“You forgave him?”
“Yeah.” She closed her eyes and breathed in Ain’s comforting scent. “I felt like part of me had to. Not absolving him for what he did, but forgiving him. For me. I don’t want that kind of darkness eating me up for the rest of my life.”
Ain nuzzled the top of her head. “That, my mate, is why you will never be like Baba Yaga.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Forgiveness. It takes a strong woman to forgive when no one would have blamed you for torturing him a bit yourself. What happened to Mercedes’ baby?”
“She’s…safe.”
“The baby’s part cockatrice, though. Shouldn’t we be worried about that?”
“Not really, no. She’s only part cockatrice through her mother’s side. The cockatrice shifting genes apparently pass through the father, and the baby’s father is a full-blooded wolf. And Mercedes was part Alpha wolf. So the baby is far more wolf than cockatrice, in all the ways that matter.”
Elain looked up at him again. “Besides, considering the debt of gratitude this family owes Mercedes for saving Jim’s life, that shows me her soul was not evil, regardless of her heritage.”
“I don’t disagree with you there.” He nuzzled the top of her head again. “When do we tell Brodey and Cail about our baby?”
“Huh?”
“About Mercedes.”
“I don’t know. Soon.”
“I’ll let you handle it. Unless you want me to.”
“I’ll do it.”
A comfortable silence surrounded them for a few minutes before Ain spoke again. “She’s being hidden in fricking Bolivia, too, isn’t she? Mercedes’ baby?”
“Yes. Protected and loved and being cared for by wonderful people.”
Technically that wasn’t a lie, either. Ortega and Lucy and the other Montalvos were wonderful people.
“I know there’s a bubble of…something….in my memories. I don’t want to know why. I feel…I can’t explain it. I don’t know if it’s because of Connor, or because we’re about to be parents again, or because you’re at peace over Rodolfo, or why. I feel lighter. I feel like for the first time in maybe decades, or even centuries, something’s gone that was there. But I do want to know this—Lacey knows about the baby, Mercedes’ baby, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Why is that baby so important to Lacey?”
This couldn’t hurt to tell him.
She hoped. “Because she’s Colleen reincarnated.”
He digested that for a moment. “Martin’s daughter’s name is…” He went silent.
“Was that a question?”
“No.” He kissed the top of her head again. “I know there are things I should leave alone. That I’ll be happier that way. But please try to promise me something.”
“Yeah?”
“If there’s ever anything I need to know—anything—that has to do with keeping you, keeping my brothers, or keeping our children safe, or anyone else close to us, that you’ll tell me. Even if it’s painful, and even if it makes me remember things best left in the past.”
And this was why he was the Prime. She looked up at him. “I promise.”
“Because the weight of an easy conscience won’t be any comfort if I don’t do everything in my power to keep my pack safe.”
“Thank you for being so patient with me those first few weeks we were together. I know I was a handful.”
“Thank you for trusting us, sweetheart. And thank you for forgiving me for my heavy-handed ways, and for being an idiot and nearly getting myself killed.” His tone darkened. “I still owe Brodey and Cail a beating for doing what they did to you before we mated. I feel horrible you suffered.”
She poked him in the chest. “Okay, for starters, that was nearly two years ago. Also, it wasn’t exactly…suffering. Not like I was in pain.”
“I wanted our mate to choose freely.”
She reached up and caught his chin, making him look her in the eyes. “I did choose freely. I thought we’d settled this.” Maybe the spell she’d thrown on him had accidentally created a few unexpected side effects?
He shrugged. “I can’t help the way I feel.”
“I cannot imagine my life without you three hunks in it. Think of it this way, we were fated to meet. Seriously. Between me being an Alpha, and the Triad stuff, the Seer stuff—it’s our bond that helps make me so powerful. It’s what helps generate the magick. Just like Lina said when she got together with Rick and Jan. That’s when her powers activated. And Mai, she’s another example.”
“But Jim’s a human.”
“Doesn’t matter. Plus Mai sort of got a jump-start from taking on Callie’s powers.”
“I’m still not sure I’m okay with what Baba Yaga did with BettLynn and the Beasts.”
“It’s sweet, when you think about it. They loved her before, and they’ll love her again.”
“It took their free will.”
“I would agree with you if they hadn’t been who they were in past lives. Lina and Zack’s first life together, for example. But even that was prophecy. So it was different. They still have free will to not be together, if they so choose. It just makes it easier for them to find each other and be together, if that’s what they choose.”
“Do you really believe in all of the prophecy stuff? Or is it just bullshit someone slapped together?”
“Someone meaning Baba Yaga?”
“Exactly.”
Elain stared at the puffy clouds floating in a clear blue sky above them. “I don’t know,” she said. “Part of me wants to believe it.”
“Why?”
“Because it says we’ll defeat the evil. That’s good, right?”
“True.”
The baby kicked and Ain felt it.
He chuckled, laying a hand on Elain’s stomach. “I wonder which of us is the father?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I know it doesn’t matter. We’re all her fathers. I’m just curious.”
Elain laid her hand over his, lacing fingers with him. Beneath his hand she felt movement again, the baby’s foot or hand pressing against her increasingly confining temporary housing.
Elain closed her eyes and opened her mind, letting her consciousness travel through her body, into what she now knew was dubbed the Ether. Looking around into Mercedes’ soul, she found herself standing in their bedroom on that night, unseen, an observer as she and her men made love.
The night she got pregnant.
Elain didn’t know if this was something she was supposed to be able to do or not, but she reached out, listening more with her mind than with her ears.
After a moment, she opened her eyes and tipped her face up to look at him. “Prime first, right?”
He grinned. “Really?”
“Really.” Besides, when she thought back to that night, it’d been Ain in the “prime” location, so to speak. The baby had to be his.
He let out a breathtakingly adorable sigh. “I mean, I would have loved her regardless, obviously. Just like I love Connor. It doesn’t matter. It’s just—”
“It’s been a long time, and you never thought you’d even see the day you’d have your One, much less a baby. This is just the icing on the cake.”
“Yeah.” He gently rubbed noses with her. “I’m not exaggerating when I say that, regardless of whatever happens down the road, I’ve never been happier in my life than I am at this exact moment.”
“Then trust me when I say I’ve never been happier in my life than this moment, either.”
* * * *
Mai and Lina stopped by a little while later, while Ain and Elain were still on the lanai. Elain could tell from the tense set of their shoulders that they needed to talk shop.
Ain carefully disengaged himself from Elain and stood. “I think I’ll head inside for a couple of minutes,” he said. “If you need me, holler.”
“You’re a good egg,” Lina teased.
“I can tell a business me
eting when I see it.” He playfully waggled a finger at Elain. “Just don’t stress yourself out too much.”
Elain wasn’t sure she’d have any say in that matter, but as she got herself resituated in the lounger, her friends took up seats next to each other on the one she’d occupied earlier.
“What’s up?” Elain asked.
Lina nudged Mai. “You had it. You tell it.”
“I had another vision last night. A pretty powerful one. When me and the guys were…” She cleared her throat as her cheeks grew pink. “When we were—”
“When they tag-teamed her,” Lina snarked for the assist.
Elain struggled to keep a barrier around her thoughts and hoped that she hadn’t just fucked up her friendship with Mai. “About?”
“The nuclear bomb.”
Relief filled Elain. On the heels of that came guilt that her relief was at the expense of Mai having a likely horrific vision of a nuclear holocaust. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Mai laced her fingers together. “Same shit, different day. But I’m guessing that since I had it, it means we haven’t changed anything yet.”
“If we could figure out what city, we might be able to track down nests in the area and work it backward.”
“I know. Once I realized it was one of those dreams while I was in it, I did my damnedest to try to get a clue about where I was. Nothing. I really need to work on my lucid dreaming skills, I guess.”
“Street names?”
“Nope.” She let out a snort. “There was a Walgreens. That only narrows it down to about several dozen thousand cities.”
Elain smiled. “I’m not sure that’s a real number.”
Mai yawned. “See?” she mumbled. “That’s how exhausted I am. I’m making up my own units of measurement now.”
“Sort of like metric shit-tons.” She tossed it to Lina. “What about you?”
“Nope. Nothing. But I didn’t get laid last night, either.” Her smile faded. “I was too tired. I spent too much time with my head in those old books of Bertholde’s yesterday, trying to see if I could dig up anything to help us figure this shit out.”
“Nothing new?” Elain asked.
“Nope. We need to work on that vision,” Lina said. “I mean, I know you have a lot on your plate and all, but we’ve got to work it in somehow. As the Triad. We’re off-the-charts crazy powerful together, and I have a disturbing feeling the clock is literally ticking.”
“I totally agree,” Elain said. “My men might not like it, but we need to see if we can’t come up with a way to figure this out.”
Lina leaned in and dropped her voice. “Frankly? I’m thinking that when we figure out who does it, we go ahead and find them and kill them. Just keep it between ourselves, take care of it, and don’t look back.”
Lina glanced at Mai before returning her focus to Elain. “No one needs to ever be the wiser. I’ll gladly take point and say that the person met with an ‘untimely end’ and the vision is now moot, badda-bing, badda-boom, problem solved.” She brushed her hands together and held them up. “Seer Says.”
Mai looked a little green around the gills at that suggestion, Elain noticed, but knew it was far too soon to be morning sickness kicking in.
“I hate to say this at the risk of sounding like a sociopath, but I agree,” Elain said. “Also, at the risk of sounding like Baba Yaga, we need to shut their shit down.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Mai said. “Not without cause.”
“We’ll have cause,” Lina argued. “And absolutely I think the three of us need to be in agreement that whoever we identify is in fact the guilty one. I’m not talking just randomly blowing someone up because we have a suspicion. But we’re three pretty smart broads. I don’t see how we can’t come to a unanimous consensus with our powers about someone’s guilt or innocence.”
Mai finally nodded. “As long as we’re sure.”
“We will be,” Elain said. “With the power the three of us have, we’ll definitively know, one way or another.”
“I’d rather kill one person and prevent a catastrophe,” Lina said, “than to spare one person’s life and watch a bunch of innocent people die. I would also feel zero guilt and give zero fucks about anyone’s opinion on the matter.”
Elain agreed with her friend, but it reinforced a thought.
That’s exactly why I can never let Lina know about Marston.
Chapter Six
All three men went with Elain the next day to see Dr. Alberto for Connor’s second well-baby exam. As they sat in the exam room and waited for the doctor, Elain wouldn’t deny that she worried about what the test results might show.
While in Elain’s heart she knew what Gigi had done meant Connor would appear to be a completely normal non-shifting wolf baby, it didn’t mean Elain wasn’t paranoid.
Considering everything their family had been through recently, she thought feeling paranoid was completely justified and a very wise move.
“Relax, babe,” Brodey said as he took a turn holding Connor. “He’s perfectly fine.”
It was sweet that her men seemed to never want to leave Connor alone for a second if the baby wasn’t asleep, or sometimes even if he was. If one of her men was free, they wanted to hold their son, feed him, talk to him, play with him, rock him.
Even change diapers.
It warmed her heart.
It also terrified Elain even more that, if the secret ever got out, they might hate Connor…and her.
Elain actually flinched when the door opened and Dr. Alberto walked in, carrying her laptop and wearing a smile. “How are we doing today?”
“You tell me,” Elain said.
“Well, I went through all his test results and everything looks normal. He seems to be a perfectly healthy baby. A little on the large side for his age in terms of weight and length, but still well within average standards. Shifter babies tend to blow the bell curve to hell, anyway, so it’s not like I’m concerned.”
Relief swept through Elain as her men took over asking rapid-fire questions, stuff Elain already knew from having attended appointments with Mai for BettLynn. Their doctor patiently humored the first-time fathers, obviously used to this with other new fathers, human and shifter alike, surely.
By the time the three men finished asking their questions, Elain felt physically drained. Cail had ended up holding Connor while Elain sat in one of the chairs and felt…well, sort of explodey. Not in a ragey kind of way, but like she was afraid her stomach was going to actually explode.
“You know,” Dr. Alberto said, “since we’ve got you here anyway, how about we get you changed into a gown and I take a quick peek under your hood?”
Elain arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m very, very pregnant. What more do you need to know?”
Ain cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow at Elain, apparently warning her he was about to break out an edict on her ass.
Elain huffed. “Fine.” She held out an arm for Brodey to help haul her out of the chair.
Dr. Alberto let out a chuckle. “Just your bottoms, not your shirt.” She walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a sheet. “I’ll come back in a minute. Just want to see if you’ve started to dilate at all.”
Cail stepped out of the way with the baby while Brodey and Ain helped Elain get her shoes and shorts and underwear off, climb up on the table, and spread the sheet over her lap.
“What’s wrong, babe?” Brodey asked.
“Seriously? Seriously?” She pointed at her stomach. “I’m grouchy and huge and not in a good mood.”
“Sorry.”
She hated that he looked hurt.
Taking a deep breath, Elain reined in her irritation. “Brod, I know you guys are excited about this, but I’m kind of the one doing the heavy lifting here. Literally. I apologize in advance for anything I say until I’m feeling back to myself, but I’m miserable and don’t seem able to go more than a few hours without peeing myself now. This is not fun for me. I’m start
ing to look at it as a necessary evil, and apparently that’s pretty normal, too.”
“Mom nearly castrated Dad a few times there toward the end before Joss was born,” Cail said with a smile. “You’d think she was a wolf shifter the way she’d go after him.”
Brodey held her hand. “Sorry, babe.” He nuzzled it, pressing it against his cheek. “This is new to us. All of this. I wish I could make this easier for you.”
She pointed to Connor in Cail’s arms. “Having him was done the easy way.”
Well, as far as any of her men knew. “I mean, on our end it was.” She laid her head back and closed her eyes. “Sorry. I’m grouchy. I admit it.”
Dr. Alberto knocked before re-entering the room. After a quick check, she declared Elain fine and not at all dilated.
“Any tips for me on not ripping their heads off?” Elain asked her.
Dr. Alberto smiled at the men. “Humor her and spoil her rotten,” she said. “This is very normal. You guys got to have a few minutes of fun, meaning nine months of work for her. Just keep that in mind when you’re feeling a little aggravated at her mood.”
Elain wouldn’t deny she was a little pleased to see her men had the decency to look somewhat abashed.
Even Prime Alpha Ain.
Once they were out of there and back on the road home to Arcadia, Cail spoke up. “I’m sorry if I’m coming off as overwhelming you, sweetheart. I’m just…speaking for myself, I’m really excited.”
Elain sat in the back again, next to Connor, her head tipped against the seat, eyes closed. “I know. But I’m exhausted. There’s one of me, three of you, and the little guy. And a new one on the way soon. I know you’re not trying to exhaust me, but with everything else on my plate, I’m flat worn out.”
“Sorry,” all three men parroted.
It was cute, in a way.
It also made her feel guilty for whining. “I don’t want apologies. I’m not…well, I am complaining, but I don’t mean to complain.”
“I’ll put it out there again,” Ain said. “If you want, we’ll sell out. Liquidate the ranch. Either stay here or move to Maine. Your choice. And we’ll pitch in and help you with the kids, take over the housework, everything, so you can focus on being a Seer.”