Susannah's Saviors [Beckett's Wolf Pack, Triad Mates 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More)

by Lynnette Bernard

  Laurie looked up at both of her mates and smiled. “I think I have to worry about her fathers more than I have to worry about her.”

  “You don’t have to worry about us, baby,” Jackson assured her, reaching down and taking the soft towel from Drew, ready to clean off Laurie’s belly himself. “You just concentrate on staying calm and healthy for our daughter.”

  Drew stayed Jackson’s hand, preventing him from wiping away the gel just yet. Carter handed Drew the fetal Doppler and smiled slightly as he saw Jackson take a step forward and watch Drew as he took it and placed the small wand over Laurie’s belly. Drew pressed down lightly and ran the rounded tip across the softness of her abdomen just above the pubic line, searching for the perfect spot so they could hear the elusive sound. After a moment, the soft swishing sound that was their baby’s heartbeat filled the room.

  Jackson’s immediate smile and Jace’s subsequent expression of love as they both heard their child’s heartbeat was priceless. Carter could feel their happiness, and he knew a moment of pain and jealousy that such a revelation would never belong to him and Drew with their own mate.

  Jace covered Laurie’s belly tenderly with his massive hand before leaning forward to kiss her lips lightly. “Thank you for the gift of our daughter, Mate,” he told her softly.

  Laurie hummed happily as she carded her fingers through Jace’s black hair, sighing as his striking, blue eyes lifted to meet her gaze. She reached up and took Jackson’s hand in hers before bringing it to her mouth and kissing his knuckles lightly.

  “I love you,” she told them firmly. “Now that we’ve seen our baby is doing well, we can all relax, right?”

  Both men nodded, looking down at her with complete happiness. They both waited patiently for Doc to put away the instrument and look up at them.

  “You can wipe the gel from Laurie’s belly now,” he told Jackson, chuckling softly when Jackson immediately wiped the soft towel across their mate’s lower abdomen.

  Drew felt a moment of sadness when he thought about Suzie lying there before him and Carter, smiling at them while they took care of her baby bump, knowing that joy was something that was never going to happen for them. Carter’s hand on his shoulder squeezed gently. He could feel his pain through the mating bond. Despite all the years of being without Suzie, the bond between him and Carter had never wavered. He could always sense his feelings and hear his thoughts—whenever Carter lowered his guard and allowed those thoughts and feelings through.

  Carter had to take a deep, even breath as he fought to control his anger. If Laurie hadn’t been in the room, he knew he would have lost control. It had been a while since he had allowed his wolf to run free. He didn’t like to let him take control. Whenever his wolf was allowed to take over, the thoughts that bombarded his mind were of Suzie. His wolf demanded that he reclaim her and bring her home.

  Drew made a strong effort to rein in his wolf. He could feel that Carter was on the brink of losing control. He was right behind him in his lunacy. He truly didn’t think he could handle his life without their mate any longer.

  He stood and pulled the two pictures from the ultrasound machine after they printed. He turned and handed them to Laurie, smiling when she looked at the captured images briefly before turning and winking at her men as they pulled her gently from the examination table to have her stand between them.

  She handed both of her mates a picture each and grew serious at the expression of awe that covered their faces as they each looked at the picture that they held. The way they devoured the pictures with their eyes melted her heart. There was no mistaking how much they wanted the baby that was growing within her. She was glad. She wanted their baby, too.

  “Are you okay?” she asked them, her voice calming.

  Jace looked down at the image, a small smile gracing his features. “How can we be anything else?” he answered for both him and Jackson before looking up with such complete happiness at their mate.

  “Have I told you lately how much you mean to me, darlin’?” Jackson whispered as he leaned forward to kiss her temple lightly.

  Laurie laughed and snuggled against his side. “I think you’ve told me a time or two,” she told him, smiling against his chest and kissing it lightly. She turned to look up at Jace and reached out to wrap her arm around his waist and hug him gently. “Now stop worrying so much and let our baby grow.”

  Jace growled against her cheek. “We’re going to have to talk about having another child so our daughter won’t be alone,” he told her softly.

  Laurie pulled back and looked up at both men in surprise. “You want to talk about having another child while I’m carrying this one? Isn’t that pushing it a little?”

  “No, baby,” Jackson told her gently. “We want cubs with you.”

  Laurie stepped out of their embrace and looked at Drew with concern. “Do you think I’m too old to have more children, Doc?”

  Drew smiled and shook his head. “I think you’re in perfect health. Now that you’ve been claimed, your lifespan will match your mates. Your childbearing years have also been extended. I believe you will have no problem having as many children as you decide to have.”

  Laurie looked at Drew and nodded slowly, smiling slightly at the thought that she might be able to have more children with Jace and Jackson and not have to worry about being too old to raise them. She straightened her shirt and took a step toward the examination room door.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” she told them, not even looking back at them. “I have to get back to the main house. I promised Martha I would help with dinner.” She sensed Jackson and Jace following her and smiled to herself. “And you can stop looking at my ass!”

  “But, honey, it’s such a beautiful ass,” Jackson protested.

  “Jackson!” Laurie blurted out, turning to face her men, blushing deeply.

  Jace chuckled and leaned forward to kiss her lips lightly. “He’s right, baby,” he whispered against her lips. “I think we have some time to go back to our room and explore that delicious feature before you have to help Martha.”

  Laurie smiled immediately, her gaze darting to Carter and Drew as embarrassment flooded her. “You’re so bad, Jace!”

  Jace’s immediate growl of need filled her body with excitement. She suddenly had the strong urge to run and have her mates chase her back to their bedroom. It sounded like a good plan to her.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Laurie whispered, barely able to keep her excitement at her thoughts contained.

  “Anytime, Laurie,” Drew answered, the humor evident in his voice despite his internal struggle with despair.

  Laurie walked through the open doorway and pushed away from her men’s hands as they reached for her. Their growls of warning filled the office, but Laurie was not intimidated by them.

  “Catch me,” she whispered before rushing to the outer office door and pulling it open, running down the front porch steps and racing as fast as she could away from them.

  Drew smiled as he heard his alpha and beta growl deeper just before they took off after their fun-loving mate. It made him happy to see just how much the Alpha Triad loved each other.

  Once they left, Drew turned to Carter and saw the cold expression on his face. The scar that ran from just below his left eye to the corner of his mouth seemed to look whiter and more severe as his features tightened.

  “You saw it, too,” he told him firmly. “Don’t you dare deny it.”

  “I saw it,” Carter admitted. “But I don’t believe it.”

  “You have to believe it, Carter.”

  “No, Drew. I can’t. Because if I believe it, it will kill me when it doesn’t come true.” He turned to face his triad partner, his face filled with pain. “The only reason we’re having all of these new visions is because Mitchell is here, and he’s reminding us of Suzie—no other reason.”

  He turned and walked out of the examination room. Drew knew exactly what he meant. If what they had seen was going to come t
rue, he couldn’t imagine a happier future for them. But what if what they had seen had been the result of them finally losing their minds to the grief and loneliness they had experienced throughout the past years without their mate? Those overwhelming emotions were cresting to epic proportions. He knew it was going to be a slippery slope into madness for both of them.

  Chapter 5

  Suzie turned over carefully in the small bed. She couldn’t prevent the groan of pain from escaping her as her bruised ribs protested the movement.

  “Damn Randall,” she muttered out loud to the empty cabin that had been her prison for the last month. “He’s never going to put his filthy hands on me ever again.”

  She tugged at the silver collar she wore, hissing lightly as her fingertips made contact with the deadly alloy. She had become an expert at wrapping the damn thing with thick strips of material over the years to protect herself from it. Sometimes, the material became loose and she didn’t realize it until she felt the sting of the burn against her skin.

  That collar had caused more damage to her over the years than she could have ever imagined. At first Randall had kept it on her to prevent her from shifting to her wolf form so she wouldn’t heal quickly from the injuries she had experienced at his hand. He had wanted her to heal with as much pain as possible so that she would learn her lesson and never defy him again. But the exact opposite had resulted.

  Instead of being afraid of him and his punishments, she had become stronger. He had taken away the men she loved—her mates. When he had killed them that night fifteen years ago, she had wanted to give up and die, too. Instead she fought to live. She had allowed her mother to take care of her and nurse her back to health. The one thought that kept her alive, fighting to live, was that she hoped her night with her mates had resulted in the creation of their cub.

  She had prayed that their cub was living inside of her. She had asked the Fates to give her the gift of Drew and Carter’s child so that she would always have a part of them. When her body betrayed her and she had gotten her period, she had sunk into a depression so deep she didn’t care what would happened to her. It was only when her little brother Mitchell had climbed into bed with her and cried because he missed her that she had slowly come out of the darkness and had found her way back to the world of the living—without her mates. She finally came to accept that the Fates had been looking out for her by not allowing her to be pregnant. The silver collar would have injured their baby.

  When Suzie had stepped out of her mother’s cabin and faced Randall nearly three months later, she had faced him without fear. He couldn’t hurt her worse than he already had by taking away her triad mates. She didn’t think her life could ever get worse, but she had been wrong.

  The methodical way Randall threatened Suzie’s mother and little brother had brought into perspective exactly what the alpha was willing to do to achieve what he wanted. As a result, Suzie told him her dreams in order to protect her family—but she had never allowed him near her as he had often threatened. He had told her he would eventually claim her as his mate and would create cubs with her so that his strength and her gift would be passed on to their young.

  Randall had even tried to take Suzie from her cabin one night in order to do exactly what he had threatened to do, but Suzie’s mother had saved her. She had explained patiently to Randall that Suzie’s gift would be diminished once she had children, just as hers had been once she had found herself pregnant with Suzie and then with Mitchell.

  Randall couldn’t refute her words, because he had seen the truth of them. Suzie’s mother had been unable to dream and guide the pack once she had become pregnant with Suzie. So Suzie had been given a stay of execution of sorts—up until one month ago. One month ago she had experienced her last dream. It had foretold an event of the future. This dream had been gifted to her to help her brother.

  Mitchell had been alone within Randall’s pack. For some reason he had no triad partner, and that had set him apart from the rest. He was looked upon as flawed. He couldn’t shift, marking him as deficient and open to the cruelty of Randall and his enforcers, just as Suzie was. Suzie had watched her happy and loving brother become more withdrawn and quiet with each beating he received at the hands of the pack bullies. She had seen her brother lose more of himself each time they hurt him. She could feel him giving in to his feelings of worthlessness.

  The dream she had experienced showed her that Mitchell would find his triad partner as well as their triad mate within Jace Beckett’s pack. Suzie had met Alpha Beckett once when she had been only ten, and she had remembered him as being big and strong. He was only a few years older than she was, but his power and integrity were already in place.

  He was already the alpha of his pack. He ruled with absolute fairness, and he allowed no cruelty or dishonesty within his pack or among his pack members. He had made a good impression on her, but what she remembered most about him was the way he had smiled at her with such kindness. He had called her “cub” with such affection, her heart had melted.

  Her parents had just moved to Colorado and had been in search of a new pack. Their old pack had been dwindling over the years. Matings had been few and far between. Their alpha had called them all together to explain to them that they had to join other packs in order to survive. He had been a caring and protective alpha who was worried that the members of his pack would die off or become victims to the ever-increasing packs that were growing and assimilating other smaller packs. He had wanted his members to be able to choose their new packs freely.

  He had given them the names and locations of two of the packs closest to them. One pack was Randall’s pack, and the other belonged to Jace Beckett. Suzie’s parents had chosen Randall’s pack because it was closest to the area that was familiar to them. Over the years, they came to realize that they had made the wrong choice.

  When Mitchell had been beaten one month ago, Suzie couldn’t deal with the cruelty to her brother any longer. The dream was really an answer to her continuing prayers to the Fates asking for help to save her brother. She had told Mitchell what she had seen and had given him the general directions to Beckett’s pack land. She hoped he had found refuge with Alpha Jace Beckett and was finally safe and with shifters who would care for him.

  Mitchell hadn’t wanted to leave her, but she had told him there was no other way. Her life was forfeit anyway. He had reluctantly left her behind, not that he really had any choice. Randall had promised him that if he didn’t leave before nightfall, he would kill Suzie, and then he would kill Mitchell.

  Over the years, Randall had taken Suzie out of the cabin she and her brother had shared with their mother and had kept her prisoner in the cabin she now occupied. Each time, Randall had eventually relented once she had given him information that she had seen in her dreams and had allowed her to return to her mother and brother. That was not the case this time. For the past month she had known true incarceration. There had been no reprieve. She had been isolated and was under the constant scrutiny of the pack enforcers who were acting as her guards.

  She still wore the silver collar that had been a part of her for the past fifteen years, but she now also wore a shackle around her right ankle that was secured to a bolt on the wall behind the bed in the dingy cabin. There was a length of chain attached to the shackle that allowed her to move about the small cabin in order to get to the bathroom and the kitchen area, but it didn’t allow her to do what she craved the most. She wanted to walk out the door and enjoy the fresh air and the scents of nature. Her wolf had been long dormant inside of her, but a little bit of the canine remained deep within her, and that small part of her still needed to be free.

  Mitchell had only been able to sneak in to see her a couple of times before he had been attacked by Randall’s men. That’s when Suzie had experienced her last dream that made her insist her brother leave Randall’s pack and seek asylum with Jace Beckett. She hoped he had made it to Beckett’s land safely and had been accepted by the f
air alpha. Not being able to visit with her brother had truly made her realize just how alone she was.

  Then the visits from Randall had started. He had been more abusive each time he had arrived. He had demanded her dreams—something she had no control over and had no desire to share with him anyway. Now that her mother was long gone, having died during the winter two years before, and with Mitchell leaving Randall’s pack land, Randall’s leverage had diminished slightly. She still had to be careful that he wouldn’t hurt her best friend Meeka and Meeka’s son Eric. She knew Randall had taken them both from her mother’s cabin and had placed them in one of the other cabins he used to isolate pack members.

  Randall’s last visit had brought her recent set of bruises. What was worse, though, was his promise that since she no longer had her dreams to save her, he could now breed her. And he intended to do just that at his next visit.

  Reaching under the small pillow, she pulled the key she had slid from Boyd’s pocket the last time he had come to the cabin to give her food and worked the lock that chained her to the bolt imbedded in the wall behind the bed. After a few unsuccessful attempts to insert the key and turn it to unlock the padlock, she finally felt the heavy lock release. Opening it with shaky hands, she pulled the solid lead chain from it, dragging it across the mattress and through the metal loop that was attached to the ankle restraint that was secured to her right ankle.

  Rubbing at her ankle briefly, she winced slightly at the raw abrasions on her skin. It was at least a relief that the restraint wasn’t made of silver. She had enough scars on her hands and neck from all the years of having to deal with the silver collar.

  She stood slowly, babying her right side as she headed toward the small bathroom, passing her hand along the wall as she eased her way around the room. She was going to clean up and wash away Randall’s scent. The stink of him sickened her. She never wanted to have to experience his scent again. She only wanted to smell like her mates—even though she knew that wasn’t possible. Snapping out of her sad memories, she was determined to get the hell out of there. She just had one stop to make to get Meeka and Eric, and they finally would both carry through on their plan of escape.