Read Triple Dog Dare [Triple Trouble 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) for Free Online

then a new baby, and he didn’t want to risk their safety like that.”
    “Yeah, exactly,” Carla agreed. “That’s what she told me.”
    Elain looked at the photo. It explained everything. It explained why she’d reacted the way she had to the man in the steakhouse.
    He is my father.
    “What does this mean?” Elain quietly asked. “I’m…I’m a shape-shifter? I’m a wolf, like you guys?”
    The men exchanged a guilty look.
    “What?” she asked. “What do you know?”
    Ain took point. “We suspected, based on a few things, but we had no idea in the beginning. We were just so grateful to find you in the first place, we never thought to try to figure out if you were a shifter or not. We assumed you weren’t. Just because someone is from a shifter line doesn’t mean they will shift. When I saw your birth certificate and saw your father’s name, I made some calls.” He looked at his brothers. “We think you probably are a shifter.”
    “How long have you suspected?” she quietly asked.
    “Not long,” Ain said. “We suspect the night Brodey chased you that you probably shifted during the chase. But none of us ever actually saw you shift.” From his quiet tone of voice, she suspected he thought she’d probably erupt into a tantrum over them keeping the news from her.
    Normally, she might have. Tonight, however, Elain felt too exhausted and emotionally wiped out to throw a temper tantrum. She emptied her drink. “May I please have another?” she quietly asked Cail.
    He jumped up to get it. “Of course, sweetheart.”
    While he was gone, she stared at the picture of her parents, then at her mom.
    “Do you hate me?” Carla asked.
    “No!” Elain said, and meant it. “I love you. You’re my mom.”
    Carla studied her glass. “I never believed the shape-shifter stuff,” she said once again. “It didn’t make sense. I twisted it around in my mind so I didn’t have to believe it. As the years passed and you never did any of that stuff, I convinced myself it wasn’t real. That I’d dreamed it or imagined it or something. I just never thought—”
    “It’s okay,” Ain gently said. “We understand.”
    Carla stared at him, anger suddenly painted across her face. “No, I don’t think you do! I’d just watched my friend die! I had the responsibility of raising her baby. Her father disappeared, and I suspected he wasn’t coming back. All this crazy stuff she told and showed me, it was too much to handle.”
    She tipped up her glass and drained the rest of her drink. She looked at Brodey. “I wanted to hate Liam. I’d liked him when I first met him. He seemed like a nice guy, a handsome guy, very sweet. When I knew them in Spokane, I always envied Maureen. I’d wished for a guy like that for me. Then I went through Elain’s early years afraid someone from Maureen’s family would come and try to take her away from me. I loved her as if she was my own baby. She was my baby. My daughter. My little girl. If Liam returned, I knew he wouldn’t take her away from me. At least, I wouldn’t let him have her without a fight. I was even afraid to date guys who showed too much interest in the fact that I had a daughter. I always thought in the back of my mind ‘what if.’ What if there might be something to that crazy story about the blood oath, and they were someone trying to find Elain?” She burst into tears.
    Elain moved to sit next to Carla and hugged her. Cail brought Elain’s drink in and set it on the coffee table in front of her. She picked it up and downed it in a few gulps.
    “What did the letter say?” Carla tentatively asked when she’d composed herself.
    Ain handed it to Elain, who passed it to Carla. They all sat there, waiting for her to finish reading. When she did, Carla looked up at them. “May I have another drink?” she softly asked.
    “I think I’ll take one, too, please,” Ain said. Cail got up to make them. “It’s going to be a long night,” Ain said.

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