Triple Dog Dare [Triple Trouble 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (6 page)

“Elain, I’d like to introduce you to our friend and Seer for her
flagyer
, as well as part-time Goddess and honorary wolf, Lina Zaria-Alexandr.”

Two hunktacular men of identical height and build filled the doorway behind her. One blond and pale with blue eyes, the other darker with brown hair and amber eyes. “And this is Jan and Rick Alexandr, her mates,” Brodey added.

Elain immediately felt the territorialness drop from her system. She returned the woman’s hug. “Um, hi? Nice to meet you?” Elain had no clue how to react.

Lina held her at arm’s length. “You don’t know how happy I am to finally meet you after all this time!” she squealed before engulfing Elain in another hug. More waves of joy flowed through Elain.

Elain didn’t understand Lina’s slightly cryptic comment, but she hugged her back and looked at Brodey again. She remembered seeing the names on the guest list for the wedding, but beyond that, nothing.

Cail chose that moment to return with the drinks. “Oh, hey! Lina, what are you guys doing here? Holy crap, girl, look at you!”

Lina turned and received a kiss on the cheek from him without letting loose of Elain. “A Seer’s work is never done, and we all need to talk.” Then she whispered in Elain’s ear before releasing her hold on her. “Congratulations! I am so glad they finally found you!”

Elain stood there, confused. Cail eventually put the drink in Elain’s hand before getting his hug from Lina. Elain quickly emptied the glass and handed it back to him. “Hit me again, please,” she said.

Ain stood behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll allow another because this was an additional shock,” he said. “But I don’t want you getting drunk. We still have a lot to talk about.”

She wouldn’t even fight him on that one. “Sure.”

Laughing, Cail took her glass and returned to the kitchen. Two more men walked through the door and were greeted by Brodey and Ain. Zack and Kael, both handsome and apparently a couple, were part of the new travelling circus that had just landed on their doorstep.

“Could someone please give me a quick explanation?” Elain asked.

Ain squeezed her shoulder. “Let’s get that next drink into you first, babe. You’re going to want it. Trust me.”

* * * *

Carla sat there, apparently in a state of shock or inebriation, judging from her lack of comments and the way she stared at the newcomers. Once Lina and the men had their cars unloaded and their stuff settled in two different guest rooms, everyone reconvened in the living room.

There, the Lyall men gave Elain and Carla an abbreviated version of the story of how Lina and her gang ended up meeting Brodey, Cail, and Micah during the Yellowstone shifter Gathering a couple of years earlier, as well as the trip to Europe shortly thereafter.

And Elain received her answers to the cockatrice question.

Elain preferred to focus on that story and not the rampant and copious questions swirling in her head about her own history. Focusing on her past, and the probability that she was also a wolf shifter like her men, meant using brain cells she wanted devoted to more easily digestible tidbits of info.

Like how to talk Ain into letting her have another and much stiffer drink.

She wasn’t a heavy drinker, but she didn’t think she was nearly drunk enough to deal with all of this bullshit.

Yet.

* * * *

Marston hated Florida. Hated everything about it. Hated the weather, hated the people, hated the drivers, and especially hated the Podunk cow town of Arcadia. He knew where the Pardie woman was staying, he knew who she was staying with. The problem was, she never traveled into town alone, and every wolf and shifter here was either a friend or distant relative of the Lyalls, so there were no friendly faces he could turn to for assistance.

It didn’t help that where the Lyalls lived was fairly isolated, to the point that it hindered the chances of him sneaking up undetected. No, they couldn’t live in a fucking city where he could easily blend in. He’d spent years tracking her down. To literally miss his chance to catch her alone by weeks enraged him.

No way in hell could he take on her mates by himself. Three Alphas a fraction of his own age?

Yeah, right. They’d disembowel me before I could blink.
He couldn’t keep on killing shifters, either. His luck would run out eventually. He also couldn’t bring in the cockatrice to help him without them using it against him. His only two decent allies were both dead now.

Damn bastards.
He couldn’t take a chance letting any of the other cockatrice know about the blood oath. They’d turn on their own kin for an advantage, much less a wolf shifter.

He was still no closer to finding the Tablet of Trammel than he’d been decades earlier. The Tablet would put him squarely in the driver’s seat. Either it would give him the power he needed over the cockatrice, or he could ransom it to them for enough money to leave him set for a long, long time.

When it was obvious he needed to cool things for a while with the cockatrice, at least until those stupid dragons and their witchy Seer woman quit looking so hard for him, he’d refocused his energies on fulfilling the blood oath the old-fashioned way, through detective work. Rodolfo Abernathy wouldn’t tolerate being stymied for much longer. Marston had been getting warnings from Abernathy that if he dragged his feet too long, he’d simply take it out of Marston’s hide.

And Marston was rather fond of his hide, as old as it was.

Maybe he shouldn’t have killed Charles and Ellie Lyall. Maybe he should have let Pardie hook up with them. Then he could have grabbed the baby at some point. But he’d panicked, worried they’d tell their damn sons or get Maureen hidden so well he couldn’t track her down. He knew then that the baby Maureen carried had to be a girl. Why else go on the run and hide?

How was he to know Liam wouldn’t go back to his mate? It’d seemed like a good idea at the time. But he’d cursed his luck when he watched Liam get on the plane to Ontario the next evening.

Alone.

He’d thought the damn dragon Seer he’d killed in Yellowstone would answer his questions about where Liam’s damn bitch pup was, or if there even was one. It’d taken him forever to find out who Liam’s mate was and work out her family line to find out who she was related to. Since Liam’s mate was related to the dragons a ways back, it made sense.

The dragon Seer was a weak, old woman. It was his dumb luck she hadn’t cared if he killed her.
What kind of sick person wanted to die?

He hadn’t wanted to kill the shifters’ mates. Beheading was messy and a lot of work. But he needed information and apparently the only way to get it anymore was the surefire old-fashioned way—brute force.

Unfortunately, they didn’t give him any more information than he already had. No one knew where Liam Pardie had disappeared to, or even if he was still alive. They had no knowledge about his pup, either.

Now he was stuck here in this cow town in the middle of nowhere, Florida. He looked around his crappy hotel room, the third he’d had in as many weeks. So far, he’d managed to escape the notice of other shifters. He didn’t know which shifters were allies of the Lyalls and had to assume they all were. Getting his hands on Elain Pardie wasn’t going to be an easy task, but it would, at least, get Rodolfo off his ass once and for all so he could get back to hunting for the Tablet.

And coming up with the Tablet of Trammel would bump him to the top of the damn shifter food chain for good.

Damn blood oath anyway.
He hadn’t asked for this responsibility. Dumb luck of parentage stuck him with it. Why should he have to be the one to uphold it? Then again, he was lucky Rodolfo Abernathy hadn’t slit his throat over his gambling debts when he had the chance. He’d finally gotten those paid off a few decades ago and was careful not to become indebted to them again any more than he already was by the blood oath.

He’d head back out tomorrow and do some more scouting. Maybe he could follow her around enough to catch her alone.

Micah barely stirred. He’d considered getting out of bed and warning everyone that Lina and her guys were on their way up the drive. Then he figured since they were as good as family, it wouldn’t matter.

It certainly wasn’t worth crawling out of his comfortable bed, where he was curled around Jim.

He let out a content sigh. He still found it hard, in some ways, to think of Jim as his mate, yet every cell in his body breathed the fact.

Mine.

As simple an idea as inhaling and exhaling. Jim was his, and he was Jim’s. Why? He hoped that, one day, he would learn to give up that question. It didn’t matter why. Kael and Zack were a perfect example, even though they already knew they were gay when they got together. So he wasn’t gay, and neither was Jim. It was becoming increasingly easy to wrap his mind around the fact that he now had a man as a mate.

He damn sure wasn’t complaining.

Out in the living room, he heard the commotion as Lina and her posse arrived and they were introduced to everyone. At one point, he dozed off.

He wasn’t sure what awoke him a while later. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, either, but now he was wide awake, all his senses attuned to the noises in the house.

He heard people quietly talking in the living room, but wasn’t sure who was still awake. That’s not what had roused him.

Sitting up, he closed his eyes and focused. That’s when he realized what woke him up. Someone, on foot, walking up the drive.

A male wolf shifter. An Alpha. A stranger he didn’t recognize.

Micah scrambled out of bed and grabbed a pair of shorts. Jim, disturbed by Micah’s sudden departure, groggily asked, “What’s up?”

“Get up. Now.” He tossed Jim a pair of shorts. “Someone’s coming.”

By the time Micah ran into the living room, the stranger had almost reached the front porch. Everyone looked at Micah when he emerged from the hallway at a dead run, but he didn’t have time to explain when they heard the knock on the front door.

Ain must have sensed something was wrong from Micah’s reaction. He jumped up and ran to the front door, beating Micah there by steps. “What is it?” he quietly asked Micah.

“Shifter. Don’t know who. It’s a guy.”

Lina waddled over and pushed the men out of the way. “Hello, Micah. Open the frickin’ door, for chrissake.” She threw it wide open and smiled at the newcomer. “Well hello, Liam. Glad to see you made it here safely.”

The man standing there and holding a battered knapsack looked startled to see her. He warily eyed Micah and Ain standing close behind her. “Hi, Lina.”

“Liam?” Ain asked. “As in Liam
Pardie
? Elain’s
father
, Liam Pardie?”

Lina nodded. “Yep.”

Micah gasped. “Liam Pardie?”

“Yep,” Lina said with another nod.

Carla walked over, a look of utter shock on her face. “Liam!”

“Hello, Carla,” the newcomer replied.

Lina grabbed the guy’s hand and dragged him inside. “Okay, see? Identity confirmed. He’s not dangerous. Now back up and let him in.”

* * * *

Elain stood, stunned to see the man from the steakhouse standing in their foyer. The man in the picture.

Not just any man
, she reminded herself.
My father.

Unfortunately, all that came out of her mouth was, “What?” She had countless questions to ask, things she’d thought about throughout the years. Unfortunately, she couldn’t recall a single one of them through her emotional shock.

Lina waved her over. “Come here, Elain.”

Now unable to feel her feet, Elain walked over and stared at the man. Identical to the picture Maureen included with the letter, with him once again standing in front of her, she realized he looked like he’d barely aged from when it had been taken.

Ain, Brodey, and Cail tried to insert themselves between Elain and the stranger. Lina wouldn’t have any of it. “You guys stop it. He’s her father. Back off.” She shoved the men out of her way and pulled Liam through the throng and into the living room. “You know, Liam, I started to think you were never going to get here,” she said with a smile.

Elain and Carla followed. “You
knew
he was coming?” Elain asked.

“I can’t believe it!” Carla said, looking at him. “You’ve barely aged at all!”

“That’s because he’s a wolf,” Lina explained. She turned to Ain. “Haven’t you guys filled her in on what’s going on? She is Elain’s mom, after all.”

“She just got here a little while before y’all did,” Brodey said. “We didn’t have time to finish going over everything.”

“Wait a minute,” Elain said. “Back up. Lina, how did you know he was coming?” She decided to focus on the smaller bits of the puzzle, the more easily digestible facts, before trying to take a big honking chunk of a bite out of the overall picture.

“Simple. I told him to get his butt in gear and get here,” Lina said.

That made even less sense to Elain. “What?”