By the Embers Dies the Fire Read online

  “Give me a straight answer.”

  “I can’t. I wasn’t involved. I see what I’m supposed to see, which to you might right now feel omniscient, but as Ryan will also admit, it’s not. And I am not. Jasper entered my sphere of influence, as it were, when he adopted Lacey. I have had no visions about him.”

  “Did Ryan give you any info about him? Ryan seems to know more.”

  “Ryan is able to connect to a person’s soul in a different way than I am.”

  “He said I had to ask Jasper myself.”

  “Then I suggest you do that.”

  “Why did Brighton do this?” Elain stared at her. “Any clues?”

  Baba Yaga lifted her hands, palms up, and held them out in a universal gesture. “He was a lone wolf. A rogue. I do know from personally witnessing that he sometimes…went off on tangents.”

  A horrific thought struck Elain. “Has he killed innocent people before?”

  When Baba Yaga didn’t want to answer at first, Elain had her answer. “Why didn’t you tell me that day in Arcadia, when you showed up in my bedroom and warned me about the baby monitor?”

  “Because you’d just had a baby. And I didn’t know what was going to happen in the future. I had no way of knowing this would happen or I would have told you. As I said, there is now a blind spot regarding you and Lina and Mai, because of your new roles.”

  “So did Brighton kill innocent people in the past?”

  Baba Yaga muttered a phrase that vaguely sounded Latin.

  Ryan appeared, standing there, hands jammed in the pockets of his slacks. “Yes?”

  Baba Yaga held a hand out to him, indicating to Elain for her to ask him.

  “She won’t answer me. Did Brighton kill other innocent people in the past?”

  Ryan slowly walked around the couch and finally sank down on the other end of it from Baba Yaga. With his hands resting on his knees, and his gaze focused on the coffee table, he nodded.

  “I do not know how many, but I found reason to believe that Brighton mistakenly targeted people in the past who were…perhaps not innocent, but who were not guilty of the crimes he thought them guilty of. Certainly not people worthy of death.”

  Elain slumped back in her chair.

  Well, I did ask. “Can you show me the point he took a hard left into psycho territory?”

  Elain didn’t miss that Baba Yaga was also looking at Ryan.

  “I believe it happened when he found the amulet on the cockatrice female that Aindreas killed the night their sisters died. The mate to the one who killed their sisters. I think the amulet…changed Brighton somehow. I’m still trying to figure out exactly where it came from, but I believe it was given to a cockatrice eons ago by the same individual we’ve already discussed.”

  “Wait a minute,” Elain said, thinking, closing her eyes. She held out her hand to him.

  He took it, and she thought about the vision she had when she touched the spell book before, about how they came to be.

  The cockatrice who’d worn an amulet.

  Finally, Ryan released her hand. She opened her eyes to his grim expression. “Right. That appears to be the same one. Because Brighton was already inherently susceptible, its powers did something to him. When he located the cockatrice spell book, which I’m still not sure when or how or where he did, it only added to that power. You yourself have witnessed the inherent power in those books, due to their content and how they were created.”

  Her gut rolled, nearly sick. “Yeah.”

  “As with anyone, I don’t believe it was any one given incident,” Ryan said. “It was a confluence of events. A small ember that blew out of control into a raging forest fire because the conditions were just right.”

  “And that’s also why you have to have custody of the original Tablet of Trammel.”

  He nodded.

  “I hate this job,” she whispered.

  “I am sorry, but if it’s any comfort, you performed admirably.”

  “Not good enough to save him.”

  “He wrote his fate,” Ryan said. “He put himself on a path. Free will.”

  “You said it was the amulet that did it to him.”

  “Like with anything else, he made choices. Free will. It wasn’t strictly the amulet that drove him to madness.”

  “Was there anything different I could have done?”

  “No,” they both said.

  Baba Yaga picked up the conversational thread. “Don’t drive yourself to madness thinking like that. Things happened the way they happened. Had you saved him, it was not a matter of if he tried to harm you or the babies again, but when. And the next time, he’d be more likely to sow even more grief in his wake. There will be plenty of times in your life for you to hold yourself rightfully responsible. This is not one of those times. Don’t take on a burden that’s not yours to bear.”

  “You saved innocents,” Ryan added. “Babies. Your own child. And you selflessly protected Colleen. That was no small feat. Brighton’s death was not futile. It was given meaning and not a waste.”

  “I want to hate both of you for being so calm about this,” Elain said.

  “I understand,” Ryan said. “It is only through eons of this life that we can sit here and discuss this so…rationally. You’ve personally seen both of us in far less restrained circumstances, through your visions. Far more emotional times. It does not mean that we do not feel your pain, your loss, but we’ve learned how to compartmentalize it. You will, too. As will Lina and Mai. You must, or risk madness.”

  Elain snorted. “I think Lina’s halfway to being mad as it is.”

  Baba Yaga smiled. “She isn’t mad, just emotional. Volatile. Experience and training will temper her mood, eventually. But it’s kept her alive and helped her protect innocents, so it’s a needed skill for her right now.”

  “And it’s why I can’t tell her or Mai jack shit.” Even though Elain wasn’t there in corporeal form, she leaned forward, elbows resting on her thighs, head down.

  She wasn’t too sure that she might not puke her guts up.

  “Because Lina will blow people up and Mai won’t feel confident enough to help me stop her,” Elain finally continued.

  “Perhaps not eloquently stated, but yes,” Ryan said.

  “You haven’t seen Lina throw a shit fit,” Elain muttered before she sat up again. “Then again, maybe you have. How do I know what the hell you’ve seen?” She stood and paced the room. “You’ve seen shit I can’t even imagine. Shit I don’t want to imagine.”

  “You’ll see plenty of your own shit, in time,” Baba Yaga said.

  She wheeled around and jabbed a finger at her. “That’s what I’m fucking afraid of!” She ran her hands through her hair, shoving it back on her head. “I’m terrified!” Her voice choked in her throat. “Don’t you understand that?”

  Ryan got up and walked over to her. “We do. As hard as it is to believe, we have had our dark nights of the soul, the times just like you feel now. Exactly like you feel.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out again. “We carry on, then, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  She nodded. “Right.” She hesitated. “Why move Brighton’s body? Why not allow it to be found there?”

  Ryan looked…uneasy. “I made it appear that the cockatrice took him and ran. The vehicle won’t be able to be tracked, and it won’t be found. It would be too difficult to explain away aspects of his…condition. And it will be a distraction to help keep attention diverted. It appears he didn’t identify himself in his notes in the book, so it can be handed over to Kael and Zack for study. I’ll try to keep an eye out for any other loose ends. The cockatrice bodies will not be found.”

  “Thanks.” She closed her eyes and opened them again to find herself in bed, Brodey still tightly wrapped around her, in Lacey’s guest room. On the floor, Jasper raised his head and looked at her.

  Fuck.

  * * * *

  Brodey and Liam were up again just a
fter dawn and headed out for a search Elain could already see—without her Seer powers—that the men felt was completely useless and was only to satisfy what they believed was their duty to Brighton as both a Clan member and as Brodey’s brother.

  Elain’s mom appeared a little later, the sight of her arm in a cast churning Elain’s stomach. Carla settled in at the kitchen table with Elain and Lacey.

  “Do you want some coffee, or tea, Carla?” Lacey asked.

  Elain hated how scared her mom looked. How…hollow.

  Frightened.

  And there wasn’t a damn thing Elain could do about it. Elain might be able to lie to her father, but her mom couldn’t lie to her mate.

  That meant Elain had to watch what she said to her mom for fear of her dad accidentally finding out and revealing it to Ain, Brodey, and Cail.

  “Sure,” her mom finally said. “Tea, please. Mint, if you have it. Thank you.”

  “I sure do. Give me just a moment.”

  Her mom’s head slowly swiveled to meet Elain’s gaze. “I fell down the stairs,” she said.

  Elain nodded.

  “Are they…dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And Brighton?”

  “Missing.”

  “Missing-missing, or missing-we-know-where-the grave-is?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “And Brighton pushed me down the stairs, right? Took the babies?”

  “I can’t tell you that, either.”

  “Then riddle me this. Is the reason you can’t tell me because of edicting and how wolf mates can’t lie to each other?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then.” Carla slowly shook her head. “I knew he wasn’t right in the head, but I never realized how not right he was. But I know what I know. If your father asks me, I’ll truthfully say I didn’t see who it was.”

  “You don’t know it was Brighton who pushed you down the stairs. There were other cockatrice.”

  She arched an eyebrow at Elain. “I might be on heavy-duty pain meds, but I’m not stupid. I went to investigate a noise I heard.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Mom.”

  Lacey slid a steaming mug of hot tea in front of her mom. “There you go.”

  “Thanks.” She stared at Elain for a long, silent moment. “Brighton’s not coming back, I hope? Not able to do this to us ever again, right? I don’t have to look over my shoulder all the time, worried he might be there?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. That’s all I wanted to know.” She held the mug of tea and blew across its surface. “That, and that the babies are safe.”

  “They are now,” Lacey said.

  “I guess it’s time to let your father teach me how to shoot.”

  “I think that can be arranged, Mom.”

  “I’d be shocked if it wasn’t,” Lacey said. “I suspect there will be a class full of Arcadia wolf women, and maybe a man or two, in a few short weeks.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Aliah had sensed a change in the air in the cave just before the portal opened. With the rock in her hand, she stared, intent, ready.

  That’s when she spotted the bitch. And, just behind the wolf she’d seen before, three other children. While in her heart she knew one of them was her Cameron, the age of them told her that she’d been there in that realm for far longer than the week or so it’d felt like.

  Screaming, raging, Aliah tried to get back through the portal, but then another man appeared out of thin air.

  A man she instinctively knew was the odd scent she’d smelled that day.

  Then two men fell through the portal before it closed again.

  Screaming, she fell onto them and bashed their heads with the rock, stunning them before they could even protect themselves.

  Minutes later, she was covered with their blood and they were both dead. Cockatrice.

  Men from another nest, whom she vaguely recognized.

  Men who would have killed her had they been able to.

  Panting from her exertion, she slumped onto her knees and stared at the bodies before her. They also had guns, and she set about searching them for any other weapons or items she could use there.

  Then, throwing her head back, she let loose a visceral scream of anguish, rage, and grief.

  Her mate—gone.

  Her baby—alive, at least, but apparently being raised by someone else.

  He wouldn’t even know her.

  Whatever was going on, she would claw her way back to Earth and make them pay.

  Make them all pay.

  * * * *

  Later that day, Cail, Ain, and the others flew back to Maine. They were all focused on the search, both for Brighton and the cockatrice they believed had taken him. Kitty was on the warpath and had rallied enraged shifters from all over to come in to help.

  Elain only felt a little guilty that she used her men’s desire to keep her out of danger to her advantage and not press to help with the search.

  Then again, that would have been a lie, since she already knew what happened. Keeping her distance from the search was better for everyone concerned.

  Elain was glad that her men and her dad were still out searching. Elain, Carla, and all the kids were spending the day at Lacey’s even though with Ain and Cail back, they’d be staying at the guest cottage at night.

  Now that Elain was not nursing Ellie any longer, she felt she could freely imbibe, since she had someone to watch her children for her. She sat at Lacey’s table and when the old Seer cocked her head at Elain in a silent question, Elain held her hands about eight inches apart, one over the other, and said, “To the top, please. Easy on the ice.”

  Lacey nodded, grabbed a water glass and bottle of Jocko’s bourbon from the cabinet, dropped a couple of ice cubes in, and topped it off before sliding it in front of Elain.

  “Should I keep the bottle out?” Lacey asked.

  Elain longingly eyed it as she took a long swallow of the burning booze. “No,” she finally said. “Too tempting.”

  Lacey put it away before taking a chair next to Elain.

  She didn’t speak.

  Neither did Elain. The only noise in the house came from the living room, where her mom and the babies were watching cartoons.

  After she was down to only a couple of fingers of liquor, Elain finally spoke, low enough her mom wouldn’t hear. “How’d you do this all these years?” She stared at the glass. “How’d you tolerate it?”

  Lacey shrugged. “You learn to. Eventually. People aren’t perfect. Even the ones we love and adore. Sometimes, especially so.” The old Seer studied her. “What else did you see on that rock pile?”

  Elain shuddered as she remembered the hot wind, the sound of Aliah’s scream. “I know why we didn’t find Aliah’s body.”

  “Ryan said Brighton opened a portal.” Lacey’s expression went grim. “We need to keep you three away from that damned place. We can’t risk that portal opening again and letting her and those other two back in.”

  “It’s not Aliah and the other two I’m worried about,” Elain said. “I’m worried about what else might be able to make it through.”

  “For right now,” Lacey said, “let me and Ryan noodle on this. You need to focus on your guys and your kids for a while. You have other things to worry about besides a stupid pile of rocks.”

  “Brodey’s tore up about this.”

  “Of course he is. All three of them are.”

  “No, he’s…” She looked at Lacey. “Seer Says?”

  The old Seer smiled. “I have no mate to edict me.”

  That’s when it hit Elain. “So that’s why you won’t marry Jocko?”

  Lacey tapped her nose.

  “Ain. His soul was heavy because of something that happened when their sisters were murdered. And…I did something, with his permission, that fixed it inside him.”

  “He doesn’t even remember his memory being altered now.” It was a statement, not a question.
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  “No. But I’m worried about Brodey. I think there’s a very distinct possibility he could have a similar problem.”

  “I think with your love and strength, your men, including Brodey, will heal.”

  “Brodey was the one still here in Maine. He feels horrible that Brighton died ‘protecting’ his kids.”

  “Probably. But he will heal.”

  “You see it, or you know it?”

  “I feel it.” Lacey reached across the table and grabbed Elain’s hands tightly. “Honey,” she whispered, “you are an Immortal now. You will find a way to love the pain away for him. Not to say you can completely eliminate it, but you will find a way to help him live with it and heal in the ways he needs to heal. All of them.”

  Jasper trotted into the kitchen and nosed at her thigh, whining. Elain sat up and stroked his head. “And you, mister. You and I still need a talk.”

  He slowly wagged his tail.

  “What can you tell me about him?” Elain asked. “Really?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” Lacey said. “But his home is with you now.”

  Elain stared into the dog’s eyes. If it hadn’t been for him, no telling what might have happened.

  “You’re a good boy,” she said. “Whatever you are.”

  He softly chuffed and wagged his tail.

  * * * *

  Later that night, when Elain, Carla, Jasper, and the babies had been collected by their men and taken to the guest cabin, Lacey sat on a step on her back porch and stared out at her garden.

  She sensed his presence immediately. “Ryan.”

  He sat next to her on the step. “Hello, dear.”

  “Did it have to happen this way?”

  “That is beyond my ken, as they say. It happened as it happened. Unlike Jadwiga, I don’t engineer events.”

  She turned to him, eyebrow arched.

  “Usually,” he amended. “Not to this extent.”

  “Did she do this?”

  “She didn’t cause Brighton to do what he did, no. In this case, it was incidental, although interconnected when the nexus of Brighton’s personal mission intersected with Jadwiga engineering the end of her Triad and the beginning of Elain’s.”