Out of Smoke and Ashes

  Finally, Ain and Cail started moving together, alternating strokes in a see-saw motion that spun her quickly over the edge.

  Brodey let out a groan. “Oh, fuck yeah, babe. I love it when you moan around my cock like that.”

  She tried to urge them faster, tried to make them move, but they refused to be rushed. They took their time, talking to her, teasing her, tormenting her while her pussy squeezed their cocks inside her.

  Finally she let out a whine that triggered Brodey’s orgasm. He grabbed her head and held on, his cock deep in her throat as she swallowed his cum. “That’s it,” he said, breathless. “Take every drop, baby.”

  Only after he’d finally released her did Cail and Ain start moving in earnest. Cail’s fingers clamped down on her hips and he started fucking her, hard and fast, his balls swinging and hitting her in the ass with every stroke.

  Ain thrust up hard into her, his hands around her waist, his eyes on hers. “Watch me, mate,” he rumbled. “Look at me when you come for us again.”

  She could barely keep her eyes open as another orgasm hit her. How the men managed to do this to her body, she didn’t know.

  And didn’t care.

  Even the Alpha inside her was happy and sated, a puppy more than a beast at that moment.

  “Good girl,” Cail said. “And now…” He took a few more hard strokes before letting out a moan she knew all too well.

  Ain was also close. She managed one last orgasm before he came, her body milking it from him.

  When she breathlessly collapsed on top of him, he chuckled. “You know,” he said when he caught his own breath, “you could just go back on the pill, and as punishment for not telling us about going off it, we could just fuck your brains out.”

  She giggled. “That’s not punishment.”

  “True,” Brodey agreed. “That’s more like a reward.”

  She propped herself up on her elbows. “I do love you.” She looked at Brodey and Cail. “All of you. You know that, right?”

  “Of course we do,” Cail said. He leaned in and kissed her. “I love you, too.”

  Brodey took his turn kissing her. “And you know I love you.”

  Ain smiled. “I love you with all my heart, babe.”

  She got cleaned up and snuggled in bed with them. Cail and Brodey got to have her between them that night, and as she closed her eyes, she realized she hadn’t had a vision that time.

  Not that she was complaining.

  * * * *

  Elain felt like she woke up, but didn’t know where she was. She realized she should have been comfortably snuggled in her bed between her men, but she wasn’t. Definitely wasn’t their house at the ranch in Arcadia. In fact, it wasn’t anywhere she recognized.

  She turned around and realized she was standing in someone’s living room. When she reached down and pinched herself on the arm, she winced as she felt it.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” a woman said from behind her. “You’re really here. This is no dream.”

  Elain whirled around. There, standing in a kitchen, was an older woman.

  “Where am I? Who are you?”

  The woman smiled. “We’ve never met in person, although I’m sure you’ve heard my name taken in vain quite a few times. You are Elain Pardie-Lyall, Maine wolf Clan Seer, and one of the new Triad.”

  “Triad?”

  The barefoot woman leaned against her counter and held up and wiggled three fingers at her. “Triad. Three.” She wore blue jeans and a plain blue T-shirt.

  “I…I don’t understand. Three what? I have three mates. That makes four of us.”

  The woman laughed and patted the counter. “Come here. Coffee’s almost ready.”

  “Who are you?”

  Before her eyes and without changing position, the woman first shifted into the form of a wizened old crone before changing into a young woman and then back to her matronly guise. “Care to take a guess?”

  Elain blinked. “You’re Baba Yaga?”

  She laughed, obviously pleased. “Excellent!”

  Elain forced herself to walk over to the counter. Yes, she could smell the delicious aroma of freshly brewed coffee. “How did I get here?”

  “I brought you here for a little chat. You were asleep in bed with your men. Don’t worry, they won’t awaken while you’re here. And time moves differently here than it does there. At my whim, as it were.”

  “What do you want with me? What Triad? What are you talking about?”

  The woman turned and grabbed a coffee mug from a counter. She filled the mug and handed it to Elain before retrieving sugar and milk and putting them before her. “The Triad. Ours no longer exists. Yours now fills the void.”

  Elain immediately understood why Lina spoke about the…whatever she was…the way that she did. “That’s giving me more questions than answers.”

  “My sister, the Cailleach, abdicated her position when she agreed to become Daniel’s mate. Rightfully so, and I don’t blame her in the least.” A wistful look crossed her expression. “Lucky woman found the love of her lifetimes. Brighde won’t be far behind. Her path has already crossed with her One. It was time to pass on the mantle, as it were, of the office.”

  Elain closed her eyes, silently counted to ten, and opened them again.

  Nope, she still stood there in Baba Yaga’s kitchen. “Can you please speak plainly?”

  She grinned. “Lina is my hand-picked replacement. The Sunrise Goddess Zaria. Although she’s so busy with the Beasts right now she doesn’t really have time to work herself into the role yet. She will when the time is right.”

  “And I’m…”

  She didn’t know how to finish that, so she didn’t.

  Baba Yaga straightened. “You and Mai complete the Triad despite all three of you being mortal-born. And yes, Mai is a Seer as well. No, you won’t be called upon in the ways that our sisterhood was in the olden times. Lucky bitches.” She smiled. “And you have Ryan Ausar and The Firm helping keep things well in hand in that way.”

  She blinked as she stared at her. “The who and the what? Wait, is that the guy who helped Callie—”

  Baba Yaga waved her questions away. “Doesn’t matter tonight.”

  “I don’t understand any of this. Why are we the new Triad or whatever? We didn’t ask for the job.”

  “Everything is a cycle,” the woman said. “Out of smoke and ashes the old is reborn anew. The Phoenix, if you want an obvious metaphor. Or take a look at a forest a few months after a fire. In the black soot you’ll see fresh, green shoots sprouting forth, defying death. Some trees actually need the heat of fire to force their seed pods open. If there were no fire, they would die out as a species.”

  “I can see why Lina comes back from talking to you looking like she wants to poke someone’s eye out,” Elain quipped.

  Baba Yaga smiled. “She is sometimes not a very patient Goddess. But she is well-suited for the job and by far the most powerful of the three of you. Not to mention she has the eldest soul. She loves her family and friends fiercely and well. Patience can be learned. The kind of devotion she is endowed with, not so much. That is a latent, natural trait. Mai will also prove herself as a formidable woman when she learns to master and embrace her Seer gifts.”

  “It’s like having sisters. I love both of them.”

  Baba Yaga slowly nodded. “In a way, they are your sisters. Ties are not formed merely through blood. You saw that the reverse was true between Rodolfo Abernathy and his great-grandson. Paul’s bloodline did not protect him.”

  Elain shivered. “I wish he hadn’t killed him. I feel kind of bad about that.” She caught Baba Yaga’s doubtful look. “I said kind of bad, not really bad.”

  She shrugged. “It isn’t your fault. Paul brought about his own karma. At any time he could have left his grandfather’s influence and struck out on his own, found a good life. He chose the path of least resistance. He’s already moved on to the Ether, to his next journey.”

  “Out
of smoke and ashes he is reborn?”

  She smiled. “You learn quickly.”

  Elain stared into her coffee mug. “Was I reborn? Like Lina and Zack and her guys?”

  “We’re all reborn. Literally, metaphorically, spiritually, emotionally. Every day is a rebirth.”

  Elain arched an eyebrow at her. “You know what I meant.”

  “I am bound by free will,” she said. “By offering choices, not forcing things along.”

  “Oh, bull-fucking-shit,” she yelled. “What about Lina and Zack? All those lifetimes together?”

  She shrugged again. “At any time Zack could have walked away from his duty. He could have chosen not to be with Lina. In any life. I simply gave him the memories to allow him to make a more informed choice. He won Lina’s love in every life. She freely chose to be with him even though she could have easily decided she didn’t want him.”

  “And Jan and Rick? What about them?”

  “What about them? Lina chose to go with them. Her memories were unlocked by the words of the prophecy. Again, they didn’t force her. She was meant to be with them, yes, but she chose to be with them. Mai wasn’t forced to get into Zack and Kael’s car, just like she wasn’t forced to mate with Micah and Jim. And yet she chose to do it when presented with the choice. Micah never would have forced her.”

  Elain glared at her. “He forced Jim.”

  She smiled. “Jim submitted. Had he continued to not submit, Micah wouldn’t have forced him.”

  “He didn’t give him a choice.”

  “He certainly did. And had Micah not convinced him to submit, they’d both be lonely and miserable as a result, would they not? And perhaps Mai and BettLynn would be dead now, no?”

  Elain sat back. She hadn’t thought about it that way.

  “And from what I saw, Jim enjoyed his marking and mating. It might have looked like rape to you on the surface, but he clearly submitted. In the old days, Micah would have simply chased him down and not even given him the option to refuse.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Neither would Ain, Brodey, or Cail. In the old days, Brodey and Cail would have dragged you, kicking and screaming, to Ain, and then they would have made you submit whether you liked it or not at the time. I doubt you could have escaped three horny Alphas. Maybe one, but not three.”

  Elain’s face heated. She remembered inciting the first chase with her men, enjoyed being chased.

  Wanting to be caught.

  “You’re saying Jim felt about Micah the way I did about my guys?”

  Baba Yaga nodded. “In his way, yes.”

  “Okay, fine. I get it. Yes, happily-ever-afters for everyone.”

  “Including your father and mother. She is your mother by choice, not blood. She could have chosen not to take on the responsibility of an infant, could have given you up for adoption once Maureen passed.”

  Elain swallowed back the lump in her throat. “Yes,” she softly said.

  “But she didn’t. She chose to raise you, chose to love you.” Baba Yaga stared at her for a moment. “Feel free to stop me whenever I’ve reached the ‘beating a dead horse’ stage of my explanation.”

  Elain rolled her eyes. “Fine, I get it.”

  Baba Yaga sipped her coffee. “I might one day find myself answering to the Goddess of All for things I’ve done. I accept that. I’ve bent rules to suit myself, to right what I perceived to be wrongs. I won’t deny it. In my heart and soul, I am at peace with the choices I’ve made.”

  She set her mug down on the counter and leaned forward, bracing herself with both palms flat. “There are dark forces amassing,” she warned, her voice low. “Things come full circle. They always do. Good is reborn…as is evil. After daylight comes the night. It is, perhaps, an endless cycle. But my most sincere hope is to keep the darkest periods as short as possible to allow good to stay on top.”

  Baba Yaga took a deep breath. “By this time, Lina would be irritated with me for my circumspection. Considering your former profession, I’m guessing you understand sometimes people cannot speak all that they know.”

  Elain nodded, but didn’t interrupt.

  “This entire situation is very much a tapestry. A very old and complex one. It was woven once, and when victory was assured for the side of good, the threads separated, came apart. Unraveled. Now, it is weaving together again, and it’s the only way you will all survive. It must be this way. It is not an easy path you walk. But if you do not walk it, I can assure you the alternative is not one you would personally find palatable.”

  Elain slowly turned her mug in her hands as she stared into the coffee inside. After a few moments, she said, “You’re saying running to Bolivia and letting the jaguars help keep us safe might be a hunky dory short-term option, but would only forestall the inevitable?”

  Baba Yaga nodded.

  “I don’t understand this Seer nonsense. Mai has dreams. Lina has visions. What, I get the ability to grope people? Might make me a spiffy TSA agent, but I don’t see the helpfulness in the kind of widespread battle you’re talking about.”

  The woman smiled. “Your powers are young, as are you. You will come into your own when the time is right. Trust the ones you love, and trust their counsel.” She reached out and firmly gripped Elain’s forearm. “More importantly, trust your gut.”

  Elain felt a wave of sadness sweep through her. Longing. Grief.

  She stared up into Baba Yaga’s eyes. The woman didn’t release her arm. “You see more than you think you do,” she told Elain, her gaze intense. “Far more. And you can see more than you think you can.”

  Elain knew this was a teachable moment, as much as the woman could or would give her. She waited, trying to open her mind.

  In her mind formed an image of a stone cairn and a woman draped over it, sobbing.

  She waited, let it play out.

  When the woman sat up, Elain saw two things clearly—that it was Baba Yaga in her maiden form…

  And she was pregnant.

  Elain’s eyes widened as she looked at the other woman. “You…but…”

  She released Elain’s arm. “I loved enough to bless a couple who could not have children of their own. I was too consumed with my own grief and anger. Hatred. Bitterness. The father was mortal-born.”

  Elain stared at her. Before the other woman could react, Elain reached across the counter and grabbed her again, refusing to let go until she’d seen what she wanted.

  “Twins?”

  She sadly smiled. “Very astute, Seer.” She made no move to break free of Elain’s grasp.

  Elain searched, sent her mind out instinctively until she gasped at the revelation. “Sisters! Your children went on to join the dragons and wolves as Seers.” Her mind raced as more bubbled to the surface. “You’re the great-grandmother of both my and Lina’s guys. You’re part of the lineage of both Clans.”

  Baba Yaga sadly smiled. “More like great-grandmother several times over. I lost track of the generations. So many now passed that it no longer matters. I swore the adoptive parents to secrecy. Do you understand how hard it is to outlive the ones you love? More than once?” She carefully extricated herself from Elain’s grasp.

  But not before Elain saw one final point. “And your sisters don’t know?”

  She shook her head.

  “Aaaand, let me guess. You don’t want me to tell anyone.”

  She shrugged. “I cannot stop you.”

  Elain studied her. It wasn’t the only revelation she’d seen. She decided to test the accuracy of her power. “Lina told me about what happened when she first got together with Rick and Jan. How you saved Zack’s life.”

  Baba Yaga wouldn’t look at her.

  “Told me you made her an offer.”

  Nothing.

  “Look at me,” Elain demanded.

  The woman finally did.

  “Zack was the reincarnation of your dead lover. You had a chance to have the love of your life back for eternity. The father of your children. Y
ou could have easily just taken him.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  Elain stared at her, blinking. She didn’t know what she wanted the woman to say. “Am I right?” Elain finally asked.

  Baba Yaga nodded.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Free will, child.”

  “You keep saying that, yet nooo, not so much.” Her gaze narrowed. “You told Lina you’d torture her, and that her men would be happy.”

  She slowly nodded. “I believe that’s accurate.”

  “How are you torturing her?”

  Baba Yaga shrugged.

  Elain’s eyes widened as a laugh barked out of her. “You’re not really torturing her, are you?”

  “I think humans are quite adept at torturing themselves, are they not?”

  Elain slowly shook her head as she laughed. “Son of a bitch.”

  Baba Yaga sipped her coffee. “If Lina has regrets or wistful thoughts, they are purely hers, not of my doing. She is happy. Her Watcher is happy. Her men are certainly happy.”

  “And Kael’s happy,” she softly added.

  Baba Yaga nodded. “Some who have known him since he was young might say he’s the happiest he’s been in a long, long time,” she said. “That meeting and mating with Zachary changed his life for the better.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  Baba Yaga arched her eyebrows at Elain. “Tell you what? I don’t believe I’ve told you anything you didn’t first know or see on your own, Seer.”

  “Are you deliberately trying to be obtuse? Answering questions with questions is way less than helpful.” She let out a snort. “Yeah, now I totally understand Lina now. I used to think she was overreacting. Now I see she’s got a hell of a lot more patience with you than I ever gave her credit for.”

  The Immortal smiled. “She is a fiery Goddess. The Goddess of Sunrise. It’s quite fitting, no?”

  She snorted. “Yes. Quite fitting.” She paused for a moment. “So while I have you here, let me ask you a question.”

  “I can’t guarantee I can answer it.”

  “I kind of figured that.” She studied her coffee again. “What happens if I get pregnant now instead of waiting?”