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spending time with Finn and Tanner and the other shifters who lived within the coterie. She had laughed and said, “If you think you can keep Finn away, by all means.” But when they’d appeared to consider taking her seriously, she’d backpedaled.
    “They’re perfectly harmless individuals,” she defended.
    “They come from the pack that was most notorious for wanting to kill our kind,” her father argued. “They nearly killed our princess. And now they’ve put a shifter in her belly.”
    “ They haven’t,” she’d drawled. “Just Tanner. He would murder with his bare hands anyone else who touched her. He’s madly in love with her. Why are you so blind to that?”
    They still refused to see, and Cecilia refused to change her stance. By the end of the week, she had resorted to simply hiding out in her bedchamber. By that morning, she had to get away.
    The village proper sat on a vast stretch of hilly beach that reached from the Great Lake to the edge of the cliff, upon which the king’s beach house perched. Small clusters of trees that had managed to survive the dry, sandy landscape huddled here and there, as if seeking warmth from one another, while they waited for spring to pull the leaves from their currently dormant branches.
    The village square was the apex, with various storefronts, restaurants, and taverns all lined up like weathered wooden soldiers. There was a park in the middle of the square. During the summer months, it was a riot of wildflowers, surrounded by wooden benches where lightbearers liked to sit and enjoy the sun’s regenerating energy.
    Cottages surrounded the square. Those closest were packed together as tightly as sardines, and as one walked farther away from the square, each cottage had a more and more sandy yard, and the neighbors became more distant. A thick swath of trees ran the length of the beach, from the base of the cliff almost to the water’s edge. A few cottages had been built in those woods. Finn’s home, she knew, was one of them. Her parents’ cottage was just on the edge of those trees. Cecilia wondered if they knew that a shifter lived so close. Probably not. Knowing them, they would insist one or the other move, and she knew Finn well enough to know it wouldn’t be him.
    She wondered where he was, but considering dawn was just breaking, she figured he was likely still in bed. She then wondered if he was alone, and she immediately stopped that train of thought because she did not like the red-hot jealousy that surged in her chest. She had no reason to be jealous of Finn or whatever other lightbearer he chose to take to his bed.
    Thinking about Finn in bed annoyed her because it reminded her of how long it had been since she’d had such pleasure, and it was entirely his fault. She gave serious consideration to slipping out of the coterie then and there, but she knew that the human world did not wake at dawn, and she didn’t really know what to do with herself while she waited for her favorite tavern to open so she could seek a companion for the afternoon.
    Instead, she wandered along the forest’s edge until her boots nearly touched the icy water lapping at the beach. She could see chunks of ice floating in the lake. Experience told her that soon the lake would be frozen over, and it would be impossible to navigate the waters in small crafts, such as kayaks.
    Which meant she had precious few opportunities left to meet the sun out on the water, where there was no barrier between her and its soothing, regenerating rays. Soaking up the sun while out on the water was like getting a double dose of sunlight, as it not only poured into her from above, but reflected off the water as well.
    Cecilia slipped out onto the great lake to meet the sun at dawn far more frequently than she attempted to slip out of the coterie. So far, no one had stopped her from that particular activity, not even Finn. Then again, Finn was not likely ever to awake at dawn. Especially if he’d