A Wolf in the Fold [Triple Trouble 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Tymber Dalton

  Time to go think for a while. To sort out the past from the future in what she’d seen.

  Brushing the dirt off her hands, she stood and headed back to her car.

  * * * *

  Elain found the hidden key exactly where Lacey said it’d be, under a flowerpot on the back porch. She let herself in the back door, towing her bag with her and locking the backdoor securely behind her.

  She needed sleep. Her body craved it, and her Alpha had now been satisfied and was willing to let her take the rest she desperately wanted. Despite being curious to try out her newfound powers in Lacey’s house by touching various things, Elain made her way to the guest bedroom.

  On the bed lay a small box, and a sealed envelope with her name written on it. Elain let go of her bag and walked over to the bed to get a better view of the box. It stopped her in her tracks when she realized what it was.

  With a trembling hand, she picked up the envelope, ripped it open, and read the note inside, written in Lacey’s neat script.

  Dear Elain,

  Congratulations, dear. I thought you might want this just to confirm things in case you didn’t believe it to be true. My house is completely open to you, regardless of what you feel you need to do. I understand and do not mind.

  I’m not sure how long my trip will keep me. I know I cannot ask it of you, but I will still put the request out there—please say nothing to Mai and Lina of this. To clarify, of my journey. (Feel free, of course, to say what you like to whomever you like about the other.)

  Now, I believe, you’ll understand my distance lately. It was nothing personal. But some things cannot, should not, be changed. I hope you understand that. I do not wish to hurt you or the others, but I believe you better than Lina and Mai will understand what and why I had to do these things.

  I might add that our missing friend will no longer be a problem for others. He is being taken care of quite well, and quite to my satisfaction. And, unless my instincts are wrong, I believe the other issue that you are now aware of is no longer a threat, either. Changed for the better, at least for the next eighteen or so years if I’m not mistaken.

  If I find I’m wrong on that count, I will immediately call you and let you know before handling things on my end.

  Jasper is with Jocko. I’ve told him that you might come for him. If you wish to do so, please feel free to take him with you back to Florida. I think he’d enjoy the company of Juju and Bea. His vet records are in a folder in my desk. He is up to date on all his shots. His monthly heartworm medicine is in a cabinet in the kitchen, and he’s due on the first of every month.

  I will let you know when I plan to return. Or, at the very least, I’ll contact you before my return and find out if I’m still welcomed or wanted in Maine. If not, it’s a risk I needed to take, and I’m prepared to deal with the fallout, if necessary. My services as Seer are no longer required, if you think about it. You, Lina, and Mai do a far better job and are more than prepared to take over, even if you don’t think so.

  You are a brilliant Seer, my dear. And a woman so powerful in your own right that I have no words to adequately express it. You will also be a kick-ass mother, as they say.

  Use all the time you need. As I said, my home is open to you, for whatever and whenever and however long you need it.

  Please forgive me for not being able to tell you everything before now. But like I said, I believe you, more than anyone else, are able to understand why.

  Dear, please burn this when you finish reading it.

  Love,

  Lacey.

  Elain sat on the bed, her whole body suddenly numb. She stared at the small box on the bed, afraid to touch it.

  After a few minutes, she left the letter behind and rushed into Lacey’s bedroom. The Seer had neatly made her bed before her departure. Elain stared at it for a moment before lying down on it and closing her eyes, her arms at her side, palms flat against the bedspread.

  Crystal clear images skipped through her brain almost faster than she could process them. Scenes of Lacey at Jocko’s, Mercedes stopping by Jocko’s house, Lacey talking with the woman in Yellowstone…

  Lacey lying in this same bed and having visions of her own.

  And how she suddenly jumped up in the middle of the night to make reservations to fly to Bolivia just days ago.

  And why.

  Elain’s eyes popped open as she stared at the ceiling. She hadn’t turned on any lights in the house yet and the overcast afternoon filtered through the slanted horizontal blinds over the windows and cast patterns on the walls and ceilings.

  Lacey had known. Known why the jaguars left the States so suddenly and without notice a few weeks earlier.

  And who left with them.

  No, she couldn’t tell anyone the information. Not even her men.

  And especially not Lina and Mai. Mai wouldn’t be able to keep it from Lina.

  And Lina would likely want to blow up the whole country of Bolivia.

  Elain shuddered, remembering the house at the meth lab. If the three of them could so easily destroy a house, then an entire country…

  “Dammit,” she whispered, starting when her voice sounded loud to her ears in the otherwise silent house.

  She got up and went to the kitchen, finally turning on a light. She knew she was stalling for time but didn’t care. She made herself a cup of hot tea and took it into the guest bathroom. There, she got the shower started and left her mug while she went to retrieve her toiletries from the suitcase.

  The box sat where she’d left it on the bed.

  It was impossible, because she’d been careful. She’d taken precautions.

  She thought about the night of her last vision, spent with her men at the Venice house.

  The feeling that had remained with her ever since that night, slowly growing stronger. Bouts of upset tummy recently she blamed on bad Chinese take-out or other reasons.

  First she turned, to return to the bathroom, then stopped.

  As steam slowly wafted through the open bathroom doorway, Elain went and grabbed the box off the bed and took it with her into the bathroom.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The shower and nap did Elain’s body good.

  Didn’t do shit for her mind, unfortunately.

  Elain sat, alone, on Lacey’s back porch and stared at the woods. Twilight was settling across the landscape, chilly air taking over from the warm afternoon. She knew she should eat something, and Lacey had even left her freezer well stocked with premade meals.

  Unfortunately, she was still working her way through her emotional numbness.

  She took a sip from the bottle of beer in her right hand. With her left she played with the tag on her necklace, the one that matched the ones her men wore. She hadn’t yet shared with anyone the latest visions she’d had. Both at the graves, and from lying in Lacey’s bed.

  Or the note her friend left.

  She took another sip of beer.

  The images were still too disturbing for her to fully process yet, much less talk about.

  Then again, there wasn’t anyone she could talk to about them.

  At least one problem wouldn’t plague them anymore. Disturbing as the solution was.

  Not that she objected to Abernathy being tortured, because he’d brought it on himself. But she did want to know exactly who else was involved, and if she needed to be worried on their behalf.

  She’d burned the note as Lacey had asked, setting fire to it and letting it turn to wispy ashes in the barbecue grill sitting on the back porch.

  At least with this settled, the cockatrice had moved to the top of the shit list and could now receive their undivided attention.

  She laid a hand on her belly. Well, they could for the most part.

  Another sip of beer slid down her throat, crisp, cold, and nowhere close to getting her as buzzed as she wished she was.

  Because she knew she could only allow herself this one beer, and even that was not the best idea. Howe
ver, since she wasn’t able to self-medicate with anything stronger, it’d have to do.

  Anything else might hurt her baby.

  She might have doubted Lacey’s words, but she knew the pregnancy kit the Seer had left for her wasn’t lying.

  Her package of birth control pills now resided in the bathroom trash, along with the used test kit.

  She didn’t even flinch when she heard the man’s smooth British accent speak from the other end of the porch. “Are you all right, Elain?”

  She took a deep breath before responding, weighing her words. “Not particularly.”

  Ryan Ausar walked over and sat in the chair next to her. “As I told Lina once, it’s not always like this. Not always one crisis after another.”

  “I hope not. I’ll be ready for a loony bin in another year at this rate. I feel like I’ve lived twenty years in the past eighteen months.” She finally looked at him. “So what strange, fresh hell are you here to drop on me? I thought Lina was our head shit-catcher.”

  He smiled. “No, nothing like that today. Merely a social call. I wanted to check up on you when I realized you’d come up here by yourself.”

  “I didn’t realize the Devil kept tabs on me.”

  He chuckled. “You three ladies are very special. I would be quite remiss not to keep my finger on the pulse of things, as it were.”

  Elain returned her focus to the woods. “How often are visions wrong?”

  She could tell he’d tried to contain his sigh, but her keen lupine ears picked it up anyway. “Having spoken with other Seers recently, it’s likely they’re more correct than wrong. Since you are part of the Triad…” He paused, seemingly searching for the words.

  “I’m probably not wrong.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  He scowled. “I don’t understand.”

  “I had a vision today out in the woods, of a baby. A baby girl. Of crying over one. Of the cockatrice. Why can I see things like that?” She forcibly choked back the tears that wanted to flow over her memory of the vision. “Then I saw something about another girl. A different one. Of losing her. I don’t think it was the same baby. It felt like it was from a different point of view. Is it mine?”

  He started to reach out to her, then paused. “May I?”

  She nodded.

  He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, his face going blank. It was as if she could feel him searching through her brain.

  After a moment, he released her and sat back.

  “Well?”

  A sad smile curved his lips. It looked at home on his face, as if he were a man far too familiar with bearing grief. “You didn’t have the vision you thought you did.”

  “Don’t tell me what I thought I did and didn’t have. I know what I saw.”

  “That wasn’t a vision of your baby.”

  Ice chilled her soul. “Callie’s?”

  He shook his head.

  “My mom’s?”

  “No.”

  “Please, just tell me.”

  “Apparently, your powers are still growing. That wasn’t a vision you had of the kind you’re used to having.” He looked out at the woods. “The first, as you know, was Mercedes’ spirit you tapped into. Out in the woods. Mourning the loss of her daughter. It was tied into what happened to her.”

  “So the baby’s all right?”

  He nodded. “Hers and yours.” He chuckled. “And as far as I know, everyone else’s as well.”

  “Then what about the other?”

  He shrugged.

  “What does that mean? That you don’t know, or you can’t say?”

  “A little of both. But it doesn’t appear to concern any child of yours, or of the immediate inner circle of your family, as far as I can tell.”

  The ice thawed only a little in Elain’s gut as relief started trickling in. “Mercedes’ baby’s alive and well in Bolivia,” she whispered. “And I can’t tell another fucking soul about it, right?”

  He nodded.

  Elain let her head rest against the back of her chair as she pondered the ramifications.

  “Lacey was correct,” he slowly said after a few minutes. “I would suggest that, unless you truly wish to provoke something that should be left alone, you don’t mention this to anyone. That you also discourage anyone from traveling to the jaguars’ territory.”

  “How can I let that fucker raise a child? He’s a murderer. A child murderer.”

  “Even Hitler had a dog.” He stretched his long legs before standing and turning to her. “I suspect a time of quiet, at least for a little while. Relatively speaking.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “Use that time, the three of you, to develop and refine your powers. Lina may seem to be the most powerful in the obvious ways. That comes from her heritage and her being an extremely old soul. But you and Mai are also powerful in your own ways. Complementary ways. You do not yet realize just how powerful you are.”

  “I don’t feel powerful. I feel like I want to rip something limb from limb.”

  “Have you considered talking to your men?”

  She let out a snort. “I can’t talk to anyone but you, apparently. Or Lacey, and she’s not here. I’ve never felt more alone in my life.”

  “Then go for a run. Of the four-legged kind. Work out your thoughts that way. This is the proper place for it, is it not?”

  It was. And, truth be told, it sounded like a damn fine idea. She stood and poured the rest of her beer over the porch railing before setting the empty bottle just outside the door. When she turned around, she was alone once more.

  Figures.

  But she smiled as she reached for the buttons on her blouse. Yes, a run felt like a good idea.

  A hell of a good idea.

  Chapter Fifty

  Ryan appeared in the living room of his condo in Atlanta. Weary to his very core, he walked into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of bourbon, neat. With that in hand, he slowly unbuttoned his shirt as he walked to his bedroom.

  He set the glass down on his dresser and walked into the bathroom to start the shower. Once that was going, he returned to the bedroom and used the remote to turn on the TV.

  After staring at it for a moment, head cocked, he walked over to the armoire housing the TV and stood there. Then he nudged the TV over slightly to the right, completely concealing the stone tablet propped up behind it.

  There. That’s better.

  He wished he could have gotten his hands on the other book, but after heated discussions with his father and the Dodeks who far outranked him, Ryan knew he had to let that matter drop. He’d render whatever assistance he could to the shifters, but unfortunately, he couldn’t solve the matter for them. It wasn’t his bailiwick, since it wasn’t a book from another realm. It didn’t fall under his purview since its magick was of no use in another plain.

  Unlike the Tablet, which could be taken to another realm and its latent powers converted to use against innocents.

  He’d been pushing the limit as it was, raising eyebrows amongst the higher-ups. If he wasn’t careful, he might find himself removed from his post. Then he couldn’t help anyone. He’d taken a big enough risk probing Elain’s mind when she allowed the contact. And, unfortunately, he’d found the confirmation he sought to his suspicions of who threw the curse into the Cailleach.

  While he wasn’t very familiar with the culprit—fortunately deceased—he was all too familiar with her daughter.

  Bera, a Tanuki they were currently seeking for heinous crimes of her own.

  Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.

  But that wasn’t any concern of the wolves. They had equally pressing matters of their own to deal with. Elain, Lina, and the others would have to prove themselves. Trial by fire, if necessary.

  He dropped his shirt onto the floor. After kicking off his shoes and removing his socks, he added his slacks and briefs to the pile, picked up his glass, and returned to the bathroom for a
long, hot shower.

  THE END

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tymber Dalton lives in the Tampa Bay region of Florida with her husband (aka “The World’s Best Husband™”) and too many pets. Not only is she active in the BDSM lifestyle, the two-time EPIC winner is also the bestselling author of over fifty books, such as The Reluctant Dom, The Denim Dom, Cardinal’s Rule, the Love Slave for Two series, the Triple Trouble series, the Coffeeshop Coven series, the Good Will Ghost Hunting series, and many more.

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