A Wolf in the Fold

  His gaze dropped to the ground for a moment. When he looked at her again, she wasn’t sure what emotion she read there.

  “Let me start by saying I believe everything you’ve told me. I, personally, will take everything you’ve said as truth unless proven otherwise. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Abernathy’s alive and being held as someone’s hostage. So we don’t know if that’s good or bad, yet. Right?”

  She nodded again.

  “Baba Yaga has apparently engineered things over the years in such a way as to bring you and Lina and Mai together with your respective mates to extract revenge against the cockatrice.”

  “Right.”

  “She keeps claiming free will, but it seems we’re pawns in whatever master plan she has.”

  “Exactly.” Elain felt massive relief that he’d readily grasped every conclusion she’d come to thus far without needing further explanation on her part.

  He frowned. “She obviously has a massive grudge against the cockatrice as a race in general.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what it boils down to is the fact that, in her mind, Abernathy is a minor player. She wants us all to take down the cockatrice for good and fulfill some ancient oath. Considering what the fuckers have done over the centuries, that’s not a completely unreasonable request.”

  Elain nodded.

  He turned to her again. When he spoke, his voice sounded quiet, resigned. “All right, then. It looks like we’re going to have some rocky times ahead of us.”

  “I think so.”

  He pulled his horse up. Elain reined in Mina, too. Cail leaned over and kissed Elain, long and sweet and full of love flowing from him to her. He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I know we said the decision is yours, but if you really want my opinion, then I don’t want you to go back on the pill.”

  “What?”

  “Life is short. I’ve waited—we’ve waited our whole lives to find and love you. Maybe this is selfish of me, but I want it all. I’m not satisfied waiting until some possible future day when we can relax and have pups. I don’t even know if we’ll all be here in a year or two.”

  He cupped her cheek in his warm palm, his brown eyes focused on hers. “I love you. You are my life. I want to live as much of it as we can for as long as we can. I won’t edict you to stay off the pill. But I call bullshit on not giving you my opinion. I want to be a dad, because I think you’d be the world’s best mom, and I want to raise our pups together with you.”

  * * * *

  Cail watched as surprise filled Elain’s face. “You don’t want to wait until all this calms down?” she asked.

  He only felt a little guilty for opening up to her about it. He wouldn’t lie to her, even if he could, just to spare her feelings about this. “No. Life might never calm down. Or it might not calm down for years. Decades, even. We’ve seen a lot, babe. Done a lot. Lost a lot of friends, family, and Clan to this same kind of crap in the past. There have been times the three of us weren’t even sure we’d live to see the next morning. We were damn lucky we did. Even luckier to find you. There might always be a cockatrice battle, or some psycho fucker wanting to mess with us, or some damn thing happening in our lives. All that matters is we’re together now, and that is what we need to live for. Not some what-if future. Now.”

  He felt her fear, her indecision. He didn’t need to be a Seer to do that, just her mate.

  “I’m still not convinced I’ll be a good mom,” she softly said.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Seriously? Were you not watching when I nearly eviscerated Paul Abernathy? I lost control. Then look what happened when I had to go for a run when Mom was kidnapped. Then there was the night I goaded you three into a chase. I don’t trust myself to keep my inner Alpha reined in and stay in control. We’ve had this talk before.”

  “Yes, we have.” He leaned in and kissed her again. “And my opinion hasn’t changed. I still think you’ll be a damn good mom if and when you decide to let it happen. Nothing’s going to change my opinion there. I’ve seen you with BettLynn and the Beasts. If that’s the biggest worry you still have, then forget it. You’re the only one who thinks it. Everyone else knows how good you’ll be.”

  She slowly nodded. “Okay.”

  A gigantic boulder he didn’t realize he’d been carrying rolled off his shoulders. “Okay.” He leaned in again and kissed her, hard, loving her beyond his ability to convey. He touched his forehead to hers. “It’ll be okay, babe.”

  “You can’t promise me that.”

  “I know. But I feel it. I just do.”

  They rode for another hour. He found it rather telling that neither Ain nor Brodey had come looking for them when he knew they had to be up and working already. Cail was under no illusion that each of them played a slightly different role in Elain’s life. He was the confidant, the talker. Brodey was the wolf, best able to help her deal with the fearsome Alpha she frequently struggled with inside her, the emotional one. Ain was her rock, the usually steady one.

  His idiotic attempt to off himself a few months earlier notwithstanding.

  “I guess we should head back,” she said.

  “You don’t sound like you want to head back.”

  She stared off into the distance.

  “Babe?”

  “I don’t feel ready for this.”

  “For what?”

  “Any of this.” She looked at him. “I thought I had my life planned, and then wham, everything drops into my lap. First you guys, which, believe me, I’m not complaining about. I start to wrap my head around that, then bam, I find out my mom knew about the shifter stuff all along, even if she didn’t really believe in it before. Then, oh yeah, I am a shifter. Not to mention a Seer. I don’t even feel like I have a handle on my life anymore, much less feel qualified to bring another person into the world.”

  He smiled. “Want to know a secret?”

  “What?”

  “Everyone feels like that. Like they’re not ready. Shifter or not, everyone feels that way. Just ask your mom and dad. And if someone says they don’t feel like that, if they really think they’re ready for everything life has to throw at them, especially when it comes to parenthood, then that means they’re a completely delusional, insane psychopath.”

  Chapter Three

  Mercedes smiled. “I think everything is finally ready.” She looked up at Marston. “Do you realize how long it’s taken me to get to this point? I was beginning to think I’d never see the day.”

  “So now that we have what we need from him, my evil little mate, what the bloody hell do we plan on doing with him in the long term? Other than keeping him a prisoner down here? You still haven’t given me a clue. I thought once we had the paperwork and finances taken care of that we were getting rid of him?”

  She hadn’t given him a clue because since realizing the extent of her brothers’ evil, she’d changed her plans. Before, she’d devoted herself to getting pregnant and taking over Rodolfo’s empire. She’d wanted to use that position and power to completely wipe out the rest of the cockatrice and establish her legitimacy once and for all.

  Now she wasn’t so sure.

  She would not, however, admit any of that to Marston. Right now, her life and plans were on hold until she got pregnant.

  From that point, she’d decide her next move.

  She stared at Rodolfo. “Oh, we have use for him yet.” She knelt in front of the shackled and chained man. The magickal silver shackles and collar kept him securely restrained. He could move around but not shift or get free. Filthy, he had lost weight. She was feeding him just enough to keep him alive, but no more.

  “This,” she said, “is about far more than the papers we’ve had him sign over the past few weeks. The videos we’ve had him make. Now that I’ve got everything set up legally, we can start putting it into action. After we’re done with dear ole Daddy, I want to auction him off to the jaguars.” She looked up
at Marston. “One more final fuck you to my father.”

  “Brilliant.”

  She straightened. “I thought so, too. I know for a fact that Ortega Montalvo will pay top dollar for Rodolfo being delivered to him. Especially if he’s alive.” She grinned down at the prisoner. “So buck up, Daddy. I’m not killing you.”

  “Can we give him a bath sometime soon?” Marston asked. “He’s getting rather rank again. I believe it’s been three weeks since his last one.”

  “Eventually.”

  Abernathy glared up at them, but didn’t speak. He’d quickly learned that speaking out of turn earned him a swift, painful kick from either Mercedes, Marston, or both. He was already missing a tooth as a result.

  “Today, however,” Mercedes said, “I have an errand to run.”

  “Yes?” Marston asked when she didn’t continue.

  She glared at the captive with disgust. “Upstairs.” They left Rodolfo locked in the basement and returned to the living room. “I still have a few unanswered questions,” she said. “Although I’m pretty sure I know the answers, it’d be nice to have confirmation before we let Daddy go play with the big cats.”

  “Such as?”

  “There are a few missing pieces to the puzzle. And interrogating him hasn’t given me answers.”

  “I know I agreed to go along with your plans without question, but you have piqued my curiosity.”

  She grinned. “I don’t think Daddy’s been completely honest with everyone.”

  “Sky’s blue, love.”

  “I mean about his ancestry.”

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “Really?”

  “Did you know he was only a half brother to Ysimel, Theadin, Corsaire, Jandan, Rowling, and Terese?”

  “Yes, but go on.”

  “They all shared the same father. Rodolfo was, of course, the eldest. His mother died during childbirth. She bled to death when he was born, or so the story goes. His father claimed the wet nurse as his new mate within forty-eight hours of his firstborn’s birth.”

  “That’s news to me. I thought he mated again later, not immediately.”

  “His father was even more ruthless and cunning than Rodolfo. The wet nurse’s mate met with an unfortunate hunting accident the day after Rodolfo was born. As she was a cousin by marriage, he claimed her by his so-called right as head of their Clan.”

  “That’s a rather common theme in that Clan.”

  “Exactly. She was the mother of all of Rodolfo’s siblings.”

  “So what is your suspicion?”

  She smiled. “My brothers told me that our mother confided in them things Rodolfo revealed to her in bed while under the helpful influence of drink…and some herbs, shall we say, that she slipped him. I finally uncovered evidence corroborating the information, that Rodolfo’s birth mother wasn’t a pure wolf contrary to all his bullshit claims throughout the years of ‘pure wolf heritage.’”

  “Their Clan had plenty of humans intermarry and breed with them. That’s nothing new.”

  “No, it’s not.” She grinned. “But for the life of me I had a difficult time tracing his mother’s lineage. I could find very little information about her father, except for his name. Until recently, that is. He supposedly died during the pregnancy.”

  “Are you going to tell me, or keep me waiting?”

  She sat on the sofa and stared up at him, still wearing a smile. “You yourself commented on how Daddy dearest is in need of a bath.”

  “Yes, he’s rather…” She enjoyed the shocked look on Marston’s face. “Bloody hell,” he whispered. “You think—”

  “I don’t just think. I’m positive. He’s one quarter cockatrice via his maternal grandfather. I wasn’t sure if it was just bullshit my brothers told me or not until I discovered an old journal. It related the story of a female wolf shifter who was captured and raped by a cockatrice. She killed him when she escaped, but the deed was done, so to speak. Her family mated her off as quickly as possible to conceal that fact, but then he, too, died. Under mysterious circumstances.”

  “Perhaps he found out the truth, that he wasn’t the real father?”

  “Who knows? It’s quite possible. Back then, despite the fact that it was rape, she and the baby would have been killed had word got out. Cockatrice were hunted far more openly then. Made the Burning Times look like a schoolyard spat. Anyway, the little girl she had went on to become Rodolfo’s birth mother. And that would explain why he’s worn cologne all these years when no self-respecting Alpha wolf ever would because of their sensitive sense of smell.”

  “I always did wonder about that.”

  “That’s why Edgar and Lenny had to do the spell and kill that dragon family. To mask their natural scent from other shifters who might pick it up. The spell made them take on the dragons’ scent.”

  She watched as understanding dawned in his expression. “That’s right. Bloody hell, I’d forgotten that part. But you don’t…” Understanding was rapidly replaced by confusion. “Did you do a spell like that?”

  “No. I was lucky, in those regards, that I caught the wolf gene.” She grinned. “Ironic, isn’t it? Mr. Pure Blood is part cockatrice, and yet his bastard wolf-atrice daughter didn’t inherit the typical cockatrice stink like he did.”

  Marston shook his head in disbelief. “Now I think I know where Hitler got his ideas from.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Rodolfo was in Germany at about the right time.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “I wasn’t. You know how vicious he is. Believe me, I’ve been tracking him for a long, long time.”

  “So what is your errand?”

  “I found out Jocko Connelly, the former head of the Maine wolves’ Clan Council, is an amateur genealogist. He’s got shifter records dating back hundreds of years. Not just for his Clan, but others as well.”

  “You don’t expect to simply walk in there and ask him to take a look at them, do you?”

  “No.” She grinned. “I called and set up an appointment with him.”

  Marston looked shocked. “You did what? Are you barking mad?”

  She waved off his protests. “He’s never met me before. He has no idea who I am.” She switched to heavily accented English. “I told him a lie about being from an old European wolf line and wanting to do a little checking on some things, in exchange for giving him genealogy notes I have.”

  She dropped the accent. “That part is true. I have accumulated a bunch of lineage notes, which I have no problems sharing. I’d rather do all of this before I officially hand Daddy over to the jaguars and lose any possibility of being able to clarify stuff. Needless to say, you cannot go with me. We can’t risk anyone recognizing you right now. We don’t know who might still be looking for you.”

  “I should say not. What’s your backup plan should someone get wind of us?”

  “Don’t worry. I have a small hideout prepared. Cave in the woods. All contingencies planned for.”

  He dropped into a chair. “You’re bloody brilliant, Mercedes. I’ll give you every bit of that.”

  “Thank you. Now then. May I get dressed?” Per their arrangement, Marston, as her mate, had full control over her in that way. She still hadn’t gotten pregnant yet, but suspected it was only a matter of time considering he usually managed to fuck her at least twice a day.

  He smiled and settled back in his chair. “After you crawl over here on your hands and knees, suck my cock to get it hard, and I fuck you properly.”

  Her cunt throbbed, instantly wet. He wasn’t exactly her ideal physically, but damn him, he’d figured out exactly what buttons to push to get her motor running. And for that she found she craved his attention.

  She wouldn’t complain about that. She got onto the floor and slowly crawled over to him, a smile on her face as he unfastened his trousers and withdrew his cock.

  Chapter Four

  Elain and Cail made their way back to the barn as she stewed over his opinion. If her
visions could be trusted, the four of them would, for a while at least, have a happy life together as parents. “I’m not looking forward to this talk with Mai,” she admitted.

  “Why not?”

  She stopped her horse to look at him. “Why not? Seriously? You think this is just what she wants to hear on top of everything else? ‘Guess what, girlfriend? Your life just got even more complicated. You’re welcome.’”

  “It’s not like she’s alone. She has Micah and Jim. Us. Hell, everyone.”

  “She’s had such a crappy few years, though. It feels like I’m dumping one more thing on her.”

  “You don’t have to tell her.”

  “Yeah, I do. I can’t keep this information from her.”

  “Ask Lacey or Lina to tell her.”

  “No. I’m not passing the buck like that.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “No.” She dismounted and looped the reins around the fence. “I’m going to do it. Baba Bitchface gave me the bad news to tell Mai.” She unfastened the cinch, pulled the saddle off the mare, and hung it over the fence. Then she removed the saddle pad. “I just wish I didn’t have to do it.” She grabbed a halter and lead rope and swapped out the bridle for them. Then she led Mina to the corral, where she turned her loose.

  “Want me to take care of him?” Cail asked, indicating the gelding.

  She reached for Coot’s reins. “I’ve got him. It’ll give me a reason to stall for time.”

  He leaned in and kissed her. “If you want, we’ll tell her for you.”

  “No. I appreciate the offer, but you guys can’t fix everything for me, no matter how much you or I want you to.”

  After taking care of the horses, she fed them their breakfast and mucked out their stalls. It was nearly nine o’clock when she grabbed her empty coffee mug and headed for the house. Her own stomach grumbled. When she walked inside, Mai and Lina were talking in the kitchen with Elain’s mom.

  On a blanket in the living room, within view, the three babies lay soundly sleeping, BettLynn tucked between the Beasts. The boys each held one of the little girl’s hands, George on her right and Luka on her left.