Triumph

by Serena Akeroyd

  There was no battle in her.

  Nothing but what Thalia had indicated.

  A desire for this torment to end.

  As swiftly as the wrath had come, it disappeared. He dropped her, watching mercilessly as she sank into a puddle on the ground.

  “What are you really doing here?” he rasped.

  “It’s been over thirty-five years since I saw you last, Theo. I can’t even tell you how much I’ve missed you.”

  “You should have thought about that before you betrayed me,” he snarled, taking a step back, removing himself from her proximity and the temptation to strike her harder.

  “I was in love.”

  “Aren’t they all? You betrayed me. That is no excuse. My love for your love? What kind of friendship is that?”

  Her eyes were tormented as she stared up at him. The moonlight making the white sparkle in a way that no human’s ever would. “I can only apologize.”

  “Not good enough.” His mouth curled in a sneer. “We fought your kind together,” he snarled. “We were on the same side, and now what? If Morningstar calls, you answer? You’ll fight me? Try to kill me?”

  The glinting of the whites of her eyes ceased as she closed them and dipped her chin. “He won’t. His numbers aren’t strong enough.”

  “That matters not, and you know it. In a thousand years’ time, he might call upon you, and the questions will still be the same.”

  “I didn’t think about that. I couldn’t. I panicked, Theo,” she admitted, her voice husky. “She told me she was dying, and I felt as though I was going to die. I couldn’t lose another. I-I couldn’t…” She shook her head. “I’d been dallying with the Dark Fae for a while. You know that. You put me there, dammit.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I left you in charge of Trierna. You didn’t have to do anything I’d asked of you before,” he retorted, not even allowing her that out.

  It was true that he’d expected her to maintain her contacts with that kind, but to submerge herself in their society? No.

  “I wanted you to gather intel. I wanted you to watch from the shadows, not become a part of their world, Magda,” he snapped.

  “I didn’t mean to. I needed succor, Theo. You weren’t around. You can’t understand.”

  “I dealt with my own particular woes. Don’t you dare throw that at me like we all haven’t suffered. I’m older than you, and though I lost Chela, and Brian passed, did you see me succumbing?” It didn’t matter that the temptation had been there. That was the definition of temptation—it never ceased being present. “I fought it. I had to. Just as you should. And even if you had fallen, even if the temptation was too great, you should never have brought my fated into it.”

  She flinched at that. “If I could take it back, I would.”

  “Too. Fucking. Late,” he snarled, fisting his hands as fury bubbled inside him like a mass of lava in desperate need of erupting. Gods, he was trembling. Shaking with the need to make her pay.

  “I know!” she wailed. “I know! I’ve lived with this agony for all this time, Theo, and I can do it no longer. I want to help you. I need to help you. This guilt, it’s eating away at me.”

  “Not enough for you to have avoided Morningstar’s call. It is for him you have killed, no?”

  Magda lifted her hands and covered her face. “I did many things at the start. The need to survive is bred into us all until it is beaten out of us.”

  He narrowed his eyes at that. “What are you talking about?”

  “Morningstar’s lair is on the same realm as Heden, Theo,” she whispered, her eyes catching his and holding them. “It is hidden among the mountains and the pastures that Vulcun forged to tempt him from the gates.”

  “If you think—”

  “I know there’s no forgiveness for me. I know that, but I must help you. I may be Fallen, but I am Fae first. My soul belongs with you, my true kind. I was betrayed too, Theo. The woman… she was not what I believed. She lied to me. She did things, made me believe she was true, made me think she was my fated, but she wasn’t.” Her chin quivered. “Only because I believed her to be the image she sold, did I act on her behalf.

  “But it was a con. Our relationship was built upon secrets and deceit. I betrayed your fated for what I believed to be my own.”

  Uneasiness blossomed inside him. “Of what are you speaking, Magda?”

  “Changelings, Theo. Have you heard of them?”

  He stiffened. “Spawn of the Dark Fae?”

  “Yes. Indeed. But they are powerful, and they work to a higher calling than any of us can imagine.”

  “This woman… this fated, she was a changeling?”

  Magda nodded even as she raised her knees and wrapped her arms around them.

  Gods, she was so thin. So slight. Nothing like the female she’d been before. He’d never wanted her, not in that sense. Magda was unlike most Fae and preferred other females to men. Exclusively. He’d known that, and had respected the preference. Hadn’t he too preferred male company?

  Pursing his lips as he contemplated her, he leaned on the silver railing with his back to the ocean. She was pitiful on the ground, and he hated that she was in the subservient position when she’d never been that before; but, and it was a huge but, she’d never appeared so defeated either.

  “Talk to me, Magda. Explain.” He could no more stop the words from falling than he could stop the tides from coming. She’d been a friend, a female closer to him than any of his siblings.

  He didn’t have it in him to hurt her further. Even if she deserved it.

  There was a painful hope in her eyes as she looked up at him. “They’re evil, Theo. Thankfully, they’re rare, but there are more than we believed.”

  His mother had said something similar. Not about the quantity, but about their inherent natures.

  Rafe wasn’t evil. Theo knew that like he knew his face in the mirror. At the moment, what he was, was confused. But then, hadn’t they learned that Rafe was different anyway because he had a mate? Thalia made all the difference to his temperament.

  At least, Theo prayed that was the truth, and that the book which had originally informed them of changelings’ existence hadn’t been wrong in that regard.

  “What is their purpose?”

  “The Dark Fae abandon them at birth. Only males can spawn them. The human females who birth the abominations die during labor. Their fathers take their spawn to a family they believe will be influential in the future. They take a newborn child, put theirs in its place, and the changeling is reared like they are kin.”

  Theo hated that everything she’d said was merely a confirmation of the information he had.

  “What then?”

  “When they are of age, in their fifties, their powers are activated. I’m not sure why or how, but they come into them, and then, their father returns to bring them to the fold.”

  Theo stiffened. Tension slaloming into his limbs as he squatted down to face Magda.

  Rafe’s father hadn’t returned.

  Was that on the cards?

  “What then?”

  “They do their fathers’ bidding. And that bidding is Morningstar’s.”

  “What did the changeling want with you?”

  “I fear it was my connection to Trierna, but I don’t know for certain. The minute I fell, she disappeared, and not how I was led to believe either.” She tightened her lips. “Morningstar… he stores the humans he spares in his lair. It’s like limbo. But they don’t die because they’re on Heden. The clock passes as it does for us all.”

  “Meaning they don’t die.”

  “Yes. He wants us to turn people from good to ill. To sway them to certain causes. To make them do evil deeds. Once we do this, and that person dies, our touch is on their souls. Once we have collected enough, we get to see the loved one he saved.”

  “And yours wasn’t there?”

  She shook her head and tears glinted in her eyes. “That is why I have many deaths on
my conscience. I-I fought for her.”

  “But she’d betrayed you,” he replied flatly.

  Magda pressed her forehead to her knees and began to weep. The sight of her sorrow destroyed him, but he couldn’t comfort her. Not for what she’d done.

  Even if she was trying to right that wrong.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because there is a situation in the making that I helped cause. I’ve done enough damage to Thalia’s kind by handing her over to Morningstar. I wish to make amends, Theo.”

  “I fear there is nothing you could do to make amends, Magda,” he warned her.

  Her hands snapped out, but not to do him harm, simply to grab his. She pressed it to her forehead and whispered, “I don’t expect to be friends. I don’t expect anything. I just… I wish to help.”

  A sigh fell from his lips. “Explain.”

  “There was a law brought into pass thirty years or so ago. It was crafted to protect wildlife sanctuaries. I helped weave in loopholes that are being triggered today to open up those wildlife sanctuaries to oil and fracking companies.”

  Theo groaned under his breath. “The rabid Wolf in Washington?”

  She nodded, her sweat-slick forehead rubbing against his hand. “Yes. My fault. He is seeking to take out the politicians who are being paid off by the oil and fracking companies in question. But he’s close to the edge. I know because a friend of mine is tipping him further over it.” She sucked down a breath. “He’s getting dangerously close to exposing the entire species, Theo.”

  For Caelus’ sake.

  That was just what they fucking needed.

  “How much time do we have?” he asked.

  “A month at the most.”

  That gave them some breathing room. Not much. But a lot could happen in a month.

  In four weeks, Morningstar’s soul could be at one with the wheel of souls.

  Theo could only pray that was true.

  He released a breath of his own and asked, “His lair, Magda, how do we access it?”

  “I have never actually accessed Heden from it. There is a vortex in his throne room that enables us to gain entry and to leave it. It usually spits us out in another time or place. But there is no way into Heden.”

  “Is it formed in the mountains?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, the need in her voice to be believed so genuine, it made his throat clutch. “Honestly, Theo, if I did, I’d tell you. But it’s definitely on our realm because of the way time passes. As far as I’m aware, there is no other place like it. No way he could preserve so many lives. He doesn’t have the powers for it.”

  Theo curled his fingers about hers. “Thank you, Magda.”

  Her lips firmed to stop them from trembling. “I wish I knew more. Did Thalia give you my cell number?”

  He cocked a brow—that was news to him. “No.”

  Magda’s smile was bittersweet. “I can’t blame her.” She rattled off her number. “Please. If you need me, tell me.”

  Theo released a sigh as he got to his feet and helped her up too. The sigh was the only answer he could give her.

  She closed her eyes again, nodded. “I understand, Theo.”

  The defeat in her voice stoned him, but what could he say? Her help now didn’t right the wrong she’d perpetrated.

  Thalia could have…

  He couldn’t even think of it.

  “I’ll go,” she whispered, turning her back to him as she began to trudge off.

  As she moved, each step seemed slow and painful. He couldn’t stop himself from calling out, “Eat something, Magda. For me. Please.”

  Her shoulders straightened a little as she turned around to look at him once more. The beaming joy she exuded filled him with distress, but before he could say another damn word, she nodded and carried on her way out of there.

  As he watched her leave, he wondered what he could do with the information she’d just given him. It seemed like nothing more than a headache in the making. But what concerned him most was this talk of Rafe’s father…

  Was he waiting in the wings somewhere? About to call his son to heed?

  Theo clenched his eyes shut as he turned back to stare at the ocean. Sleep had evaded him that night, and it seemed like it would continue evading him. The humans said there was no rest for the wicked, which was only confirmation of what Theo already knew.

  He was wicked.

  To the bone.

  8

  Thalia

  Groaning, Thalia tried for the tenth time to do as Theo showed her.

  Tucking the wings together, bunching her shoulder blades until the damn things were close to touching, she tried to will the wings into disappearing.

  “You look like you need to take a shit.”

  “Fuck off, Mikkel,” she grumbled, eyes popping open to glare at him.

  “Why? This is funny.” He grinned at her, then when she glowered at him some more, he blew her a kiss.

  Taken aback, she stumbled half-a-step into Rafe’s warm arms. “Sorry,” she mumbled when he propped her upright.

  “Don’t be,” he said with a smile, then he pressed his lips to her forehead as he passed her on the narrow aisle of the plane to take his seat opposite Mikkel.

  “Maybe I can’t do it,” she groused. “I don’t have glamor.”

  “We have to try. Until we try and train, we don’t know,” Theo said, and he sounded far too much like a yogi passing on wisdom for her liking.

  When he used that tone, she wanted to give him a roundhouse kick to the stomach.

  “Why would I be able to do this? The wings aren’t mine.”

  “You don’t know if you don’t try.”

  “She’s been trying for four hours, Theo,” Rafe inserted softly. “And Mikkel’s right. She’s starting to look constipated.”

  Her eyes flared wide at his words. Huffing, she stacked her hands on her hips and cried, “Et tu, Brute?”

  His lips twitched. “Mikkel might be an asshole, but he can be an accurate one.”

  She puffed out a breath. “How long until we land?”

  “Not long.” Rafe smiled at her, and his smile had something deep inside her melting.

  Whatever the hell he’d done to her two nights ago had made her pussy so sore that walking the next day had been uncomfortable. But dear Gods, the bliss. She’d never known anything like it. He’d never been like that before, and she wasn’t even sure where it had come from.

  When her wings had popped out?

  She’d thought her eyes would be permanently crossed.

  Just thinking about that, then looking at his angelic features, made her want to climb on his face. He’d always been hot to her, but two nights ago had changed things somehow.

  She wasn’t even sure how, dammit. Just knew that he’d changed in a way that went bone deep, and yet, wasn’t all that evident either. He was the same cutie pie as always. Kind, gentle, sweet. A kiss whenever he saw her, a hug whenever she was close. He touched her constantly. Always making sure a part of them was connected. Not in a clingy way, because that would probably have driven her fucking insane, but in a grounding way.

  Like when he touched her, it prevented her from floating away into the madness that was their life at the moment.

  She needed that. She’d never not need it, Thalia reckoned. But now? There was something…

  She blew out another breath.

  Thalia didn’t have a damn clue what was happening to him. It was like something had awakened in him after a long slumber, but that wasn’t supposed to be Rafe, that was Mikkel. Who was a beast regardless of whether he had an Ouroboros inside him or not.

  When her wings winked out of existence, she staggered. Her center of balance tipped forward and she dragged herself against the seat before her to keep herself upright. “Warn a girl,” she grumbled at Theo, who winked at her.

  She narrowed her eyes and, striding over to him, straddled his lap without giving him the chance to even say no.
When his hands settled on her ass, he didn’t look too put off at having to quickly move his newspaper out of the way—because yes, the man was old school and still read a paper, bless his heart—and his lips twitched up at her.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but to what do I owe this visit?”

  She rubbed her nose down his. “How long did you know about the men behind the shooters?”

  “I learned early on in your visit to Heden. We discovered a paper trail. Stevenson paid a pair of humans known to offer such services, and the money led us right to him.” He cocked a brow at her when she stiffened in his lap. “Why do you think I encouraged you to train with the sword? I had no intention of handling the situation myself, but I wanted to know the facts before you were ready. Forewarned is forearmed.”

  Though that appeased her some, it didn’t appease her fully. “Why are you so secretive?”

  “I’m not,” he countered. “Ask me anything and I will answer.”

  She sniffed. “That’s a cop out and you know it.”

  His grin told her he knew she was right. “Hardly. My brain is at your disposal.”

  “Only if I know which questions to ask. That’s a battle in and of itself.”

  “That’s not my fault. I’ll attempt to answer whatever you want,” he reminded her. “But I can’t just speak to you of the many things that have happened in my life, dearling. How could I? And why would you want to know it all. Most of it I spent utterly bored.” He nipped at the thick pad of her chin. “I was waiting for you, dear heart.”

  She squinted at him even as her core began to melt. “Don’t think you can soften me up with endearments.”

  “We both know I can scent differently.”

  She whacked his arm. “Don’t be a douche. I have enough of that with him.” She jerked her thumb back in Mikkel’s direction.

  “I resent that,” the douche in question retorted, making her snort.

  “Resent what? The truth?” she grumbled. Then returned her attention to Theo. There was something going on with him too, and she didn’t like it.

  In fact, she felt in flux.

  So many things were happening simultaneously that it was difficult to know which road to go down, hard to discern which path heralded the most peace in the long run, all while knowing that the end goal was to destroy the Devil.