Triple Dog Dare

Chapter Two

A few hours later…

A lot had happened to Elain Pardie in a very brief amount of time. She’d gone from local TV reporter who hadn’t had a date in too long to think about, to shape-shifter mate. And not just a mate to one man, but three. Aindreas, Brodey, and Cailean Lyall, triplet Alpha wolf shifters, had picked her to be their One.

She definitely wasn’t complaining about that, now that she’d grown somewhat used to it. They were hot, hunky, gorgeous, and all hers. Once she wrapped her brain around the fact that wolf shape-shifters were real, she’d managed not to lose her sanity.

Yet. Although there’s still plenty of time for me to go insane.

Despite everything that had happened over the past few weeks, including their slightly rocky start and easing into a new way of life with her men, nothing had prepared Elain for the shitstorm accompanying her mother’s early arrival to the Lyalls’ Arcadia, Florida, ranch less than a half hour earlier. Elain had worried how her mother would take the shocking bombshell that Elain had not one, but three men. And that they were wolf shape-shifters.

Those revelations paled in comparison like a cap gun pop next to the atomic-size blast Elain’s mom Carla had just dropped on them.

Silence settled over the room. Ain, Brodey, and Cail stared, shocked, at their soon-to-be mother-in-law’s revelation. The men had suspected over the past few weeks that Elain, although adopted, might actually have at least one shape-shifter parent. Unfortunately, they thought it was her father, a man linked to a nasty family called the Abernathys, a Clan who’d killed people in the past for mating one of “theirs” without prior permission.

Upon realizing that Ain not only had two brothers, but was one of triplets, Carla spilled the beans about Elain’s true parentage. Including what Elain’s birth mother Maureen had revealed about a blood oath before she died.

Carla’s tears freely flowed. “Elain’s mother. She told me, showed me, but I didn’t believe.” She met Ain’s gaze. “Elain’s mom and dad were shape-shifters. Alpha shape-shifters.” Carla shook her head as she stared at the three men, then back to her daughter. “I thought she’d lost her mind. I didn’t believe her. I thought they’d hypnotized me or drugged me or something when they showed me what they could do. Then Liam had to leave, and when Maureen got sick, she asked me to protect Elain and gave her to me. They told me what to look for, who to find if she started showing signs of shifting. But Elain never did any of that stuff, ever!”

Ain released Elain’s shoulders and walked closer to Carla as he struggled to keep his voice low and calm. “What are you talking about?”

Carla grabbed her purse from the coffee table. With shaking fingers, she rooted around inside and pulled out a battered, yellowed envelope. On the front, written in unfamiliar handwriting, was Elain’s name.

With a trembling hand, she held it out to her daughter. “Maureen left this for you. I was supposed to give it to you after you got married.”

Elain took it and stared at it.

Carla’s face was streaked with tears. “There’s some sort of blood oath. If Liam had a daughter, he had to give her up to fulfill the damn thing. He left to try to lead them away from Maureen and the baby. His Clan didn’t know he’d mated with Maureen.” She faced Ain. “Maureen gave Elain to me to keep her away from the Abernathy family.”

The men reacted with stunned silence.

Which was fair, because Carla was apparently still trying to come to grips with the fact that the hidden knowledge she’d carried for the twenty-seven years of her adopted daughter’s life was actually true and not some whacked-out, drug-induced hallucination.

Elain still stared at the old envelope in her hand. After a few minutes, all eyes settled on her, awaiting her next move.

“What does it say?” Elain finally asked her mom.

Carla shook her head. “Maureen didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask. She told me I was supposed to give it to you after you got married, unless you did the shifting stuff first. But I never believed all the shape-shifter stuff was true to begin with.”

Ain gently touched Elain’s shoulder. “Go ahead, babe,” he urged. “Open it.”

With trembling hands, Elain carefully slipped one finger under the flap and broke the seal.

She pulled out two sheets of paper covered with a neat script, the same handwriting as on the front. Tucked inside the papers lay an old photograph.

The woman in the picture could have been Elain in a few years. Her eyes were the same shade of blue as Elain’s. She’d only seen two pictures of her birth mother, Maureen Alexander, but in both of them, her face had been obscured in some way. In one, she’d worn oversized sunglasses. In another, a large, floppy hat had shaded her face.

Those were the only two pictures Elain had of her. Her mom said Maureen didn’t like being photographed.

The man with his arms wrapped around Maureen…

The room spun around Elain. She’d seen him before, but she couldn’t immediately place where. Instinctively, from the way he looked at Maureen, she knew this was Liam Pardie.

Her father.

Cail walked around the couch and knelt in front of her. “Babe, are you okay?”

She looked into his soft, brown eyes and shook her head. “I…I think I need a few minutes alone.” She slowly stood and drifted into their bedroom where she shut the door behind her.

Alone, she sat on their bed and tried to read.

Carla sat on the couch and nervously stared at the three Lyall men. After ten of the most uncomfortable, silent minutes of her life, she said, “So…”

Ain nodded. “So.”

She had no clue what to say to them. “All three of you can…” How do I finish that sentence?

Ain nodded again. “All three of us are wolf shifters, yes.”

Brodey stood. “I’m going in there.” He turned and pointed at Ain. “You want to stop me, we’ll take it outside and do it right here and now.” Carla fully believed Brodey could turn into a wolf from the way he practically growled at his brother.

Ain waved him down. “Relax. I think it’s a good idea that you’re the one to go talk to her.”

Brodey almost looked surprised at Ain’s agreement. Then he turned and rushed to the bedroom door. After softly tapping he entered and closed the door behind him.

That left Carla alone with the other two Lyall brothers.

“Well,” she said, for lack of anything better to say.

Cail wryly smiled. “Well?”

Ain cleared his throat. “This isn’t easy on any of us, Carla, believe me. I’m sorry there wasn’t a better way to break the news to you.”

“She’s going to hate me, isn’t she?” Carla whispered, convinced of it. How could her daughter ever forgive her for keeping this information from her for her whole life?

Even worse, she’d maligned poor Liam in the process.

No, I don’t want to think about him right now. She’d spent enough guilty years thinking about him. First, praying he’d come back because she’d suspected Maureen was dying of a broken heart. Then, part of her praying he’d come back, fall in love with her, and together they could raise Elain.

Then praying he didn’t come back and take Elain from her. And wishing she didn’t still have feelings for him.

“I’m sure,” Ain said, interrupting her train of thought, “Elain isn’t going to hate you.” He shared a look with his brother that Carla couldn’t interpret. “She won’t hate you any more than she’ll hate us.”

“Why would she hate you?”

“Because Cail and I have suspected she might be a shifter and we didn’t tell her. It’s understandable why you didn’t say anything to her.”

“I wish I could be that sure. You probably haven’t noticed yet, but my daughter has a pretty strong temper.”

Both men smiled. “We’ve noticed,” they said in unison.

Micah lay curled around his mate in the back bedroom of the Lyall house. He still couldn’t believe the events of the past few days.

And he still wasn’t gay.

Neither was the naked man peacefully sleeping next to him, Jim Dixon.

His mate.

As Brodey had brutally joked, he wondered what the hell he’d done to piss off the Goddess to end up with another straight man as his One. It didn’t matter in the end, he supposed. He’d claimed and marked Jim and they’d both agreed they would try to quit thinking about the circumstances and enjoy what they had. Regardless, Ain, Brodey, and Cail had generously extended their hospitality to them. Especially once they all learned a few shifter mates had been savagely murdered.

A message of warning from the Abernathys? Perhaps.

Micah wouldn’t take a chance with Jim’s life.

He reached out and lightly stroked the man’s chin, where the evening stubble growing there felt rough against his fingers. A visitor had arrived at the house not too long before. A woman, human woman, but Micah didn’t care. She wasn’t a threat, apparently. Elain had run out to greet her, and now most of them were talking in the living room.

He cuddled closer to Jim and cast out his mind. In this way, he was much stronger than his cousins. When he quieted his mind, he could take a look around for some distance away from the house.

A sort of mental patrolling of the grounds, so to speak.

He relaxed. No threats to be found.

Micah pressed a kiss to Jim’s forehead and allowed sleep to take him.

To say Elain was in emotional shock wasn’t just an understatement, it was a flat-Earth assertion. No words could describe how numb she felt as she tried to read the letter. Between her shaking hands and her tears, she found she couldn’t make out the writing. Not to mention she kept looking at the picture. She closed her eyes and cried, trying to stay quiet, but couldn’t.

Someone softly tapped on the bedroom door about ten minutes later. Instinctively, she knew it was Brodey.

“Come in.”

He slipped inside. “Oh, babe,” he softly said upon seeing her state. He closed the door behind him and curled around her on the bed, his green eyes looking sad and mournful. Gently, he took the papers from her and gathered her close. Once he knew she was comfortably nestled in his arms, he pressed his cheek against her temple.

With his lips near her ear, barely louder than the sound of breathing, he read Maureen’s letter to her. She listened with her eyes closed as the soothing sound of his voice and his familiar scent comforted her.