“You okay, sir?”
The kid’s Brooklyn accent was nasal and heavy, grating on Theo’s ears even if the concern was touching. “No. Not really.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“The tip was freely given, kid,” Theo remarked as he swirled the Scotch in his glass. “You don’t have to be my shrink.”
He shrugged. “Might as well talk. I’m used to it.”
For a second, Theo was stunned at the boy’s blasé tone, and then, he thought about it. Really thought about it. As the words ‘why the fuck not?’ drifted through his mind, he blurted out, “My partner died four years ago, and I’m finding it hard to get over him.”
The kid’s mouth turned down somberly as he nodded. “I feel that. My dog died last year. It hurts.”
Theo blinked. Was he comparing his dog with Brian? For a second, he wasn’t sure whether to be outraged or amused, then he blew out a breath, and gritted out, “Yeah, death sucks.”
Especially for a man who’d seen a lot of it in his thousands of years of living.
That was the trouble with existing forever. Few other fuckers did, so he was alone for the most part. Unless he was with his own people, and they were just cunts.
Rubbing his chin which felt weird now that he’d shaved, he murmured, “It’s time to move on and I don’t want to.”
“You decide when it’s time to move on. If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”
“That’s pretty good advice, kid,” Theo said gruffly.
“Brian. The name’s Brian.”
For a second, he choked. What were the odds? Theo asked himself, then he nodded. “Nice to meet you, Brian. I’m Theo.” God, how that hurt. To say the other man’s name and think only of his Brian.
What was the likelihood that he’d meet a Brian on his goddamn way to meet with Thalia? Talk about his past colliding with his future.
“Well, Theo, like I said, and Oprah too if I’m being honest, you can’t rush this stuff. There’s no point. If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”
“I have no choice.”
“Don’t we always have a choice?”
Theo smirked into the amber nectar in his glass. “No. We don’t. Sometimes, things are bigger than us and we have no option but to roll with the punches.”
Brian winced. “I get where you’re coming from, man. But, like I said, if you push it, the only one you’ll hurt is yourself.”
“And there’s the rub. I know I’m in for a world of hurt, but I have no choice.” He raised his hand in a toast. “Obligations. They suck.”
Brian blew out a noisy breath. “Tell me about it. My scholarship funds the rest of my degree, I’ve worked all year to pay for everything else it doesn’t cover, but I’m working on this shitty train because my mother’s boyfriend cleared her out and left her with dick-all. What was I supposed to do? Just enjoy the summer and catch up on my courses, or help her out?”
“You’re a good kid,” Theo murmured, his tone approving.
Brian pursed his lips as he polished a glass—his grip on it was so fierce, Theo was surprised the beaker didn’t shatter. “Sometimes, it would be easier not to be. Especially as she has shitty taste in men. I warned her this would happen, but she never listens. My cleaning up after her messes won’t help her learn, but I can’t see her out on the street, can I?”
Theo eyed the kid. He was skinny and scrawny in the supposedly smart uniform of the first class lounge on board. The waistcoat was too big, the shirt fit too tight. He looked like he’d been given the cast offs of at least three former members of staff. His hair was clean and neatly gelled back, his jaw nicely shaven. His eyes were bright, hazel, and they were his one redeeming feature. Something that took his ordinary face into the stratosphere.
“Was she a good mom?” he asked, curiosity driving him when he knew he should stay out of it. Nothing good came of his interfering with the lives of mortals.
He’d probably be wise to remember that when it came time to meeting Thalia.
Brian frowned as he reached for the liquor bottle and topped up Theo’s glass. “No. Not really.”
“Then why do you help her?”
“Because…” His frown deepened. “I don’t know. I can’t help it. It’s ingrained in me, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve done it all my life. Cleared up after her messes when I was a kid, making shit right for me and my baby sister. Why stop now?” He winced. “Sorry for swearing, sir.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Brian grinned. “Thanks. Theo,” he tacked on his name at the last minute. “But, going back to what you were saying, this obligation, are you sure it’s not too much for you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it is. But I don’t have much choice, and the truth is, I’ve had to deal with much worse over the years. The older I get though, the harder it is to lose people.”
“That’s deep, man.”
Theo cocked a brow. “It is?”
“Yeah. It is.” Brian hunched his shoulders as he leaned his elbows on the bar. “It’s never easy loving people. No matter how many times it happens, it’s never going to get easier,” he mused. “The best thing we can do is surround ourselves with people who give a shit, you know? Who make those hard times easier to cope with.”
Theo scraped a hand over his jaw once more. The habit was ingrained, and wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon because he had yet to get used to not having a beard.
Would meeting Thalia make this grief he felt for Brian easier to handle?
Was it strange, approaching a potential partner, with the terrible ache in his heart for another?
Theo thought it spelled disaster, and maybe it did. Maybe that was the truth of it, but he had no choice.
He was a prince.
And through Thalia, he would be king and she would be his queen.
Clearing his throat, Theo whispered, “The person I’m going to visit… she’s going to change my life.”
“For the better?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. More responsibilities, I guess. Less time on my hands to do what I want. Although, since my partner’s death, time hasn’t exactly been my friend. Four years have gone by and it might as well have been four days.”
“How did he pass?” Brian asked softly.
“Heart attack.” Theo’s jaw clenched. “He was old.”
“He was?”
“Yeah.” It was hard for Theo to admit that. Hard to whisper because few were as old as he, and yet here he stood, healthy and hale when Brian had been so much younger than him. A babe in arms by comparison. “He was seventy.”
“Shit. You weren’t joking. He was old.”
Despite himself, Theo’s lips twitched. Out of the mouths of babes, he thought wryly. “Yeah. He was. But he loved me. I loved him.” More than Theo had ever known possible.
Truth was, Brian had taught him how to love.
He cleared his throat as tears clogged it. For a second, he knew they were going to fall, then he grabbed his tumbler and downed it all. Brian whistled but silently poured it full once more. Theo passed over two hundred bucks which swiftly found their way into Brian’s pockets—he couldn’t blame the kid for wanting the money.
It made the world go around, after all.
Stupid humans. Finding importance in the shit that didn’t matter. Not by one jot.
“You said she, earlier,” Brian commented quietly. “The person you’re going to meet, I mean.”
Theo looked at the kid, knowing where he was going with that particular line of questioning. The fluidity of the Fae and the rigidity of humans was something that had never coalesced over the years. Even if now they had kinder terms for it than simply ‘sodomites.’ “I’m bi.”
“Figured as much.” The kid shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure I understood.”
Because understanding was so important.
Theo’s lips twitched at the thought, th
en as he ran his finger around the rim of his glass, he whispered, “I miss him.”
“Is it wise to go to someone new? Won’t you hurt them?”
“Maybe, but like I said I have no choice.”
“And like I said… We always have a choice.”
Theo scowled. “You never heard of destiny?”
Brian jerked back. “You being serious?”
“Yeah. Deadly serious.”
He’d thought it was destiny when he and Brian had met and fallen in love. But, when with each year they stayed together, Brian had aged, the sad truth had been revealed.
Had they been bonded, in the way of his people, Brian wouldn’t have aged a day.
Instead, Theo had had to watch the love of his life die like any other human, when to Theo, Brian was anything but.
“Destiny shapes our world in ways we never take into account,” he mumbled into his glass. He said ‘we’ but he meant ‘humans.’ Another way in which they were short-sighted.
Jesus, it was a good thing they were the apex predators. Otherwise, they’d have been fucked. Some days, he wondered how they’d made it this fucking far.
“Wow, I never met anyone before who believed in fate and stuff. Not for real, anyway. And not unless they were wearing hippy shit and stank of weed.”
Theo snorted. “Good to know.”
Brian flushed. “Meant no offense, sir.”
They were back to sir. Theo sighed. “It’s okay, Brian. You don’t have to agree with me on everything. The tips will still flow as long as the whiskey does.”
At his prompt, Brian obeyed with a grin.
As he took another sip, he thought about Thalia. How he’d felt when he’d seen her in the challenge arena. Had she stirred his blood?
Yeah.
He admitted that to himself with a deep gulp of whiskey. God, how he wished the burn was still there.
“You must be a heavy drinker, sir. I’ve never seen anyone down as much as you without falling off their stool.”
He snickered. “What a dubious honor.”
Brian laughed. “I guess. Should I not serve you anymore?”
“I’ve a liver like iron. I’ll be fine.”
And he would be. In more ways than with the whiskey.
That was the bitch of it. He would always be fine while the people around him fell to the ravages of old age…
But Thalia—she was the prophecy born, wasn’t she?
She had to be.
A child of three, born for three, to bear three.
It had to be her.
There were no single children born of three. Not like with the Lykens. Their TriAlpha had always been of great interest to the Fae. They represented a kind of fertility that had eluded their race.
It was why they were dying out, though by longevity they technically weren’t.
The prophecy would restore that. Rectify the natural order.
Theo rubbed his forehead where a headache was starting to stir.
She had to be the solution. She had to be. Otherwise, what was the point in carrying on?
He closed his eyes and tossed back the full tumbler. Then, staggering to his feet, he murmured, “Thanks for the drink and the chat, Brian.” Handing over a few more hundred dollar bills, he headed off without a backward glance.
His destiny was biting him on the ass. He didn’t need to look behind him to know that.
** **
Rafe
The minute Jenna walked through his front door, Rafe scented that she was pregnant. It was the strangest thing.
His senses had always been weak, had always been underdeveloped in comparison to his sisters. But now?
At the same time as him, Thalia lifted her head and rage flashed in her eyes.
“Who the fuck is that?”
He reached over and pressed a hand to her shoulder. “My sisters.”
Though she settled, a part of him was both amused and satisfied that she didn’t like the prospect of other women being in his house.
She had no reason to feel concern, no reason whatsoever, and he never wanted her to feel in any way inadequate, but equally, it did his male pride good to see those beautiful aquamarine eyes of hers flash with fire.
And then, the minute that crossed his mind, he felt guilty.
He could already sense her bitch pacing around the tight confines of her body, the creature was still agitated despite his reassurance.
The last thing any of them needed was for Thalia, in a jealous rage, to shift.
“Honestly,” he told her quietly. “It’s my sisters and my parents.”
Mikkel scowled at them both. “You can smell them from here?”
Thalia shot him a look. “Shut up.”
“What is it?” The water splashed as Rafe smoothly front crawled over to them.
“I know for a fact the chlorinated water fucks with your nose.” Mikkel squinted at him, the lines at his eyes growing deeper as he ignored the sun to study Rafe further. “You’re a fucked up kind of Gamma, know that?”
Despite himself, his lips twitched. “Thank you. I think.”
The human male shrugged. “Just saying it how it is.”
“You mean like a jerk?” Thalia insisted, her hackles still raised as she remained half-turned in the water—half of her facing them, half of her twisted toward the terrace doors where the noise was coming from.
“There’s no need for concern. My mom has a key.”
“Why didn’t she let herself in the other day then?”
“Because my father was with her.”
Mikkel snorted. “Everything suddenly starts making sense.”
He shot him a wry look. “Ya think?” The water on his chest started to dry and he dipped deeper into the pool so his skin wouldn’t tighten. “I’m staying in here.”
“What? Even though your house has just been taken over by your family?”
“For that reason, and that reason alone, I’m staying in the water. My father won’t come near the pool,” he said with no small amount of surety.
“Why not?” Mikkel asked, peering over the infinity pool that had one of the finest views in the city. “Something wrong with it?”
“Yeah. It messes with your nose. Like you pointed out.”
“So he won’t come near the water?” Thalia grunted. “That’s stupid.”
“Says no self-respecting Wolf would bathe himself in a vat of chlorine. Naturally, I’m included in the ‘no self-respecting’ generalization.”
“I really don’t like your father,” Thalia mumbled under her breath as she finally turned the whole way. She didn’t haul herself out of the water though, just hooked her arms over the side of the pool and pressed her chin to them as she kept look-out.
“What’s she watching for?” Mikkel asked under his breath.
“Strange women,” Rafe told him, scraping a hand through his hair to slick it back.
“What kind of strange?” Mikkel asked doubtfully.
“I can hear you, you know?” Thalia grumbled. “And he means women who are unknown to me but might well be known to Rafe.”
Mikkel nodded, his understanding evident in the sage gesture. Then he squinted again. “How stupid do you think his family is to bring a woman Rafe fucked to a family get-together?”
“He has a point,” Rafe inserted drily.
She turned back to glower at them over her shoulder. “As far as I’m aware, your father and sisters hate you, don’t they?”
Rafe winced. “Apart from Laura. And my mother doesn’t hate me.”
“Well, what’s to stop them from muddying the waters?” she asked, ignoring his statement like he hadn’t said a word.
“I doubt they’d want to come up against you,” Mikkel retorted. “They’d have to be mad after what happened the other night.”
“Madness and stupidity have the same root in my opinion,” she said with a huff, and Rafe looked on with delight at her head that glinted gold in the sun.
She wa
s his.
He still was having a hard time believing it. Not that he didn’t accept it, because he did. But when he looked at her, he just had to blink a few times and process the fact that this crazy, beautiful, powerful, strong, Alpha female was his.
When she’d come outside earlier, she’d about blown him away. He’d had other women in his house, of course he had. He’d had the place over fifteen years and he hadn’t been celibate. But, of all the women who’d used the pool, they’d never worn something so drab as Thalia and managed to look like catwalk models.
Her one-piece was navy blue. It had a kind of knot at the belly that made the fabric swathe as it gathered just under her breasts and at her hips, and against her creamy skin, it seemed to make her look all the more golden.
He didn’t think she could look more gorgeous if she wore a G-string or a barely there halter. Not that he’d say no to her wearing such a thing, but Gods, what she did to him in that was torture enough…
Especially as he’d intended starting something in the pool. Something his family had just interrupted.
Cockblocked by his parents.
Great.
Grunting as his family began to spill out onto the patio, he dipped his chin under the water and viewed the terrace from the shallows.
He had zero desire to climb out and socialize, and knew he’d be able to hide here until his mother hustled him out.
He fully intended on waiting until then. After all, she’d be in the kitchen, arranging the food, for only the Gods knew how long, so he could hide out here away from his father for the interim and keep the kids entertained when they dove into the pool.
Mikkel moved closer to his side, not particularly close, just maneuvering in a way that told Rafe something that warmed his heart… The other male had his back.
He wasn’t sure why he knew that was what that slight posturing meant, just knew it to be the truth.
Rafe found he liked that.
He had two more people in his world that would have his back, it just sucked he needed them against his family and not an actual enemy.
Today, of course, had to be the day that broke the pattern.
The doorbell rang again, and with the noise came a sudden scent of food.
“Pizza?” Thalia asked, turning back to look at him.
“I’m as surprised as you,” he admitted. “Mother mustn’t be cooking.” Which meant…
Triskele (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 2) Page 11
