By the Embers Dies the Fire Read online

  “You there?” he said.

  “Yep. Next time, I need a separate cell phone, or a dedicated video camera, or something, so I can talk to you guys and film at the same time.”

  “Oh, good point. I’ll add it to the shopping list. Hold on, let me put you on speaker.”

  As she walked, Elain narrated what she was seeing. So far, other than billboards being different than in their visions, she noticed no major changes.

  “That’s something we need to watch for, then,” Zack pointed out. “Keep checking those things. When they start to match the vision, we know we’re getting warm.”

  “Hopefully we’ll have this stopped before we get that close to the deadline,” Elain said.

  She approached the parking lot and looked around, walking to the spot where the woman in their vision crushed the cell phone. “Okay, I’m going to hang up and start filming.”

  “Roger roger.”

  She ended the call and switched to video camera mode. As she recorded, she slowly panned around, trying to replicate what they saw from what would be the woman’s point of view as she headed to the bank.

  “She crushes the cell phone here,” Elain said, panning down, as if in the woman’s body. “Picks it up, and walks around the corner.” She rounded the corner and slowly scanned the street with the camera. She didn’t trust herself not to miss any details that Lina or Mai might notice were different from the vision.

  Then she filmed the bank’s entrance. The building was older, looking like it’d been built forty or fifty years earlier and part of a series of several other storefronts that comprised the entire structure. The bank was closed, but through the glass doors, Elain spotted the vault’s entrance behind the lobby, past a counter.

  It would take less than a couple of seconds for a shifter to sprint back there. If it was usually open during business hours, like any other vault Elain had seen, it likely had a grate door of some sort.

  “Maybe,” Elain softly said as she panned away from the bank and slowly walked down the sidewalk in the same direction she’d been heading, “she has an accomplice who’s already inside the bank and has gone inside the vault with a teller to get a safety deposit box. The inner door would then be open, right?”

  Once she was several doors down from the bank, she turned and panned the camera, focusing on where they usually stood at the start of the vision.

  “I’m not feeling anything…weird,” Elain said.

  She crossed the street at the next intersection and walked down to where the vision had started the first time Lina had seen it. Now a chill ran through her as she looked in the direction of Marston, Missouri, and saw where the blast arrived from.

  “Déjà vu, but no insights,” Elain muttered to the camera. She panned around, looking at vehicles, signs, details. “There’s Mai’s Walgreens,” Elain said, pausing before moving on. “Maybe compare the ads we see in the window now to what’s posted during the vision? Look for dates in the vision?”

  Finally, after another five minutes, she shut the camera off. After looking around, she stepped into an alley, back behind a Dumpster, and poofed herself to Lina’s kitchen.

  Everyone let out a startled cry, followed by laughter.

  “We need to arrange a warning,” Lina said.

  Elain handed her phone to Zack after she unlocked it for him. “Can you pull the video off it?”

  “Yep.” He grabbed a patch cable and downloaded it, then played it on his laptop for them with everyone crowded around behind him.

  Now able to pause it and discuss things, Mai, Lina, and Zack all pointed out little differences Elain hadn’t noticed.

  “So the good news,” Zack said, “is that this doesn’t yet look like the vision. The bad news is that it doesn’t give us any answers, other than one additional possibility that Elain brought up.” He looked up at her. “I like that idea.”

  “But seriously?” Mai asked. “A nuclear blast to hide a bank robbery? That sounds more than a little overkill, even by cockatrice standards.”

  “Maybe it’s not a bank robbery,” Elain said. “Maybe there’s something in the vault they want.”

  “Like what?” Lina asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe there’s some artifact they’re trying to get.” She pointed at the knapsack on Lina’s counter, where Zack kept the cockatrice books and artifacts they currently had. “Like maybe another spell book.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Lina said, sounding excited. “That might be it. We could poof into the vault and check it out.”

  “You can’t just go rob a bank,” Zack said. “Not until you can master not tripping alarms or getting caught on video. We don’t want to do anything that might speed up the timetable.”

  “And,” Mai added, “that’s just an idea. It could be completely wrong.”

  As they sat there in silence, contemplating that, Elain felt something ping her gut.

  Now that Brighton was no longer living under her roof, she knew she needed to come clean to the others. It probably wasn’t linked to any of this, but her gut instinct was telling her to tell them.

  “I need to invoke Seer privilege on something I’m about to tell you,” she softly said.

  They all looked at Zack.

  “What? You know I’ll keep quiet.”

  “Maybe he should know,” Elain said.

  “What is it?” Lina asked. “You going to keep us on edge here?”

  Elain leaned in close, dropping her voice. “There’s a reason my baby monitor ended up in the pool.”

  She confessed about Baba Yaga warning her something might be up with Brighton, and ended with the Immortal’s reiteration that Elain should encourage Brighton to move on as soon as possible. Which, of course, he now had.

  She also told them about Baba Yaga admitting the blank spot in her visions was getting larger, and about her own vision of the blood on the rock pile.

  Elain wasn’t sure how Lina might respond to all of that. In fact, her friend didn’t respond for a moment, her hands resting on the table, fingers splayed.

  “Why,” Lina finally asked, “didn’t you just tell me that then?”

  “Because I didn’t want you blowing Brighton up without cause. Because the guys warned me when Brighton first showed up that he’s a paranoid nutjob, and even Baba Yaga couldn’t tell me one way or another if he had nefarious purposes or not.”

  “Oh, I’d have cause, all right.”

  “No, you don’t. Okay, he’s a creeper who bugged the baby monitors. We don’t know why.”

  “He was googly-eyed over the cockatrice stuff on the kitchen table when he stopped by the next day,” Mai reminded them. “Volunteering to help.”

  “And for all we know, in his mind, maybe bugging the baby monitors was his misguided way of trying to keep us safe,” Elain argued despite not being convinced that was the truth.

  Lina sat back, not meeting Elain’s gaze. “I don’t want him setting foot in my house ever again. Now I wish I hadn’t gone yesterday.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  To Brighton’s credit, he had also invited Dad and Mom, and they had gone, although in a separate vehicle so they could leave sooner, if necessary.

  “Look,” Elain said. “Put this into perspective. We bitched and moaned from the start about Baba Yaga and the others dumping this shit on us, and we’ve armchair-quarterbacked their methodology from the start. I, personally, refuse to let this power we have go to my head.”

  Although she wasn’t about to mention the three shifters who were no longer alive due to her.

  Elain looked from Mai to Lina. “If we go after every person who’s a little batshit…well, at various times in our lives, that describes all of us, if you think about it. That Brighton’s crazy is not up for debate. Even Baba Yaga doesn’t know if he’s dangerous. She just said to be careful and not to trust him. That’s a huge difference. I don’t trust that guy I used to work with, but other than making sure he doesn’t expose our shifter business, I don�
�t consider him ‘dangerous.’”

  Lina frowned, not looking convinced.

  “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you sooner,” Elain said.

  “I know, I know.” Lina tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling, blowing out a long breath. “Lina blows shit up without thinking first sometimes.”

  Zack reached over and patted her on the arm. “Goddess girl, that’s not a bad thing. You’re getting a lot better about your self-control than you were in the beginning. But I have to side with Elain here. You and Baba Yaga don’t have the best track record to start with. Not that I blame you totally for that, because yeah, she’s a crotchety old bitch.”

  “I hate having all this power and feeling freaking helpless,” Lina admitted. “Like in Brussels. Had I had better control of my powers, I could have stopped Marston Hill in his tracks. No telling how many other people he’s hurt or killed because I couldn’t take him down there.”

  Now was not the time for that discussion. Elain wanted to steer Lina off that course, and fast. “Nothing I’ve seen in any of my visions mentions Marston Hill in any way, shape, or form. I get why you’re upset at him, but frankly? I want to focus on stopping the nuke. Let’s not waste energy on that guy when we have something far more deadly on our plates.”

  Lina crossed her arms on the table and dropped her head onto them. “I know, I know,” she muttered. “I can’t help it. I hold a grudge.”

  “Naw, not you,” Zack drawled.

  Mai let out a yawn. “If we could please get back to this, I’d be grateful. Because if we don’t, I’m going to go take a nap. I didn’t realize how exhausting a pregnancy can be when I have the luxury of not being in fear for my life.”

  * * * *

  Elain felt completely drained by the time they knocked off for the day around five.

  Frustration proved to be the key word of the day. Even after patching his laptop into the TV in Lina’s living room and showing the video in slow-mo on the larger screen, the three women hadn’t seen anything that pinged their super-duper senses, as Mai called them, or triggered any revelations about the vision.

  When Elain poofed home with Jasper and the babies, she found Cail home alone, fixing them dinner. Ain and Brodey were out handling evening chores on the ranch.

  After getting the sleeping babies settled on a blanket in the living room with Juju, Bea, and Jasper surrounding them, Elain walked into the kitchen and slipped her arms around Cail from behind.

  “Hey.”

  He reached behind her with one arm and patted her on the ass. “Hey, babe. You sound…upset.”

  “Not upset. Disappointed.”

  “Nothing yet?”

  “No.”

  She closed her eyes as she pressed her face against his back, between his shoulder blades, and deeply inhaled. Despite the men being triplets, she could tell her men apart by scent alone. Cail’s natural scent reminded her of a sweet, earthy scent, like fresh-cut hay.

  “I have faith in you guys. You’ll figure it out.”

  “Failure isn’t an option.”

  “And that’s a massive source of pressure, obviously.” He finally put down the spatula he’d been using to flip pork chops in the pan and turned so he could wrap his arms around her. “I get why you are so worried. But please understand the rest of us know how hard you all are trying to figure this out.”

  “I love you guys.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Love you, too.” He turned them around and dropped to his knees, smiling up at her.

  Before she could protest, he’d yanked her shorts and panties off, had her sitting on the counter with her legs spread, and had his face buried in her pussy.

  By the time he’d gotten her into that position, she had no desire to protest. With her legs draped over his shoulders and her head resting against the upper cabinets, she held onto his hair and clamped her lips tightly shut against the moans of pleasure struggling to escape her. The babies wouldn’t be able to see into the kitchen from that angle, and they were still asleep.

  Even with his mouth busy, Cail spoke to her through their mate bond. “You just wait, sweetheart. This is just one of the deliciously dirty things I want to do to you, now that we have the house to ourselves again. I’m going to fuck you over every horizontal surface in this house. Come for me.”

  Her fingers dug into his scalp as she whimpered her way through her orgasm. That drew a hungry, needy growl from him that vibrated through her clit. He stood and shoved his shorts down, quickly sliding his cock into her wet pussy and drawing her legs around him as he fucked her.

  She wrapped her arms around him while he slanted his lips over hers. “That’s it, baby.” Even through their mate bond he sounded growly, possessive.

  Hungry for her.

  Then, he pulled out. “Crap!” he whispered, sounding horrified.

  “What?”

  “Condom!”

  She dropped to her knees and engulfed his cock with her mouth. Like that, with his hands braced against the cabinet, she took over, him fucking her mouth hard and fast until he shot his load down her throat with another hungry growl.

  After a few shaky breaths, he pulled her to her feet and into his arms. “Sorry, baby. Dammit, I’m so—”

  She kissed him, silencing him. “It’s okay. I’m not in a fertile time of the month. No harm, no foul.”

  He pressed his forehead against hers. “While it’s a nice fantasy to think about keeping you pregnant, logistically and realistically, I want to wait for a while. I’m so sorry.”

  “Stop.” She cupped his face in her hands. “Hey, I wasn’t thinking about it, either. Thank goodness one of us kept their brains.” She smiled.

  That drew a chuckle from him. “Love you. Shit!” He nearly tripped over his shorts as he reached for the spatula to flip the pork chops before they burned.

  She giggled as she grabbed her shorts and pulled them back on. “Maybe we need a ‘no sex during cooking’ rule in this house.”

  “You might be right.”

  Chapter Nine

  Brighton had been making his preparations in secret for months, knowing that Elain and the others would all be here in Maine for the public recognition ceremony. He’d flown up there as soon as he’d had his sham of a “housewarming party” so he could finalize everything.

  The fact that the spell he’d cast on his house and himself had worked so well in concealing his intent and emotions from Elain and the others gave him hope he was nearly at his goal.

  Today’s hike had been the last item on his list, and he’d already had an alternate plan ready to put into motion if it didn’t work out.

  Except the book told him it would.

  He felt the heft of the book in his knapsack as he hiked through the woods, as if it were directing him. He felt…something. Nearby.

  Calling to him.

  He nearly let out a triumphant cry when he finally found the rock pile, exactly as it was described in the book.

  Finally!

  The gate to the other dimension, where the cockatrice had first emerged from. He’d never been able to locate the one in Europe, but he was certain this one would do just as well. Built countless ages ago, it was imbued with dark power.

  He could feel it.

  He climbed up onto the rock pile. Pulling out the book, he quickly found the page and read it once more, just to be sure. Yes, there was the calling spell, but if a few subtle changes were made, he could easily send people back through it instead of drawing them to this realm.

  He’d send Elain with them. With her gone, perhaps Lina and Mai could be made to see the error of their ways and follow the true path. Elain was by far the strongest. Lina should have been the one in charge all along.

  Whatever that damned Brighde had done had given Elain her extra powers in an unnatural way. Ain, Brodey, and Cail obviously had no idea what was going on with that baby, and Brighton suspected the two facts were linked, somehow.

  The fact that Elain wa
s keeping the baby’s origins such a closely guarded secret from their family was even more proof.

  A hot wind blew past him, swirling, despite the cool of the day. Brighton looked up, around.

  It was…

  He was alone, but it was almost as if a voice had called out to him. A woman’s voice.

  Returning the book to his knapsack, he reshouldered it and then surveyed the forest around him, turning, seeing no one.

  Then the voice…the voice called to him again.

  He sat and closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind, listening…

  Listening to that which couldn’t be seen or heard.

  Things which couldn’t be seen nor heard by someone who wasn’t like him, anyway, someone special.

  Someone prepared.

  Someone willing to do the hard and nasty and bloody work.

  As the amulet around his neck flared with heat, the vision of a woman came to mind.

  A woman he knew instinctively was a cockatrice, a woman weeping for her baby boy and her mate—

  His eyes snapped open. He’d heard about the battle here on the rock, about the Triad apparently making Lacey’s attacker disappear.

  Of course they bloody well did. This is a portal, and those daft women don’t even realize it.

  The woman wasn’t dead, she was simply banished back to the realm she truly belonged in, where the demon spawn first evolved from to begin with. Since the veil was so thin here, he could sense her nearby.

  Now he truly knew what he had to do.

  He pulled the book out again and read, going through it, understanding now that this, all along, had been his true calling. Defeating the cockatrice once and for all and not just ridding the world of them, but sending them away, banishing them.

  Why else would the place he needed to use for that purpose be on his very Clan’s land?

  As if the Goddess herself willed it!

  There could be no other explanation.

  What a relief. Now he could properly prepare and finally rid them of the dark presence in their lives and in their family line. He still had time to prepare before they would all be up here.