Wolves' Bite [PUP Squad Alpha 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (11 page)

“How long have you been together?” Emmallina asked, obviously trying to put her daughter at ease but at the same time get the answers they needed.

“It would have been twenty-eight years last week, except…”

“Except?” her mother asked, leaning closer to the jar, apparently trying to give Connistanterina the impression that they were having a mother-daughter talk without the audience.

“Except that she didn’t come for me. She knows where I am. She always knows where I am. I don’t understand why she didn’t come for me.”

Connistanterina glanced around as if finally remembering they weren’t in the room alone. “What did you do with her? You hurt her, didn’t you? She came for me and you killed her.” She started pacing around the inside of the jar, her tiny doll-sized movements very clearly telegraphing her agitation and her madness. “She was right! She told me this would happen. She told me humans would end up exterminating us. The Oracle had to die. She had to die slowly. She had to die painfully. And she had to die in a place where only Victoria could absorb her knowledge.” She continued pacing, her words becoming more insane, less coherent, her movements full of rage and fear. And then almost like a puppet with its strings cut, Connistanterina flopped to the bottom of the jar and started to cry. Her sobs were punctuated with words that seemed to suggest she’d failed her lover, that Victoria had abandoned her when she’d realized the information had gone to humans, and how she’d tried so desperately hard to make things right before anyone had found out.

“Why did you burn them, Conni?” Emmallina asked calmly as her daughter continued to cry hysterically. Amid tears, sobs, and halting breaths the miniature pixie finally told them enough to piece the answer together.

Because it’s the only way to stop an Oracle from passing her information to the next chosen one.

* * * *

Jennifer shook violently in her lovers’ combined embrace. Never had she witnessed such a heart-wrenching tragedy unfold right in front of her.

And she’d never in her life felt so helpless.

Even hours later, with Emmallina and her daughter both in protective custody, the mission briefing completed, and the most logical conclusions drawn, Jennifer couldn’t stop reacting to the assassin’s emotional breakdown. It seemed clear that the unknown “Victoria” had used Connistanterina for her own purposes for many years.

It wasn’t known how long she’d been force-fed the paranormal drug known as fireweed, but it seemed likely that it had been for many, many years, maybe all of the years Connistanterina had believed herself in love with Victoria.

Adam and Thomas had held Jennifer close through it all, giving her comfort as she struggled to cope with everything that had happened. It was in her nature to fix things, but being faced with something as irreversible as Emmallina was now trying to cope with was heartbreaking.

But it did ram home one very important fact.

Life could change in a heartbeat. Determined to overcome her fear once and for all and reach for what she wanted, Jennifer asked the question that had been on her mind for several days now.

“Does it hurt to become a werewolf?”

* * * *

Thomas tried not to react in a physical way, but surely even a human could hear the sudden pounding of his heart. This was the first time Jennifer had even acknowledged their offer to make her a wolf, and he could feel every muscle in his body pulling tight with tension. Hell, he hoped this meant what he thought it meant. It seemed almost funny that he could want something so desperately even though he’d tried to deny their connection and walk away months ago.

“I don’t think so,” Adam said in a calmer voice than Thomas could have mustered. “Most humans remember the double bite as being uncomfortable, but they tend to sleep straight after so the sensation is short lived.” He smoothed the hair away from her eyes as she finally stopped shivering in their embrace. “The last human to be made a wolf in our pack was a man named Cal. We could go speak to him if you like.”

Thomas desperately wanted to introduce Jennifer to the rest of the pack, but he didn’t want to overwhelm her with the idea of so many people both he and Adam considered family just yet.

“I’d like that,” she said shyly. “Do I have to pass some sort of test or something to become a werewolf? I mean is there something like a citizenship exam or learning course that I would need to do before I became one of the pack?”

“Like Introductory Werewolf 101?” Adam asked with a soft laugh in his voice.

Jennifer laughed with him, and Thomas pulled her closer, tucking her back against his front and sighing with contentment. He was probably coming off as a complete wimp, but the giddy relief running through him that their woman was at least considering joining her life with theirs was playing havoc with his reactions.

“Not really anything formal,” Adam said, smiling as if they weren’t talking about the most important decision in their lives. “Traditionally, the change is done by the pack alpha and your mate, but since you’ve got two mates, it’ll be the two of us who bite you.”

“And then we’ll be able to have a family?” she asked earnestly.

“Yes,” Adam answered with a smile wider than Thomas had ever seen on his packmate’s face.

“How soon can we organize a visit to your family?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Thomas said carefully. It had only just occurred to him that Jennifer’s choices may be a knee-jerk reaction to everything that had happened earlier today.

“I’m ready now,” she said, turning her head to look up at him.

“Maybe we should wait,” Thomas said haltingly. Adam gave him an incredulous look and seemed angry enough to kick him. Jennifer just looked hurt. Thomas scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Shit, sorry.” He rolled Jennifer over so that he could see her face more fully. “What I mean is you’ve had a rough few days. We don’t have to make any decisions right now. Adam and I aren’t going anywhere and we’re both willing to wait until you’re one hundred percent sure that a life with us is what you want.”

“I am one hundred percent sure,” she said, reaching over to touch his face with her hand. “I’m not denying what happened with Emmallina and her daughter didn’t affect me, but it did highlight that life is constantly changing. I’m not silly enough to believe that a relationship will be all sunshine and roses. Marriage is a never-ending flow of change and acceptance and growth…and compromise. The only thing we can know for certain is that we are all willing to work together to make things work.” She reached up and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I don’t want to wake up one day and regret that I never tried to overcome my fears. I’m willing to make that leap of faith because you’re both worth it.”

His chest swelled with pride. His woman was an incredible human, and she would make a valuable addition to any family, pack, or PUP squad she chose to join. “I promise to do everything I can to make certain you never regret putting your faith in us. I love you, Jennifer.”

“Same here,” Adam said, pressing a playful kiss to her neck as he pulled her into his embrace. “Now,” he said with a mischievous grin, “it’s barely three in the afternoon, and your sister won’t be up for at least three more hours, so we can’t go tell her the good news. Whatever shall we do with the time?”

Jennifer wriggled in his arms, pressing back against his groin as she winked at Thomas.

“I suppose we could play a card game,” she said with a wide smile.

“As long as it’s poke-her,” Adam said with a laugh. Both Thomas and Jennifer groaned at the silly pun, but Adam smiled unrepentantly and started tickling their mate. She shrieked with laughter, wriggling closer to Thomas even as Adam pulled her away.

And suddenly it seemed so simple. None of the reasons he, Adam, or Jennifer had come up with meant a damn thing. They loved each other. It was as pure and as simple as that.

Each day of life was precious.

And he didn’t want to miss a moment.

Emmallina watched over her daughter as the woman slept fitfully. Benjamin had proven he was the good man she’d believed him to be by calling in a favor from one of his friends, a doctor and bear-shifter called Eric. The doctor had confessed knowing very little about fireweed and its side effects—especially on pixies—but had promised to learn as much as he could without sending up alarm bells. He’d treated Connistanterina for exhaustion and given her a sedative to help her sleep.

It was disturbing that a full-grown pixie could be so vulnerable. Pixies had such an efficient self-healing physique that they didn’t even have doctors or medical people in pixie society. The closest they had were midwives to help with the birthing of babies, but even then they were more of a cheer squad than a necessity in any medical sense of the word. With both mother and child capable of self-regeneration should something go wrong, many pixies simply thought of midwives as the people who cleaned up the mess after the baby was born.

But now, thanks to medical intervention, her daughter lay quietly on the pillow beside Emmallina, her tiny doll-sized body finally still. The nervous twitching had been quite hard for a mother to watch, but the miniscule dose of sedative Eric had given her seemed to have worked.

Emmallina let her mind wander as she watched over her daughter, the love that Jennifer and her mates had for each other washing over her. It was sad that by becoming a werewolf Emmallina would lose track of the lovely human, but the woman deserved to be happy. Very, very happy. Lost in her contemplation of a love so rare and pure, it took Emmallina a moment to realize that Connistanterina was looking at her with widened eyes. She looked almost as if she’d only just realized her mother was in the room.

“Mother?”

The word was barely there, but Emmallina nodded and reached over to get the speaker-type device that Benjamin had given her.

“How did you find me?” Even through the speaker the words were weak, but for the first time in many years Connistanterina sounded like the child Emmallina had raised and not the angry woman she’d become.

“It’s not important now. Just try to get some rest.”

“I feel like I’ve been hit with a hammer.”

“It’s the withdrawal from the drugs. The doctor suggested that maybe the fireweed was implanted under your skin so that your pixie constitution didn’t have a chance to neutralize it. We can only speculate why the implant didn’t burn up with the rest of your body each time you were incinerated, but the last time when they glued down your ashes, it finally seemed to have been removed.” She leaned over and straightened the pillow slightly so that her daughter wouldn’t fall off. “But it would seem that in miniature form your immune system hasn’t been able to recover from the withdrawal.” Connistanterina gave her a horrified look and it was all Emmallina could do not to lift her daughter into her arms and hold her tight like she’d done when she was a young child.

But the look slowly faded and Connistanterina settled again. She seemed to be almost asleep until she jolted and sat up in a panic once more.

“She knows about you,” she blurted fearfully. “Victoria knows.”

“I’m sure she does,” Emmallina said calmly. She was the queen of the pixies. Everyone knew she was Connistanterina’s mother.

“No,” Connistanterina said, shaking her head violently. “She
knows
about you. She knows you’re the Oracle for humans and vampires.”

Emmallina tried not to react. She’d spent her lifetime carefully protecting that secret. There was no way Victoria or her daughter could know. Only Jennifer and a few trusted souls from PUP Squad Alpha knew what she really was, and they’d known for only a few days. Not even her husband knew she was an Oracle.

“How could she know?” Emmallina asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice. Even if there had been a breach in Benjamin’s security and Victoria somehow knew now, there was no way Connistanterina would know that she knew. It seemed clear that Victoria knew about Emmallina being an Oracle long before Jennifer had accidentally gleaned it from Emmallina’s dreamwalking. Connistanterina seemed to be fighting sleep once more, but this was too important to just let go. Emmallina had to know how Victoria had learned who she really was. “Conni, how could she know?”

Connistanterina roused slightly, her words slurred, barely picked up by the amplifier beside her. “Because,” she said as she rolled onto her side and fluttered her wings to get comfortable, “she’s the Oracle for pixies and demons.”

THE END

WWW.ABBYBLAKE.BLOGSPOT.COM

Abby Blake prefers to read or write romance over just about everything else—except maybe chocolate. Most days she can be found hurrying to do what needs to be done so that she can curl up with her laptop and her latest bunch of heroes.

Ménage Everlasting:
PUP Squad Alpha 1:
Vampires’ Witness

Ménage Everlasting:
PUP Squad Alpha 2:
Demon’s Embrace

Ménage Everlasting:
PUP Squad Alpha 3:
Dragon’s Fire

Ménage Everlasting:
PUP Squad Alpha 4:
Bears’ Claim