Light Beyond the Darkness by Tami Lund

not only from his family, but from everyone. This obsession he’d developed for Carley, this was the first time since that fateful day that he’d allowed anyone at all to get close to him. And yet, he recognized that he was still keeping her at arm’s length. They might share a bed; they might share amazing orgasms; he might feel more comfortable around her than he had with anyone in a very long time—but there were still limits to how much he could give to another person.
    What else was he feeling at the moment? Finn—or Finnegan, as he’d been dubbed at birth—had been one of the favorites, when Quentin ruled their pack. He had almost unparalleled tracking skills, so the pack master had always kept him close at hand, and let Finn get away with far more than lesser shifters. Reid knew this firsthand. All Reid had done was sleep with one of Quentin’s many, many bedmates, and he’d been flogged to within an inch of his life.
    He tried not to dwell on it, but the memories swamped him anyway. It had been so long since he allowed himself to think about the details, to recall that horrible day that had changed his life forever.
    He hadn’t exactly been looking to get laid by the young, sex-kitten shifter. Quentin had chosen her as his latest plaything, so Quentin’s guards had to endure it when she strutted around in barely there clothing, even when he wasn’t home. At the time, Reid had thought he was the only one. But now that the memories were forcing themselves to the forefront of his mind, he realized that hadn’t been the case at all.
    He’d been the one who got caught.
    * * * *
    “You don’t even look at me when I’m in the room,” she said, her full red lips pouting.
    She was dressed in her signature look: a tight wraparound shirt with a deep V-neck, and a little black leather skirt that did not allow her enough room to bend over without showing off her…assets. Assets that were strictly off-limits. She belonged to Quentin, at least for now. Maybe, after the pack master tired of her—because Reid knew he would, eventually—maybe then Reid would consider what she so blatantly offered. Except then she would be the other shifter’s castoff, and did he really want to dally with that?
    “You’re Quentin’s,” he said, simply, because really, that explained everything.
    “I don’t belong to anyone.” She strutted through the room, her hips swaying far more than necessary under that barely there skirt. Reid’s gaze locked on her ass, despite his intention not to look. But damn, she was fucking hot. And she knew it.
    “You’re the pack master’s girlfriend. That makes you off-limits.” Thank the fates they were alone in the house at the moment. If anyone overheard this conversation, it would surely get back to Quentin. Shifters were notorious rumormongers. Reid had to suppress a shudder at the idea of what the pack master would do to him if he found out he was talking so openly with the man’s latest paramour. Reid didn’t have quite the same standing in the pack as his brother, Finn, did. If he pissed off Quentin, that man would show no mercy.
    “I’m the pack master’s occasional fuck,” she amended. “Too occasional. And because of that, I can’t get it from anyone else.”
    They were in the lower level of Quentin’s three-story mansion, in the playroom. The room contained a pool table, which was one of the pack master’s favorite toys, when he wasn’t fucking pretty young shifters. Reid had been idly practicing his game when she walked in. When he bent at the waist to take another shot, she deliberately walked behind him, slid her hand across the ass of his jeans. His dick gave a hopeful jump, and he cursed his own body’s reaction, even though it was purely instinctual. She was smokin’ hot, and she was making it damned obvious she was interested.
    But she was off-limits.
    “Plus, he’s old.” Reid caught the wrinkling of her pert nose, out of the corner of his eye. “His