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  Something primal took hold of her and she let it, giving it voice, setting it free. “Goddess Above, Goddess Below. Feed my power, feel it grow.”

  Elain rose up enough until the head of his cock was nudging between her legs at the entrance to her pussy. “I call to you upon this night, to clear the past and make it right.”

  Slowly, achingly slow, she lowered herself so just the tip of his cock passed through her labia. “In distant times a deed was done, and in this day I heal this one.” A little more, all her concentration needed not to just slam his cock deep inside her cunt and start fucking him.

  “I open wide the door of mind, and as I search, so shall I find.”

  She slowly settled all the way down on him, Ain letting out a groan as he moved his hands from her waist to her ass, cradling her against him.

  She held his gaze with hers. “What evil sowed, past evil reaped. And in this day, your deeds do sleep.” She moved, still slowly, knowing she had to time it just right, because to risk him blowing too soon might jinx the process.

  Not that trying a second time was a bad thing, but she didn’t want to have to fight through his doubt and hers over her abilities if she needed to take a mulligan.

  “I cleanse from thee your memories dire. I take from thee, you thus acquire. To thee I give you memories true, and as I speak, so must you do.”

  She leaned forward, opening their mate-bond as she deeply kissed him. Using both words and visual images, she first worked on the memory of him killing the baby.

  “Fire cleansed and only one thus burned, only woman seen there when you turned. Only woman did thee rend, and only mate her life did end.” To Ain she sent the new memory, his original one but altered, so that when he looked after running the female cockatrice through with the sword, it was only the female cockatrice he saw.

  No baby.

  Inside him, she felt more of his dark clouds easing, releasing from his soul, detaching and floating off to be absorbed by the red aura.

  She contained the hot damn! she wanted to scream.

  This would work. She knew it.

  She moved faster, fucking him harder. “Now memories of boy baby true, what your mate says is what you knew. Of wolf blood he came and wolf blood he be, thus is true, it’s plain to see.” She sent an image of Ortega coming to them at the cave, no baby, no Gigi.

  No confessions on Elain’s part, the words erased from his memory.

  A wolf couple killed in a tragic, unspecified, and likely cockatrice-related accident somewhere in South America, their baby rushed to Ortega’s compound for his protection by shifters unknown to them. Ortega got the news when they landed in Maine. Once they knew Callie and Mai and Lacey were all safe, Ortega spirited the two of them via jet back to his compound in Bolivia…where they first met their new son. That they’d spent the past several hours doting on him, holding him, falling in love with him.

  Elain felt her orgasm building, Ain’s cock at the angle perfect to hit all the right spots inside her, and her clit rubbing against his body with every stroke. Harder, faster, building, she felt her confidence and certainty grow along with her passion.

  She threaded one hand in his hair and guided his mouth to her shoulder, as she nibbled down his neck to the same place on his. It would seal the deal and cement the spell.

  She sent to him an image of Marston Hill, then clouded it. She wanted insurance. Whenever he looked upon Marston, Ain wouldn’t be able to place the face he knew as Marston Hill with the person he would likely meet during their stay. They would, in his mind, seem to be two different people.

  And she remembered to erase Ain’s request to take away the memories, so that she wouldn’t have an odd hiccup that might risk the spell’s effectiveness. Ain would only remember really haaawt sexytime tonight, a celebration of them becoming parents.

  Not that she’d worked magick on him.

  “Fresh and pure and still of mind, from now on only peace you find. When you seek out these memories true, what I have said will come to you.” She sped up, fucking him harder, faster, pulling them both closer to climax. “From this point on these memories be, as I spake it, so mote…it…be!”

  With that she bit down, hard, on his shoulder. He did the same to her, and their climaxes exploded together. She howled against his flesh, pleasure searing her nerves as his cock throbbed inside her cunt. His deep, passionate growl rolled through her flesh where he had his teeth clamped down on her.

  Behind her closed eyelids, she saw the bright red aura flashing around them before sucking back into them, settling there, receding even as the last echoes of their orgasms began fading.

  She fell still. He released his bite as she released hers. She tucked her head against his chest and listened to the sound of his heart thundering inside his chest.

  After a moment, she stared up at him.

  In a flash, he’d fisted her hair and crushed her lips with his. There was no sign of the dark cloud around him at all.

  Going with it, she held on as he stood and picked her up, carrying her out of the tub. He set her on her feet and grabbed towels, for her and him, barely giving time for her to dry off before he scooped her up in his arms again and carried her into the bedroom.

  That deep midnight color remained in his eyes. She felt something primal, hungry, calling to her from within him, his Alpha wanting to play with hers. When he set her on the bed, he rolled her over onto her hands and knees and climbed on behind her.

  Already her pussy clenched, ready, knowing what he wanted and her own Alpha responding.

  He carefully fed his cock into her ready cunt, slowly, gently, that little bit of conscious mind, at least, still in control, not wanting to hurt her. When she felt his thighs pressed against the back of hers, he folded himself over her body and started nuzzling her spine, until his lips settled over her mating mark.

  She eagerly anticipated it but he drew it out, licking, teasing, making her hungry for it.

  “Mate,” his mind whispered to her. “Shift now!”

  And then they were both wolves. He started moving, fucking her, the knot at the base of his cock swelling and filling her. And when his jaws clamped down on the back of her neck, her body responded, her orgasm sweet and clear and brilliant.

  “Good.” He fucked her faster, harder, until his growling howl, muffled by his jaws clamped around her scruff, filled her ears with joyous, loving music. She came once more and then she felt his body answer, the knot fully swollen and embedded deeply inside her.

  Exhausted, he used his body weight to roll her onto her side with him, and like that, they both collapsed into sleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At some point in the night, Elain awoke. They were both shifted back into human form now. The last tingles of the magick she’d worked still gently swirled through her.

  Now I get it.

  She also had her answer. Apparently, tapping into the stream of power she’d used to create the spell had opened a pathway.

  Her baby absolutely had been Mercedes in a previous life. But that part of her soul’s former identity was securely locked away deep inside her baby’s mind. Unless Elain activated it, opened it, her baby would be a new person, with endless possibilities ahead of her, and none of the anger or pain or rage.

  Elain rolled onto her back and stared at Ain. The difference in his demeanor, even while asleep, was like the proverbial night and day. The fine lines around his eyes that his brothers didn’t have had disappeared, every last trace of tension vanished from his body and soul.

  What sucky kind of mate am I? How did I miss that about him all this time? Am I really that self-absorbed that I missed it?

  She’d always thought his more serious nature was due to his Prime status, that he felt responsible for his brothers despite all three of them being Alphas. That he felt responsible for her, and their family.

  Then again, Brodey and Cail hadn’t known what he’d done all those years ago. It would seem natural for him to be upset
after what happened to their sisters. They were all upset and grieving, likely grieving too hard to even notice what was different about Ain.

  There was something else, however. One more loose end she had to attend to now that she knew their baby boy’s future was safe with them as their son.

  One more loose end she needed to tie off permanently.

  Carefully, she climbed out of bed without disturbing Ain and pulled on a T-shirt and pair of sweats in case anyone spotted her. Although she suspected she wouldn’t have any interruptions tonight.

  After checking on the baby in the sitting room to make sure he was still soundly sleeping, she went into the bathroom and closed the door without turning on the light. Through the window, she saw that the sliver of the nearly dark moon cast a faint, pale glow across the compound’s courtyard, leaving it painted in even deeper shadows instead of providing any illumination. Several jaguar sentries paced the upper walls and interior of the courtyard. Elain knew Ortega’s sensitive security system guarded the exterior from any infiltration.

  It couldn’t, however, guard against her.

  She settled herself on the plush mat on the floor and crossed her legs as best she could with her baby belly. Placing her palms on her knees, she closed her eyes and took a long, slow, deep breath as she pictured her destination.

  I am with him.

  Her body didn’t have time to register the shift in flooring under her ass. One moment she was on a comfortable rug, the next she sat on a cold stone floor.

  When she opened her eyes, she found herself sitting in a dimly lit room three feet away from the lump that had once instilled fear in people just by mentioning his name. Someone who had once commanded a large Clan. Someone who had shaped her entire life without her knowledge.

  Someone once named Rodolfo Abernathy.

  There was far less of him now than there had been the first time she’d seen him here. He still had his right eye, as he had the last time she’d seen him. The other, empty socket was now healed and scarred. His face resembled a living skull more than a man, now without hair, a nose, or lips, or ears, his bald head a mass of scars and tattoos. Newer, pinkish scars on his throat, visible above and below the heavy, solid silver collar, likely indicated they’d done surgery to remove his voice box. The deeply tarnished, engraved magickal collar prevented him from being able to shift.

  Both arms were now gone past the elbows, legs past mid-thigh. No genitals anymore, but a catheter had been inserted where his penis used to be and drained into a nearby bag. Now he lay on blue medical pads, the kinds they placed on beds under incontinent patients in case they had accidents. An IV bag hung on a nearby pole and dripped into his neck. They’d placed a medical port in his chest at some point, likely to deliver antibiotics and other medications to keep his system going until Ortega finally decided to let him die.

  He must have sensed her presence, because he opened his remaining eye.

  Looking at him induced a certain level of horror in her, that Ortega was able to, in good conscience, create—or rather deconstruct—such a monstrosity.

  I know he has his reasons.

  Elain didn’t know what it was like to lose a son, or have a beloved daughter-in-law die in her arms after her baby had been ripped out of her moments before.

  Not to mention the lesser crimes against honor committed by Rodolfo and his spawn.

  She knew she couldn’t judge her friend for what he felt was his sacred duty.

  She considered channeling Mercedes, about allowing her to step forward and have her say once and for all, and decided not to. Mercedes’ soul was now firmly seated inside her child, and should stay there, oblivious to this finale.

  Oblivious to the horror.

  Blissfully free of the pain and anger.

  He made a slight noise with his breath, his chest squeezing as he did.

  Glancing around, she spotted the video cameras Ortega used to record his vengeance. Right now, all the lights on them were dark, no surveillance needed when the quarry couldn’t escape, and no one could get past the guards always posted outside.

  No one…except someone like her. I should have thought about video cameras before I did this.

  Using her hands, she scooched herself closer to him without getting up, close enough she didn’t have to stretch to reach out and touch him.

  And that was exactly what she did, watching as his eye followed her movements as she reached over and touched a finger to his forehead.

  Remembering the last time, she braced herself against the wash of energy from him. What she hadn’t been prepared for was the sheer extent of his insanity, both from the pain and from his life, the things Ortega had done to him over the past several months…

  And what he’d been through before that.

  Wanting to understand, wanting to know there was more than just simple sociopathy motivating his entire life, she searched through his mind. It was like trying to untangle many skeins of yarn knotted together by a madman.

  Until she finally found a single thread that led back to the beginnings of the discord that had been his life.

  * * * *

  Elain lurked in the shadows and watched as three women in the room busily attended to a fourth woman in the bed. From the appearance of the room and the furnishings, not to mention the dresses the women wore, she was back in the past.

  The woman in the bed let out a loud cry as a wizened old woman at her feet reached between her legs.

  “That’ll do ye, lass. One last push.”

  The two women standing to either side of the laboring mother held her hands and helped her sit as she gave one last push.

  And as her scream filled the room, so did the strong cry of an infant.

  “Aye, there’s the wee lad.” The midwife worked quickly, examining him, tying and cutting the cord and wiping him down before swaddling him.

  The midwife placed a hand on his forehead as Elain stepped forward. She knew they couldn’t see her, that she was only observing something so early from Rodolfo’s mind that not even he knew about it.

  When the midwife frowned, Elain paused.

  “Get the laird,” she ordered, pointing at the door. “And out wi’ ye both. Go home.”

  The two women hurried out. In the bed, the new mother lay softly weeping, still recovering from the birth. A moment later, a large, dark-haired man with green eyes strode into the room, shutting the door behind him. “Well?” he asked the midwife.

  “A boy. Alpha wolf.”

  His hand went to his belt where Elain spotted a silver dirk resting there. “Ye sure?”

  “I am.”

  He nodded. “Good. And yer sure about…” He nodded toward the bed.

  Her lips drew tight into a grim line. “I am.”

  “What about him?”

  “If he’s an Alpha wolf, he must be yers. The Goddess can still bless the sire with a pure one despite the bitch’s bastard lines.”

  “Thank ye.” Before Elain could react, he stepped over to the bed, and in one fluid motion struck out with the dirk and slit the new mother’s throat.

  The midwife didn’t react either, apparently unfazed by the murder. Possibly even expecting it.

  He wiped the dirk’s blade clean on the bedding. “You said there’s a woman we can use?”

  “Aye. She’s of pure lines and able to nurse a wee one.”

  “Good. Give Daro her name in the morn.” He stared down at the baby swaddled in her arms as he slipped the blade into his belt. “How I wish I had consulted with ye before marking this bitch.”

  The midwife smirked. “Tannel, I have served yer family since before yer grandfather was a thought. Ye know I never err about something like this.”

  “Still, I did not want to risk it any earlier if my firstborn was an Alpha.”

  “I understand.”

  “Can ye…” He waggled his fingers at the cooling body of his mate and mother of his child on the bed.

  She nodded. “Aye. Have men ready
outside in an hour. We shall say she bled out. Tis true, in its way.”

  He laughed, reaching out to grip her shoulder. “Ye are a fierce one, Seer. Thank ye.” He left, closing the door behind him.

  As soon as he was gone, she stared down at the newborn in her arms. “Sorry, wee one. It had to be done. She had too much of the damned beast in her. I canna understand why she dinna bear the stink. On the other hand, I can see ye as a wolf in the future. So in good conscience, I canna let ye die, no matter who birthed ye.”

  The scene faded as that thread met another. Elain searched until she stumbled upon another scene, where a young man, obviously Rodolfo, talked with an older version of his father in a sunny clearing in the middle of a wood. They appeared to be alone except for their horses grazing at the edge of the grass just outside the trees.

  Rodolfo wasn’t just talking, he appeared to be pleading.

  “Father, I love her. I do not underst—”

  “Love?” Tannel roared. “Ye know nothing about the world, ye fecking idiot!” He shook a fist at his son. “Ye have damned the woman. She does not bear the pure lines, and ye canna mate with anyone except someone from an Alpha line!”

  “Why? Why does it matter, if I am an Alpha?”

  His father, taller than Rodolfo by an inch, stormed over to him, backing him up a step. “Because your real mother was not pure,” he said, dropping his voice. “The woman who birthed ye, she had cockatrice in her veins and I was foolish enough to let my loins overrule my common sense.”

  Rodolfo’s jaw dropped, stunned.

  Elain could sympathize.

  Tannel continued, backing his son across the clearing with the force of his words. “The only reason I did not kill her before yer birth was because our Seer insisted ye were an Alpha wolf. She insisted ye were not tainted by that whore’s bloodlines.”

  “What?”

  Tannel sneered at his son. “She did not bleed out. I slit her throat. The way I would kill a malformed lamb at its birth.” He grabbed his son’s tunic at the neck and pulled him close. “I only told ye she died to spare yer feelings. I never counted on ye being such an idiot!” He shoved Rodolfo so hard the young man tripped and fell back on his ass.