The Fire Road

  Triple Trouble 10

  The Fire Road

  Elain’s realizing that, as head of the Triad, she must carefully balance her personal life with her higher calling. She’s learned the hard way that she can’t save everyone, nor should she. Sometimes, that means allowing painful things to happen and keeping dark secrets from those closest to her.

  But Goddess help anyone who tries to harm her loved ones.

  Ain, Brodey, and Cail are slowly learning to trust Elain to do her job in her new role, especially as they understand just how powerful she’s become. It doesn’t mean they like it, though. Especially now that she’s pregnant with twins.

  Unfortunately, the greater good and countless lives are at stake. While Elain, Lina, and Mai struggle to break through the blockage clouding their visions, unseen dark forces are amassing. Now the key to their survival—and their happiness—relies on Elain walking that fire road alone.

  And it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

  Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter

  Length: 56,229 words

  THE FIRE ROAD

  Triple Trouble 10

  Tymber Dalton

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  THE FIRE ROAD

  Copyright © 2016 by Tymber Dalton

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-68295-427-0

  First E-book Publication: July 2016

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2016 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of The Fire Road by Tymber Dalton from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Tymber Dalton’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Tymber Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  To Hubby, who keeps me going, always. To Sir. To Trish and Ravenna for patiently listening to me whine when the voices don’t cooperate. And to Kristina G., the most patient reader in the world. Thank you.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is definitely a series where you need to read the previous books in order to know what’s going on. Including the prequels. (You don’t have to read the Good Will Ghost Hunting or Placida Pod books to follow along, but they give you even more backstory.) I’ve also put a (SPOILERS!) free Triple Trouble series summary guide up on my website at http://www.tymberdalton.com on the Triple Trouble series page.

  Yes, this series is going to continue for a while, as long as the characters keep talking to me.

  The complete list of the books in the series and the correct reading order, including the prequels, is as follows:

  Boiling Point (Tasty Treats, Vol. 3) - Triple Trouble prequel 1

  Steam - Triple Trouble prequel 2

  Fire and Ice - Triple Trouble prequel 3

  Trouble Comes in Threes - Triple Trouble 1

  Storm Warning - Triple Trouble 2

  Three Dog Night - Triple Trouble 3

  Triple Dog Dare - Triple Trouble 4

  Out of Smoke and Ashes - Triple Trouble 5

  A Wolf in the Fold - Triple Trouble 6

  Triple Cross - Triple Trouble 7

  Power of Three - Triple Trouble 8

  By the Embers Dies the Fire - Triple Trouble 9

  The Fire Road - Triple Trouble 10

  You can also find Ryan Ausar, Will, and Purs in my Good Will Ghost Hunting series. Some of the books in my Placida Pod series add additional backstory and fill in the details of some events referenced in the Triple Trouble books. All titles are available from Siren-BookStrand.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Author's Note

  PART I: BACK STREETS AND ALLEYS Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  PART II: HIGHWAY TO HELL Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  PART III: GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  PART IV: BACK TO THE CROSSROADS Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  About the Author

  THE FIRE ROAD

  Triple Trouble 10

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2016

  PART I: BACK STREETS AND ALLEYS

  Chapter One

  Sorta-kinda the here and now, a little ways in the future, but bear with us. Hey, breaking the fourth wall and parallel timelines were good enough for Deadpool. Just don’t expect a Stan Lee cameo. Or can you…

  Elain stood in the middle of her parents’ backyard, eight men surrounding her, their guns drawn. Every sense was heightened, every sound, every scent—she could even taste the air on her tongue. More than just her Alpha lupine shifter senses kicking in.

  This was her,
the head of the Triad.

  She knew all the others here were now safe, and that was after she poofed Lina, Mai, Zack, Jasper, her mom, and all the children up to Lacey’s.

  Eight against me.

  A serene smile filled her face.

  Sucky odds for them.

  One of the men spoke, the one who smelled most like a cockatrice. “You’re surrounded, lady. Just tell us where the baby is, hand him over, and we’re good to go. The little boy. Born in February.”

  “I’m not surrounded,” she said, still smiling at them. “I’m just in a target-rich environment.”

  He snorted. “There are eight of us,” he said. “And only one of you. This won’t end well.”

  “Exactly.” Elain kept her arms spread, with her wrists bent and her palms facing the men. Slowly turning, she quickly memorized each face. “Y’all should have worn red.”

  He let out a scoffing laugh. “You done yet?”

  “As the Goddess is my witness, I’m only getting started.”

  “Look, lady. We can tell you aren’t armed. We have guns. Make this easy on all of us and just tell us where the baby is. We didn’t sign on to hurt or kill anyone, especially women and kids. Double especially a pregnant woman. We’re just supposed to find that baby and reunite him with his birth family. This doesn’t have to end badly for you. We’ll take the kid, leave, and we’re gone for good. We don’t want trouble.”

  After Elain completed her slow pivot she stopped, facing the man who’d spoken. “Well, then,” she softly said. “I guess it’s just your unlucky day, because it’s too late for that. You didn’t even wear your brown pants. Tsk. This’ll get ugly. Take out your phone. The rest of you don’t move.”

  “What the—” Unable to fight her edict, he stared in fear as his left hand, which had been empty, reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone.

  The rest of the men in the circle started to exclaim when they realized they couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but talk.

  “Turn on the video camera and film this.”

  He did.

  “Look, Ma. No guns, no rounds.” She broadly smiled, turning her hands palms up and showing they were clearly empty. “Click-click-boom. Everybody…falls…down.”

  Without taking her focus off the man holding the phone, and while staring directly into the phone’s camera lens, she began snapping the fingers of her left hand. Starting with the guy directly behind her, Elain made his skull implode, then quickly worked her way back and forth across the circle until all were dead save the lone man filming it.

  At which point, he was obviously—and understandably—a tiny bit freaked out.

  “Shit! No, nononono! Shit shit SHITSHITSHIT! What the hell are you? Jesusfuckingchrist, WHAT THE FUCK?” A dark spot formed on the front of his jeans as he pissed himself in terror.

  Elain brought her hands forward, palms toward him. “Drop your gun.”

  He found himself doing just that, even as a low, keening wail of terror erupted from him.

  “What…what the fuck? Holy christ, lady, please, let me go. I swear you’ll never see me again!”

  She offered him a kindly smile. “Well, you’ve got part of that right. No one will ever see you again.”

  She stepped forward, wrinkling her nose in disgust against the sharp smell of his piss and the fact that he’d also just shit himself. She reached up with her right hand and grabbed him by the throat.

  His carotid pulse galloped under her fingers like a panicked horse. It was all she could do not to puke at how scared he was, the feeling washing through her.

  “Who sent you? Answer.”

  “I don’t know his name, I swear! I swear on the Dark Ones, I don’t know! We were hired through an anonymous connection on a TOR network, and he calls and texts us from a burner phone.”

  “What about Aliah?”

  “Who?”

  “The woman. The birth mother of the baby you’re looking for. What about her?”

  “I don’t know about any woman, I swear! Please, let me go!” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “We’re supposed to meet this guy in Georgia once we have the baby. He texted me the address. That’s all I know!”

  He was telling the truth. That was all he knew, unfortunately.

  Too bad for him.

  He was still holding the phone and filming with it. Elain plucked it from his hand. Speaking directly into it with a light, conversational tone, she smiled.

  “Whoever this is, I will find you. And when I’m finished with you, you’ll wish I’d killed you as quickly as I killed these assholes.” She released the guy, stepped back out of the splash zone, and turned the camera to face him.

  “No, please, plea—” Elain snapped her fingers.

  His head exploded.

  She turned the camera around again.

  “I hope I’ve made myself clear,” she said. “Because if I haven’t, let me reiterate—you are a dead man walking as of this moment. You came onto our land and threatened ours. Consider this an official declaration of war, asshole. One that you cannot win.”

  She switched the camera off and tucked the phone into her back pocket. She would pull the video off it and run it through editing software to hide her face and change her voice, in case the fucker was stupid enough to release it to others when she sent it to him via the guy’s phone.

  Last thing she needed was for the cockatrice to go full monty and broadcast the video live to the world and send militaries, governments, and scientists after them.

  If Elain doctored it and hid her identity, anyone who watched it—other than her intended recipient—would think it was some sort of horror short or independent flick or a publicity stunt.

  That left the bodies to deal with. She didn’t want her men—or anyone else—to see them.

  Not even Lina and Mai.

  A girl needs to have a few secrets.

  It took her only a couple of minutes to search their bodies and gather all their wallets, guns, extra ammo, phones, and other assorted items into a pile in the center.

  Closing her eyes, Elain held out her hands again and instinctively began to chant. As she did, she realized with a calm sense of peace settling over her that all the events that had led her to this moment had prepared her for this impending war.

  All her guilt, her second-guessing disappeared, a huge weight rolling off her shoulders.

  Ryan was right.

  As the wasabi-in-her-veins sensation rose, the bodies disappeared with a soft, gentle pop of the air rushing into place.

  She opened her eyes. The shifters might be able to smell where the bodies had been, but whatever mythical cornfield held that meth house also now held the bodies.

  With a sigh of relief, she started to gather the wallets and cell phones and other items. They would have a long day of work ahead of them trying to figure out where the assholes were sent from, and who sent them. Not to mention they’d need to get ahead of things and send a group to Georgia to catch the fucker who’d hired them.

  And I can’t even have a drink because of the double burritos of doom.

  Chapter Two

  Let’s skip back to the past and answer some questions we’ve had for…a while. Starting with this one: Where does evil come from? Sometimes, it’s carefully cultivated, built, nurtured. Even when it stands in isolation for a long time it can spring forth to claim its vengeance. It also rarely exists in a vacuum…

  Their numbers had thinned a little during the treacherous crossing of the great ocean, but that didn’t deter them.

  The way they looked at it, it meant those people were weak, not worthy of the faith the Dark One had placed in them for this journey. Not worthy to pass their blood along to the next generation.

  To start anew, to colonize a great land.

  To reach it before the cursed wolf and dragon shifters could claim it. There were other races that bedeviled them, but the wolves and dragons were the worst.

  They would establish their own kind
in such great numbers that they would undeniably be considered the rulers of the New World. Without other shifter races or humans to taint their blood.

  Once they did that, they could return to the Old Country and claim their birthright there.

  The lands would be awash in the blood of their enemies when they did.

  They were three score and two strong when they landed on the new shore, a rocky coast with thick forests full of game just waiting for them to take. They had brought seeds and other items with them, and perhaps they could coerce any indigenous peoples to use as their slaves to raise crops and work their land.

  They would likely appear gods to the simple-minded people.

  At least, that was the plan.

  They were there six months and approaching their first winter when they realized there might be one small problem with their plans.

  The indigenous peoples were far more in number than they’d anticipated.

  And instead of fearing them, the natives fought back.

  Fiercely.

  To be sure, they had captured and killed plenty of the natives already. Including live ones they’d used in the center of the rocky altar they were in the process of constructing exactly how and where directed by the Dark One in their book, a place to contact him and cross through the veil. It wouldn’t be finished until summer solstice, when they put the last rocks on the top, but they had the base in place and had sanctified it.

  Unfortunately, the indigenous people weren’t submitting to them the way they’d anticipated. Not even the magick they’d shown them seemed to incite fear.