He shrugged. “No. But it is fair to Serafina, and at the moment, that’s all I’m capable of thinking about.” A throat cleared, and taking that for the cue it was, he murmured, “We have to start this, Thalia.”
“I know,” she whispered, her tone mournful.
He turned back, nodding blindly at the attendant waiting on them. Then, he took a step away from her to absorb her in all her glory. Unlike himself, who was dressed in simple trews and kurta—the tunic was embroidered in his house colors alongside gold and platinum strands—Thalia looked magnificent.
She wore a dress the color of blood. It was wrapped around her like she was a confection, with only his glamor keeping it up. It swathed around her breasts in a tight bandeau before criss crossing over her waist. Her small curves were displayed to perfection as a result. The remainder of the fabric dropped to her front and back, with two long splits at either side of her legs, meaning that with each step, her strong thighs and firm calves were revealed.
The bodice was studded with gemstones. A mosaic pattern that was heavier on the hemlines, especially on the train at her back which was fifteen feet in length.
She looked, in a word, stunning.
And he wanted her.
Gods, how he wanted her.
It was an ache in his body, in his blood and bones.
This woman was his, and forever would be. He refused to believe the Gods would take her from him, or him from her, as they fought the battle the deities had brought to their lives.
“You look incredible,” he whispered.
“I have a mate who should be a fashion designer,” she teased a little, her smile small but the pink on her cheeks enough to tell him that his fervor had been appreciated.
He smiled at her, took in the long locks that swirled around her shoulders, the barely there makeup that made her seem very earthy, and murmured, “I think we’re ready.”
She nodded, stared down at herself with her fists curling at her sides, then took a step forward.
At her movement, the attendant in the antechamber to the throne room opened the door. She stepped through first, Theo at her back as he took in the way the fabric curved around her ass and thighs. As he stepped out after her, she turned back, and there was a twinkle in her eyes that made him smile.
“Ready to get the show on the road? Or are you too busy checking me out?”
Serafina giggled, actually giggled as though she’d understood her mother’s words. The little cherub seemed capable of wrapping him around her finger days after her birth. Only the Gods knew what she’d be capable of when she was able to do more than eat, sleep, and empty her bowels.
Tugging her closer to his chest, loving how she melted into him—so secure in his hold, in his love—he could do nothing else other than say, “Thalia?” When she peeked back at him, he carried on, “I love you and Serafina more than my life. I will die for you. I vow that to you.”
He watched her face crumple, her eyes soften until she shook her head. “Then vow that you will live for us. Not die,” she whispered, reaching up to cup his chin. “That’s the only vow I want from you, my love.” She leaned on tiptoe to press her lips to his. “I love you too.”
And with that, the ceremony began.
****
Thalia
She wasn’t nervous.
Not anymore.
Not after Theo’s words.
This ancient male loved her enough to die for her. How could she not be empowered? How could she not float down the aisle, ready for whatever else the Gods had in store for her?
The ceremony, after days of dreading it, was relatively simple.
The throne room, once again the size it had been when she’d attended the fuckfest after Theo’s claiming of her, was huge and it was full. There had to be ten thousand people here, waiting on each side of the walkway, watching her from the wings as she strode down the aisle, Theo at her back with their daughter, Rafe and Mikkel waiting by the throne for her arrival. That was nothing to the millions watching this moment thanks to the tens of thousands of Isaura’s birds that broadcast the coronation around the realm.
All Fae had been called home for this moment.
The land was brimming with the dying people, the full population here, ready to watch a new Queen be crowned.
Overhead, Michelangelo’s frescoes stared down at her. She’d learned of what it meant to commit suicide in this realm, and, through her reign, she intended to eradicate that. It hurt her mate that Michelangelo’s miracles were ascribed to ‘unknown,’ but it wouldn’t be for much longer.
Chela, his dear friend, might not be here to watch over them, but his work was, and as she strode down the white carpet, a beautiful contrast to her scarlet dress, she didn’t feel fear for what was about to happen.
Did she care that she was about to become the first non-Fae Queen of the Fae?
Nope.
She’d been born for this.
A Goddess had told her so.
All around her, there were hushed whispers. They followed her down the column of people that guided her to her mates. She hated that Theo was at her back like a second class citizen, but this was the way of it. Kane, with Theo in his arms, had made such a trek too, they’d informed her. For while Isaura had won the kingdom on the battlefield, she’d reigned as Lady Protector until she’d birthed her first heir.
When she finally saw her mates at either side of the throne, any anxiety she might have felt disappeared. The throne, a disgusting seat made of what she assumed was ivory even though she prayed it wasn’t, sat squarely in the center of a simple dais.
Her mates stood there, waiting on her, dressed similarly to Theo but with different shades of blue adorning their kurta. They looked hot. They all did, and it sucked that she was doing this coronation shit instead of sucking them, but hell, she wasn’t just an ordinary woman with her men anymore.
She was a Queen.
She had duties.
Responsibilities.
They were a leaden weight on her shoulders, but they were shared with her mates, and for that she was grateful.
Though she caught both Rafe and Mikkel’s gazes as she walked and allowed herself a wicked smile as they stared back at her hotly after thoroughly scanning her dress, or lack thereof, she supposed, Thalia soon focused on Isaura. The Queen incumbent was resplendent in a white gown. She was beautiful, but most unlike Isaura, she appeared innocent. Maiden-like.
Ha.
Talk about the biggest con in the universe.
With her eyes trained on her mother-in-law, she walked towards her, focusing on her instead of her mates, who prompted thoughts of sex and not servitude to a kingdom she didn’t particularly want.
The irony being, of course, that that impressed Isaura. Thalia sensed it did. For every second she held the woman’s gaze, the respect her mother-in-law felt for her went up a notch.
One stone, two birds down.
When there were only three steps between them, Thalia came to a halt, and waited for the ceremony to begin. It was, despite the Fae’s love of pageantry, a relatively simple ceremony. Consisting of a speech and a feast. That was it.
Thalia was grateful for that.
She didn’t have it in her to endure over the top festivities.
She was doing this for a reason, and that reason was that this was the first step on the path that Terra had set her on. A thousand mile journey, after all, began with that first single step.
“Citizens of Heden, it has been an honor to serve as your Queen. But, with our circumstances as dire as they have become, it is even more of an honor to pass on this crown to a woman who has born the first child to see this realm for millennia.
“This woman will be no ordinary Queen, for she has reared no ordinary child, and has three unordinary mates at her side. She will have duties that will need her attention on both this realm and another, and we will see to it that that responsibility is possible.
“This Queen, standing before me
here, will change our world. Her womb has borne fruit in this stagnant, dying universe, and as such, has been blessed by the Gods.
“I bow to her and I expect all of you to do the same.”
So saying, Isaura, Queen Bitch of Heden, Hedonist Extraordinaire, dipped into a deep curtsey. One so low it matched how hard Thalia gaped at the respectful genuflection.
19
Theo
“I can’t believe we had to leave so soon. Things were just getting started,” Mikkel grumbled, as he’d been grumbling since they’d left the throne room for Theo’s suite. “You know Tavelah was totally going to go down on that dude next to her.”
Thalia snorted—she’d been, after all, fascinated by the Fae female’s ability to take three cocks at the festivities after their claiming. “And you wanted to stay to watch?” She cocked a warning brow at him, and Theo watched Mikkel’s sheepish grin blossom.
“I wanted to see if she dared do it.”
Rafe just grunted. “You’re a pervert.”
“Takes one to know one. Your eyes were bugging out as hard as mine were.”
Now dressed in clothes that would make them fit in on Earth, Theo smoothed down Serafina’s blanket and murmured, “Must you talk of oral sex at this moment?”
His words quenched the amusement in the room, and though he felt like a party pooper, he was a party pooper.
A hand pressed to his back, and he turned his head to see Thalia standing there. “We will be back.”
“I know we will. I just don’t want to leave her.”
“It won’t be for long,” Mikkel murmured, stepping beside Theo and reaching down to trace Serafina’s cheek with his thumb. “I don’t think I could stand to be away from her for long,” he admitted on a sigh.
Because he couldn’t help himself, he curved his arm about Mikkel’s shoulder. Squeezing him in a one-armed hug, he murmured, “Me either, brother.”
Rafe, now at Thalia’s side next to the crib, whispered, “She’ll be safe here. That’s the only thing that matters.”
And though he was right, everything felt wrong.
“We should go,” Thalia whispered, and he heard as well as scented the tears in her eyes. Her hand shook as she stroked their daughter’s forehead. Her words were in direct contrast to her actions, and Theo couldn’t blame her.
This one small child had them in the palm of their hands, and would until the end of time itself.
****
Rafe
Rafe stared down at their child and felt the nausea swirl through him. He knew he wasn’t alone in this feeling. The notion of being separated from their daughter was repulsive, on a physical scale as well as an emotional one. And yet, they had to leave her.
They had no choice.
He bent over the crib, a delicate piece of master workmanship that appeared to be constructed out of feathers of all things, that hung suspended from the ceiling via cables that were plaited twigs with leaves sprouting from them. Theo had told him by the time she was a month old, they’d be full and thick with life. Even now, birds popped out of the walls and flew around Serafina’s crib.
They were her guardians.
Isaura’s spies in the palace.
“Can Isaura sift into this room?”
“Of course,” Theo murmured, frowning at him.
“Then why doesn’t she?”
“Because I’d kill her if she didn’t knock on the door first while we were here. We had several arguments when I was an adolescent on the subject,” he said on a low growl.
“So, if the birds see anything amiss, she’ll know to come?”
“She’d be here in a flash,” Thalia replied, making Rafe look at her in surprise. She must have sensed it because she murmured, “She promised me she’d take care of her for us. ‘Theo was glued to me as a babe,’ she said, ‘As will his child be.’ Her words. Not mine.”
Theo squeezed his arm around Thalia’s waist. “All will be well. It has to be,” he told her, sounding stark and Rafe could easily empathize even though he sensed the Fae male was trying to be strong for their mate’s sake, strong where, moments before, he’d floundered.
But that was the power of their daughter.
Capable of bringing a man of twelve thousand years to his knees.
“I think we should go. I don’t want to. It’s the last thing I want, Gods, but we need to get this over with.”
“Rafe’s right,” Thalia mumbled. Then, she did as Rafe had done. Leaned amid the feathers that shielded their daughter, kissed her crown, and as she stood, murmured, “Take us there now, Theo.”
And he did.
20
Mikkel
Mikkel would have said it was a joke. Either that, or it appeared as though they’d crash-landed onto an action movie set.
“Where are we?” he asked, taking a second to get his bearings.
“Florida. The Lyndhovens’ compound,” Theo murmured, sounding as bewildered as Mikkel felt.
“But…” Thalia broke off and turned in a circle taking in the chaos around her—a charred and dilapidated building where once there’d been a palace. “That can’t be.” Her voice turned low, into a whisper, then she coughed. “Can you scent fire?”
Rafe nodded even as his nostrils flared. “I can. Where’s the source though?”
Unease swirled through him, and he watched as Theo’s wings sprang out into full display after he’d hidden them for their travel to Earth. Without a word, Theo soared into the sky and peered into the distance. From that height, he’d be able to see dozens of miles around him. The palace was in Tampa, with views of the ocean but near a wildlife reserve. From his vantage point, he’d see the city and its environs. When he did as Thalia had, turned in a circle, he sank to the ground.
“There’s a forest fire.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I think there’s been some kind of earthquake—Tampa is in…” His jaw clenched. “Disarray.”
“Take us there,” Thalia ordered.
“What about your grandparents?” Mikkel asked.
“They had safe rooms.” Her eyes shuttered. “If they survived whatever happened here, they would have made it to them.” Her chin trembled and Theo reached over to cup her cheek.
“I sense no heartbeats save for our own, dearling,” he whispered, the words paining him.
She swallowed thickly. “I can only pray they’ve returned to the TriAlpha palace.” Thalia sucked down a shuddery breath. “Terra said it would seem like Armageddon. I just didn’t realize she meant…” Shaking her head to dismiss her own words, she held out her hand for Theo’s. He took it, and within the blink of an eye, the next thing Mikkel was looking at was—to put it bluntly—pandemonium.
He peered around, aghast at the state of the once thriving city.
They were standing in the center of a freeway. The road was cracked in a thousand places, huge chunks having broken away to reveal a chasm underneath. Water ran in torrents, from an unknown source, flooding depressed areas around them. Buildings on either side of the freeway were in states of disorder. Some had lost their top halves, while others were broken clean through in the middle, and they’d toppled over like dominos.
Everywhere he looked, cars were parked. They looked like they’d been plunked down, the angles unnatural. Some had been turned on their roofs, others just had their doors wide open. Streetlamps lay limply on the ground, bent over in the middle like broken celery stalks. Signs were scattered here and there, glass too had showered the streets, creating a sight he’d only seen the likes of in ‘I am Legend.’
“What the fuck’s going on?” he growled. “This is more than an earthquake.”
Even as he spoke, he heard it. In the distance, and Rafe’s nostrils flared again. “The fire’s near here. We need to get back.”
“We need to explore what the fuck is going on, Rafe,” Mikkel ground out. “I’m a soldier. I-I should be doing something. It’s my goddamn duty,” he barked.
“You have a higher calling now,
Mikkel,” Theo informed him, his tone stark enough to stop Mikkel from wanting to punch him in the fucking throat.
And then, the violence sank from him, seeping out of his limbs as he stared in the distance and beheld something he’d only ever seen on Heden.
“Thalia? Do you see that?” he asked, his voice a whisper as he raised his hand and pointed to the figures that had to be illusions. Either that or he was going crazy. There was enough of it going around, so why the hell shouldn’t he be losing his goddamn mind?
“Oh, sweet Gods,” she rasped.
“What is it?” Rafe demanded, spinning on his heel to look for whatever had floored them. And then, when he saw them, he too fell quiet.
“They’re flying,” Theo mumbled, sounding part bewildered, part furious.
“Who are they?”
“All Fae returned for the coronation. Isaura called them home,” Theo informed her, his tone wooden.
“Oh Gods,” she cried.
“That means…” Mikkel swallowed, then whipped his head from side to side in rejection of the truth. “That can’t be. I thought Morningstar took their wings after they fell?”
She lifted her hand to cover her mouth, and then she shook her head. “Terra said the humans would think it was Armageddon,” Thalia repeated, her voice almost soundless.
“She wasn’t fucking wrong,” he growled as the creatures approached them. And approach them they were, for there was no avoiding the sight. No mistaking what they were seeing.
The Dark Fae had revealed themselves to the humans.
They had their wings back.
And a group of seven of them were heading straight their way.
To Be Continued
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Hey guys!!
Thank you, as always, for reading.
I just wanted to clarify a few things. There will be TWO more books to the TriAlpha Chronicles. I actually shared this in my group on Facebook, but people keep thinking there is only one more. :P No, I’m not doing this to make myself even crazier than I already am, and no, I’m not doing this to string you guys out. This series… as my proofreader said the other day. It’s like a puzzle. Or a riddle. There being only two more books is actually giving me hives!!
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