wrapped up in trying to solve the mystery of who was living down in this dark place and what his connection was to Cecilia.

His
Cecilia.

Her screams of terror still echoed in his head. He’d been at the top of the stairs, about to shift into wolf form and storm through the door, attacking everyone in the vicinity. He intended to kill them, every single last one, because they were hurting Cecilia.
His
woman.

She was, he realized. She didn’t know it yet, and they hadn’t made it official, but damn it, she was. He couldn’t live without her. He wanted her, he needed her, he had to have her, Samuel be damned.

Samuel couldn’t take care of her like Finn could. Samuel couldn’t please her like Finn could. Samuel sure as hell didn’t understand her like Finn did.

It was
him
she belonged with—not Samuel. He just had to get them out of this situation and onto that desert island, so he could coax her into admitting it. Talk her into mating with him, so there would never, ever be a doubt in anyone’s mind. She didn’t love Samuel, she loved him. He just needed to convince her it was true.

How the hell had he—the one who followed orders unconditionally—fallen so thoroughly for such a rule breaker?

Her fingers curled into his shirt, loosening more chest hair. “We’re trapped,” she said, gasping for breath. “We’re—How is it light?”

Finn nodded at the wall of artificial lights. “Fake sunlight. I doubt it was here when you were fifteen, Cici.” He deliberately used the intimate nickname, the one that once drove her nuts when he said it. Whether it warmed her soul or helped her become more lucid because it annoyed her—he’d take either option, at this point.

“Why is it here now? Why are
you
here?”

“I’m here because I was investigating, trying to figure out what the hell was going on with all the attempts on your life. By the time I realized you were in danger, they were about to toss you down the stairs,” he added, needing her to understand.

I didn’t desert you
. He had been so engrossed in what he discovered here in the basement that he hadn’t been paying attention when her emotions tried to penetrate his brain. He had no idea how long she’d been in turmoil before he realized it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Someone’s been living down here. A lightbearer, I assume. No one else would need artificial sunlight, not to this extent.”

“Cedric,” she whispered.

“Who?”

“My brother.”

“I thought your brother was dead? Ten years ago or something like that.”

She shook her head, so violently that her blonde hair fanned out behind her. “He didn’t die. It was fake. He—they—faked his death.”

“The king said the evidence implied shifters did it.”

“Contrived,” she said with such absolute conviction, he was compelled to believe her, despite the anarchy flitting around in her mind just a short time ago. But her mind was clear now. The psychosis that had gripped her when she’d been tossed into the basement was fading. He tightened his arms around her body and cursed his own body for reacting in the way it always did when he was in her vicinity. Dangerous situations be damned, his body craved Cecilia as if she were the very air he breathed.

She shifted in his lap, and he bit back a groan. Then she lifted her face and smiled so serenely, he was almost ready to forget everything else and just take her, right there in that basement, shifter-style. It would be apropos.

But then Cecilia lifted her hand and cupped his scruffy cheek. She whispered, “Thank you for saving me,” with such sincerity that his sexual thoughts took a momentary backseat to another thought, an equally as strong emotion.

I love this woman.

The hand cupping his face flared with magic and Cecilia’s eyes widened, and Finn wondered if she understood what he was thinking. He was able to feel her emotions. Could she feel his? Then he decided he didn’t give a hot damn. He needed to say the words out loud; he needed her to understand that he didn’t care what she might have felt for Samuel or any other guy. He wanted her to be his. He wanted to mate with her, to be secure in the knowledge that she would warm his bed for the rest of her life.

He knew she wasn’t the maternal sort, knew she might not even want to whelp a pup or two, and he was okay with that. His sister had given his parents a few grandpups to spoil, and his brother, Reid, was young enough that if he ever got over the psychological issues caused by Quentin Lyons, he might settle down and produce a few pups too. Finn didn’t need pups of his own to be happy. He just needed Cecilia.

“Cecilia, I—”

“He planned his own death.” Her words were stark, heavy and dripping with emotion, just as her mind was. Unlike him, she hadn’t been able to turn off their current predicament. He supposed he understood, given her history with this place, and the fact that her own brother was the mastermind behind whatever the hell problems were occurring in the coterie at the moment.