Triple Cross

by Tymber Dalton

  No one.

  It took her several minutes to calm down enough to feel able to drive. She started the car and, as quickly as she dared, headed back to the hotel.

  Chapter Six

  Elain awoke later that afternoon, disoriented and starving.

  She forced herself to lie in bed and wait until she gathered her thoughts and her wits.

  Bolivia. Ortega. Rodolfo. Yeah, got it.

  She slowly sat up, a brief wave of nausea sweeping through her before ravenous hunger took over again.

  Her stomach growled.

  She rested a hand on her abdomen. “Yeah, chill out. Give me a minute.”

  Morning sickness was apparently part of her immediate future. She’d had a couple of bouts a week or so ago, but had blamed them on bad Chinese takeout and Brodey experimenting with cooking Thai food.

  Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

  Just forty-eight hours earlier, she’d been traipsing through the Maine woods and doing a little innocent grave-robbing with the Devil himself.

  And now…

  Now I’m in fricking Bolivia.

  She stood and headed to the bathroom, took care of business, and then pulled some clothes on.

  Outside her door, the man stationed there nodded to her. “Ma’am.” His English sounded perfect and with very little accent.

  “Show me to the kitchen, please.”

  “Certainly. Please, follow me.” He led her downstairs and through the immense home into a large kitchen. She slid into the chair at one end of the large, informal table as a woman hurried into the kitchen from another door at the other end of the kitchen.

  “Mrs. Lyall, welcome,” the woman said. “I’m Rosa, Señor Montalvo’s chef. What may I fix for you today?”

  “May I suggest the crepes?” Lacey said from the doorway Elain had just entered through.

  Elain turned and found her friend smiling. “They’re good?”

  “They’re excellent.”

  Elain nodded. “Those, please.”

  Rosa broadly smiled. “Right away.”

  “And some peppermint tea,” Lacey said. “It’ll help settle your stomach.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll get the tea for her,” Lacey told Rosa. After preparing it and setting it in front of Elain, along with a spoon and a bowl of sugar, she sat in the chair on Elain’s right. “Sleep well?”

  Elain dumped a couple of spoonfuls of sugar into the tea and stirred. “Yep.” She blew across the surface of the teacup and carefully took a sip.

  Almost instantly, between the sinus-clearing peppermint aroma and the taste, Elain’s slightly querulous stomach settled.

  “Upset with me?”

  Elain closed her eyes. “No,” she softly said.

  She felt Lacey’s hand cover hers. “I’m sorry, dear. You know it had to be this way.”

  Elain nodded without opening her eyes. “Yep.”

  “So why are you here?”

  She still wouldn’t open her eyes. Frankly, she was hoping she’d open them and find herself either at home in Florida, or in Lacey’s house in Maine.

  Either one worked for her.

  If she opened her eyes, it meant she really was in fricking Bolivia. “I need some questions answered.”

  “From me?”

  “Nope.”

  Lacey sighed. Elain finally opened her eyes and stared at the Seer.

  “Do you want to know the sex of your baby?” Lacey asked.

  “First of all, is it healthy?”

  “I believe so. I’m no substitute for Dr. Alberto.”

  “Okay.” She thought about it. “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”

  Lacey smiled as she nodded.

  “Okay,” Elain said.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I had an instinct. I think I already knew I was pregnant, I just didn’t want to admit it and I was too busy with everything else to think like that. Plus, I was on the pill. I even sort of know when it happened. I’ve had this odd feeling ever since that night.”

  “That’s not uncommon,” Lacey said. “I’m guessing you haven’t told your guys yet?”

  “I’m here in fricking Bolivia,” Elain said. “Alone. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re going to have three very eager, attentive shadows for the next several months.”

  “No shit.” She took another sip of her tea.

  Someone must have told Ortega that Elain was up and about, because he entered the kitchen.

  “Good afternoon, Elain. I trust you slept well?” He leaned in and hugged her.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He pulled out the chair to her left and took a seat.

  A Seer, a retired Seer, and a jaguar walk into a kitchen…

  Elain adopted a snooty tone. “The reason I’ve assembled you all here together is because I figured out the murderer’s identity—”

  Lacey immediately picked up the convoluted thread of her thought. “Was it Mr. Marble in the garden with the hoe?”

  Elain changed voices again, this time channeling Groucho Marx. “That was no hoe. That was my wife.”

  Lacey and Elain both laughed while poor Ortega stared at them in utter confusion.

  * * * *

  After she had food in her stomach, Elain wanted to get to the meat of her purpose. “I want to talk to Marston,” she told Ortega.

  The jaguar looked decidedly uncomfortable, glancing first to Lacey and then back to her. “Elain, I—”

  “I won’t kill him. I gave you my word.”

  He stared at her for a moment before finally nodding. “Very well.”

  He led them upstairs and to the opposite end of the house, where he knocked on a large door.

  “Come in.”

  Ortega opened the door and ushered Elain and Lacey inside. Elain had to stop and stare at the man for a moment. Dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, the much older wolf looked like he’d lost a lot of weight from when she’d seen him in Arcadia. She barely recognized him.

  That he held an infant against his burp cloth-covered shoulder and stood there gently bouncing in place as he patted her back definitely didn’t jive with her mental image.

  He seemed equally shocked to see her standing there.

  Ortega cleared his throat. “Elain, please do not take any offense at what I’m about to say, but he is a guest in my home and I have offered him sanctuary. So please, I must insist I stay—”

  “Until you’re sure I won’t rip his throat out?” She didn’t pull her gaze from Marston.

  Ortega nodded. “I was there when you defeated Paul Abernathy. I am well aware of your prowess.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not going to kill him. I promise.” She held up her right pinky. “Pinky swear, remember?” She clenched and unclenched her fists as she stalked past Ortega and over to Marston.

  He said nothing as she stared up into his eyes, although he did freeze, watching her hand as she reached out and wrapped her fingers around his wrist.

  She had to know.

  Yes, he was a shit of a person for most of his life. Under other circumstances she would gladly beg Ortega for the right to kill him herself.

  Unfortunately, right now, she couldn’t. Not in good conscience. He was a desperately devoted father who felt horrible for his past deeds, riddled with guilt and self-loathing because he knew he could never completely atone for what he’d done.

  Even worse, he basically had a good heart that had turned down the wrong path and had seen no way back once he’d started.

  And now she saw the other side of the most heinous act she was aware of, the true reason he’d killed Kael’s little sister.

  It galled her to the very core of her being that she couldn’t completely fault him for the most evil deed he’d committed. The two cockatrice would have killed him and turned the girl into a breeder for their plans had he tried to rescue her.

  Letting go of him, she grimly nodded. “Fine. I get it. Lacey, take the bab
y. I need you to hold her for a couple of minutes.”

  “What?” Ortega asked.

  But Marston held up a hand to stay the jaguar. “It’s all right,” he quietly said.

  Lacey, shooting Elain a wary look, stepped forward and carefully took the infant from Marston. He arranged the burp rag on her shoulder. “Perhaps you could go into the bedroom with her,” he said, pointing to another door. “I think that would be best.”

  Lacey glanced at Elain.

  “I won’t kill him,” she flatly repeated.

  Ortega didn’t seem to know where to focus his attention. He watched Lacey walk into the bedroom, swiveled his head to stare at Elain, and back again.

  Not wanting to be accused of throwing a sucker punch, she waited until Marston was looking her squarely in the eye. Elain struck out with her right fist, catching the older wolf squarely in the nose and sending him reeling back. When Ortega stepped forward, Marston held up his hand again.

  “No. I deserve it.”

  “Damn right you fucking deserve it,” Elain growled, stepping forward with a left-handed cross that drove Marston to his knees.

  He made no attempt to protect himself.

  She stepped back. “Get up,” she snarled, her inner Alpha unsatisfied but not fighting for dominance.

  Blood dripped down his face from his nose. Already, his left cheek was swelling where she’d nailed him. Once he was back on his feet and facing her, she struck again, a rapid-fire series of punches with both hands, to his body and his face, until he dropped to his knees again.

  She backed off.

  Ortega stood, coiled and ready to pounce on her and intercede. On his hands and knees on the floor, Marston coughed and shook his head. “Stay out of it, Ortega. She’s a woman of her word.”

  “Unlike some people,” she spat at Marston.

  “I will offer no explanations, only my most sincere apologies.”

  She kicked him in the ribs, sending him flying and landing on his back with a moan. She stalked across the room, leaning over him.

  “Your ‘most sincere apologies’ won’t bring my mother back.” She kicked him in the side. “Or the years I lost with my dad.” She kicked him in the thigh. “They won’t fucking bring back Charles and Ellie Lyall, will they? Kael’s sister and parents? The people you’ve killed over the years? Bertholde?”

  She grabbed him by the shirt and jerked him to his feet, holding him up. “Lots of fucking people died or had their lives ruined because of you, asshole.”

  She decked him again with her right hand while fisting his shirt in her left to keep him upright, her rage-fueled strength likely rivaling the jaguar’s at that point. “Lots of people would fucking hate my guts, people I love, if I told them I had you right the fuck here and didn’t rip your throat out.”

  Another punch.

  “Lacey has stuck her neck out for you, risked losing everyone she loves. Because of you.” She punched him in the stomach again.

  “You’ve got eighteen fucking years to make amends. To prove why the day your daughter turns into an adult that I shouldn’t ask Ortega to take you down to his dungeon and do exactly to you what he’s doing to Rodolfo.”

  One more punch to his gut, then she dropped him.

  He collapsed to the floor, curled in a ball and coughing. Both eyes would likely be swollen shut, or nearly so, in a few minutes.

  “Anything you want to say to me?” she asked him.

  “I’m sorry, Elain. If you still feel this way when she’s eighteen, I’ll let you kill me yourself. I won’t fight back. I won’t run. I announce here and now that, as of this day, I completely and utterly submit to you.” He finally squinted up at her through swollen eyelids. “I swear it. Ortega can be my witness if you don’t believe me. And Lacey.”

  She blinked, expecting anything but that.

  Ortega stepped forward. “You are swearing an oath?” he asked Marston.

  After coughing, Marston nodded. “I know my life isn’t worth anything. If it wasn’t for Colleen, I would have let Ortega hand me over to Blackestone for death. I don’t wish to live.”

  He let out a barking laugh that dissolved into a cough. “I was cursed to find true, blessed happiness for the first time since I was very, very young, and once again, it was cruelly ripped out of my hands. I swore to my mate that I would raise our child. Once I fulfill that, do to me as you wish. Death will be a blessing.”

  A sudden wave of sympathy and heartbreak exploded inside Elain, as if from another source hidden deep inside her. She turned on her heel and ran from the room, down the halls until she found her room again. She slammed the door behind her and threw herself onto the bed, sobs locked deep inside her and clawing to get out.

  How can I feel sorry for that fucking monster?

  At some point, she heard a soft knock on her door.

  She didn’t answer.

  When it opened, she knew it was Lacey before the old Seer even said anything. Lacey closed the door and walked over to the bed. Elain felt the mattress dip next to her, then the woman’s hand stroked her shoulder.

  “Shades of grey, dear.”

  Elain rolled onto her side to stare at her. “Is this just pregnancy hormones? Because if so, okay, I can deal with that. What I cannot deal with is that I actually felt sorry for that bastard.”

  Lacey shrugged. “Could be. Could be more. You can see into souls. Perhaps you saw his true core, with all the rottenness of his deeds stripped away.”

  “Considering what’s going on in Ortega’s dungeon, I have a difficult time believing you’re okay with Marston getting a pass.”

  “He’s not getting a pass, dear. He’s racked up Karmic debt in a massive way. The Universe, it seems, is giving him a little time to chip away at that debt before calling it in.” She nodded. “I’m willing to let that happen for the greater good.”

  “What if that was Rodolfo? He had Fiona. We went in and took her.”

  “Fiona was never his to have. He abducted a woman, raped her, and then murdered her by cutting the baby from her. Marston and Mercedes were mates. He marked and claimed her the way your men marked and claimed you. She willingly became his mate, and she wanted to bear his child.”

  “But he’s as much of a monster as Rodolfo is.”

  “True. But Rodolfo never once expressed the slightest bit of remorse or even acknowledgment of his wrongdoings. Marston has.”

  “So we’re supposed to let him go about his merry way?”

  “You heard his oath. He has submitted to you. As Lina might say, you own his ass. When Colleen’s an adult, he’ll let you kill him.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “But do you want my opinion?”

  “Not really, but let’s have it.”

  “I think letting him live is a far crueler choice.”

  “Huh?”

  She shrugged. “He loved Mercedes. And she’s not the first mate he’s lost in his life. The children he loved and lost. There is a lot of grief in his soul. Some would say that is a far worse punishment, to be forced to live, than to die and be released.”

  “Or to be tortured.”

  “I’m an imperfect being, Elain. I never claimed to be any more than that.”

  She reached out and snagged Lacey’s wrist. The old Seer didn’t pull away, letting Elain search through her soul.

  Elain blew out a sharp breath. “His baby is your Colleen,” Elain whispered, finally letting her hand fall free onto the bed.

  Lacey’s expression grew hard. “Life is imperfect. Until that girl is grown, I will do whatever I must to protect Marston. Even if it means putting my own life on the line to stand up and protect him from you, or any of our Clan.”

  “Why not take him out and raise her yourself? Best of both worlds.”

  “How did you feel growing up without your father or your birth mother?” Lacey quietly asked.

  “That’s a fucking low blow.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  Elain rolled onto her back and stared
at the ceiling. Even that was tastefully and eloquently decorated, perfect curling swirls, like waves, etched in the pale blue plaster.

  “This is twenty kinds of fucked up,” Elain finally said.

  “Only twenty?”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He will be in a few days, or sooner. He is a wolf, after all.”

  “Can I hit him again when he’s healed?”

  Lacey chuckled as she got to her feet. “That’s up to you, although I would hope you’re better than that.”

  “So says the woman cheering on Ortega’s piece-by-piece disassembly of Rodolfo.”

  Lacey started toward the bedroom door before turning. “By the embers die the fire, Elain. And by the embers they are reborn. We’re all reborn, every one of us. What’s important is what we do with what we have now. Some people might argue you have been reborn, now that you have your men and realize your true heritage. And again when you were given the powers you received. Again when you become a parent. And so on. Every new stage of our lives is like a rebirth. You can either choose to nurture and feed the fire, or throw water on the embers and extinguish them. It’s completely up to you.”

  With that, Lacey left Elain alone.

  Staring up at the ceiling, Elain realized there was no way in hell she could reveal Marston’s existence to anyone. She had to protect him.

  Because she had seen the regret in his soul. She knew she couldn’t live with herself if she took his life and deprived his infant daughter of her father.

  Not to mention Mercedes saved Jim’s life. I can’t ignore that.

  She got up and went into the bathroom. She had to wash the dried blood off her hands, Marston’s and her own, but mostly Marston’s. Her hands were sore and aching, but that didn’t bother her.

  When she went to leave the room, she opened the door and found Ortega’s man standing watch. Elain wondered if he’d try to stop her. He nodded and fell in behind her as she strode down the hallway and across the house to Marston’s suite, where she knocked.

  “Come in.” His voice sounded pained.

  Good.

  She walked in. He didn’t flinch from where he sat in a chair at a small table, another man seeing to his injuries. When the medic made as if to leave, she stopped him. “No, it’s okay. Finish what you were doing. I’m not going to whack him again.”