Triple Cross Read online

  “Yeah, I shouldn’t have been running around the woods, either, but I was there. Sweetie, you know this is important or I wouldn’t be going.”

  Another pause full of sadness. “We can’t join you?”

  “We won’t be gone that long. I promise.”

  His sigh threatened to rip her heart out and cram it down the phone line back to Maine. “Please, Elain. I don’t want to miss the birth of our baby girl,” he whispered. “We’re all supposed to be together, all four of us, when it happens.”

  She absolutely didn’t want to cry right now. “Sweetie, I won’t let you miss it. I swear.”

  “You might not have a choice in the matter.”

  “Actually, I do. I know this is what has to happen. And you know what? When we come home, you’re going to understand and you’ll be really, really happy we did what we did. You and Cail both.”

  Another pause. “I’m guessing you aren’t talking about sex.”

  Now she could chuckle. “Even better.”

  He sounded doubtful. “Better than sex?”

  “Way better.”

  A snort of disbelief, but he sounded relieved, which helped assuage her own guilt. “If you say so.”

  “Seer says so. I love you. Let me talk to Cail again, please, before I end the call.”

  “Love you, too.”

  He handed the phone over to Cail. “What’s going on? And did you just edict Brodey?”

  “Yeah, I did.” She gave him the short version she’d given to Brodey.

  He accepted it more readily, albeit sounding sadder than Brodey. “If you say so, babe.”

  “I do.”

  “But you and Ain are all right? The baby’s okay?”

  She stroked her stomach. “She’s fine, I’m fine, he’s fine.”

  “And you’ll be with Ortega the whole time?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. We’ll be perfectly safe. He’ll bring us back to Maine in a couple of days.”

  “You’d better call us when you get wherever you’re going.”

  “I promise. And do me a favor, please? Ask Lina and Mai and the others to go back to Florida as soon as Mai feels well enough to travel. I can’t say why, but I need them to get home. You two can stay in Maine if you want and wait for us.”

  “Okay. Seer says?”

  “Yeah. Seer says.” It would be far easier to handle getting Connor introduced to her men without Lina and Mai and everyone else there. She was already nervous enough about keeping all this from Lina and Mai. She’d rather wait until they were all back on home territory, so to speak, to deal with it.

  Not to mention she worried that, despite her success keeping her other secrets from her sisters, that she might accidentally slip up in front of them with all the stress.

  She also wasn’t sure how the memory wiping process would work with Ain. She had to be absolutely sure it had succeeded before letting Lina or Mai around him.

  Dealing with Brodey and Cail would be more than enough stress. She needed to parse it out in manageable doses, if possible.

  Cail let out a sigh. “All right. I’ll do that. They won’t like not waiting for you, but I’ll pass the word.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.”

  By the time Elain got off the phone, she felt like she’d been in another battle. Exhaustion threatened, the events of the past few days finally catching up with her. It took her a moment to haul herself out of the plush seat and walk toward the back of the cabin, where the sofas, tables, and other, more luxurious seats were.

  In case they hit turbulence, they strapped the baby’s car seat into a regular plane seat with a seat belt. He’d ride strapped in unless being changed or fed.

  Fortunately, he was young enough he would likely sleep most of the way.

  Ain took over watching the baby while Elain lay down on one of the sofas to take a nap. At one point she thought she heard the baby cry and opened her eyes to find Ain and Ortega attempting to change a diaper.

  “Need help?” she sleepily asked.

  “No,” Ain said. “I think we got it. We were trying to figure out how to keep him from spraying us while we changed him.” He glanced at her, a smile on his face. “Guess I’d better get used to that.”

  She curled up again. “Yeah. The secret is to keep the other diaper or a wipe covering him until you’re ready to make the swap.” She closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, Ain had touched her shoulder and was kneeling next to her.

  “We’re almost there, sweetheart.”

  Disoriented, she tried to understand what he meant. “Huh?”

  He smiled. “You slept the entire way. Even through the refueling stop in Miami.”

  “Wow.” She sat up and realized it was now dark outside the windows. “How long?”

  “About nine hours. You were exhausted.”

  “How is the baby?”

  “He’s fine. I just gave him a bottle about an hour ago and he’s asleep again.” He stood. “Ortega wanted me to wake you up. He said he’s got one of his men standing by. They’ll load us up and drive us straight through to the compound as soon as we land.”

  She caught his hand and stared up at him. “Are you really okay with this?” she whispered.

  He smiled and bent over. Lacing the fingers of one hand through her hair, he cupped the back of her head and kissed her, hard, furiously, possessively.

  Then he pressed his lips to her ear. “You’ve fulfilled two of my most desperate wishes, and you’re about to fulfill the third. Mate, I couldn’t love you any more deeply right now if I tried.”

  “Wishes?” She felt a little breathless, from the force of his kiss and the powerful passion washing off him and through her.

  He smiled. “We found you, our One. And now you’ve just made me, all three of us, a father.” His smile faded. “And you’re going to make me forget something I’ve wished I could take back.” He nodded. “So, yeah. I’m really okay with this. Call it a cop-out if you want, I’m ready to move forward. All this reincarnation stuff, maybe this really is my chance to atone, by raising him. I’ll gladly take it.”

  “We need to name him,” she said. “We’ll have to have it for the paperwork.”

  “Let’s talk about that after we’re settled and have a chance to rest.”

  * * * *

  A black SUV pulled up to the plane even before the crew got the stairs pushed over to the door. The jaguars hurried, Ortega passing out orders while Elain grabbed the baby carrier and Ain started gathering their things.

  As Elain followed Ain down the stairs, at the bottom on the last one she caught her toe on the step and nearly face-planted into the tarmac with the baby. Fortunately, Ortega was standing right there. He grabbed her with one hand and the baby carrier with the other, steadying her and holding on until he was certain she’d regained her footing.

  “Are you all right, Elain?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” She stared up into his eyes. A dark wave of vengeful energy washed off the shifter, fortunately not directed at her.

  Also something she hadn’t felt from him the last time she was in Bolivia.

  It worried her.

  His gaze narrowed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. But are you all right?”

  “Why?”

  “I…” She swallowed the words. “Just asking. You sure you’re all right?”

  He released her and the dark wave receded. “Just very busy, my dear.” He winked. “Personal matters.”

  Okay, add that to the top of my to-do list. They kept telling her she’d know what she was supposed to do.

  Figuring out the dark energy now encompassing her friend, not a curse, but different, had to take precedent and happen before she left Bolivia.

  * * * *

  After getting them ensconced in a suite of rooms that was, to Elain’s immense relief, on the other end of the house from Marston’s, they were able to take a moment to breathe. Ever thinking, Ortega had food sent up to them so they didn’t have to come downstai
rs.

  Once they had the baby settled in his portable crib in the suite’s sitting room, Elain realized she needed to focus on the next part of the equation, sooner rather than later.

  Changing Ain’s memory. The dark clouds that had tainted his aura ever since he’d admitted the long-ago killing of the cockatrice baby broke her heart.

  She needed to do this for his peace of mind as much as for the baby’s safety.

  “I’ll be right back,” she told him, not wanting to interrupt things once they got started.

  Elain hurried downstairs and found Ortega in his study. He looked up at her appearance. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, just…” She walked in, pulling the door shut behind her. “First of all, thank you. Thank you sooo much. You have no idea how much. Secondly, real fast, I need to warn you about something.”

  Now the jaguar was on alert. “And?”

  She waved her hands at him. “No, nothing like that. Personally, about me and Ain.” She walked closer, hands clasped, nervous. “Some stuff happened in Maine. I can’t go into all of it. But I need to do something, with Ain’s permission, of course. He’s asked it of me. To ensure everyone’s safety concerning today’s events, I need to perform a little…eh, magick.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Mostly I need you to back me up and nod in all the right places later on when Ain says stuff, even if you don’t think it’s correct.”

  “I’m sorry, I do not understand.”

  She didn’t want Ortega in any danger either. She knew the man would take any of her secrets to his grave, but if he knew them in the first place, Baba Yaga might put him in his grave sooner than scheduled.

  “I can’t tell you any more than that. I need you to trust me. Here’s what you need to know should anyone ask—that baby is from wolf parents. You are involved because he was brought here to your compound for his protection. We’re adopting him at your request because of what happened to his birth parents here in South America. You suspect they were killed by cockatrice even though it was made to look like an accident, but you are not at liberty to discuss the circumstances because they were not completely revealed to you out of a concern for everyone’s safety. Everything happened so fast, you were notified, and then you got me and Ain out of Maine to make sure we could help you keep the baby safe. You volunteered to help us get paperwork for the baby so we won’t have any trouble with human authorities. Okay?”

  He leaned back in his chair and slowly nodded. “All right.”

  She gave him two thumbs-up. “And you might want to warn your guys they could hear some loud noises from our room, and it’s all good.”

  He smiled. “Very well.”

  “Thanks.”

  She hurried back upstairs, barely huffing by the time she reached the landing.

  Score one for the preggo wolf. Yay, me.

  Ain sat on the bed, waiting for her. She closed the door and rested against it for a moment, more to catch her breath than to gather her thoughts, but she’d let Ain think what he would.

  After a moment, she walked over to him. “Let’s go take a bath, sweetie,” she said, holding a hand out to him.

  Instead of getting up and following her, he drew her close, resting his cheek against the swell of her belly, his arms around her waist. She draped her arms over him, stroked his hair.

  “You don’t hate me?” he softly asked. “I killed a baby.”

  Once again her heart wanted to break for him. She tightened her embrace around him. “No, I don’t hate you. I love you. Even if you’d told me before I agreed to be with you, I would still have chosen to be with you.”

  “You didn’t get much of a choice.”

  “No, I did.” She palmed his cheeks and made him look up at her. “I didn’t want to walk away from you guys. If you’ll recall, I drove away, fully intending to not come back. But I did come back. I think if we weigh things out, we’re pretty even.”

  She coaxed him up off the bed and into the bathroom. She remembered Yellowstone, how Lina told them sex magick was the strongest kind of magick there was. About how the magick was inside her, and all that mattered was her intent.

  Hell, she could even rhyme it.

  This bathroom also had a luxurious soaking tub. She got the water started and turned to Ain, crooking a finger at him. He stepped forward, and she caught the lower hem of his T-shirt and pulled it up and over his head. She dropped the shirt to the floor and pulled hers off, and her bra, adding both to the growing pile of clothing.

  Skin to skin, she draped her arms around his neck and rose up onto her toes to kiss him. Her baby belly got in the way a little, but she managed. He slipped his arms around her, his warm, strong hands pressing into her back.

  One last confession. “You know how I can see souls?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “I’ll take this memory from you, too, but I need to confess it to you. I’m pretty sure, based on the timing and some gut instincts, that our baby was Mercedes in her previous life.”

  She tried to gauge his reaction. He seemed to think about it for a moment. “Okay. But you don’t need to take that one if you don’t want to.”

  “You’re okay with it?”

  “She saved Jim’s life. That counts for a lot, in my book. She didn’t have to volunteer to help.” He leaned back a little, placing one of his hands flat against the swell of her tummy. “I’m good with that. I think Brod and Cail would be, too.”

  “Really?”

  He smiled. “Really.”

  “I’m not sure that she is. I won’t know until later. But I’m pretty sure.”

  He shrugged. “Then all the more reason not to worry about it.”

  She kissed him again, closing her eyes and savoring his scent, his taste, her mate.

  “I’m sorry this wasn’t better planned,” she softly said. “Getting pregnant.”

  Another shrug. The ones she loved, the “no big deal” kind of shrug that meant he really wasn’t upset. “Maybe this is her Karmic reward from the Goddess,” he said. “Did you think about that? A chance to be raised in a loving, kind family, with not one, but three fathers? Maybe her helping Jim tipped the scales in her favor.”

  She blinked as she stared at him, a soft laugh finally escaping her. “No, I didn’t think of it that way. But what about Colleen? She lost her mom.”

  “She has Ortega and Lucy, Fiona, Lacey. All of them, and Marston.” His expression clouded, grief threatening to storm through his mood before she watched him almost visibly shove it away. “Whatever her future, it’s better than one full of a vengeful mother angry at her own father.”

  “True.”

  This time, he leaned in and kissed her, brushing his tongue across the seam of her lips. They parted for him and she met him with hers, lightly flicking, tasting, teasing.

  “What do I need to do?” he asked. “For this to work.”

  She smiled. “Nothing. Just be you and keep your mind and heart open. I’ll do the heavy lifting. Uh, metaphorically and magickally. Just follow my lead.”

  He smirked. “What if I want to take the lead?”

  “Oh, Prime, if you want to take the lead in that way, go for it. Just don’t edict me until after the spell is finished, okay? I need to be able to do what I need to do.”

  She laughed as he dropped to his knees and started working on her waistband. Plunging her fingers into his hair, she wiggled a little as he tugged her sweatpants and panties off her, Elain stepping out of them when he had them down around her ankles.

  Hot breath across her clit, he leaned in and lightly flicked his tongue across it.

  Focus. Must…focus.

  That might be difficult. He was good, damn good, at shutting down her brain. All three of them were. And as he focused on her pleasure, on playing with her clit with his lips and tongue, she felt the dark clouds around his soul begin to recede a little. In their place grew a beautiful, sapphire blue color she recognized as joy.r />
  She’d made him a father sooner than expected, and was about to make him a father again in a few weeks. He deeply loved and was in love with her. His brothers were safe and happy.

  This was, in his mind, paradise, perfection.

  Except for that ancient ache in his soul.

  Which she was about to take care of for him.

  His hands slipped around the backs of her thighs, digging in with just enough bite, that little delicious zip of force that only amped up the pleasure he was about to bring her with his mouth.

  Inside her, she told her thinking brain to take five and focused instead on her intuition, what she felt, what her gut instincts told her was right.

  She felt a warm, glowing ball of red energy beginning to form, much like the one she’d seen surrounding Callie and Blackie in Yellowstone during the spell they worked to remove her curse.

  There we go.

  She gave it free rein, letting it build, encompassing both of them even though Ain couldn’t see it. And as her orgasm rapidly closed in, she tapped into that energy, that passion, using it to feed the red aura around them. Then her orgasm swelled, bursting. The aura glowed bright red, warm and churning and amplifying her energy.

  “Get up,” she gasped. “Tub. Now.”

  He yanked off his jeans as she turned and stepped into the tub, turning off the water so they didn’t flood Ortega’s bathroom. She grabbed his hand and guided him into the tub, in front of her. His cock was engorged, rigid, and standing out in front of him, ready for its turn.

  As he settled down into the water, she straddled him, not impaling herself on him yet, but letting his hot length glide along her clit.

  His hands settled on her waist, his grey gaze that deep, dark midnight color she loved when he got like this, focused only on her, the center of his world. She braced her hands on his shoulders and felt an invisible circuit connect.

  Around them, it looked like the whole world had gone red, the aura screening them from the rest of life. Only this existed in this moment, only them, together.