Jasper walked over and laid his head on Elain’s lap, sniffing at Ellie in her carrier.
His tail wagged. Obviously, the dog felt happy to see them.
“Your friends are here, Jasper,” Lacey said, moving the carrier so he could sniff Connor.
Jasper’s butt plopped onto the floor, tail wagging.
“See? He loves the babies.” Lacey reached over and stroked his head. “He’s such a good boy.”
“I’m glad he loves Connor,” Elain said.
Lacey nodded. “Yes. It’s a reassurance.”
Elain suspected Lacey already knew all about Connor and his origins. Beyond caring how Lacey knew, Elain kept the talk about the circumstances to a minimum. “It is.”
“He reacted to Mercedes the day she visited Jocko,” Lacey said. “That should have been a clue to me early on.”
“Are we ever going to figure out where he came from?”
“I’d like to. If nothing else, to make sure that if there’s anyone we need to take care of, we can.”
Jasper stared up at them, his tail slowly wagging.
“I’ll watch the babies,” Lacey said. “Go on to the spot. You know you want to.” She smiled.
“Can I take him?”
“Of course. His leash is on the hook.”
Elain retrieved it. To save time, she simply held his collar and poofed them to the spot. They were standing on the beach, next to the thinking rock.
He looked up at her and wagged his tail.
Unsnapping his leash, she gave him a pat on the head. “Thanks for not being freaked out about that.”
He gave her a soft chuff and bolted toward the surf to snag a small driftwood branch to bring to her.
Elain couldn’t help it. She threw it for him, realizing she could be using this time for her, to think, to grab a quick mental breather, but Jasper was having too much fun.
And so was she.
When he finally clambered up onto the rock and stared at her, she realized maybe he wanted a break. She boosted herself up and sat next to him.
“This is a pretty place, isn’t it?”
He laid his head on his paws and wagged his tail.
“I wish I could figure out how to talk to you.”
Another slow wag of his tail.
She stroked his head. “You like Connor. So that means whatever Gigi did worked.”
He stared up at her, tail still slowly wagging.
She stared down at him. “And you like BettLynn.”
More wagging.
“That’s a relief.” She stroked his head. “Although, maybe I’m crazy for talking to you like this. I don’t know who or what you are. All this other shit we’re dealing with, and I honestly don’t have the brain cells to devote to figuring you out right now, even though that is on my list.”
He edged closer and laid his head on her leg.
She stared down at him. “You do realize Lina can shoot fireballs, right? You turn out to be some evil double-agent, and I’m going to let her.”
He softly chuffed, and Elain would have sworn he was laughing.
She also decided to take her self-doubt and chuck it in the fuck-it bucket and allow herself to trust Jasper.
If he could fool Lacey with all her years and experience, Elain would have no hope of figuring it out.
“I guess I’ve goofed off for long enough,” she finally said with a sigh.
He jumped down from the rock, went and did his business, then returned to her side so she could snap the leash to his collar.
“I have a feeling you’ll be helping me out a lot in the future.”
He chuffed and wagged his tail.
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to working with you, too.”
* * * *
When Elain and Jasper returned to Lacey’s, the babies were peacefully napping in their carriers, and Elain felt ready to do some exploring.
That couldn’t happen until her guys were back, though, and she could leave the babies with them to insure they’d remain at the cabin. She’d hoped to be able to do this on this trip, without Lina and Mai—and without Lacey knowing. Because Elain wanted to go do a little reading, a little research, and wanted to leave Lacey out of the loop.
Just in case Lacey saw too much about Connor. While Elain was inclined to believe the theory that Baba Yaga had deliberately engineered Gigi passing her powers to Elain via occluding Connor, she wasn’t going to risk testing that theory.
Although Baba Yaga obviously knew BettLynn’s heritage, and that hadn’t bothered the Immortal when she paired the three babies together.
Elain wanted a crack at that rock pile, alone. Why had Aliah picked it to do her ceremony? It couldn’t be a funky coincidence.
No way.
“I’d better get back to the guest cottage with them,” Elain said.
Lacey smiled. “Any breakthroughs regarding Jasper?”
Elain looked down at the dog and patted him on the head. “Not yet. Don’t worry. He’s on my list, but my first focus is figuring out that bomb vision. You haven’t seen anything that might help us with the bomb vision, huh?”
Lacey shrugged. “From what you’ve told me, no. If I did have anything, you know I’d tell you.”
Elain arched an eyebrow at her. “Would you, now?”
“Of course I would! A nuclear bomb going off is nothing for me to be coy about.”
No, it wasn’t, and Elain felt badly she’d doubted her friend. “Sorry.”
Lacey waved her off. “It’s all right. I get it. It’s hard to tell what’s the whole truth and what isn’t, especially with what you girls have been through and had to deal with in such a short amount of time. I don’t blame you for being paranoid. I’d be more worried if you weren’t.”
“You can say that again.” After a quick hug, Elain gathered her things and the carriers and poofed herself back to the guest cabin. Once her men returned, she’d need to hit them up with another request.
The Triad needed to focus on stopping the nuclear vision, absolutely.
But there were some nagging questions Elain still had about the showdown between the three of them and Aliah that day, and Elain wanted some uninterrupted time to possibly get some answers. She didn’t know if it’d lead to a breakthrough about the bomb, but she’d never know if she didn’t try.
* * * *
Lacey had been watching where Elain “poofed” from when she was startled by the man’s voice speaking behind her.
“Why did you lie to her, Lacey?”
She wheeled around. “Ryan Ausar, one of these days you’re going to do that to me when I have a weapon in my hand.”
He smirked. “Do you honestly think I would be so utterly stupid as to surprise you in that circumstance?”
Lacey blew out an aggravated snort at him.
He stepped closer but she didn’t give ground. “Why did you lie to Elain?”
She felt her pulse racing. “I didn’t lie to her.”
“You did, because I can tell.”
She planted her fists on her hips and glared up at him. “Then tell me what I lied about!”
His gaze narrowed. “I don’t know. That is what concerns me.”
“I didn’t see anything that would help those girls figure out when or why the bomb is going off, or who’s behind it. If I did, believe me, I’d tell her. Sometimes, I see things that are incidental. Like a doctor or a pastor, I invoke privilege. If you think I’d be stupid enough to withhold information that could prevent an apocalypse, then you don’t know me very well, do you?”
It took a moment, but he slowly nodded. “No, you wouldn’t do that. Minor things that work to your advantage, you have and would skirt your way around. But I do not believe you capable of allowing a catastrophic event to take place.”
“Thank you! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d prefer you don’t just show up in my house like that. Knock on the front or back doors, please.”
He tipped his head at her. “As you wish.”
/>
Then he disappeared.
Lacey collapsed onto her couch, the shakes hitting her. That had been a damned close call.
No, she hadn’t seen who caused the explosion. What’d she’d seen had been…
Well, she couldn’t explain it. She wasn’t even sure she could decipher it, much less share the information.
Because she’d seen Baba Yaga involved, but not in setting off the bomb.
If any of the brief snippet she’d seen was accurate, absolutely Lacey could not reveal that part of her vision to Ryan Ausar.
Because just like there were things she couldn’t tell Elain about what Lacey had seen appearing in her garden, there were times she understood revealing what she knew could change the future.
For the worse.
Chapter Sixteen
Ain returned to the guest cabin first, about twenty minutes after Elain did, dropped off by Blackie. Brodey and Cail followed not too long after. They’d had the rented minivan.
Then Ellie and Connor awakened, needing food and a change. Cail stepped in first to take Connor while Elain took care of Ellie. After getting her fed and changed and settled in for a nap, Elain knew she’d have a couple of hours before they went out to dinner.
She needed to do this. Walking into the living room, she took a deep breath. “You guys are good watching the babies for a little while, right?”
As one, all three men turned to her. “Why?” they asked together.
“Because I need to go for a…walk.”
“Babe,” Brodey started, “are you about to ‘Seer Says’ us? Because, no offense, I really hate it when you do it when it looks like there’s no reason. And you were at Lacey’s earlier, weren’t you?”
Elain bristled but Ain reached out and touched Brodey’s arm. “It’s all right,” Ain said. “We’re in the Clan compound.”
“Exactly my point,” Elain said. She stepped forward. Brodey stood between his brothers. As she took his hands in hers, it was to him she addressed her comments.
“I love you. But there’s three of you.” She tipped her head back toward the hallway, where the babies were asleep in their room. “Two of them. A bunch of Clan members who count on me for advice. And only one of me. One. I love all five of you, you know that. Sometimes, I need a little break. I need a chance to recharge my batteries.”
“Why can’t one of us come with you?” His tone sounded borderline whiny.
Cail chuckled but didn’t add his two cents.
She tried to rein in her temper. “Sweetie,” she said to Brodey, “that’s my point. I love you, but I need to go out for a walk. Alone. Without any of you. Nothing personal.”
She hadn’t told them about having alone time at Lacey’s, for a damned good reason. Had she told them why she really wanted to go out alone now, one of them would insist on going with her, Seer Says or not.
“What if something happens to you?”
Here she thought her most primal of the three men would understand this very basic concept.
Nope. The day she officially became a mom when they adopted Connor, Brodey had dropped into hyper-protective mode.
It appeared nothing was going to move him from that mentality.
“Brodey. Nothing is going to happen to me. I have the poofy thing down to a science now. If I run into any problems, I promise I’ll poof straight back here. Something, however, might happen to you or your two brothers if I don’t get a little de-stressing time. I’m serious, sweetie. I’m on twenty-four-seven with you, and I need. A. Break.”
“Brod,” Ain said. “It’s all right.”
“Now, I love you,” she said, squeezing Brodey’s hands again, “but you need to back the heck off. I would have thought out of the three of you that you would understand most of all that sometimes a person needs to just be alone for a little bit.”
His gaze dropped to the floor. “That was before we had kids.”
Bingo. Called that one right.
“More than ever, I need that alone time now,” she said. “You lived your life waiting for this moment. I’ve sort of short-pathed my way to this place and time. Doesn’t mean I don’t love you or them, it just means you need to back off for a little while. You haven’t seen the visions we’ve seen, dealt with them the way we have. I’m under a horrible amount of stress and all I’m asking for is a little alone time. That’s all.”
“Okay, fine,” he mumbled.
Which, she knew, meant it was anything but fine with him, but she was going to take her walk whether he liked it or not. “And no following me.”
His whole body tensed, which she knew meant had been his plan.
Ain rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Brod. Remember the ration of shit you gave me when she went to Spokane by herself to get away from me? Remember that?”
Brodey let out a mournful little sigh. “Yeah, okay, fine.”
It still wasn’t totally fine. The way he’d said it that time meant he understood and accepted it, but he didn’t like it.
Which was fine with her. She wasn’t asking him to like it, just to accept it.
“Thank you, sweetie.” She brushed a quick kiss across his lips, not letting him pull her in for anything more than that because she knew he’d try to talk her into bed.
And she had Seer shit to do.
She quickly kissed Ain and Cail and grabbed her jacket and backpack before heading out the back door. She knew exactly where she was going to go and how she was going to get there, but she needed to walk a little ways first, to lay down a trail.
Mostly, to get some foliage between herself and the cabin.
Once she was sure they couldn’t see her, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
I’m at the rock pile.
When she opened her eyes, sure enough, there she was.
It didn’t look much different than the day of the showdown a couple of months ago, when they rescued Lacey. Except today Elain was able to climb because she didn’t have a humongous baby belly in her way. She knew she could poof herself onto the top of it, but it was fun to climb without her stomach stopping her.
Frankly, she needed the exercise.
On the top, there were still two visible char marks, one where Mai had sent a blue bolt of lightning into one of the cockatrice men, and the other where the three of them had blasted Aliah into…somewhere.
Just exactly where was the question.
While there had been a few remnants of the cockatrice man to bury—mostly some bone fragments, chunks of charred flesh, and a couple of teeth—they’d found nothing of Aliah.
Not a scrap, not a hair, not a fingernail—nothing to indicate she’d ever been there.
Much like the meth house they’d made disappear.
That had always bothered Elain.
There should have been something left of her.
It was possible an animal had taken off with what little had remained. After everyone was sure Callie and Mai were all right, it’d taken until late the next morning for Blackie and several other shifters to return to the rock pile to retrieve and bury Aliah’s two cockatrice henchmen in the same nearby clearing where Gerry and Cameron, the two cockatrice killed by Marston, were buried.
And they scooped up and buried the few remaining fragments of Aliah’s third henchman.
They had found no such fragments of Aliah. Not a tooth—nothing.
Elain tried to remember exactly how it’d gone down. Mai had raised her hand and called down a lightning bolt. Elain had fired her gun. And Lina had screamed…
Go to hell.
Elain sat cross-legged on top of the rock pile. It was nice being able to easily cross her legs again. From up there, she could see where the woods closed in around her. The deliberately stacked monolithic pile of rock slabs was only about ten feet high and twenty feet across, erected there by some unknown persons far in the unwritten past.
Closing her eyes, Elain let her mind drift. Now, the trees closing in on her were mostly gone. She could see that the
recently constructed monolithic structure sat atop a small hill. She was able to see all around her. A few trees that were now thick, uncut virgin old-growth forest were but tiny saplings, just sprouted.
If she turned her mind’s eye, she could spot the outcropping on the hillside where the nearby cave lay, since the trees no longer obstructed the view. It had all been connected, used by the same people.
Elain was alone, and, quite honestly, afraid to take her mental eye any farther back in time. Now, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know exactly who built the structure.
Well, scratch that. She didn’t want to know why they built it. What was more important was that as she sat there, she could feel fresh energy. Relatively speaking, compared to modern times.
Dark energy.
She couldn’t tell how old it was, but it was fairly recent.
Possibly even Aliah-showdown recent.
This past time period she was looking at, however, predated by several hundred years or more when members of the Maine wolf Clan emigrated from Scotland and settled in the New World. When they’d claimed hundreds of thousands of acres, which still lay in the control of a few of those people—and their descendants.
A shiver rushed through her, forcing her eyes open.
Peaceful woods lay around her.
Still, she felt watched. And not by an animal.
Closing her eyes again, this time she focused on her immediate perimeter.
Nothing, except a couple of squirrels and a chipmunk.
She opened her eyes again.
The feeling remained.
Weeeiirrrd.
A hot gust of air blew past her cheek. She remained still, unmoved, all her lupine senses finely tuned and aware. Even her inner Alpha had perked up a little, but it was only paying attention, not on guard.
She didn’t have the tingling feeling at the base of her spine, where her tail would be if she were shifted, either.
Weird doesn’t have to mean bad or scary, no matter what my track record is.
Then again, just because something didn’t appear to be a threat didn’t mean it wasn’t bad.
She retrieved her iPad from her backpack, where she’d stored her copies of the evil cockatrice spell books, as well as the other scanned books Zack and Kael had prepared, books gifted to them to Lina by Bertholde.