By the Embers Dies the Fire

  “To me now, Ellie Sulwen.”

  Brighton’s knife swished through the empty air where Ellie had been and plunged into his own stomach as the baby materialized, unharmed, in Elain’s arms. Brighton let out a strangled cry as the disembodied shriek turned into a piercing wail.

  “GIVE ME BACK MY SON YOU FUCKING WOLF BITCH!”

  “Go to hell,” Elain growled, throwing out her left hand as she clutched Ellie to her chest with her right arm. She swung around and now she saw the faint but growing portal between her and the two surviving cockatrice. She was going to order the men into the portal when someone materialized in front of her, a man, his back to her.

  “Tor maleium directus illuminae maneant in aeternum!” Ryan’s voice boomed as he made a fist and the portal moved, shifting, sucking up the two cockatrice men before swirling shut and cutting off both the increasingly hot wind as well as the woman’s scream.

  Ryan turned. “Elain! Watch out!”

  Brighton was coming at her with the knife, which was covered in his blood. She shoved the baby at Ryan, then grabbed Brighton’s wrist as she had countless times before in class with a sparring partner, and disarmed him before flipping him onto his back, where he hit the rock with a jarring thud.

  She dropped the knife and knelt next to Brighton.

  “Careful, Elain!” Ryan warned, reaching over with his free hand and snatching the amulet from around Brighton’s neck, the leather cord snapping.

  “What the fuck were you doing, you batshit crazy bastard?” she screamed at Brighton.

  Brighton’s spittle was red with blood as he launched a wad of it at her. “You’re one of them! One of those fecking cockatrice! You stink of them the way that baby girl over there does! You’ve bewitched my brothers and changed Ain’s memory! Your father was in cahoots with Abernathy! Because of you, our parents died you fecking cunt! I found the baby cockatrice that Ain killed that day. He didn’t just murder that creature’s mate, but its spawn as well, and he cannot lie to me! So you changed his memory, and that’s dark magick!”

  “He’s insane,” Ryan softly said from right next to her. “And he’s dying. You have a serious choice to make. Right now.”

  She looked up at him. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  He nodded toward where Colleen was now sitting up and wailing, as were Connor and Joss. “Brighton’s already dying. He’s an Alpha wolf, albeit a damned daft one. His blood and life energy can occlude Colleen, but only if you do it before he dies.”

  “I-I—”

  “I’ll be right back.” Ryan disappeared, with Ellie, before Elain could stop him. When he returned less than three seconds later, he had a very shaken-looking Lacey with him.

  “Where the hell is my baby?”

  “I laid her on the couch next to Carla. She’s safe.”

  “What the—oh my Goddess!” Lacey dropped to her knees next to Brighton. “What the hell happened?”

  “He’s…he’s insane,” Elain said. “He tried to kill Ellie. He was going to open a portal and send me and the babies and some cockatrice through. I don’t know how the hell he got in contact with them. He thought I was working with the cockatrice, and he had them fooled into thinking he was a cockatrice who’d occluded himself as a wolf.”

  Brighton had his hands pressed against his abdomen, where blood now pooled around him on the rock below.

  Ryan knelt down. “Lacey, Elain can occlude Colleen without giving up her powers. Using him.”

  Lacey looked at Ryan, looked to where the babies were still sitting, all three now wailing, and then she jumped up to grab Colleen.

  Elain fell back on her ass, the full weight of what happened sinking in. “I…I have to get the guys. I have to get—”

  “No!” Lacey said as she started stripping the toddler’s clothes off her. “Ryan, hand me that knife.”

  He passed it to her hilt first. Lacey looked across Brighton at Elain. “Do it. He’s going to die, because he cannot be allowed to live. He’s an insane rogue Alpha, and he’ll only try to kill again. There is no helping him except putting his soul to rest for good.” Lacey held the knife out to her.

  Elain recoiled. “He’s my husbands’ brother! I can’t just kill him!”

  “He’s dying,” Ryan insisted. “It got his artery below his heart. He’ll bleed out in a few minutes. He cannot be saved.”

  “I can…I can poof him to a hospital! I can—”

  “And then, even if he survives, he’ll try to kill the babies and you again!” Lacey screamed. “Fucking do it, Elain!”

  “I don’t know how!”

  “As you told Callie that day, just feel it! He’s an adult. You don’t have to give up your powers to occlude her with his blood and life force. That’s how the cockatrice do it anyway, only this isn’t dark magick.”

  “Like hell it’s not!”

  “It is the only way, Elain,” Ryan softly said.

  Feeling ill, Elain finally took the knife from Lacey as the old Seer held the now naked toddler in her arms.

  Elain stared down into Brighton’s eyes, which had returned to their usual brown color.

  “Why?” she tearfully asked. “Why did you do this?”

  “You’re evil, that’s why!” he screamed. “I’ve been hunting these beasts ever since they murdered our sisters! I found that amulet in the burned-out hut where Ain killed that infant. You somehow wiped his memory of killing it. I saw you dematerializing before you ever admitted you could do it. Your father worked with Abernathy, and that baby you adopted was born to cockatrice! Somehow, you must have killed to occlude it. I saw the birth certificate on your phone, because I saw it when Brodey showed me baby pictures of Ellie’s birth. You’re evil! Worse still, you named your evil spawn after our mother and sister. I sent the others out today so I could take care of the real business!”

  Tears streamed down Elain’s face. She looked at Ryan. “Isn’t there any other way?” she begged.

  He grimly shook his head.

  Elain was kneeling on Brighton’s right side. She grabbed his right hand and held the point of the blade against his palm, even as he tried to weakly pull away.

  She took a deep breath. “Goddess above, goddess below. Goddess of all, your eyes do know.”

  Elain instinctively traced a sigil against his flesh, drawing blood, going by what her gut told her to do, the tip of the knife starting to glow much in the same way it had when Callie and Gigi had both done their things.

  She grabbed his left hand and traced another sigil. “Goddess you see, goddess you hear, Goddess of all, please feel my fear.”

  Lacey held Colleen so Elain could reach her palms and she traced the lines on her hands, too.

  “Blood has been spilled and hate has been wrought. But innocent child to this place has been brought.”

  Elain grabbed Brighton’s hands and held them out despite his weak struggles so Lacey could hold the baby’s hands pressed against his palms. To do so, Lacey had to lay Colleen on Brighton’s chest, in his blood, which Elain knew they’d have to do anyway.

  “This girl’s soul is pure and this man’s soul is sour. When this child is seen, only wolf is her power.”

  Elain had Lacey hold Brighton’s hands around Colleen’s as Elain sobbed and dipped both her hands into Brighton’s blood, smearing it all over the toddler and even dipping her fingers into Colleen’s mouth.

  “From a soul sick with grief now a blessing bestown, and throughout her whole life as pure wolf is she known.”

  Elain felt her power rising, growing around her, much as it had before in the times she’d joined with Lina and Mai, like liquid wasabi in her veins, flowing through her from the ground up.

  “As his life force is ending, this child’s has begun. May peace be her future and good now has won.”

  “It’s working,” Lacey said. “Keep going, Elain. Don’t you dare fucking stop.”

  Brighton looked up at Elain. “Please…no…”

  “G
oddess of All, I beg of you please, may this man’s soul know rest, may this man’s soul know peace. All through his life he’s had thoughts strange and wrong. But his heart meant no evil and his pain shall be gone. As flows the bloodline of this wolf and his brothers, all shall see this girl as one wolf to another.”

  Elain choked back another sob as Brighton’s struggles ceased, his breath now coming in shallow gasps.

  “And now this spell starts even as one life ends, no waste for this blood as this girl’s bloodline mends. From this very point forward, full wolf shall all see. And as I spake it, SO MOTE IT BE!”

  The last four words she delivered tearfully screaming them to the sky, grief flaring within her as she knew Brighton’s life was ending.

  A brief burst of light enveloped Brighton and Colleen’s hands where Lacey held them pressed together. Elain started sobbing, realizing he was gone.

  And she’d basically killed him.

  Worse, maybe she could have saved him, but instead used him, her mates’ brother, to occlude Marston’s baby.

  The very man who’d killed their parents.

  Lacey shoved Colleen at Elain. “Take her to Marston. Now. Go!”

  “What? I—”

  “Ryan and I will take care of this. You, go. Now. And stay there until Ryan comes for you. Go, dammit!”

  Elain held the squirming toddler, who was now starting to cry and reach for Lacey. Colleen was slick, covered head to toe with Brighton’s still-warm blood. Which now covered Elain, too.

  Ryan turned to Elain and started to mutter something. Elain found herself standing, dazed, in the middle of Marston’s living room. He’d been sitting on the couch reading and let out a startled sound that began as a chuckle before he launched himself off the couch with a horrified yell.

  “Bloody fucking hell! Elain! Are you…is she…”

  Elain met his gaze, this man she technically owned by oath, her uncle, a man who’d helped ruin her life by proxy, a man who’d killed her mates’ parents.

  And those were some of his lesser evils.

  And as she tightly clutched a squirming, crying Colleen against her, Elain burst into sobbing, agonized, wordless tears.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Marston finally realized that neither Elain nor Colleen were injured, that the blood wasn’t theirs, he raced over to his front door, threw the bolt so no one could enter unannounced, and herded Elain to the master bathroom in his suite. She still held the bloody toddler, who now was fussing, but no longer crying the way she had been.

  He had a shower in there, and he bundled Elain and Colleen into it, clothes and all, turning the water on and checking the warmth before rolling up his shirt sleeves and taking down the hand-held showerhead to start rinsing the blood off them.

  He wore a grim look and didn’t speak as Elain leaned against the wall and sobbed. She finally slid down the wall, sitting, kicking off her sneakers and rocking back and forth with Colleen in her arms as Marston tried to rinse them off as best he could. He sat, too, half in and half out of the shower stall, getting soaked himself and not caring, apparently.

  Brighton…gone. He would have killed Ellie, Connor, Joss, and Colleen.

  He’d tried to send Elain to some…whatever the hell that place was…

  And he was dead.

  Because of her.

  She finally turned Colleen around so she was facing forward, so Marston could reach her front and rinse the blood off her there. He examined her, a worried father, obviously.

  Elain finally met his eyes. “Look, I—”

  “Shh, it’s all right,” he gently said.

  Somehow, that tender, calm tone, coming from him, broke her heart even more.

  “You need to know.”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t think I should know,” he quietly said. “She’s obviously uninjured. I damn well know what wolf blood smells like.”

  Elain nodded, another round of choking tears taking over. “Looks like I owe you an apology, Damocles.”

  The barest hint of a smile. “Elain, you owe me nothing.” He examined Colleen’s hands, where the marks had completely faded. “I…I pray it wasn’t one of your men.”

  She shook her head. “No.” She dragged in a shuddering breath. “I…I need to tell you. Please?”

  He nodded. “All right.” He kicked off his own shoes and climbed into the shower to sit next to her, draping an arm around Elain’s shoulders.

  Never something she ever thought she’d do, she laid her head against his shoulder and told him the story, once again crying her way through it. When she finished, he let out a sad-sounding sigh.

  “I believe you had no choice. I know I’m biased, but perhaps Lacey and Ryan made the right call.”

  “Lacey called Brighton a rogue wolf. Is that what he was?”

  “It certainly sounds like it.” He let out another sigh. “Then again, there are those who rightfully label me one as well. I’m so, so sorry, Elain. I truly am. Terribly sorry.”

  “Colleen’s safe, though,” Elain whispered. “He was still alive and I used his blood and life force without having to give up my powers. She’s occluded. No one will be able to tell now. Not even a Seer.”

  “What happens next?”

  “I don’t know.” She stared down at Colleen, who looked up at her with trusting eyes which were still their original color. Colleen had already been part wolf, whereas Connor had been full-blooded cockatrice. “I don’t know. How do I live with this?”

  “You didn’t kill him. He stabbed himself and would have killed your daughter if you hadn’t done what you did.”

  “Maybe if I’d taken him to the ER or something—”

  “And explained, what, exactly? That you just appeared out of nowhere with a stabbing victim who wants to kill you? I think not.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you apologizing to me? My dear, while I genuinely feel horrible for the circumstances, I’m not going to lie and say it’s not a relief to know she is now safe. She isn’t going to be stuck spending her whole life here in Bolivia or at your side for protection.”

  “Yeah, but if someone asks you—”

  He shrugged. “I’ll lie. Or you can edict me not to tell.”

  “You’re not my mate.”

  “So? I’ve pledged myself to you. Not as a mate, no, but as we’ve already established, you own my ass. Literally. Edict me not to reveal this except to anyone you’ve told me to.”

  She took a shuddering breath and finally met his gaze. “I’m edicting you not to tell anyone about this unless I clear them to know.”

  He tried to smile for her. “See? Wasn’t so difficult.”

  Elain held Colleen’s hands. “Little girl, I hope you don’t remember any of this.”

  Marston cleared his throat.

  “Really?”

  “Can’t hurt, right?” he said. “Might as well try it.”

  Elain stared into her eyes. “Colleen, you will have no memory of this day,” she softly said.

  Colleen looked up at her and grinned, giggling.

  “It’s like she answered me.”

  “She did,” Ryan said from where he leaned against the bathroom doorway.

  “I’m assuming you’re Ryan Ausar?” Marston asked.

  He grimly nodded. Elain realized he carried a plush, white bathrobe draped over his arms. The same one she’d seen him wearing the night they chatted a few weeks earlier.

  “Brighton was far more insane than I ever imagined him to be,” Ryan said. “I came because I felt the disturbance of someone opening an off-Earth portal where none had any business being opened, to a realm that damn sure shouldn’t be connected to the Earth realm.”

  He walked over and stood next to the shower. “Elain, you and I will need to talk sooner rather than later about getting you an amulet so you can summon me as needed. It was inexcusable for me to leave you so vulnerable. For that I apologize profusely and ta
ke full responsibility for the events today.”

  “You didn’t know he was going to do this. Did you?”

  “No. I’d felt a little rumbling earlier today, checked things out, but didn’t sense anything amiss. If I alerted you every time I sensed a rumbling you’d be seeing me far too often for your mates’ liking.”

  He offered her a smile, but while she appreciated the effort and the gesture, she felt like anything but smiling.

  “The other babies?” she asked.

  “All safe at Lacey’s.”

  “Mom?”

  “She was attacked by a cockatrice. Connor and Ellie, because they were your children, were kidnapped. Brighton bravely gave chase, rescued the two children, and passed them off to you, who’d followed Jasper, who’d followed Brighton. Everything happened in a blur. Brighton ordered you to go back to Lacey’s to get the kids to safety and check on your mom, told you to stay there and guard them all in case there were more of the cockatrice in the area, wanted you to protect the babies.

  “You got in touch with me, and I went looking. There was apparently a confrontation on the rock pile, and…no one knows for certain what happened after that. Lacey now has in her possession the knife, third spell book, and other accouterment that I discovered there. And if you need me and Lacey to tell this story to your men so you don’t have to loophole your way through it, we certainly will. You have been through a traumatic experience, and it’s no wonder you don’t wish to speak of it.”

  “Brighton’s body?”

  “It has…disappeared. There was a pool of blood on top of the rock pile that smelled like Brighton’s blood. But the whereabouts of his body or his other attackers, or the identity or even the condition of his other attackers, is currently unknown.”

  Gooseflesh rippled up her arms as her previous vision came to mind. That had been what she’d seen. The pool of blood.

  Ryan’s gaze stared into hers and she knew.

  She knew exactly where Brighton’s body now lay.

  “What about the two I shot, and the one I made…” She shuddered, realizing she now had a power better than shooting fireballs.