“You okay, chica?” Zack asked.
“I miss Paris,” she grumpily muttered. “I miss it so fucking much I wish they’d just turn the damn plane around right now.”
“You hate Paris,” he reminded her. “And the plane hasn’t even pulled back from the gate yet.”
She opened her eyes and leaned forward to peer past Zack out the window. “Oh.” She sat back and closed her eyes again.
The seat belt felt uncomfortably snug across her ballooning belly. One, or both, of her twins, boys, decided to kick at that moment, landing a bull’s-eye on her bladder. “I hate flying,” she grumbled. “If I’m the goddess and the Seer, why can’t we just tell all of them to come over to Florida instead of us coming here?”
Their friend and wolf shifter, Daniel Blackestone, spoke to her from the seat directly behind her. “Remember, Lina. You’re the Goddess. The flight will arrive home safely.”
She grumbled again, but tried to settle back and relax. She knew he was right, but it still didn’t decrease her hatred of flying. Daniel always made the trip with them to Europe. He was once again one of the keepers of the Tablet of Trammel. After Lina hid it, she told him where it was. He also helped communicate to his wolf Clan’s Council the latest developments in the war against the cockatrice. Not to mention they were very close friends.
Brodey Lyall, also a wolf shifter who frequently made the trip with them, was at his home in Florida. They’d left him out of the loop this time.
Lina closed her eyes and tried to focus on that. She knew Brodey and his brothers had finally found their One, the woman meant to complete the triplet Alpha shifters. That’s why Lina hadn’t asked him to join them on this trip.
At least one good thing had come from my freaky-deaky visions.
Well, and hopefully a second good thing, depending on how the results of her and Zack’s visit to Bolivia a couple of months earlier shook out.
The plane lurched a little as the sound of the engines ramped up. It slowly pulled back from the gate. Zack made a pained squeaking noise as Lina squeezed his hand harder.
“Lovely,” Jan whispered in her ear, “it’s all right. You’ve made this flight dozens of times before.”
“And I’ve hated it every time, too.” At least she no longer feared accidentally blowing up the plane in mid-flight. She’d managed to develop a reasonable amount of control over her incendiary powers.
Now if I could just locate Fat Boy and fry his ass.
The mysterious man, whom she knew took part in the murder of Kael’s family, along with others, hadn’t crossed their paths again since their first trip to Paris and Brussels a couple of years earlier. Unfortunately, the cockatrice nest they suspected he worked with had gone completely underground, escaping them ever since the last showdown. Which was another reason she knew they had to travel to Europe in person. It improved their chances of locating the cockatrice nest and permanently putting them out of commission.
She closed her eyes and tried to relax.
Big mistake.
Even though she was a goddess, she was also their flagyer’s Seer. She had no control over the visions that came to her. Despite her eyes being closed, a vision flashed into view. Since it wasn’t blue in color, she knew it was something that had already happened. The past looked normal, while future events appeared as if through a blue filter.
She saw Fat Boy standing outside a storefront. He was staring across a street. In her mind’s eye, she turned and found herself looking at a farm supply store’s parking lot. A man she recognized as Cail Lyall stood there with a woman Lina had never seen before, but Lina instinctively knew she was Cail’s mate. They stood beside a stock trailer and reached inside to pet a horse.
The vision faded.
Lina opened her eyes and blew out a deep breath. “Change of plans, guys. We need to head to Arcadia as soon as we get home. Do not pass go, do not stop by home and do laundry. Arcadia, here we come.” She tipped her head back. “You don’t have to come with, Blackie,” she said to Daniel over the seat back. “We’ll be seeing you soon enough in Maine.”
“Another vision?” Zack asked.
“Yeppers.”
“What did you see?”
She smiled, but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in her mood. “Fat Boy’s back.”
“And there’s going to be trouble?” Jan added.
“Yep. Hey now, hey now, the psycho’s back.” She settled in her seat, her grip on Zack’s hand relaxing. She didn’t need to worry. She knew their plane would touch down in Florida safely. The only person that had anything to worry about was Fat Boy.
I can’t wait to fry him from the balls up.
* * * *
Daniel Blackestone sat back in his seat as the plane took off. It’d been an interesting couple of years, that’s for sure. His mate, Callie, hadn’t made the trip with him this time. He’d taken Lina’s advice to leave her at home in case Lacey needed her help. With this newest revelation about Fat Boy, he understood why. They all knew from Lina’s visions that things with the cockatrice were going to get bad again soon, and they’d have to tighten their ranks, dragon and wolf alike.
Well, all the shifter races except the cockatrice, since the cockatrice were bound and determined to wipe out all the other shifter races. It was one of the reasons he’d decided to relocate back to the main Clan compound in Maine. Safety in numbers. Plus it put him close to the Tablet of Trammel. And now that he had a mate to think about, regardless of how strong she was, he didn’t want to do the lone-wolf gig anymore.
Despite their best efforts, they’d been unable to locate the cockatrice nest in Europe. Every trip they took to Europe, he went with Kael on scouting missions, following old leads and tracking down new ones.
Nada.
The main issue concerning him was Callie’s dreams as of late. She wasn’t a Seer, but she was the sister of Baba Yaga. While she’d made the transition well to settling in as his human-ish mate, wife, and slave in their BDSM dynamic, she couldn’t escape her heritage.
She was still an immortal by birth, regardless of the fact that she’d sworn to submit to him as his mate.
She also wasn’t aware of the nightmares she had nearly every night over the past month that awoke him. Dreams where she would yell, scream, rage at people, obviously involved in some sort of battle. In morning’s light, she always looked confused when he asked her about her night terrors.
He’d even had a brief, yet futile, conversation with her older sister, Baba Yaga.
Callie still had her powers even though she traded in true immortality when becoming his mate.
He tried to push worry out of his mind. The Cailleach had spent eons before he was born taking care of herself. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop him from wanting to protect her as his mate.
He’d decided to have a talk with Lacey, their Clan’s Seer, when he returned home. He didn’t want to bug Lina with this, because she was already stressed out enough with her pregnancy and regular Seer duties to her flagyer.
Maybe it’s nothing. Of course, he didn’t really believe that.
That would just be too damn easy.
* * * *
Once they were safely in the air and the captain turned off the seat belt sign, Lina hauled herself up and out of her seat and waddled down the aisle. She made it to the front lavatory before any other passengers. Carefully wedging herself in, she managed to get turned around, lock the door, get her pants pulled down, and plop her butt onto the toilet seat before she wet herself.
With a relieved sigh, she emptied her bladder. It was a good thing, too, because movement out of the corner of her eye startled her. In the small mirror over the sink, a hazy woman’s visage looked directly at her.
Had she not been on the potty already, she would have wet herself.
Lina closed her eyes, counted to five, and opened them again.
The woman still stared at her from the mirror.
Totally creeped out, Lina got herself cle
aned up and put back together. As she stood at the sink and washed her hands, the woman watched her.
“Who are you?” Lina finally asked.
“Please, help her,” the woman softly said before fading out of sight in the mirror.
“Crap,” Lina grumbled. “Just what I need. One more freaking mystery to deal with.”
Chapter Two
A few hours later…
A lot had happened to Elain Pardie in a very brief amount of time. She’d gone from local TV reporter who hadn’t had a date in too long to think about, to shape-shifter mate. And not just a mate to one man, but three. Aindreas, Brodey, and Cailean Lyall, triplet Alpha wolf shifters, had picked her to be their One.
She definitely wasn’t complaining about that, now that she’d grown somewhat used to it. They were hot, hunky, gorgeous, and all hers. Once she wrapped her brain around the fact that wolf shape-shifters were real, she’d managed not to lose her sanity.
Yet. Although there’s still plenty of time for me to go insane.
Despite everything that had happened over the past few weeks, including their slightly rocky start and easing into a new way of life with her men, nothing had prepared Elain for the shitstorm accompanying her mother’s early arrival to the Lyalls’ Arcadia, Florida, ranch less than a half hour earlier. Elain had worried how her mother would take the shocking bombshell that Elain had not one, but three men. And that they were wolf shape-shifters.
Those revelations paled in comparison like a cap gun pop next to the atomic-size blast Elain’s mom Carla had just dropped on them.
Silence settled over the room. Ain, Brodey, and Cail stared, shocked, at their soon-to-be mother-in-law’s revelation. The men had suspected over the past few weeks that Elain, although adopted, might actually have at least one shape-shifter parent. Unfortunately, they thought it was her father, a man linked to a nasty family called the Abernathys, a Clan who’d killed people in the past for mating one of “theirs” without prior permission.
Upon realizing that Ain not only had two brothers, but was one of triplets, Carla spilled the beans about Elain’s true parentage. Including what Elain’s birth mother Maureen had revealed about a blood oath before she died.
Carla’s tears freely flowed. “Elain’s mother. She told me, showed me, but I didn’t believe.” She met Ain’s gaze. “Elain’s mom and dad were shape-shifters. Alpha shape-shifters.” Carla shook her head as she stared at the three men, then back to her daughter. “I thought she’d lost her mind. I didn’t believe her. I thought they’d hypnotized me or drugged me or something when they showed me what they could do. Then Liam had to leave, and when Maureen got sick, she asked me to protect Elain and gave her to me. They told me what to look for, who to find if she started showing signs of shifting. But Elain never did any of that stuff, ever!”
Ain released Elain’s shoulders and walked closer to Carla as he struggled to keep his voice low and calm. “What are you talking about?”
Carla grabbed her purse from the coffee table. With shaking fingers, she rooted around inside and pulled out a battered, yellowed envelope. On the front, written in unfamiliar handwriting, was Elain’s name.
With a trembling hand, she held it out to her daughter. “Maureen left this for you. I was supposed to give it to you after you got married.”
Elain took it and stared at it.
Carla’s face was streaked with tears. “There’s some sort of blood oath. If Liam had a daughter, he had to give her up to fulfill the damn thing. He left to try to lead them away from Maureen and the baby. His Clan didn’t know he’d mated with Maureen.” She faced Ain. “Maureen gave Elain to me to keep her away from the Abernathy family.”
The men reacted with stunned silence.
Which was fair, because Carla was apparently still trying to come to grips with the fact that the hidden knowledge she’d carried for the twenty-seven years of her adopted daughter’s life was actually true and not some whacked-out, drug-induced hallucination.
Elain still stared at the old envelope in her hand. After a few minutes, all eyes settled on her, awaiting her next move.
“What does it say?” Elain finally asked her mom.
Carla shook her head. “Maureen didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask. She told me I was supposed to give it to you after you got married, unless you did the shifting stuff first. But I never believed all the shape-shifter stuff was true to begin with.”
Ain gently touched Elain’s shoulder. “Go ahead, babe,” he urged. “Open it.”
With trembling hands, Elain carefully slipped one finger under the flap and broke the seal.
She pulled out two sheets of paper covered with a neat script, the same handwriting as on the front. Tucked inside the papers lay an old photograph.
The woman in the picture could have been Elain in a few years. Her eyes were the same shade of blue as Elain’s. She’d only seen two pictures of her birth mother, Maureen Alexander, but in both of them, her face had been obscured in some way. In one, she’d worn oversized sunglasses. In another, a large, floppy hat had shaded her face.
Those were the only two pictures Elain had of her. Her mom said Maureen didn’t like being photographed.
The man with his arms wrapped around Maureen…
The room spun around Elain. She’d seen him before, but she couldn’t immediately place where. Instinctively, from the way he looked at Maureen, she knew this was Liam Pardie.
Her father.
Cail walked around the couch and knelt in front of her. “Babe, are you okay?”
She looked into his soft, brown eyes and shook her head. “I…I think I need a few minutes alone.” She slowly stood and drifted into their bedroom where she shut the door behind her.
Alone, she sat on their bed and tried to read.
* * * *
Carla sat on the couch and nervously stared at the three Lyall men. After ten of the most uncomfortable, silent minutes of her life, she said, “So…”
Ain nodded. “So.”
She had no clue what to say to them. “All three of you can…” How do I finish that sentence?
Ain nodded again. “All three of us are wolf shifters, yes.”
Brodey stood. “I’m going in there.” He turned and pointed at Ain. “You want to stop me, we’ll take it outside and do it right here and now.” Carla fully believed Brodey could turn into a wolf from the way he practically growled at his brother.
Ain waved him down. “Relax. I think it’s a good idea that you’re the one to go talk to her.”
Brodey almost looked surprised at Ain’s agreement. Then he turned and rushed to the bedroom door. After softly tapping he entered and closed the door behind him.
That left Carla alone with the other two Lyall brothers.
“Well,” she said, for lack of anything better to say.
Cail wryly smiled. “Well?”
Ain cleared his throat. “This isn’t easy on any of us, Carla, believe me. I’m sorry there wasn’t a better way to break the news to you.”
“She’s going to hate me, isn’t she?” Carla whispered, convinced of it. How could her daughter ever forgive her for keeping this information from her for her whole life?
Even worse, she’d maligned poor Liam in the process.
No, I don’t want to think about him right now. She’d spent enough guilty years thinking about him. First, praying he’d come back because she’d suspected Maureen was dying of a broken heart. Then, part of her praying he’d come back, fall in love with her, and together they could raise Elain.
Then praying he didn’t come back and take Elain from her. And wishing she didn’t still have feelings for him.
“I’m sure,” Ain said, interrupting her train of thought, “Elain isn’t going to hate you.” He shared a look with his brother that Carla couldn’t interpret. “She won’t hate you any more than she’ll hate us.”
“Why would she hate you?”
“Because Cail and I have suspected she might be a shift
er and we didn’t tell her. It’s understandable why you didn’t say anything to her.”
“I wish I could be that sure. You probably haven’t noticed yet, but my daughter has a pretty strong temper.”
Both men smiled. “We’ve noticed,” they said in unison.
* * * *
Micah lay curled around his mate in the back bedroom of the Lyall house. He still couldn’t believe the events of the past few days.
And he still wasn’t gay.
Neither was the naked man peacefully sleeping next to him, Jim Dixon.
His mate.
As Brodey had brutally joked, he wondered what the hell he’d done to piss off the Goddess to end up with another straight man as his One. It didn’t matter in the end, he supposed. He’d claimed and marked Jim and they’d both agreed they would try to quit thinking about the circumstances and enjoy what they had. Regardless, Ain, Brodey, and Cail had generously extended their hospitality to them. Especially once they all learned a few shifter mates had been savagely murdered.
A message of warning from the Abernathys? Perhaps.
Micah wouldn’t take a chance with Jim’s life.
He reached out and lightly stroked the man’s chin, where the evening stubble growing there felt rough against his fingers. A visitor had arrived at the house not too long before. A woman, human woman, but Micah didn’t care. She wasn’t a threat, apparently. Elain had run out to greet her, and now most of them were talking in the living room.
He cuddled closer to Jim and cast out his mind. In this way, he was much stronger than his cousins. When he quieted his mind, he could take a look around for some distance away from the house.
A sort of mental patrolling of the grounds, so to speak.
He relaxed. No threats to be found.
Micah pressed a kiss to Jim’s forehead and allowed sleep to take him.
* * * *
To say Elain was in emotional shock wasn’t just an understatement, it was a flat-Earth assertion. No words could describe how numb she felt as she tried to read the letter. Between her shaking hands and her tears, she found she couldn’t make out the writing. Not to mention she kept looking at the picture. She closed her eyes and cried, trying to stay quiet, but couldn’t.