A Wolf in the Fold, Page 2

  And becoming a Seer.

  And her father returning to her life and marrying her mom, the woman who adopted her after her birth mother died.

  And…

  The world not only wasn’t as she thought it was, it was a far more dangerous and deadly place than she ever dreamed.

  And she had a front-row seat to it all.

  She held her head in her hands and closed her eyes, wishing she could will everything to make sense. To say she was no longer the same person she’d been when she’d met Ain, Brodey, and Cail that past July would be an understatement of Bill Clinton proportions.

  Her mental dialog took on an Arkansas accent.

  What if I’d never had sexual relations with those three wolves?

  She snickered to herself as the other woman looked on.

  After a few moments of contemplation, Elain asked, “What kind of information can you tell me, exactly?”

  Baba Yaga, currently appearing in her matronly form, tilted her head. “About what in particular?”

  “Guess you can’t give me the total 411 on Abernathy, huh?”

  Baba Yaga gently smiled and shook her head.

  “Lina said you showed her past events.”

  Baba Yaga slowly nodded. “Some things, yes, I can show you. It depends on what you are asking of me and what you already know.”

  “You already showed me about your children.”

  “I didn’t show you that, child. You used your Seer powers to seek it out within me.”

  Elain waved her hand. “Whatever. I want to know what happened to precipitate all of this.” She tapped her finger on the counter. “I know about the big battle between the cockatrice and their allies versus the other shifters. Lina told me about that, and the Tablet. I want to see the prequel. What happened to you.”

  The Immortal studied Elain with black, impenetrable eyes. After a moment, she sighed. “I don’t suppose it can hurt. You are part of the new Triad. It is knowledge you should have. It happened in the distant past, after all.”

  Elain blinked and found herself standing in the yard of a house that looked like little more than a hovel in the center of a clearing in the middle of a deep, silent pine forest. Surrounding the house stood a rickety picket fence that, upon closer observation, appeared to be made out of what looked like human bones.

  Elain turned to speak to Baba Yaga, but she wasn’t there. When Elain turned back to the gate, she spotted a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, making his way toward the house. He looked battle-torn and road-weary, his tunic ripped and stained with what Elain guessed to be dried blood. A fresh cut along his cheek from chin to ear was healing, but would likely leave him badly scarred.

  He stopped at the gate, paying Elain not the slightest bit of attention. “Baba Yaga,” he called out.

  The front door opened and a wizened old crone walked out. Elain knew immediately this was one of the Immortal’s three incarnations. “Who are you to disturb me?” Baba Yaga asked in a voice that sounded far too strong and forceful for her appearance.

  As Elain stepped closer, she realized she was only an observer. “I come from the dragon flagyer to the south. Abruzzia.”

  “I know my geography, dragon. Why do you disturb me?”

  Wow, she was a snarky bitch even back then.

  “The cockatrice. They are on a rampage, trying to wipe us out. Not just our people, but even other shifters, and humans.”

  “And what it is you are asking of me?”

  “Please, Baba Yaga.” He dropped to his knees in supplication, hands clasped and raised to her. “I will give you anything I can, I will give you myself. Take me to torture or use as you will. I surrender myself to you as a sacrifice. Please, intercede and help my people.”

  Elain stepped closer, understanding she could only watch the interplay.

  Baba Yaga transformed herself into the matron. “In any way? Without question?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I pledge my soul to you.”

  “Without even knowing what I would ask of you?”

  “Anything. I give my life, everything.”

  She circled him. “Without question?”

  “Without question.”

  “What makes you so eager to throw your life away to me?”

  “My family. My parents managed to save my little sister, but my brother and other sister were lost. My grandparents. Uncles and aunts. Cousins. Friends and neighbors, human and dragon. They are killing us.”

  “I thought dragons were stronger than that.”

  “They are using some dark magick even our elders cannot understand.”

  She stopped short. “They are, are they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.”

  Elain knew the story behind the creation of the Tablet of Trammel. Lina and her men, in far earlier incarnations, had created it with the help of the Triad and used it and its powers to defeat the cockatrice forces. The Tablet the cockatrice still eagerly sought and erroneously thought would restore their powers.

  “It might not be in a single lifetime that they can be beaten,” she warned. “It might take a while. Generations, perhaps.”

  “Then it is your will be done.”

  “Not just my will,” she corrected, still circling him as if he were prey and she a lioness with an unslakable hunger. “The Goddess of All.”

  “I will not question when, how, or why, Baba Yaga.”

  “You are unmated? Childless?”

  He nodded.

  “Betrothed?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “I…” He swallowed hard, his throat working. “There was a girl I thought maybe, but then she, too, and her family, were all killed.”

  Baba Yaga stopped behind him, staring at the back of his head. She waved her hand and the world seemed to freeze. She then stared directly at Elain. “Enough of this part?”

  Elain nodded.

  The scene skipped, the man now healed, hale, and hardy. In the front yard of the small house, he swept Baba Yaga the maiden into his arms and kissed her deeply. “My love, I shall return to you.”

  The woman actually smiled, a joyful expression that seemed to reach to the very depths of her soul.

  An expression Elain couldn’t imagine the woman being able to pull off now, even from the little bit of time she’d spent with her.

  As they parted, Elain realized Baba Yaga was with child. She rested her hand on her swelling belly. “You shall return to me or risk my ire,” she teased. “Well wishes to all from me.”

  “Of course, my love.” He mounted his horse and raced off into the woods.

  Baba Yaga watched him go, then turned to Elain, now back in her matron form and no longer pregnant.

  “That was the last time I saw him alive,” she softly told Elain.

  Elain suspected what came next. “I don’t need to see those details either,” she quickly said.

  With a nod, Baba Yaga changed the scene again. This time, she remained standing shoulder to shoulder with Elain as the matron, watching her pregnant younger self sobbing and building a stone cairn with her bare hands.

  “Cockatrice,” Baba Yaga whispered. “They drew and quartered him and left him in the middle of a road for the animals.”

  It wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks from that point. “How long were you together?”

  “Not long enough, child.” And just like that, they were back in Baba Yaga’s kitchen, the Immortal looking weary. “Not nearly long enough.” She picked up her coffee mug and took a sip. “As they did in the past, the shifters of present will need to band together, make unusual and even uneasy allies, in order not just to fulfill their past oath to wipe out the cockatrice, but to survive and overcome what is ahead.”

  “Unusual and uneasy how?”

  “I will give you this hint without overstepping my boundaries too much. I strongly recommend that you recommend to your Clan Council that they invite non-land-based shifters to become part of the
new mega-Clan.”

  Elain thought about that for a moment. “You mean the dolphins over in Englewood?”

  “And elsewhere. And others.”

  Lina had told Elain the basics of what had happened right before Halloween, when they went to help out the dolphins. It gave Elain a little weird comfort to know that other shifter species had their own batcrap crazy assholes, too, and it wasn’t just limited to the wolves dealing with other psychotic wolves and crazy cockatrice. “The sharks?”

  Baba Yaga nodded. “And…”

  Elain got it. “The alligators.” She fought the urge to smack herself in the forehead. “And you mean the other aquatic shifters. Duh.”

  “You’re catching on.”

  “I’m not the brightest bulb sometimes, but I usually manage to get where I need to be.”

  “The three of you each have your individual strengths—and weaknesses. I want you to keep something in mind that frequently escapes Lina’s notice.”

  “What’s that?”

  The Immortal’s eyes met Elain’s. “The world is filled with shades of grey, not merely black and white. The best good for all is sometimes not served by making what would be, to some, the obvious choices. Such as not telling everything you know.”

  “And with that you can’t tell me any more, can you?”

  The Immortal simply smiled.

  “Yeah,” Elain said. “That’s what I thought.”

  Chapter Two

  Eyes open, Elain lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. She could still taste the delicious coffee Baba Yaga had served her, even though Elain knew she had never physically left her own bed during the night.

  Further sleep was out of the question. A little after four in the morning and three days before Christmas Eve, the house lay quiet and still despite being filled to the proverbial rafters with their friends and extended family.

  Unlike her mind, which raced and thundered with all the information just added.

  What’s the best way to deal with this? Denial? Or…

  No, it happened. Pretending it didn’t and keeping everything to herself wouldn’t help anything or anyone.

  She quietly climbed out of bed without disturbing her three sleeping men. After grabbing some clothes and dressing in the bathroom, she went to the kitchen to make herself a mug of instant coffee that wouldn’t taste a fraction as good as the coffee she’d just had at Baba Yaga’s. She didn’t want to brew a fresh pot and have the aroma wake most of the shifters in the house, considering they were mostly of the lupine persuasion with noses to match.

  She thought getting her brains well and truly boinked out by her men the evening before would have meant a long, deep, refreshing sleep.

  No, not so much. Talks with Baba Yaga trump orgasms, apparently.

  Elain couldn’t deny what she’d seen when Baba Yaga had let her take her arm and practice her newfound Seer powers on her. Someone was holding Rodolfo Abernathy captive.

  Not that it was necessarily a bad thing, but it meant the son of a bitch wasn’t dead like everyone else had thought.

  Everyone except her.

  And what was that about Mai forms a new Triad with me and Lina?

  She let out a sigh. One more thing to do, break that news to Mai.

  As if she doesn’t have enough to worry about already with BettLynn.

  And who had Abernathy? Would it be a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” or were they yet another player to worry about? Was it Marston? Abernathy’s illegitimate daughter? Both of them? Someone else?

  The cockatrice?

  And the whole “shades of grey” business.

  Elain closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, trying to stave off the tension headache wanting to form. Baba Yaga apparently loved dishing out information that left people more confused than when they started their search for the truth.

  Correction, she felt more than overwhelmed. Her brain felt bloated, unable to process everything and what it meant. Considering she was a journalist and prided herself on being able to grasp not only the big picture but suss out the individual threads of a story, her current mental state pissed her right the hell off.

  I need a ride.

  Maybe being out in the fresh, cool predawn air would help clear her mind and focus her thoughts. What she really needed was a run, but she hadn’t been able to get out on the horses in a couple of days.

  She took her mug of coffee with her and made her way across the yard, past the site where Micah and Jim had already started construction on their house, to the barn where her two horses were stabled. It was a cool December morning by Florida standards, but the long-sleeved chambray shirt she’d donned over her T-shirt would keep her warm enough until the sun rose.

  As she approached the barn, Mina, her six-year-old quarter horse mare, and Coot, a ten-year-old palomino gelding, both stuck their heads out of their stalls and whinnied greetings at her.

  “Hey, kiddos.” She pet them before turning Coot out into the corral. Mina she led to the crossties to groom and tack. The horses had been Brodey’s “please forgive me for being a dumb asshat” present a couple of months earlier after his less than skillful handling of a situation regarding his ex-girlfriend.

  By the time Elain was ready to swing up into the saddle, it was nearly five o’clock. There was enough light, between the stars, the moon, and her super-nifty shifter vision, for her to see.

  She pointed the mare toward one of the truck tracks the men used to drive to the cattle barns at the other end of the property and kept her at a walk. It was tempting to let the horse have her head and run, but Elain didn’t want to risk her stumbling in the predawn darkness.

  This should have been my best Christmas ever.

  E-verrrr.

  With her mom and dad now happily mated and married, her family was complete. She had three hunky hubbies, more cousins-in-law than she could shake a stick at, and friends who had become adopted family. And most of them would be there, under the same roof, for the holidays.

  Now Elain had to figure out how to break the news to Mai that the dreams her friend had been having were part of a far larger picture than any of them had previously realized. That Mai had joined the sisterhood with Lina and Elain as Seers.

  A wolf, a coyote, and a Goddess walk into a bar…

  She snorted to herself, the horse’s ears tipping back to listen.

  Elain patted the mare’s neck. I am sooo not ready for all this responsibility.

  The irony didn’t escape her that her men had been right when asking her to quit her job as an on-air reporter. She hadn’t realized how right they’d been at the time, and neither had they.

  Yeah. Being a reporter does not go well with being a shape-shifting wolf Seer.

  She rode without a destination in mind, ambling down various trails and across the pastures, through the herds of cattle, along the outer fence line until the first hints of dawn colored the sky to the east. She started to dismount to open a gate and lead Mina through to another pasture when she heard the faint but unmistakable sound of galloping hoofbeats.

  A few moments later, Coot rounded a turn and came into view, Cail riding him bareback. Elain hesitated by the gate, worried about his sudden and fast approach.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked when he pulled the gelding up beside her.

  He frowned. “I was going to ask you that.”

  She reached out and caught the gelding’s bridle so she could stroke his muzzle. “You’re the one pushing Coot like a Pony Express rider.”

  “You don’t usually get up before dawn and take a ride, babe. Fess up. What happened?”

  “Where’s Ain and Brodey?”

  “Still asleep. I tracked you.”

  She released Coot’s bridle. “I just needed to clear my mind.”

  Cail jumped down and grabbed her by the hand before she could step away. At the contact, a tsunami of worry and fear flooded through her so strongly that she instinctively jerked her arm free from him and
held it cradled against her.

  His gaze narrowed. “Babe?”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before stepping close and draping her arms around him for a hug. This time, prepared for the contact, she was better able to absorb the shockwave of his emotions when he wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’m okay,” she softly said. “I just…it’s a long story.” She rested her cheek against his chest and listened as his thundering heart began to slow a little into a more relaxed tempo.

  “Can you talk about it? Or is it a Seer thing?”

  “Yeah, it is, but I need to. Need to talk, I mean.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t realize I grabbed your hand that hard.”

  She let out a snort. “You didn’t hurt me. It wasn’t that.” She looked up into his brown eyes, which were filled with concern. “Let’s talk while we ride. Okay?”

  He nodded. “Okay. So we’re good?”

  She rose up on her toes to brush a kiss across his lips. “We’re good. The four of us are fine. It’s not about us.” A soft, barking laugh escaped her. “Well, it is about us, all of us. But not me and you guys specifically.”

  His brow furrowed. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Tell me about it. It might make even less sense after I tell you everything.”

  They led the horses through the gate, closed it behind them, and remounted. As they slowly rode, Elain told him everything. About her mental visit overnight to Baba Yaga’s, what the Immortal had revealed to her, and why she’d jerked her arm away when he’d grabbed her.

  About the fact that Baba Yaga was, in fact, the great-grandmother umpteen times removed of him and his brothers, as well as of Lina’s men.

  “Poor Mai’s already struggling not to be overwhelmed by being a new mom and dealing with BettLynn’s doctor appointments,” she said. “Hell, I’m overwhelmed just trying to wrap my mind around all this Seer bullshit. How’s she going to handle this?”

  Cail held the reins loosely in his hand, which rested on his thigh. “Are you just bouncing stuff off me, or do you want my advice?”

  “I want your advice. I don’t want to keep secrets from you guys. Even Seer stuff. I feel bad enough I didn’t tell you guys I’d gone off the pill.”