Triple Dog Dare [Triple Trouble 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
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Triple Trouble 4
Triple Dog Dare
Elain Pardie thought being mated to three wolf shifters was the best thing that ever happened to her despite its toll on her nerves. As her adopted family grows, however, so do her troubles. And unexpected guests before her wedding bring answers, and even more questions, about her past.
Ain, Brodey, and Cail Lyall never expected to find their One, the woman to complete them. Now that they have, it turns out they have more in common with her than they thought. Despite their claim on her body and heart, it looks like they’ll have the fight of their life to hold on to her.
Elain’s life has gotten crazier than she ever thought it could between dealing with revelations and wedding plans. The distant past is catching up with them, and now it’s up to Elain and her three mates to stand up to a ruthless man bent on revenge.
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 72,235 words
TRIPLE DOG DARE
Triple Trouble 4
Tymber Dalton
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
TRIPLE DOG DARE
Copyright © 2012 by Tymber Dalton
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-788-6
First E-book Publication: June 2012
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2012 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 Triple Dog Dare 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 Ms. Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
To Hubby and Mr. B, who both have an infinite well of patience to put up with me. (It’s not easy having a writer for a pet.)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book picks up in the Triple Trouble series where book three, Three Dog Night, ends. If you want to read the entire Triple Trouble series in order, including the prequels involving the Alexandr dragon shifters, this is the proper sequence:
Boiling Point (Tasty Treats, Vol. 3 anthology)
Steam
Fire and Ice (A Triple Trouble Prequel)
Trouble Comes in Threes (Triple Trouble 1)
Storm Warning (Triple Trouble 2)
Three Dog Night (Triple Trouble 3)
All of those titles are available from Siren-BookStrand. If you haven’t read Fire and Ice yet, I highly recommend you do. Otherwise, some of the events in this book might not make sense. Fire and Ice covers the events and time gap between Steam and Trouble Comes in Threes.
Thank you all for reading, and a huge thank-you to all of you for your patience for the time it took me to get this book finished. (I promise the next book in the series won’t take as long.) I never expected the dragons’ and wolves’ stories to merge the way they did, but sometimes those pesky characters just have minds of their own. When they decide to take a story in a certain direction, all an author can do is follow them.
TRIPLE DOG DARE
Triple Trouble 4
TYMBER DALTON
Copyright © 2012
Prologue
Then…
Maureen touched one trembling hand to her swelling belly. In her other, she tightly held the phone receiver.
“Are ye still there?” Liam asked.
She nodded before realizing what she’d done. In a barely audible whisper she said, “Yes.”
“Love, I’m so sorry.” Liam sounded choked up, near tears.
She prayed he wouldn’t cry. Because if he did, she would, too. And she didn’t know if she’d be able to stop.
“When I can join you?” she asked, already knowing the answer in her heart.
“Ye can’t right now, love. They’ll find ye. We can’t let them have her. Not them. I don’t give a bloody damn about ancient blood oaths. Those filthy bastards aren’t getting their hands on our daughter. Besides, ye never swore to the oath. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t exist.”
“Can I see you before you leave?”
Another long pause that nearly ripped her heart out. “We can’t. We can’t risk those bastards finding ye. I never should have told my brothers about ye. Goddess, I’m so fecking stupid! This is all my fault. And now Ellie and Charles…” She heard him make a noise on the other end that sounded like a choked sob. “This is all my fault,” he said again.
“No! Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.” She closed her eyes and pictured his face, his dark hair, his green eyes. His scent still lingered on the shirt she wore, his button-up shirt.
Her mate. The love of her life. “I love you, Liam.”
“I love ye, too, baby. I’m so sorry I have to leave ye.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe they murdered Ellie and Charles. I never dreamed…” He choked up again, and she gave up trying to mask the sound of her own crying. “They must have been watching them and saw us meet yesterday. They might be watching the Lyall ranch now, looking for ye there. I’m afraid to even call and talk to them. I don’t know what resources the Abernathys have.”
“How long do you have to stay gone?”
“I don’t know. Whatever ye do, stay with Carla. They don’t know about her, they don’t know where she lives or anything. They don’t even know yer name. As soon as I think it’s safe, I’ll track Carla down and find ye through her.”
Maureen glanced across the room to where her best friend sat in a rocking chair, watching and listening. Carla looked like she was still in shock over their recent revelations, probably wanting to believe it had all been a bad dream or a funky hallucination.
The baby chose that moment to kick. Maureen choked back yet another sob. “Talk to the baby, Liam,” she softly said. “Let her hear your voice.” Whenever the baby grew active in her womb, all their little girl had to do was hear Liam’s voice and she settled right down. A daddy’s girl even before birth.
“All right, love.”
Maureen pressed the receiver to her belly and held it with both hands. She could faintly hear his words, assuring their daughter she’d stay safe, promising to one day come back to them both.
Elain. They’d already agreed on her name.
After a moment, she put the receiver to her ear again.
“Mate, hear me well,” he said. Alpha tone. It didn’t matter that she’d claimed him first. He owned her, heart and soul.
She closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“Stay safe. Keep our daughter safe. I will come back, I swear it. And ye will both be in my thoughts every day while I’m away from ye. Never forget how much I love ye.”
“I love you, too, my husband.”
He whispered the last. “Ye are my heart and soul.”
“And you are mine.”
When he hung up, she nearly dropped the receiver as the dial tone sounded. It felt like part of her soul had died. It’d been over a day since she’d seen him, when he’d left to go meet with the elder Lyalls and arrange for a safe hiding place for them.
With the Lyalls now dead, she suspected she would never see Liam again.
When she felt hands on hers, she realized Carla had crossed the room and took the receiver from her to hang up the phone.
“Are you okay?” Carla asked in a shaky, quivering voice.
Maureen shook her head and burst into tears. She would never be okay again. Not as long as she was separated from her mate.
* * * *
Now…
Marston didn’t like meeting with this man. Especially since Marston had suffered from a really bad run of luck the past few decades. He nervously waited in the outer office, where one of the man’s flunkies had parked him a few minutes earlier. When the inner office door opened, yet another flunky silently waved him in.
Feeling more like a naughty schoolboy than a man over three hundred years old, he walked in, trying not to flinch when the flunky stepped out and closed the door behind him, leaving him alone with the other man.
Rodolfo Abernathy sat in his wheelchair behind his desk. He liked to portray to the world the image of a kindly, wizened, world-weary man. A weak man.
A man beyond his prime, harmless.
The truth was, despite his wrinkles, Rodolfo Abernathy was still one cunning, dangerous wolf. And he didn’t fool Marston in the least.
“Marston,” he said. “What news have you for me?”
“I believe I’ve located Liam Pardie’s daughter.”
“You believe, or you know?”
Marston swallowed hard. “I cannot confirm anything yet, but—”
Rodolfo slammed his fist on the desk and slowly stood. “I am tired of your failures. Explain again to me why I shouldn’t take the blood oath out of your hide and be done with you once and for all? I have waited far too many years already for my satisfaction.”
“Her last name is the same. She just hooked up with the Lyall triplets. I don’t know for sure if she’s Liam’s daughter, but everything points to it.”
Rodolfo’s wrinkled visage eventually split into a horrific smile. “Excellent,” he said as he dropped back down into his wheelchair. “How long before you obtain her? The last thing I want to do is go through their Clan Council.”
“I’m working on it. You did hear me say triplets, right? It’s going to take time.”
“Work faster. Your sloppy methods are raising suspicions. I don’t have a problem with murder as a means to an end, but you aren’t getting the end we desire. Fix this, before I grow weary of the wait and eliminate you.” He made a dismissive gesture at Marston. “Get out of my sight.”
As Marston stood and turned to leave, Rodolfo had one more comment for him. “Oh, by the way. I heard you were responsible for some murders in Brussels two years ago.”
Marston froze momentarily before he turned. He hadn’t thought that would get back to the wily wolf. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Rodolfo’s gaze narrowed. “You don’t know what wolf could possibly be working in conjunction with the cockatrice for some unknown reason? What wolf was responsible for killing Bertholde, the dragons’ Seer, in Yellowstone? What wolf brought the dragons’ new Seer’s attention down upon my Clan? The wolf who killed two accomplices to that act in Brussels, including their family members?”
Marston shook his head as he eased backward toward the door. “From what I understand, the rumors said it was a cockatrice. That the victims were killed just like they do it.”
“Bullshit. Someone stinking of cockatrice surely can pick up a trick or two from them.” Rodolfo growled, low and rumbling in his throat. “Perhaps you are too young to remember it,” Rodolfo continued, “but I certainly remember how a wolf should take a life, the sensation, the taste of warm blood rolling down my throat from a kill. Of sinking my teeth into an adversary’s throat, crushing their windpipe and holding tight until their heart quit pumping their life force into my mouth. Rich, warm blood.” He growled again. “Just because I am old doesn’t mean I can’t and won’t shift and settle an old score. Do I make myself clear?”
Marston nodded.
“Get out of here, you lying fleabag,” Rodolfo ordered.
Marston bolted through the door before Rodolfo could change his mind.
* * * *
Rodolfo called his flunky back into his office. “Keep an eye on Marston,” he ordered him. “I want constant reports on his whereabouts and activities. I want to know everything he knows about the Pardie bitch. Once we do, we’ll get rid of him. We don’t need him bringing more attention to us. We have enough trouble without the dragons’ new Seer putting us in her sights. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Rodolfo waved his assistant out. Alone again, he leaned back in his wheelchair and templed his fingers in front of him. Truth be told, he didn’t really need the wheelchair. He looked a lot frailer than he actually was, but he found it a helpful prop to lull people into a false sense of security around him.
What to do? His own sons and grandsons had proved utterly disappointing. Even his great-grandson, Paul, the only decent one of his generation, was a poor excuse for a wolf. Definitely not someone he’d want taking over his position.
Especially if recent rumors about Paul’s extracurricular activities were true.
Unfortunately, Rodolfo’s line risked dying out unless he got new, fresh Alpha blood flowing through it. The Pardie woman was his last hope, as far as he could tell.
Screw “true love.” He needed and would have his heir.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Paul. The boy, only twenty-three, answered on the second ring. “Yes, Grandfather?”
“Paul. What is this trouble I hear you’ve gotten yourself into?”
The boy hesitated before answering. “I’m not sure what you’re talking—”
“Do not lie to me, boy!” he roared. “I know about the girl.”
A moment of silence. Then, in a meek voice that nearly infuriated Rodolfo, Paul said, “She’s just a tramp.”
“Is it true? You knocked her up?”
“She says I did, but I don’t
know that it was—”
“Take care of it,” he growled into the phone. “Prove to me why I shouldn’t kill you the way I killed your father and grandfather.” Paul’s father had been a sniveling omega not worthy of the family name. Paul’s grandfather, his own son, was a treacherous beta who’d wanted to kill him and take over. He needed to shore up Paul’s beta spine and fast, or all his options for a remotely worthy heir to his empire would quickly run out.
“Take care of it how?” Paul asked. Rodolfo despised the boy’s whiny tone.
“Any way necessary. If you don’t take care of her, I will take care of you.” He ended the call and hung up. Oh, how he longed for the old days, when they could settle scores like men, without artifice and pleasantries. These young pups now didn’t give a damn about family honor or reputation. They didn’t care about clean bloodlines.
They didn’t care about protocols. Their bloodline was tainted enough by betas and non-shifting humans as it was.
They damn sure didn’t need coyote blood muddying things up.
Chapter One
Now…
Lina Zaria-Alexandr still hated flying, even though in the past couple of years she’d grown a little more used to it. They had to fly over to France from Florida at least twice a year to meet with the dragon flagyer’s mucky-mucks. And truth be told, she’d grown very close to and fond of Andel Wattersson, the head of their flagyer, even though he was her uncle by mating and not by blood.