Free Dawning of Light by Tami Lund

feeling okay?”
    I feel like I want to throw myself at Finnegan and beg him to use that feather on me .
    “It’s probably because I just woke up.”
    “I like to catch the sunrise too,” Samuel said, speaking for the first time since Cecilia joined them.
    She nearly groaned. She and Samuel spent one night together about a million years ago. They parted as friends, and she had never really considered pursuing anything more, mostly because at the time, she hadn’t been interested in anything else. The idea of him courting her now seemed so…awkward. And that was beside her determination not to mate with a lightbearer at all.
    Lacey smiled at him before commenting to Cecilia, “Next time, you should take Samuel with you. Then your father and I wouldn’t have to worry.”
    Cecilia didn’t respond. Her parents spent more time worrying that she might be attracted to the wrong sort than worrying about her safety. Samuel, not surprisingly, was exactly the right sort . Lucky Cecilia.
    “I’m going to head up to the beach house,” she announced after Samuel helped her clear and wash the lunch dishes.
    “I’ll walk you there,” Samuel suggested, which her parents naturally thought was a marvelous idea. Since her options were to hang out at the house with Samuel and her parents or let Samuel escort her up to the beach house, she decided to go with option number two. Hopefully, she could ditch him once she found Olivia.
    So Samuel escorted her down the flagstone path and up the stone steps built into the side of the cliff, to the front door of the king’s beach house. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop there, but followed her inside. Even more unfortunate, he stayed.
    * * * *
    “Lights above, that man does not take a hint,” Cecilia complained when she and Olivia returned to the entertainment room after finally escorting Samuel out the front door. Shortly after he moved into the beach house, Tanner had overseen the remodeling of this wing of the house. What had once been a series of small parlors was now one vast room, complete with a movie screen covering one wall and a full-service wet bar in one corner. Unlike most other windows in the house, the ones in this room had curtains that could be pulled to block out the light, thus making movie watching more enjoyable.
    “He didn’t do anything overtly annoying today,” Olivia commented as she pulled two bottles of water out of the glass-fronted refrigerator behind the bar. She walked to the couch, handed Cecilia one of the bottles, and then sat down next to her.
    “He did seem to be on his best behavior,” Cecilia admitted. “But I know what he’s up to.”
    “Are you not ready to settle down at all, or is it just Samuel?” Olivia wondered.
    “Both,” Cecilia replied. “Although, in truth, it’s mostly the idea of settling with a lightbearer.”
    “We are not all like your parents, Cici. In fact, I would say the vast majority are not.”
    “That isn’t the point. I simply do not want to give them the satisfaction. It will be like letting them win, and I refuse to do that.”
    “You should not allow them to influence your decision like this,” Olivia chided. “What if the most utterly perfect lightbearer came along, but you refused to see it, because of your parents?”
    “I don’t think that will be a problem. Look at you. You have always been the good one of the two of us, and you went against your parents’ wishes and mated with Tanner.”
    Olivia’s hand lifted of its own accord and rested on her slightly rounded belly. “My parents have finally come around. I still cannot believe my father publicly proclaimed my pup as his heir.”
    “Good for Uncle Sander,” Cecilia said fiercely. If only her parents were half as open-minded.
    Olivia smiled. “Did I tell you he asked me just this morning if he could perform the lightbearer union ceremony? He said it would make him feel better about our relationship. It was such an awkward conversation, because