Triumph

by Serena Akeroyd

  “Just a suspicion.” With a pop, Theo’s wings appeared. She looked at them for a second, then braced herself for his glamor to work on hers.

  When the heavy weight at her back made itself known, she peered over her shoulder at them and grumbled, “You expect me to fly with these things?”

  “That’s what they’re for, dearling,” he retorted drily.

  “I flew because I had to. I don’t think I want to fly again,” she retorted. It was damn hard. Like running—with your fucking shoulders.

  Yeah, as confusing as that sounded, it was still the truth.

  She wriggled said shoulders, wishing that they weren’t already starting to ache.

  “Well, you’re going to have to get used to it.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  Theo rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you? Because the Fae fight in the air.”

  “The Dark Fae don’t,” she grumbled. “No wings, duh.”

  “Doesn’t mean that we don’t take advantage of that. Swooping in and picking them up, then dropping them from a height is a crude but often successful technique. If you’re going to war, then you’re going to learn more than just the basics of flying.”

  “I’ll take Lysander, Mikkel. He doesn’t seem to loathe me like he does you.”

  Because you don’t call me a beast. I have feelings, you know?

  Thalia’s lips twitched. “Apologize to Lysander, Mikkel.”

  Her mate scowled at her, his mouth agape at the injustice. “He always stands on my feet. I’ve been around him less than a handful of times, yet every time, he managed to stand on my foot. If you tell me that isn’t suspicious, then I know you’re fucking lying.”

  You shouldn’t swear in front of ladies, Lysander snarled. It’s rude.

  Mikkel, I’ll keep you safe, Helena murmured, her tone low and sweet. I’ll protect you from Lysander. He can be a mean bully sometimes.

  Both Lysander and Mikkel gaped at the female horse.

  Caelus, even Thalia did.

  Saying it was weird as fuck to hear a horse say shit like that was an understatement.

  Theo pushed Mikkel between the shoulders, jerking him forward. He righted himself then glowered back at Theo even as he stepped toward the half door. “I need a saddle.”

  “You ride Divelsians bareback. They’ve got wings, Mikkel, and their rootings take up half their sides,” Theo said drily. “Where would you put the straps?”

  Though his ears turned pink with embarrassment, Mikkel just rounded his shoulders and waited for her to step away from the door. They held it open so Rafe could exit the stall with the two horses at his back.

  “You can mount them now,” Theo prompted her other mates, who, with a look and a shrug at one another that declared ‘here goes nothing,’ they did as bid.

  Lysander, his head tall and proud, wriggled his body in a way that prompted her to ask, You like being ridden?

  Of course, he retorted, it is my purpose.

  She blinked at that, guessed it made sense, then watched as Mikkel tried to fight off Helena’s wings as they curled about him.

  Grinning, she strode toward her other mate and pressed a hand to his knee. “Mikkel,” she murmured, her voice low.

  “What?” he retorted, his tone grouchy.

  “Should I be jealous?”

  Before he could do more than glower, she danced away, laughing as she moved toward her also-grinning Fae mate.

  As they stepped out of the yard, she felt her wings stretch and the feathers move. It was a weird sensation, and it made her feel as though they truly didn’t belong to her, because she hadn’t asked them to tilt toward the sunlight. She hadn’t asked them to do anything of the sort.

  “Can you take off?”

  She gnawed at her bottom lip. “Take off on a run?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s so much easier as a Fae,” she grumbled, remembering the many occasions where Theo would just take off from a standing position. He didn’t even leap into the air or anything like that.

  “I know, dearling. But you don’t have the glamor to aid you.” He held out his hand and she curled her fingers in his. “Come, we’ll do this together.”

  She nodded, sucked down some air, then mumbled, “On three?”

  As he counted down to one, they took off. Running at an even pace, but faster than most humans would care to behold.

  “Launch yourself, Thalia,” Theo called out. “Bend your knees and leap into the air.”

  She did as bid and wasn’t too surprised when it worked. She’d done it before, after all, only a few days ago.

  Even if that had been a decade or so before her birth.

  Yeah, odd.

  With her wings having caught the thermals, she felt herself being tugged this way and that by the winds. The limbs, however, took over. Instinct guiding them as they began to work, helping her remain in a stagnant position—following Theo’s actions—as they stayed in place and watched as Lysander and Helena took off in a similar manner, their great wings flapping as they took off into the sky.

  She swallowed at the glorious sight. Their bodies rippling with the powerful movements. The sun dappling the glorious silver tones of their hide. There was a joy in their eyes, a bright sparkle that made her realize this was their purpose.

  A thought that made her smile, as well as make a mental note to take them out more often rather than have them be stuck in a stall in a stable.

  It was a sacrilege to cage such beasts.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Stop.” Theo cut her a look. “They can’t roam wild.”

  “Why not? They look so content,” she countered.

  “Because they’ll cause chaos, and we don’t know if they’d return to us.”

  “I’m sure they would. If we asked nicely, or if they needed us.”

  “Let’s not take the risk,” Theo retorted, but his tone was amused. “Come on,” he called out once the horses were at a similar height. “Follow me.”

  So, they did, and Thalia actually started to feel like Peter Pan as she flew.

  She’d spent precious little time up here in Theo’s arms, and she realized now what she’d been missing out on.

  Around her, there were dozens of Fae flying in and around the palace’s security measures. She’d never noticed them before, having always been tucked in Theo’s arms, facing backward rather than forwards. It was curious to see people just taking off and landing as though it were an airport. Without the planes.

  Once they made it past the palace, the glorious salmon pink sky seemed to cocoon her in its shelter. Yet again, the sense of being safe here filled her, even though Morningstar had proven that it wasn’t secure, she still felt protected. Which, she knew, made no sense.

  In the distance, she saw the waters that she’d bathed in twice. Once, for fun, the second time during Theo’s claiming of her. Even as she thought of the sex they’d had in that huge ocean, she felt the inferno begin to burn as need swelled inside her.

  Gods, that really was the cherry on the cake.

  She focused on the ache in her shoulders, the strain to her front, and the whistling in the wind as it played with her wings. They were all flying in a close formation, close enough to speak, but they didn’t. Even as she turned back to face Mikkel and Rafe, she saw words were superfluous.

  Just as she’d been those other two times, they were speechless. Absorbing this strange new world they lived in. Absorbing the beauty of a sky that was so unlike their own, and a world that revealed itself as the clouds parted to display lands so green they made a shamrock appear dull. Mountains so rich with color, they could have been made from glitter. And the waters that were their destination? A sea of marble that didn’t appear to ripple it was so still.

  “How far away is your home in Trierna?” she asked as she surged forward, happy to sprint ahead of her mates to enjoy this new experience.

  Theo turned to look at her, while she checked him out. The ma
n was fine on a regular day. With his wings out? He was delicious. But when he was flying, those massive limbs supporting his heavy weight with an ease that made her pussy melt? Well, he was finer than Belgian chocolate.

  And that was saying something.

  “From the waters?” At her nod, he shrugged. “Not far.” He cut her a look before he turned back to stare at the ocean ahead. “Do you wish to visit?”

  “I suppose.” She shrugged. “It won’t be our home for long, will it?”

  “Not when the child is born. You will be crowned within days of birthing the babe.”

  That had her flinching. “Really? So soon?”

  “We take these things very seriously. Even more so now that our fertility is at a zero. It will come as a great shock to my mother, at first. As soon as she realizes what it means, I’m certain she’ll be ecstatic.”

  Ecstatic? Isaura? Thalia snorted. She’d pay to see that.

  She noticed his wings change pace. Recognized, instinctively, that he was slowing down. She mimicked the flutter of the limbs, staggered to a halt, and, of course, dropped.

  “Fuck!” she growled as she sank a good twenty feet in less than a blink of an eye. Then, her heart began to stutter in her chest as she remembered this same scenario a few days ago.

  Where she’d been facing death.

  Death to protect the life in her womb from being fated to a monster.

  Thalia couldn’t get air in her lungs, couldn’t seem to breathe. Couldn’t seem to focus on anything other than what had almost happened.

  She’d almost not been here.

  She’d almost not been mad at Rafe. He’d never have been able to bite her, and she’d never have been able to experience that. Theo’s gentle hugs, the kisses he pressed to the crown of her head—the secrets he kept because he wasn’t sure how to tell them everything. She’d never have lain beneath the willow’s canopy with Mikkel, surrounded by her pack of natural wolves—the only ones who’d ever truly accepted her. She’d never have been kissed by her parents—learned the truth about their hatred for her.

  Her body began to tremble as reaction set in.

  It was days late.

  And then, it stopped. She was jostled to a halt as she crashed into Theo’s arms. “Is there a reason we’re free falling, dearling?”

  His voice was light, but she could hear his heartbeat—it was racing faster than hers. And she could hear the panic therein.

  “Couldn’t fly,” she whispered, pressing her face into his throat and slipping her arms around his waist to burrow into him. He wrapped her up tightly in his embrace and the tears began to flow.

  It felt like they wouldn’t stop.

  Couldn’t stop.

  “Why?” he asked, and she knew he was working hard to keep his voice even.

  “Frozen.” She whimpered. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Where?”

  “In your arms. Heden… I’m supposed to be dead.”

  “You wouldn’t have died, dearling,” he told her gruffly. “You’re my mate. There’s no way the Goddess would give a Fae male his fated only for her to be mortal. You would have been very, very squashed. And would have required healing. But you would have lived.”

  She swallowed thickly. “Am I crazy? Should we just work on avoiding Morningstar?”

  “No. We’ve avoided him long enough.” He rubbed his nose against her temple and his wings began to surge in great sweeping waves. She realized he was gaining height and before had just been staying in place. “You, my dearling, are the catalyst. The Fae…” He blew out a breath. “Morningstar is our Achilles’ heel.”

  “Why?”

  “He was the first,” Theo mumbled. “You don’t know the powers he had. The strength… When he fell, our world changed. Nothing was the same. Even weak, even without the powers he was born with, he’s strong.

  “We’ve avoided the fight. Waiting on him to attack us, and never making a move to attack him.” He gulped. “When you were taken, Mikkel said to me, ‘Where does he live?’ I told him true. We don’t know, Thalia. We never looked for him because we’re scared. He never leaves his lair, and we were content with that insufficient piece of intel.”

  “Then why do you think we should fight him?” she asked, her voice a whisper as she pressed herself even harder into his hold, needing the firm strength of him against her to settle the deep uneasiness in her soul.

  “Because it is time. My daughter, our daughter, will not be mated to that scum. He is the first of the first born, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be eradicated like the monster he is. My daughter is pure. She is the first of the first born of this new world. She deserves more. She does not deserve him.”

  She rubbed her forehead against his chest, touched by the passion in his words.

  He’d almost shouted the last ones, and they still rang in her ears, but… Theo wasn’t passionate. Not outside of the bedroom. He could be cold and clinical. So at ease with even the most intense of situations that she felt like headbutting him wouldn’t even come as a surprise.

  She curled her legs around his, bringing their cores together. Not to tease or entice but to offer comfort.

  Thalia submitted for no man.

  But for her mates?

  That was different.

  She softened against him, letting him know she was his and that they were in this together.

  Always together.

  “We will dispose of him, as we should have done millennia ago. We will do so as a team. A unit. We are powerful, Thalia. We are…” He swallowed—his Adam’s apple bobbed against her skin. “There is no collective like us. A Lyken female with wings, one with three fathers, three mates, and carrying the child of a Fae male, a changeling, and a half-Lyken of an ancient breed so rare that…” He blew out a breath. “Ouroboros are an incredible species. I don’t like them, but they are powerful. As a quartet, no one can even know what we’re capable of. As a quintet? A family? We are a unit the Gods crafted, and I have to believe that it is for this purpose.”

  “Really?” she asked, the word quiet.

  “Truly.”

  “Thalia?” Rafe yelled, and she heard the panic in his voice. A panic that was the Rafe she’d always known—he was in there. Somewhere. He was just… what? Evolving?

  She turned her head and shot him a weak smile. “Sorry, love.”

  “Lysander wouldn’t go after you,” he growled, and her smile brightened.

  We’re not capable of those speeds. Only the male would have been able to help her, Lysander groused, his dour tone filling her head like concrete would.

  “It’s okay, Rafe.” She turned to Mikkel whose eyes weren’t as panicked as Rafe’s, but he was tense. His limbs straining with his emotions. “I just froze,” she admitted to Mikkel, and only to him even though Theo and Rafe were capable of hearing the words.

  He nodded. “Trauma does that to a person. I would spare you that if I could,” he rasped.

  “I know.” She repeated on a whisper, “I know.”

  “We need to go to the waters. It will do us all good.” Theo turned slightly to point back to the ocean that was a weird cloudy turquoise—like Pepto Bismol but in blue instead of pink. And rather than gross, somehow so beyond beautiful, there were no words to describe it.

  She could already feel the silky liquid slipping over her body, warming and cooling, bringing life and healing the myriad tears in her soul that the past few days had wrought.

  Until now, she hadn’t realized how badly she’d needed to be within the depths. Theo had known, though. Would he always know her most basic wants and needs? Well, aside from this bizarre urge she was getting to have her fucking blood slurped up like it was tequila during a bachelorette party.

  She was almost relieved that the thought made her want to laugh. The chuckle bubbled in her throat and she quenched it, not willing to share the joke.

  “You’re not going to drop me into the water again, are you?”

  His arms t
ightened about her. “I knew you’d be angry last time but amused too. This time? I’d traumatize you. Is that something I’d want you to feel, do you think?”

  The question, though rhetorical and annoyed with it, had her lips twitching as she pressed a kiss to his throat. Preferring the warm cavern there, loaded with his delicious scent, she didn’t try to look behind her. She stayed there until she felt them descending.

  “Are you ready?”

  “I was born ready,” she told him as she’d told Mikkel earlier that day, and was pleased when he chuckled.

  “You can let go. It’s just a little drop. A foot at the most.”

  She didn’t have to look down, didn’t need to. She trusted him. Without opening her eyes, she relinquished her hold on him and slipped into the water.

  The minute she touched it, she knew nothing would ever be the same again.

  15

  Terra

  “Blessings, my child.”

  Terra watched as Thalia opened her eyes and jerked back in surprise.

  Through the silky medium of these oceans, oceans her lover, Mare, controlled, Terra and Thalia might have been in a Starbucks or in that cat Isaura’s throne room.

  They were cosseted in a satiny warmth, thanks to Mare’s touch.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her eyes wide and, Terra knew, not stinging because of her affinity with the liquid.

  “The Mother.” She wanted to say your mother, but that was a complicated conversation. Her child’s mate was already battling a similar confusion—fathered by a God but sired by a fallen Fae. Thalia, herself, was mothered by the Gods, and sired by Lykens.

  It was a conversation for another time. Now, there were more pressing matters at hand.

  Thalia’s limbs, clothes, and hair floated as though she were submerged under water, but for Terra, such inanities didn’t affect her. This was her world, her mate’s world. It ceded to her.

  And, one day, it would cede to her daughter.

  She reached forward and pressed her hands to the child’s stomach. “She’s ready to be born, daughter.”

  Thalia’s eyes flared wide and she jerked back. “Excuse me?”

  “The child is ready to be born,” she repeated, not irritated by Thalia’s apparent disbelief.