Into the Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

currency.”
    Olivia thought her cousin sounded awfully damn worldly. She had been impressed and a little jealous. Olivia had never done anything but follow the rules, for all of her life, and now she was faced with the prospect of being utterly miserable for all the rest of it. Cecilia had been a rebel from day one, and unless Olivia missed her mark, her cousin was far happier than Olivia probably ever would be.
    “Las Vegas?” Olivia had said two days later, as she and Cecilia stepped off yet another bus, into a wall of breathtaking heat. Along with the heat had been the unrelentingly bright sun, which had been admittedly nice after being surrounded by iron for the last two days. Olivia had lifted her face and closed her eyes and soaked up the regenerating rays.
    “Sin City,” Cecilia said with a giggle.
    “You’ve been here before?” It had seemed an awfully long way away from their home. Despite lamenting that she wanted some excitement in her life, Olivia had felt distinctly nervous and exposed at the time. But if Cecilia had been to this place without issue in the past…
    “Oh no. I’ve only read about it. I cannot wait to see for myself if all of those tales are true.” With those words, she had grabbed Olivia’s hand and dragged her down the street, toward the bright lights and neon signs and throngs of humans milling about.
    “My father is going to kill me,” Olivia had complained after the first several hours of exploring Vegas and discovering the human world was far more…different than she could have possibly imagined.
    “No he won’t. You’re his only heir,” Cecilia had pointed out. She had grabbed Olivia’s hand again. “Come on. Let’s go play.”
    They had played for three days. They gambled in opulent casinos and dined at fabulous restaurants. They watched a multitude of shows and had a chuckle over the fact that the acrobats flying through the air were not human, but the rest of the audience had no earthly idea.
    Cecilia had flirted with every good-looking male who crossed her path, while Olivia had politely declined every offer of a drink, a dance, a front-row seat.
    “Live a little, Olivia,” Cecilia had admonished on the third day. “Soon enough, you’ll be tied down and will never get to experiences this again.” She had then shuddered as if she’d said something particularly repulsive, and then she’d informed Olivia that she was taking her current companion up to their room for a little private time, and would Olivia mind giving her an hour or so?
    That had been when Olivia found herself wandering about a casino alone, and when she had all but stumbled into the arms of a small group of shifters who were quite possibly even more shocked to see her than she was to see them.
    How long had it been since she was kidnapped from the casino? At least a full day, Olivia was certain of it. She wondered if Cecilia was okay, and how she handled it when she figured out Olivia was gone. She prayed to every fate there ever was that Cecilia had not suffered the same fate as Olivia. She doubted very much there were two shifters like the one who introduced himself as Tanner Lyons, that impossibly tall, impossibly handsome shifter who she had no business feeling either beholden or attracted to.
    But for all the lights, that man was the single most attractive male she had ever laid eyes on in her life. All that shaggy dark hair that was just a little too long to be proper, and those pale, pale blue eyes, the facial hair that fell somewhere between stubble and a full beard. Olivia found herself sucking in a breath as she recalled the thick, corded muscles of his arms, the wide chest, the—
    She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to watch as a shadow moved from where it had been standing in front of the window. The room brightened just a little, although Olivia could see that there was a shade covering the window, keeping out the sunlight she needed to restore her