Ortega and his wife returned. “Elain, Rosa asked me to find out if you have any special dietary needs, or food allergies, before she starts dinner.”
“I’m good. I’ll eat pretty much anything, as long as it’s not so spicy my tongue falls off.”
She was glad to see Fiona smiled at that. “Did you meet Uncle Marston yet?” Fiona asked. “He’s not really my uncle,” she confided. “He’s a cousin, but he’s old.”
Elain hoped the smile hadn’t slipped from her face. “Yes, I’ve met him before.”
“Fiona,” Lucy said, “since your homework is done, you may go watch TV downstairs.”
“Thank you, Grandma!” She hugged Elain, who was relieved to feel the girl’s anger had receded, replaced by normal kid joy over television time. Then she ran over and hugged her grandparents before heading out the door.
“Well?” Ortega asked. “What do you think?”
“I think she’ll be okay. She’s got a long road ahead of her, but it’s a far better one than she would have had.”
Let’s just hope she never finds out the full truth and comes to distrust Ortega and the others. Or me.
* * * *
Lacey brought baby Colleen downstairs in an infant carrier. Through Lacey, Marston offered his apologies, that he would take his dinner in his room that night because he felt a little ill and didn’t want to pass it around.
It was a good enough story for Fiona, who insisted Elain sit next to her and rattled off rapid-fire stories of things she’d been doing and people she was getting to know since arriving in Bolivia.
The poor kid had been isolated from other children all her life. Now, she was learning what it was like to be a normal child, to play, to explore. And Ortega, his wife, and the entire household were getting better with their English, since Fiona didn’t speak any Spanish when she arrived, and Marston spoke very little. Although it seemed Fiona’s multilingual skills were rapidly improving daily.
A few times, Elain innocently touched the girl’s hand or arm during dinner, trying to sense more about her mood. She was glad to see that the anger seemed to come and go and wasn’t anchored to Fiona’s psyche with any great depth or permanency.
After dinner, Lucy sent Fiona upstairs to get her bath while the adults sat and talked.
“I think she’ll be okay,” Elain told them. “But I told her if she ever wanted to talk, you’d help her call me.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Elain. We appreciate it.”
“I hope you’re not too mad at me about earlier. With Marston.”
He smiled. “I was surprised he took it so well. I honestly thought he’d be crying and begging for mercy. What is your American phrase? He has bigger balls than I thought.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Lacey chastised. “She’ll want to do it again.”
“I wasn’t encouraging her,” Ortega said. “Merely pointing out the facts.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to slug him again.” Elain flexed her sore hands, which still bore bruises and abrasions from earlier. “I’m done with the hitty and back to the talky. I’m also thinking I’ll go online and see if I can get a flight out tomorrow.”
Ortega looked and sounded practically insulted. “You’ll do no such thing. When you wish to return to Maine, my jet will fly you there, or anywhere else you wish to go.”
She hoped it was just another bout of hormones that nearly made her want to burst into tears of gratitude. Somehow, she reeled them in. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure.” He dazzled her with his smile. “You are our Clan Seer. I will not have you traveling in any fashion except the best I can provide.”
“Watch it, or you’ll spoil me.”
“How do you think the rascal’s kept me by his side all these years,” Lucy teased, smiling at her husband in a loving way that almost broke through what little reserve Elain had in holding back her tears.
I miss my guys. “Okay, then thank you. I appreciate it, and accept your offer. Can we leave after breakfast?”
“Anytime you wish.”
“After breakfast is fine.” Then she had another thought. “Wait, scratch that. Uh, no pun intended. Can you take me to where my dad lived?”
He scowled. “Of course I can, but it’s several hours away, and involves a hike.”
“That’s fine.”
“I’ll take you personally. Marco can accompany us.”
“Okay. How about this. We do that tomorrow, then the day after, I go back.”
“Very well, but may I ask why you wish to see it?”
She shrugged. “He sacrificed a lot for me. The least I can do is make sure I never forget what he went through.”
After they finished dinner, Elain offered to take Colleen up to Marston. “I didn’t slug him again when I went back before dinner,” she told Lacey. “I’ll behave.”
Lacey handed the baby over and gave Elain a kiss on the cheek. “Sleep well, dear.”
“I hope so.”
Upstairs, she knocked on Marston’s door.
“Come in.”
She entered with the baby. He didn’t seem surprised to see Elain. Standing slowly and with some difficulty, he walked over to meet her in the foyer. “Thank you for bringing her back,” he said as he took the carrier from her.
“You didn’t think I’d kidnap her, did you?”
“No, I meant bringing her upstairs. It honestly hadn’t crossed my mind that you might do that.”
She followed him out of the living room and into the nursery, where he lifted Colleen from the carrier and put her on the changing table. Elain leaned against the doorway, watching while he seemed to be a perfect, doting, loving father.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she told him.
He didn’t take his eyes off his daughter. “I won’t.”
“Because if you do—”
“I won’t,” he repeated, this time meeting her gaze. “I know my word is no good to you, but I won’t make you regret it. Any of you.”
“Okay. As long as we’re clear.”
“We are.”
Once he had the baby changed and ready for bed, he kissed her forehead before gently tucking her into her crib and heading for the door. He switched the light off and Elain stepped out of his way, following him back to the living room.
“I need the address for the house in Maine, where you and Mercedes hid out.”
He walked over to the counter of the small efficiency kitchen that was part of his suite. A notepad and pen sat there. “It was just outside and bordering a state forest, about thirty miles from the center of the Maine wolf territory by road, maybe ten directly overland.”
She frowned. “That close?”
“Mercedes’ theory was that no one would ever think of a cockatrice, or a hybrid one, living that close to the wolves. Remember, she passed to wolves as a wolf.”
“True.”
He seemed to think of something. “Wait a moment.” He disappeared into the bedroom. When he returned, he held a set of keys. “Here. This will make it easier.”
She took them. “Thanks.”
“Her car should still be there, too. Feel free to use it if you need to.”
“Thanks.” She hefted the keys in her hand. “I have another question.”
“Yes?”
“You’re gay. Why’d you take female mates not once, but twice?”
He returned to the counter to write out the address. “You saw my heart. That should be obvious.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
He finished writing and tore the paper off, handing it to her before he met her gaze through eyelids that, while still swollen, looked like they’d healed a little in the time since their encounter. “I did what was expected of me in my first marriage. It was the times, obviously. It’s not like it is now. I loved my mate and my children very much, even if there was little passion of a sexual nature. With Mercedes…”
She watched his thoughts drift to his recent grief.
<
br /> “We were a match made in hell, in some ways,” he said, a smile curling his lips. “And in others, we were perfectly paired. We had a common enemy. Frankly? She would have used me whether I wanted her to do so or not. I proposed a compromise that worked to both our advantages. I came to love her, in my way, and she me.”
“With passion.”
He shrugged. “I’ll admit that, early on, the humiliation aspect was more revenge on my part than anything, but when I realized she actually enjoyed being dominated in that way, and was willing to let me do things to her that I’d rarely had a chance to do with a willing partner before…” He sighed. “We had fun.”
“She ratted you out to us, you know.”
“I know. Lacey told me. Based on the timing, I believe that was done before we mated.”
“You hope it was.”
“It’s in the past. It cannot be undone.”
“You know you basically have a death sentence hanging over your head, right? I don’t know if anything you ever do is going to be able to change that.”
“Eighteen hours, days, or years, it’s still going to be there.”
She held out her hand to him. When he stared at it, she smirked. “No trick.”
He shook with her. “Thank you, Elain.”
“Yeah, you thank me now.” She released his hand after feeling his gratitude begin to swell toward her. “You just wait, Damocles. You just wait.”
* * * *
The next morning, Elain, Marco, and Ortega headed out after breakfast. In daylight, she saw the country was beautiful, albeit rugged in places. Ortega’s compound was far larger than she’d imagined and contained more than just his house. Behind his home, inside the same protective walls, lay the homes of his two brothers, as well as a sister, and several of Ortega’s children, and those of his brothers and sister. It was almost a self-contained town within those confines. The village his compound abutted lay behind it, on the other side, and was the home to most of Ortega’s men.
Anyone trying to cause trouble in that part of Bolivia would soon wish they hadn’t. They would, literally, let more than one cat out of the bag.
Very large, very powerful cats, who wielded automatic weapons with great skill and ease.
As they drove through the countryside, Elain listened as Ortega gave her information about the area, reciting history and anecdotes as they passed various places of interest.
When they pulled into the yard outside an old mission church, Marco parked and shut off the SUV. The little church wasn’t much. Like something out of a movie, chickens and a goat ranged freely through the yard.
An older man emerged from the church, hurrying over to the SUV as they got out. He bowed his head as he reached out and clasped Ortega’s hand, his Spanish unintelligible to Elain, but his tone perfectly clear.
He was welcoming the jaguar as an honored visitor.
Ortega gave him a friendly smile as he pulled the padre in for a hug. Marco walked around to the back of the SUV and unloaded three large, plastic storage totes, which made the padre’s eyes widen. The padre shook the jaguar’s hand again, even more eagerly.
Ortega helped Marco move the storage totes into the small shack next to the church. Inside, Ortega helped the padre unpack them. Medicine, medical supplies, vaccinations—some of which immediately went into an ancient-looking refrigerator in the corner—and other items.
After the empty totes were stacked by the door, Ortega reached into his pocket and withdrew a wad of bills, which he pressed into the padre’s hand.
Tears filled the man’s eyes as he hugged the jaguar.
No matter what little personal culinary science experiments he was conducting in his dungeon, Ortega made up for it in other ways, apparently.
After concluding their business, Ortega turned to Elain. “Well, let us go. We can get up there and back and home again before dark if we do not delay.
Marco and Ortega both carried packs, filled with water and food, but refused to let Elain carry one. “You are my guest,” he insisted. “Do not worry yourself.”
They’d also brought a walking stick for her, which she soon found herself needing.
As they made their way up the mountain and through the jungle, Elain realized how diametrically opposed this was to the normal, middle-class upbringing she’d had in Tampa. “Dad was up here all by himself?”
Ortega nodded. “Yes. He refused, despite my repeated offers throughout the years, to be near people.” Ortega led the way, Marco bringing up the rear.
She didn’t miss how both big cats constantly scanned the surrounding area, on alert.
“Are we in danger here?” she asked.
“I do not think so today, no.” Ortega glanced over his shoulder at her. “However, I will not take risks with your life, Seer.”
Elain didn’t know if she’d ever grow comfortable perched on top of the highly esteemed pedestal where he’d apparently deposited her.
They finally arrived in a little clearing about an hour later. Tucked against the rocky side of a hill, a wood and tin shack precariously hugged the outcropping behind it.
“Here we are,” Ortega announced without fanfare.
She walked across the clearing and to the shack. When she pushed the rickety door open, she let out a soft gasp. In the States, it would barely qualify as a garden shed, much less an abode for a human. She’d seen primitive camping shelters in state parks that were better built and more comfortable than this.
She felt the prickle of tears in her eyes as her gaze swept the interior. “Over twenty-five years he spent here,” she whispered. “Alone.”
Ortega stood just behind her. “Yes,” he quietly said. “He loved you that much, that he wished to keep you safe. I offered to track you down, bring you and your mother to him, but he still worried. He feared if anyone knew where you were, who’d he’d left Maureen with, that you would all be in danger. I suspected you were somewhere in North America, but I did not have any idea if you were even in the United States. He covered his tracks to get here. Even I could not retrace his path and, believe me, I tried.”
“Nobody else knew he was here?”
“Only my brothers. Well, and the padre, but he did not know his identity, only that he was a personal friend of mine who was to remain unknown, and who would help keep watch on the territory. No one else knew his true identity but us three. That is the way he wished it to be.”
She stepped inside. A low, wooden bunk with a homemade mattress of ratty old blankets, a rickety chair and even more unstable table made of scrap wood. Some bare shelves. Her hand reached up to her neck, to the tag on the necklace she wore. Her talisman, grounding her and making her feel like her guys were there with her, at least in spirit.
She turned to Ortega. “What’s up with the padre? How do you know you can trust him?”
“I’ve always been a patron of his church. My family is from this area. When we improved our lives, we never forgot where we came from. I made sure to give him every reason to help the mysterious hermit living on the mountain.”
“He didn’t know Liam was a shifter?”
“I’m sure he might have suspected, even though he knew he was not a jaguar.”
“Okay.” She felt a little bad about making it all the way up there, just to turn around again. “I’m good.”
Ortega took her hands in his, his voice somber. “Do not feel guilty, Elain. A father’s love, a mother’s love, there is no more powerful strength in the Universe. I’m sure he did not see it the same way you do. He saw it as ensuring your life and happiness.”
“At the cost of his own.”
The jaguar shrugged. “You will one day see it differently, I’m sure.” He patted her hand, hers swallowed by his. “Your father is a good man. I’m happy he now has joy in his life once more. He has earned it.”
She’d brought her phone with her and took pictures of the shack, inside and out. She wanted them for her own use.
To look at whenever she s
tarted feeling sorry for herself.
So she would never forget the sacrifices people made to keep her happy and free all her life.
It was a little before dinnertime when they returned to Ortega’s compound. She went to her room and soaked in the tub, a swirl of thoughts flowing through her mind and making no sense.
Then, another thought hit her. She was up and out of the tub in a flash, drying off and throwing on clothes, running down the hallway to Marston’s room with one of Ortega’s men shadowing her again.
She knocked before rushing in without waiting for an answer. Marston was sitting on his sofa, Colleen in his arms taking her bottle. Yes, his injuries were already noticeably healed.
Elain pulled up short and checked her voice’s volume, not wanting to scare the baby.
“The spellbook Mercedes had,” she said. “What can you tell me about it? Was it a copy?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, a copy. A duplicate of Lenny’s book.”
“No. It had belonged to Edgar. Mercedes took it from Lenny’s house after his death.”
She deflated. “Shit,” she muttered. “The spellbook they found in Brussels a couple of years back was a copy of the one they took after killing Lenny in Yellowstone. I was hoping maybe this book was just another copy.”
“No. Edgar and Lenny each had one. They were alike, but unique. Each had made their own notes over the years.”
“Do you know if there were any others?”
“No. They wouldn’t discuss the origins of the books with me. I assumed they were family relics.”
“When you guys ran, Mercedes grabbed her laptop and stuff. I saw that in my vision. Did she have anything about the spellbook stored on the computer? Did she ever scan it in, or take pictures of it?”
He frowned, thinking. “I don’t think so, but come with me.” He stood, taking care not to jostle the baby in his arms, and led Elain into his bedroom. Neat and tidy, as was the entire suite, he showed Elain to his closet and pointed with his foot.
“In there, her backpack. If you’d please get it.”
“Sure.” She opened the door and grabbed it, pulling it out and ignoring the brown spots on it that were likely dried blood, judging from the faint metallic smell.
Triple Cross [Triple Trouble 7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 10