Mikkel rolled his eyes at St. Raphael. God forbid he be anything other than perfect.
It was a good thing he really liked the Lyken male or his goody-two-shoes ways would be irritating as fuck.
“You’d have thought her being with her three mates would have stirred things up even more, wouldn’t you?” Mikkel asked quietly, contemplatively. What he knew about heats he could write on his little finger—mostly because when it came to heats, it was in connection with his sisters, and that was the kind of shit no brother needed to know about his baby sisters.
“Yeah, you would.” Theo’s voice was pensive. “But I don’t think there’s any need to worry. If, as Rafe said, she’d had a heat while with him but hadn’t had her second one because of this situation with the She-Wolf, then I think there’d be cause for concern.
“As it stands, she’s missed two. I think we can find some comfort there, even if it is vaguely confusing.”
Vaguely?
Rafe grunted. “On the pile of things we have to worry about, I think we can toss that to the bottom of the list. Especially when we take what Kane told us into consideration.”
Because of the walls, which were designed to look like a forest, the room was pitch black. Overhead, the clouds on the ceiling hung the moon in overcast, meaning that even when Mikkel tried to look over the mattress, he couldn’t see the males Thalia had claimed for her own.
He wished he could.
This should have been discussed in the light of day, but he was relieved they were talking about it now. With things clearer between them, maybe he’d be able to get some sleep after all.
“Thalia is important to both races. I think we’d be foolish to forget that.”
“I hate it when you talk as though I’m not here, Theo,” their mate said on a grunt, and she shuffled higher up the bed, not stopping until she’d punched a pillow into shape and had propped herself up on it.
“I don’t mean to.”
“I know. That’s why I haven’t kicked you in the balls too,” she retorted ruefully.
Mikkel curled onto his side, and while he knew the move was emasculating, and though he was doubly grateful for the darkness, he pressed his head to her belly. When her fingers began to stroke through his hair, he shuddered at her touch.
With time’s odd flow here in Heden, he wasn’t sure how much of it had actually passed. The only way he knew how to count it was by using the flow of day into night, but more than that… his hair had grown. Even the Fae’s odd timekeeping skills couldn’t stop that.
So, while hardly any time seemed to have passed, he knew that for a lie because his hair was now ragged and wavy, hanging around his head like a shitty bowl cut. A thought that had him mentally reserving time with a pair of scissors in the morning.
Almost like she’d read his mind, Thalia murmured, “I love it now that your hair’s grown out. The buzzcut was bristly.”
Inwardly groaning, he replied, “I’m cutting it.”
She tugged it. “Why?”
“So you can’t do that,” he said on a sniff, ignoring the stinging burn where she’d pulled at the locks. “You’re mean, do you know that?”
Thalia laughed a little at his pouting complaint, but she soothed the sting by rubbing it with the pads of her fingers. “You’re mean. Why would you cut your hair? It suits you.”
“I look like I did when I was a kid—my mom used to shove a bowl on my head and cut around it.”
Rafe chuckled. “Mine did that to me a time or two.”
He groaned. “I refuse to be that kid again.”
“Can’t you just style it?” she asked, and it was her turn to pout. “Or can’t Theo glamor it or something?”
“If you wish it,” Theo said, sounding pained.
Mikkel couldn’t blame him.
The man had powers that made mortals believe he was an angel—and Thalia wanted him to use them like he was Vidal Sassoon.
“That’s settled then.” Her smugness had him rolling his eyes.
“You’re a brat.”
“Takes one to know one.”
Theo grunted. “I swear, you both are like children.”
Rafe snickered. “He’s only half wrong. I guess that’s what happens when the youngest of the lot start…”
“Watch how you end that sentence,” Thalia warned, but there was an amused light to her voice.
“Oh, I’d dare,” he mocked, his grin evident in his words.
The sounds of the sheets jostling had Mikkel’s ears pricking, and he turned to follow the noise. The click of Theo’s fingers had him cringing a little when gentle lights flickered into existence. Like large fireflies, orbs suddenly appeared, dancing around them, illuminating the bed chamber.
Mikkel, uncaring of his position—his head still on Thalia’s belly, her hands still in his hair—watched as the Fae male began to pace.
As Theo moved, Mikkel wondered if he hadn’t been the only one finding it hard to sleep tonight.
Something told Mikkel that the other male had more than the day’s events on his mind. Why he was keeping his own council, though, was something he didn’t understand.
“Theo?” Thalia asked quietly.
Unsurprised that Thalia had picked up on Theo’s unease, Mikkel watched as the Fae male ran a hand through his hair as he carried on with his pacing.
“What?” he answered, prompting Thalia to narrow her eyes at him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” The swift reply had Mikkel cocking a brow—talk about shady as fuck.
“I don’t believe you,” was her quiet response.
“There are too many things to quantify, Thalia. But that isn’t my principle concern.”
“No? Then, what is?”
“Your safety, of course.”
“And you fear my safety is in jeopardy?”
He didn’t turn to look at her when he nodded. “I fear that is so, yes.”
Thalia pursed her lips. “It’s like pulling teeth,” she mumbled under her breath, making Mikkel snicker a little. “Theo, we’re a team. Haven’t you realized that yet?”
Warmth filled him at the knowledge that Thalia shared Mikkel’s own belief that they were coming together to forge a formidable unit.
“There are things you’re all too young to understand. And I say that not to patronize you, I say it simply because it’s the truth. These politics are millennia old. I can’t explain everything to you; some things you just learn.” He ran his hand through his hair again, making the golden locks cascade in messy waves around his head. “I can’t explain something that is as intrinsic now as my age or the hue of your eyes.” He ceased his pacing and moved toward the foot of the bed. Pressing the heels of his hands to the footboard, he gripped the wood tightly and murmured, “I wish I could explain it, but I can’t. It’s just… a bad feeling.”
“Like an omen or instinct?” Rafe asked, his voice thick—from fatigue, Mikkel thought, not fear. The former made sense considering how much healing Rafe had done today.
“A mixture of both,” Theo admitted roughly. “I wish that weren’t the case.”
“I think,” Thalia said on a deep breath, “tomorrow is the day I should be presented at Court.”
Theo firmed his jaw. “I fear you’re right. I brought you here to heal, never thinking about the shit I would be bringing to our doors as a result of our presence here. For that I can only apologize, mate.”
Thalia shook her head. “There is no need to apologize.” She placed her hand on Mikkel’s belly. “I need to get off the bed,” she told him gently.
Sitting up and moving aside so she could climb off the mattress, Mikkel watched as she jumped down, her shorter legs making more of an effort out of it than he, Rafe, or Theo. Striding toward Theo, she held out her hand. “Come, mate.”
“To where?” Theo asked, his tone thick.
“I wish to talk to you in the pool.”
Mikkel cocked a brow at that—there was definite
ly something more than talking on her agenda. Her nipples alone told him that.
Cutting Rafe a look, and sharing a small grin, they watched as Theo, looking far more vulnerable than a twelve thousand year old male should be capable of, took Thalia’s hand in his and let her lead him off.
Without a backwards glance, they headed into the bathroom, gracing him and Rafe with views of their backsides.
Thalia’s was bitable, and fuck a duck, but so was Theo’s.
Shaking his head at the disturbing thought, Mikkel turned back to Rafe as he slumped back against the mattress.
“Think it’s time?”
“I hope so. Even if it’s not as strong a bond without the She-Wolf’s presence, it’s something.” Rafe pursed his lips. “Are you feeling the effects of the mate bond?”
“No,” he replied softly, his gaze on the ceiling where the clouds had moved, shifting aside to show him the moon. “I don’t feel any differently.”
The covers rustled as Rafe sought for and apparently found a comfortable position. “I hope she claims him. It will be good for all of us. Help give us more stability.”
Mikkel nodded, finding sense in that where there was no sense to find. Thalia’s bond with another male shouldn’t have affected him in the least, but it would. He knew that like he knew Tuesday followed Monday.
He didn’t know why or how it would, just that it would settle things, and considering how much was up in the air, that was exactly what they needed.
****
Thalia
With her hand tucked in his, Thalia shouldn’t have been doing the leading but she was.
Something had happened to her mate.
The strident, self-assured male hadn’t exactly disappeared, but since she’d awoken, there were definitely some pressures he was enduring that he wasn’t sharing.
Stupid males, she thought on an inner grumble.
She understood their wanting to protect her, but what she didn’t understand, and couldn’t accept, was them thinking she wasn’t capable of dealing with the myriad shit the Fates were intent on slamming their way.
She was young. Very young in comparison to even the youngest of her males—Mikkel at thirty-eight had a significant age gap with her twenty-seven—but she was no fool.
They needed to learn that youth didn’t make her an imbecile.
Well, Rafe didn’t have to learn that lesson. He was rolling with the punches like she was, and that meant they didn’t know what the fuck was happening so they couldn’t exactly share it with each other.
Theo, on the other hand, didn’t have that excuse.
He’d been holed up with that freaky assistant of his—Magda. The one with the moving hair and eyes that squinted with jealousy on the rare occasions Thalia answered the door to Theo’s quarters and she was there, waiting to be let in.
Those daily meetings had Theo as tense as steel afterward, but he never said why.
Pursing her lips as she tugged him into the bathing area, she murmured, “Swim with me?”
“We should sleep,” Theo countered.
“No. We should swim.” She cut him a look. “Just swim, Theo. I’m not going to force myself on you.”
He snorted. “I give you permission—there’s no force about it.”
Her lips curved at that as she peered around the chamber which, depending on the time of day, was different whenever she went in.
Because it was deep at night, the moon was heavy and soporific with its silvery glow, and the pool glistened with a light that beckoned her in like a Siren’s call.
As she approached, she could feel the silken slide of the liquid against her body like a caress before she even dipped her toe beneath the surface. The hair on the back of her neck stood to attention with each step, and when she finally waded into the pool, Thalia released a contented sigh as the warm depths caressed every part of her.
She dipped her head under the surface, purposely wetting her hair, and turning back to look at Theo, she saw him standing on the artificial shore.
He was watching her. His eyes were pools that ran deeper than this one, and they were hotter too.
He licked his lips, drawing her attention to his mouth. With the silvery light of the moon, his face was cast in shadows that both enticed and excited. He looked dark and dangerous, somehow, at that moment, seeming so very otherworldly, so definitely different that her nerves buzzed with the knowledge of what he truly was.
An angel.
She reached out a hand, and the water tinkled as she murmured, “Show me your wings, Theo.”
His nostrils flared and the muscles in his chest and belly bunched like he was preparing for a fight. Her gaze took him in, and she saw how his cock had hardened from her request.
Her fascination with his wings turned him on, she knew, and it was a fascination that only grew because he kept them tucked away for the most part.
Energy swirled about the quarters, making the slumbering enchanted birds in the trees squawk awake as their own wings flapped at the disturbance in the air. It felt like matter and antimatter boiled and rattled together at that moment, and though it was different to that of a shift, she recognized it for the strange power it was, and knew that Theo’s wings would be popping into existence shortly.
Considering they were all Terra’s children, Thalia wondered if that energy was the Mother’s touch, the gift she’d granted them when she’d made them from her bone.
The sight of his wings, like an eagle’s, so broad and dense with feathers, thick with muscles and a one-hundred percent show of strength, had her pussy clenching with the need for him to be inside her. Especially as she was faced with irrefutable proof of his need for her.
His cock was thick, and those piercings of his glinted in the moonlight. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth at the prospect of what they would feel like deep, deep inside her.
Licking her lips at the thought, she watched as, nostrils flaring and wings ruffling in the non-existent breeze, he stepped into the water.
“Do you spell them so they don’t get wet?” she asked a touch hoarsely.
“’Spell’?” He sighed. “I’m not a wizard, Thalia.”
That had her rolling her eyes. “I know, but it’s like magic to me, and I can’t get used to saying glamor.”
He snorted. “You’ve got a couple of thousand years to adjust. Try not to say magic to other Fae though.”
She frowned. “Why?” Then almost coughed when his body disappeared under the surface and he moved out from under the water, his hair as slick as hers, she wondered how he could look any sexier than he already was.
All her mates were gorgeous. They would make any woman jealous as fuck of her, and make them hungry to have them at her side. But Theo’s beauty, especially with his wings out, was a whole other kind of crazy/beautiful.
The Alpha in her nature—because she was Alpha to her core even with a dormant She-Wolf—responded to the predator before her. And he was that. Every bone in her body recognized that in him, and couldn’t be freaked out by it—even if she didn’t know what his prey was.
Her?
Could be.
And boy, she wouldn’t mind a game of tag with this bad boy chasing after her.
Those wings made her think of the bird of prey she likened his coloring to, and the apex predator in her recognized the one in him.
His face, all hard lines and chiseled deliciousness, seemed tenser, the features more deeply etched as he neared her. And his eyes? That light green color? It fucked with her. They seemed to have morphed into deep pools that made her wish she could swim in them. Either that, or climb all over him—why was he moving at a snail’s pace?
“I won’t call it magic to anyone else,” she promised him easily when he didn’t reply, hoping he’d just hurry the hell up and touch her as she needed to be touched. Sliding her hands over his firm belly when he finally stood right in front of her, allowing her palms to brush his waist before they flattened against the sm
all of his back, she cuddled into him.
There was something about his skin. She knew it sounded weird. How could there be anything unusual about skin? But when she touched him, there was a strange charge. Almost like static or something. It made touching him a bizarrely pleasurable task.
“Why do I feel buzzed when I touch you?”
He blinked at her. “What kind of buzzed?” His suspicious tone had her snorting out a laugh.
“I take it you’ve never been asked that before?” she questioned drily.
“No, Thalia, I’ve never been asked that.”
His rueful retort had her snickering. “I don’t know. When my hands touch you, it’s like there’s static electricity in the air or something.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why.”
“Probably to do with being bound to one another.” Theo pursed his lips. “Our bond will change your other bonds, you do know that?”
Her head tilted to the side as unease slithered through her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, the Fae bond is…” He whistled out a breath. “It’s a thousand times rarer than a Lyken bond, and not only is it incredibly unique, but it’s incredibly powerful too.”
“It won’t supersede my other bonds.” She said that definitely and defiantly.
No way was she even going to allow that to happen.
She was bound to her three mates equally.
But he shook his head, and she knew he wasn’t disagreeing with her because he rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say that, did I? I meant, our bond is going to…”
“Going to what?” she snapped, disconcerted.
“You know now that you’ve claimed Mikkel?” At her nod, he carried on, “Rafe can feel him. I think Mikkel is starting to feel Rafe too, but I haven’t asked him because I know Mikkel. He doesn’t particularly appreciate anything overly supernatural, so I figured I’d let him roll with the punches and get used to the bond between him and Rafe.”
“Okay,” she drew out. “What does that have to do with the Fae bond?”
Triad (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 3) Page 13
