Out of Smoke and Ashes Read online

  “I need them!” Lina said as she firmly planted her feet and tried to turn around.

  It took Elain, Rick, Jan, and Zack to turn her back toward the front door. “Kael and I will find them,” Zack promised. “You just go. Get to the hospital.”

  “But I need you!”

  Lacey, the wolves’ Clan Seer, and Carla and Liam, Elain’s mom and dad, brought up the rear.

  “Lina,” Carla said, “you have to go to the hospital.”

  Lina burst into tears. “Please come with me,” she begged. “I’m so scared and I need all of you!”

  Knowing Lina wasn’t going to start walking again until she was assuaged, and afraid the distraught Goddess might accidentally blow something up if not calmed, Elain put her hands on Lina’s shoulders. “We’re coming right now. A whole damn caravan of us. Let’s go.”

  When Elain tried to let go of Lina’s hand to get her into the middle seat of Rick and Jan’s minivan, Lina wouldn’t let go. Callie and Daniel had caught up with them by then.

  “No, please!” Lina said. “Elain, Mom, Dad, Lacey, Callie. You need to come with me. Zack, you and Kael bring Mai as soon as you find her.”

  Elain tossed her keys to Brodey. “You and Daniel bring up the rear with everyone else as soon as Zack finds Mai.”

  “Right.” He headed back to the house to help search.

  Callie looked torn between wanting to stay to help find Mai and going. Daniel gave Callie a kiss. “Stay with them, pet. We’ll be along shortly.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Daniel Blackestone, aka Blackie, was the Clan Council head of the Maine wolves. He was also her mate, husband…and Master.

  Everyone else piled into the minivan, Jan and Elain in the middle seat with Lina between them, while Carla, Callie, and Lacey got in the very back.

  Rick got behind the wheel while Liam climbed into the passenger seat. “Okay, are we ready now?” Rick asked. He floored it, having to slam on the brakes halfway down the long driveway as a black minivan with New York plates pulled out ahead of them and roared toward the main road without stopping. “Fucker!” Steam wafted from his nostrils.

  “Patience, brother,” Jan counseled from the middle seat. “Just get us there in one piece.”

  It would take them at least half an hour to get to I-75. Lina squeezed Elain’s hand and looked up at her. Her green eyes were filled with fear. “They’re early. What if there’s a problem?” she tearfully asked. She let out a gasp and clamped down on Elain and Jan’s hands as a contraction hit.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Elain said. “Dr. Alberto warned you twins frequently come early. They’re fine. Nothing’s wrong. They were probably mad they missed the party,” she tried to joke.

  Callie leaned over the back of the seat to talk to her. “Sweetie, breathe. Your babies are fine. They’re healthy and strong. You’re fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “But what happened to Mai? Something’s wrong. I know it.”

  Elain and Callie exchanged a glance. They both looked at Lacey. The Seer shrugged. I don’t know, she mouthed.

  “She was probably in the bathroom,” Elain said, hoping to soothe her friend. “You’ve been doing that a lot yourself. They’ll find her and bring her. Don’t worry.”

  She looked at Jan. “Do you feel it?”

  “Feel what, lovely?”

  “That…that feeling!” She looked from Elain, to Lacey, Callie, and Carla, then to Liam who sat sideways in his seat so he could talk to them. “That feeling!” She broke down sobbing. “The feeling that something’s…something’s wrong, and I’m not there to help!”

  Jan gently cupped her chin with his free hand. “Lovely, nothing’s wrong. You’re in labor. It’s all right. Everything is all right.”

  Lina looked at Callie. “You can go back, can’t you? Go back and look and come tell me!”

  She reached over the seat to stroke Lina’s brow. “Sir told me to stay with you. If he needs me, he’ll call.” She offered a smile. “You’re going to be a mom. Focus on that.”

  Lina let out a harsh laugh. “I’m a frickin’ Goddess and I’m terrified of giving birth. I’ve never babysat. I’ve never even changed a goddamned diaper!”

  “It’s all on-the-job training,” Carla assured her. “You’re going to be a great mother.”

  * * * *

  Micah hadn’t worried about Mai…at first. But when he and Jim searched the house and found their bedroom door locked from the inside, and then the missing window screen once they broke through, he went into full-on panic mode. With Jim on his heels, he traced her scent around the outside of the house until they found her pile of clothes.

  “Dammit!” He started stripping.

  Jim grabbed his arm. “What’s this mean?”

  “She ran. Something happened. I don’t know what. Her trail heads toward those woods. Go tell Ain and the others. Have them come follow me.” He shifted into his wolf form and took off following her scent, leaving Jim behind.

  What Micah didn’t tell Jim was the fear he smelled in her scent, every bit as strong as that first night when she’d arrived and he’d tackled her. A scent he hadn’t smelled since that night.

  Whatever had caused her to run, it had terrified her.

  He followed her trail through the woods, relieved to find no other fresh scent crossing her trail. He reached out to her, calling to her through their mate-bond, but received no response. Either she was too far away to hear him…

  Or she was unable to respond.

  He refused to dwell on that possibility.

  When he emerged from another group of trees, he slid to a stop, digging his hind feet into the grass to avoid plowing into the side of a cow peacefully grazing right in front of him. It turned its head to look at him before giving him a dismissive sniff. The livestock were used to seeing the Lyalls in their wolf form.

  Fuck you, too, Elsie. He put his nose to the ground and tried to find Mai’s trail. He realized at some point Mai had shifted back, her human scent overlaid with…cow?

  He stopped, confused. Then he shifted into human form and stood to look out over the grazing herd. “Mai!” he yelled.

  Another cow walked up behind him and goosed his ass with its nose.

  “Dammit!” He shifted back and started systematically weaving his way through the herd, nose to the ground. He spotted several places where it looked like Mai had either rolled or deliberately rubbed cowshit all over herself.

  Clever, she was trying to mask her scent.

  But against who, or what? And why? There were no other scents besides hers on the trail.

  Well, and now the cowshit.

  He gave up trying to track down her scent within the cows, instead jogging in circles around them until he finally located her shifted coyote scent again, now heading toward the barn area.

  A loud, close howl stopped him. He turned to see Brodey Lyall emerge from the woods, shifting back to two feet mid-stride. “Anything?”

  He shifted. “Yeah. She rolled in manure and headed that way.” He pointed toward the barns.

  He frowned. “What the hell? What’s she running from? I only smelled you and her.”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” They both shifted back, Brodey taking the lead as the better tracker and the faster wolf.

  When they reached the barn area, they lost her scent among a cluster of parked equipment and deep mud in a low section of the dirt driveway area. Brodey turned his head. Standing mere inches apart, the cousins could hear each other’s thoughts in their wolf forms.

  “Stay here. I don’t know where the ranch hands are. Don’t shift. I’ll be right back.” He loped across the open ground to an office door tucked against the side of one of the buildings. He scratched and whined at the door before letting out a bark. When no one opened it, he quickly shifted and let himself in, emerging a minute later dressed in blue jeans and nothing else.

  He waved Micah over. “I keep a spare change of clothes in the office because I’m usually the o
ne helping with the difficult calvings. I’ll take the calving barn. You take Barn A over there. I called Ain’s cell. They’re grabbing a truck and coming over to meet us.”

  They split up for the search.

  Micah had just emerged from the barn when he heard Brodey yelling for him across the way. Following the sound of his cousin’s voice he ran into the calving barn and almost smack into Brodey, who carried a whining, trembling, shifted Mai.

  “I found her up in the feed loft. She won’t shift back.”

  He shifted back and took her from him. “Oh, thank the Goddess!”

  She shifted into her human form and threw her arms around Micah’s neck. Brodey grabbed them both and pushed them into the office, where he locked the door behind them.

  Yes, she was filthy, caked head to toe in cow shit. “What happened?” Micah asked her. “Why’d you run?”

  She wouldn’t let go of his neck and kept her face pressed against his shoulder. “There were…Abernathy’s men. At least two, I don’t know how many. At the house. I smelled them, saw one of them. When I knew he saw me, I ran. I’m sorry!”

  “Fuck!” He looked over her head at Brodey.

  His cousin’s expression turned grim. “The others will be here any minute,” Brodey said. “We’ll stay right here. If there are Abernathy assholes at the house, I want to handle them as a group.”

  “Didn’t you see them?” she asked.

  “No, sweetie,” Micah said. “We didn’t smell anyone on your trail.”

  “What about Elain?”

  “She’s already on her way to Tampa with Lina and the others,” Brodey told her. “And they have Callie with them.”

  Micah carried her into the attached bathroom and stood with her under a hot shower, trying to get the worst of the stink off her and him both. They were still in there a few minutes later when Micah heard vehicles pull up outside the barn.

  “It’s them. Jim and Blackie and everyone with them,” he clarified. Micah heard the office door open.

  He cradled Mai’s face in his hands. “Baby, you cannot run like that.”

  “I was scared!”

  “You yell, you scream for us. What if they had chased you and hurt you?”

  Her terrified gaze flickered across his face. “Are you edicting me?”

  He pulled her close. “No, baby. Because I don’t know what any given situation will bring. But…” He didn’t want to say it, but had to. “How do you know they were with Abernathy? Did you recognize them? Are you sure they weren’t with the caterers or guests or something?”

  “No. Their scent. Abernathy always wears this distinctive aftershave. Anyone who spends time around him ends up smelling like that at least a little. I smelled it. One of them was in the house. And one of them walked by outside our room.”

  That explanation he believed. It also eased his worries that hormones or nerves might have triggered her flight instead of a genuine threat. “Okay. It’s all right. You’re safe now. You won’t leave my side or my sight until we get this figured out.”

  Jim burst into the bathroom, letting out a cry of relief to actually see her. He leaned into the shower, not caring about getting wet, to hug her. “Oh thank God you’re all right!”

  Ain and Blackie both stuck their heads into the doorway, identically grim looks on their faces. “Let’s get everyone back to the house before the ranch hands return. Right now,” Ain said. “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Two

  Lina tried to focus on her breathing, on the panting, on all the stupid lessons the way-too-cheerful skinny chic who taught the Lamaze class insisted would help her through the birthing process.

  “Can’t you drive any faster?” she snarled at Rick through gritted teeth.

  “I’m going as fast as I can, lovely. Patience.”

  When she tried to lunge at him between the front seats, Jan and Elain hauled her back.

  “Girl, you cannot do that,” Elain said.

  “Give me a reason not to fry him!”

  “He’s driving,” everyone else said.

  “Oh.” Lina took a deep breath as the contraction faded. “That’s a good point.” She looked into Jan’s blue eyes. Her Elemental ice and earth dragon had both a cooler body temp and a cooler temperament than his twin fire and air Elemental brother. “I want drugs when we get there,” she said. “Lots and lots of drugs. Screw natural childbirth.”

  He offered her a smile. “We’ll make sure you get all the drugs you want.”

  Behind him, reflected in the window, she caught sight of Maureen Alexander’s ghost silently watching the events. “What are you looking at?” Lina shrieked at her.

  Jan frowned. “Are you yelling at me?”

  “No. At…never mind.” Now was not the time to have that discussion.

  She closed her eyes and prayed she was wrong, that there wasn’t anything wrong with Mai, despite every nerve in her body screaming otherwise.

  * * * *

  Back at the house and with a large beach towel wrapped around her, Mai showed the men where she’d spotted Abernathy’s man behind the house on their lanai. As the shifters all knelt down to sniff, Jim slipped his arm around Mai’s shoulders and hugged her close.

  “It’ll be all right, sweetheart,” he assured her.

  She wasn’t so sure it would be, but she huddled against his side for comfort anyway.

  Blackie, Micah, and Brodey sat up first. “I smell it,” Blackie said. “Just like she said, it’s very faint aftershave. I smelled it a couple of times off and on throughout the day, but I had no idea it was Abernathy’s guys. I figured it was someone from the caterer’s.”

  “Me, too,” Micah said.

  Ain looked at Brodey. “Can you shift back and see if they’re still on the property?”

  “On it.” He quickly stripped off his jeans, shifted into his wolf form, and took off around the house toward the reception tent. The few people in attendance who weren’t shifters or aware of their existence already knew about the Lyalls’ three large, wolflike “dogs” that were used to work the cattle. No one would suspect anything out of the ordinary seeing a shifted Brodey weaving through the crowd.

  “I’ll go with him,” Cail said as he sprinted on two feet, still in his tux, to follow his brother.

  Mai watched as Ain’s expression turned grim. “I’ll go through and search the house before you bring her back in,” he said before he stepped through the sliders into the living room.

  Blackie waited outside with the rest of them. “Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “You’ve got a goodly chunk of shifters here. We’ll pass the word around to the shifter guests to keep an eye and a nose out.”

  “Yeah,” Zack chimed in. “Dragons and wolves and big cats. And even Wally the bear.”

  “Oh, my,” Kael quipped, finally drawing a smile out of her.

  Ain quickly returned. “All clear. Get her cleaned up so you all can get up to Tampa and be with Lina. Blackie, you’re head of the Clan Council. You make the call. How do we handle this?”

  Blackie frowned. “I’m going up to Tampa to the hospital. Honestly? If we’re followed, I want to be up there to help protect Mai and Elain and not down here chasing clues. I’ll take Brodey with me. You guys stay here with the guests. See if Wally, Oscar, Doug, and the Montalvos can help out and track down these guys.”

  “Then can we hurry?” Zack asked. “I don’t want to miss her giving birth. I am still Lina’s Watcher, you know.”

  Twenty minutes later, Mai was safely sandwiched between Jim and Micah in the backseat of Elain’s car while Brodey drove and Blackie rode shotgun. Zack and Kael brought up the rear in their car as they all headed for Tampa. Whoever Abernathy’s men were, they had left the property, their scent tracked back to an empty spot in the field where all the wedding guests had parked.

  “At least now we know what to keep a nose out for,” Brodey said, his tone and mood both deep and growly.

  “I’m sorry,” Mai said, struggling to hol
d back tears. “I’m sorry I ran and didn’t come get help. I was just…” She broke down into tears again.

  She did that a lot. She wasn’t sure if it was hormones from her pregnancy or what.

  Micah squeezed her hand. “It’s all right, sweetie. You did what you thought you had to do to stay safe.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. This should have been a day full of joy, of enjoying her friends’ wedding, being in the wedding party, celebrating.

  Even Lina going into labor should be a good thing.

  But now…

  A deep dread settled over her. She thought her days of looking over her shoulder and jumping at every sound in the night had ended for good. As she’d settled into a sweet, safe life with Micah and Jim, she thought she’d be able to enjoy living for a change.

  Now she felt like the rug had been yanked out from under her happiness. If Abernathy wasn’t giving up even after the Clan Council declared his challenges to Mai and Elain invalid, would he ever?

  She stroked her belly.

  Will my baby ever be safe?

  Will I?

  * * * *

  From the air-conditioned comfort of her rental car, the woman watched as the two men she’d followed back to Arcadia from the Lyall ranch parked their van and walked up to one of the rooms. They knocked and only waited for a moment before being let in.

  She snapped another series of pictures, as she had all afternoon, starting at the Lyall ranch and back to the hotel in Arcadia. She’d immediately picked up Abernathy’s stink on the men at the wedding and had fought not to laugh to give herself away when she recognized the first one. Keeping an eye on him, she’d easily found the second.

  They’d both been with Abernathy in Maine, at the Clan Council hearing.

  Her instincts had been right, that Abernathy wouldn’t give up so easily and might send someone to try to snatch one or both women. She’d lost Abernathy’s trail in Maine, and for good reason. Having concrete evidence that he killed his own great-grandson in the Maine wolf Clan’s territory after the loss to Elain Pardie was one more nail in the gallows she’d hang him from. When he hadn’t returned to his compound in Pennsylvania, she suspected he was on his way to Florida.