Triple Cross

by Tymber Dalton

  “Sounds like fucking bullshit to me,” Lacey chimed in, a smile on her face.

  Everyone laughed.

  As they settled in for the flight, Elain knew she’d relax and enjoy it despite her iffy stomach. At one point she accidentally caught Ortega’s golden gaze. His eyes barely narrowed as he gave her the slightest tip of his head.

  She winked in reply.

  * * * *

  Blackie, Callie, and what Elain suspected was a well-armed contingent of Maine wolves met them at the airport and loaded them into two vans.

  “So where are we going?” Elain asked Blackie. She’d ended up in his van, while Callie had ended up in the other van.

  He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, a smile on his face. “I was sworn to secrecy.”

  Their destination turned out to be Oscar and Gigi’s house inside the Maine Clan compound. Gigi and Kitty were already there waiting. When the women walked in, Lina, Mai, Lacey, Kitty, and Gigi all yelled, “Surprise!”

  And, as Elain had suspected, the surprise bridal shower for her, her mom, and Callie was off to a roaring start.

  She also understood why Blackie, Oscar, Wally, Jocko, and a few other shifters hung around, staying on the back and front porches while the women enjoyed an early dinner, cake, and some bawdy party games before unwrapping presents.

  At one point, Elain stepped away, excusing herself to the bathroom. She also called Ain.

  “You’re sneaky,” she teased when he answered.

  “You wouldn’t have wanted me to ruin their surprise, would you?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  “Hey, no thanks required, sweetheart. Hold on, here’s Brodey.”

  “He didn’t tackle you?”

  “Not this time.”

  After she talked to Brodey and Cail, she returned to the celebration.

  BettLynn had shifted at one point and now playfully ran around on the floor, Jasper shadowing her as if he’d made it his responsibility to keep an eye on her.

  By the time they finished their celebrations and had been shuttled to the large guest cabin they usually stayed in when at the compound, Elain felt ready to collapse. Before Elain headed to bed, Lacey, who was about to go home, pulled her aside.

  “I’ll leave Jasper here tonight.”

  “You don’t think it’s safe? We have twenty shifters around. Maybe you should stay here.”

  She shrugged. “Blackie has a couple of guys guarding my house. I’d feel better with him here with you tonight. With BettLynn.”

  “Okay.” She started to turn away, then stopped. “Have you seen anything?”

  “No. And I do mean no,” Lacey quickly added. “Not even a gut instinct. And yes, my host during my vacation took me out shooting and made sure I was proficient with all of the firearms he insisted I bring home with me.”

  Elain hugged her good-night. “He is a good host,” she joked.

  “For some of us, leastways, such as you and me.” Lacey winked. “Good night, my dear. Sleep well.”

  * * * *

  Ain lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. He missed Elain but knew she was safe with the others. When Lacey had called him the day before about the plans for the surprise baby shower, he and his brothers had readily agreed.

  He just didn’t understand why Lacey was calling him from one of Ortega Montalvo’s private cell phones.

  He didn’t ask, either. He’d answered the phone thinking it was the jaguar, and had been a little thrown off at first to discover it was Lacey.

  Sometimes, he wondered if the old Seer could sense what he’d done so long ago. He tried not to think about the baby he’d unintentionally murdered, cockatrice or not. But now that he was about to become a father, sometimes it felt like he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  The guilt.

  The self-loathing.

  At least Brighton had left. There were a few times his goofball brother had acted like he wanted to talk to him about something, but then someone else would come into the room and he’d drop it.

  Probably another stupid conspiracy theory.

  He softly snorted. They had enough bullshit in their lives to worry about without Brighton making up crazy crap.

  At least the cockatrice had gone relatively quiet. For now. With winter on the way, hopefully things would stay that way once it got too cold for them.

  He rolled over and tried to go to sleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Life seemed to settle down. Elain pushed Aliah and the missing spellbook out of her mind. No matter how she tried, she didn’t get any visions of where the cockatrice was. Neither did her fellow Seers.

  She decided not to let it rule her life.

  Right now, Lamaze classes, helping Mai and her men get settled in their new home, and preparing for the holidays was her focus. The Beasts turned one year old, prompting a large party. There was a fall Gathering in Yellowstone, but all the Lyall women stayed home. Ain and Brodey were the only ones from their immediate Florida family who attended.

  It went off without a hitch.

  Thanksgiving passed, followed by BettLynn’s first birthday three days later, with another large party to celebrate. Then December was upon them. Elain had the tree up and the house decorated by the second of December, her men gladly pitching in to help as her baby belly began to make itself known.

  It was on the morning of the tenth, when Elain waddled her way out to the kitchen to start the morning coffee, that all hell broke loose.

  Elain’s mom slowly made her way down the hallway toward the kitchen, her dad already out at the barns with the other Lyall men. It was a little odd not having Mai, Micah, Jim, and BettLynn there first thing every morning, but Mai always came over once she had her morning started. Elain knew the young mother never had a home of her own as an adult before now, and was enjoying setting her own routines for her family.

  But…something was different.

  “You all right, Mom?” Elain asked her.

  Carla shook her head as she winced, bracing herself against the counter. “I’m not sure, but I think I’m in labor.”

  Elain dropped the measuring cup she’d been using to fill the filter, sending coffee grounds all over the counter and floor. “Crap! Not about that,” she quickly added.

  Carla nodded. “I know, sweetie. Do me a favor, call your father for me, and Dr. Alberto.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Actually, her first call was to Mai. Her dad had just answered his cell when Mai, carrying a shifted BettLynn, came racing through the front door. “I called Lina,” she said. “She’s on her way over.” Lina and her guys had completed their move to the temporary house one property over right before Halloween.

  Then her mom let out a cry. Elain turned to see her water had broken.

  “Code baby, Dad,” Elain told him before he could ask any questions. “Come back to the house. Now.” She hung up on him and dialed Ain’s number.

  The next fifteen minutes were a flurry of activity of the women changing clothes, making calls, packing, and getting vehicles arranged. Dr. Alberto met them at the hospital, and then…

  Four hours later, nothing.

  And as day bled into night, and into the next morning, Elain, Mai, and Lina stayed there with Carla, not moving from her side except for bathroom breaks. Their men brought them food, but the women didn’t want to leave. The baby was healthy and had good vital signs. It just wasn’t…coming out.

  Lacey had even made it down from Maine, showing up a little after ten o’clock that morning to add her moral support.

  By that evening, Dr. Alberto had mentioned a C-section.

  “There’s got to be another way,” Mai said. She looked at Lina and Elain. “Can’t we try something?”

  “It won’t hurt Elain’s baby, will it?” Ain asked.

  “Let me ask the expert,” Lacey said as she whipped out her cell phone. After a quick consultation with a very pregnant Callie, Lacey had their answer. “She says it won’t.”
>
  Elain shrugged. “Let’s try it.”

  Dr. Alberto cleared out extra staff, except for her nurse, who was also a shifter. With Ain standing against the door and keeping anyone from walking in, Lina, Elain, and Mai gathered around the head of Carla’s bed while Liam held her hand.

  Lina had ended up at the head of the bed, in the middle, with Mai and Elain flanking her. She frowned. “This doesn’t feel right,” she said. “Elain, switch.”

  Elain did, Lina now on her mom’s right side as Elain took the center position.

  Lina nodded. “Much better. Hands.”

  Mai and Lina linked hands across the bed, while Elain held both their hands.

  “Close your eyes and hang on tight,” Lina said. “We’re going to wing it.”

  Elain felt the familiar energy spill through them, the circuit completed, the magick flowing.

  Lina didn’t chant aloud, but Elain felt her silent words, her intent, as it flowed through the circuit. Mai added her intent to it, leaving Elain to step into the magickal energy stream connecting them.

  Hesitantly, she did.

  And then, between them, an invisible orb formed in Elain’s mind. She saw them guiding the gentle energy, sweet, loving, and warm, and sinking it into her mom’s belly, into the baby there.

  Carla let out a cry and started pushing.

  “That’s it,” Dr. Alberto said. “Good, hard push.”

  Elain struggled to keep her focus on maintaining the energy orb. She felt how close to the surface her other talents were, how thin the veil lay between what she was doing and other things.

  Like who her mom might have been in another life. Who her baby, Elain’s little brother, might have been.

  Things Elain desperately knew she did not want to know, had for months struggled not to find out about them or others she loved.

  She didn’t want to know. Didn’t want those kinds of things to be part of her everyday life.

  “Okay, stop pushing,” the doctor said.

  Elain’s dad murmured encouragement to his mate, comforting her.

  After a moment, Dr. Alberto spoke again. “Okay, he’s crowning. Give me another good push, Carla.”

  Her mom did, grunting, straining, until it turned into a scream, and then a triumphant cry suddenly echoed by a wailing baby.

  “Aaand we’re done,” Lina said, releasing Elain and Mai’s hands.

  Elain opened her eyes, the room spinning as the circuit was broken.

  Ain was suddenly standing behind her, supporting her. “Are you all right?”

  She took a deep breath, the momentary dizziness subsiding. “Yeah, I’m good. Just exhausted.” She hadn’t slept at all, staying with her mom, unwilling to leave her side during her labor. “Just need some coffee.”

  She also needed to get out of the room, and fast. She didn’t want to touch her mom, her father, or her little brother right then.

  She knew if she did, she’d see their souls. She was too exhausted to hold the barriers in place that kept her sane and safe behind a mental wall. As it was, she’d barely managed not to see deep into Ain’s soul.

  She drew away from Ain. With him following, she rushed out of the room, putting up a staying hand when he tried to follow. “No, I’m good. I’m going to get coffee. I’ll be right back.”

  The floor had a snack alcove for patients and their families. There, Elain impatiently waited for the coffeemaker to start its magic mojo. Tapping her fingers on the counter, she tried to ignore how much she currently hated herself at that moment. That she’d been too chickenshit to even touch her mom and baby brother.

  Too afraid.

  She absolutely did not want to know who they might have been.

  Nope. Can’t make me.

  Although she realized that was impractical and unrealistic. She couldn’t go through life not touching her little brother or her mother. Her father, even. Not holding or hugging him, or helping her parents out with him.

  Lacey spoke from behind her. “It’s started, hasn’t it?”

  Elain turned. “What?”

  The old Seer shrugged. “You know what I mean. You see far more than emotions, or snippets of visions.” She stepped closer. “You see back, deep, into the abyss. You can read the tapestries, see the threads.”

  Elain struggled to make sense of her friend’s words. She was extremely caffeine-deprived, as well as starved for sleep, and emotionally wrung out in addition to the hormonal pregnancy Tilt-A-Whirl she was riding. “What?”

  The knowing smile on Lacey’s face made Elain want to scream. “One of your talents,” she softly said, “is to see souls. Not just emotions. You see who people are. Who they were. Likely, you can read their energy, see their shifter lines—if any. And see their energy, if they’re an Alpha or not. Better and more strongly than anyone I’ve ever known.”

  “I do not want to talk about this.” She tried to step around Lacey, but the Seer didn’t budge. Honestly, with Marston tucked conveniently out of sight and out of mind in fricking Bolivia, she hadn’t wanted to think about any of that.

  Why couldn’t I have gotten fireballs like Lina?

  “You don’t have to talk about it. You just have to do it. It’s not something to be afraid of, Elain. It’s part of your heritage as a Seer.”

  “I didn’t ask—” She nodded to a nurse walking past the alcove door before lowering her voice. “I didn’t ask for this job.”

  “None of us did. It could just as easily have been me or Bertholde in your shoes.”

  “No,” Elain hissed, “because that prissy bitch didn’t handpick you guys for the job, did she? A job we didn’t want, but apparently Baba Yutzhead decided we needed to have.”

  Yep. Elain really had to fight not to slap the smile off Lacey’s face.

  “You’re missing the point,” Lacey said. “Baba Yaga was merely a facilitator. Do you honestly think if the powers above her didn’t want things to turn out this way that they wouldn’t have changed them at their whim?”

  “I don’t honestly know what to think anymore. Frankly, part of me wonders if I didn’t knock myself into a coma that day when Cail was trying to help me out by chasing me and I ran into a fricking tree. I might be lying in a hospital bed in a coma and dreaming all of this.”

  Lacey reached out, lightning fast, and pinched Elain’s arm.

  Elain jerked away. “Fucking ow!” She rubbed the spot. “What the hell was that for?”

  “Do you still think you’re in a coma?”

  When Lacey reached out toward Elain again, she stepped back and out of the older woman’s reach.

  “Stop it, all right? Geez.”

  “Then grow up. We all adapted. You have no choice. You will get through it. Stop overthinking every damn thing and learn to trust your instincts. Once you do that, you will be a far happier person.”

  “Not exactly in my DNA.”

  Lacey jabbed a finger at her as fire flared in her eyes. “You’re wrong. It is in your DNA, because you’re a Seer. So quit being so self-centered and suck it up—as you and Lina like to say—and fucking deal with it.” She turned on her heel and silently stormed out of the room, leaving Elain still rubbing the sore spot on her arm as she watched her go.

  Brodey, staring down the hall in the direction Lacey went, stepped into the doorway. “You all right, babe?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “I just got told to suck it up.”

  Frowning, he walked over to her. “What?”

  She tipped her head in the direction Lacey went. “I basically got told I think too much and to stop whining.” She snorted. “Oh, yah, get this, I’m supposed to be able to see souls, according to her.”

  Brodey’s expression didn’t change.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Well, duh.”

  She reeled in her inner Alpha’s leash, who wanted to go smack Brodey upside his head. “What?”

  He smiled. “I don’t mean about her telling y
ou to suck it up. You do tend to overthink things and not trust your gut enough. Seers have always been able to see souls. Shifters, well, the predators who have that kind of dynamic, always take their babies to their Clan’s Seer to find out if they’re an Alpha or what.” He shrugged. “It’s kinda what ya do.”

  She fumed. “I wish someone would compile a list of things we’re supposed to do. My patience grows shorter in direct proportion to my midline expanding.”

  He held up his index finger. “There’s item number one.” He grinned.

  Something about that grin totally popped her ire. No matter what, she could never stay angry at Brodey. Not for long.

  He opened his arms to her and she snuggled into his embrace, making sure to hold her mental barrier as she did. “I’m just so tired,” she whispered, struggling not to burst into tears. Whether hormones, sleep deprivation, stress, or a combination of everything, she just wanted to chill out for a little while.

  Brodey guided her down to the chairs, still holding her close. “Lean on us. You keep trying to do this all on your own. I know you have Seer stuff we can’t help with, but even if it’s just this, needing a cuddle or a cry or whatever—”

  “I’m sooo not in the mood for you to get frisky right now.”

  He let out a slightly disgusted sigh. “I didn’t mean that, babe. I meant non-sexy cuddles.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He nuzzled the top of her head, his breath warm against her scalp. “Let us help you out. Please? Let us be not just your husbands and your mates. Let us be your partners. We’ll follow you anywhere, do anything for you. Even if it’s nothing more than standing behind you and watching your back for you. That’s our job. Please, let us do it.”

  She’d spent her entire life trying to be independent, watching, and later appreciating, how her single mother had raised her. Wanting to be just like her, to go on and do even more and make her proud.

  To make her see her sacrifices all those years were not in vain.

  Elain pressed her face against his shirt. “I don’t know if I know how,” she admitted.