She bit her lip, and stared down at her knees. “Yeah.”
“I don’t understand,” he replied, seriously not getting which part of this conversation had indicated he underestimated her.
If anything, he overestimated her. Sweet Gods, her strength floored him. Her control? It about brought him to his knees.
That she wasn’t frothing at the mouth over what her family did to her, and on the regular, was more than he knew how to handle.
“I was hurting. They hurt me out there. That was why I was weak. But I’m not weak. I’m strong. Stronger than you can imagine.”
He narrowed his eyes, something about her tone making the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. “Talk to me, Thalia. What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”
Sitting there in a bra and panties, she shouldn’t have looked regal. But she did. And he guessed that was because it was bred into her bones. Her heritage was as plain as the pretty nose on her face.
She was lithe and slender, but strong with it. All her limbs were taut with muscle, but there was still something innately feminine about her. Something truly female that called to every male part of him.
And not just his cock.
“It’s well known around here that the only way the security can handle me is with guns.”
For a second, he felt sure he’d misheard. “Guns?” he repeated a little dumbly.
She pursed her lips. “Why do you think they came crashing into your room at the motel that day? All guns blazing?”
He blinked. “Because they thought I’d kidnapped you.”
“More like they thought I’d tried to escape and that you were in danger.” Her nose pointed in the air. “They’d never publicly agree to that, of course. They’d say black was blue to look good, but it’s the truth. I realized that when I knew they’d discovered your rank.
“Only a gun can stop me. As well as…” She hesitated, but he reached over and rested his hand on her knee.
“What? Thalia, tell me.”
She sucked in a shaky breath. “They know if I’m around my people, I’ll behave. That’s why I behaved today. I was surrounded on all sides by the pack, otherwise I’d have torn that security guard a new asshole. Duty and responsibility has been ingrained into me.”
For a second, he tried to process that, but ultimately failed. “Do you mean to tell me that you could take on Torres… Not just because you’re an Alpha by nature, but because your She-Wolf is that strong?”
Her nod was slow. Not necessarily hesitant out of timidity, but from fear of his reaction.
“So, when you say you could be the Triskele, you mean it. And your parents would know you could handle the role because you’re strong enough to take on even… What? Local Pack Alphas? I know the court has different rankings to local councils.”
She reached up and began to play with her bottom lip. “A Beta here is a strong Alpha elsewhere. I haven’t come across a single male I couldn’t take down.”
The repercussions of that statement were staggering. “You mean…” he whispered, eyes blanking with shock. “Your fathers?”
She caught his eye, nodded. Once.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “En masse or singly?”
“Singly. As a triad, it would be tougher but their weaknesses are inherent and I could target them.”
He shook his head. “This is…”
“Don’t say insane,” she snapped. “It isn’t. It’s just how I am. I might not have been born to fight, but it’s what I am now. Becoming that way stopped me from going nuts. Not the other way around.”
He held up a hand. “No. I was going to say incredible.”
Her lips parted. “Oh.”
For a second, they were silent, but he noticed the angry clasp of her fingers about her knees had lessened some. He murmured, “Do they know you could take them? For that matter, how do you know you could?”
“They do know, but they probably don’t believe it. I imagine if we were in a fighting stance, they’d soon pick up on it.” As he processed that, she reached over and scratched her arm; her tone was bland as she admitted, “I know because… what do you see when you look at someone, Rafe?”
He frowned. “Gender, scent, coloring?”
“More than that. You’re a healer. Can you sense injuries?”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Yeah. It’s not like a golden glow around a wound, or anything like that. My Wolf just picks up on a difference in their scent.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Does it have to be physical? Or can it be emotional too?”
He processed her question, and decided to admit to something he’d never told anyone before… “Mental, physical, emotional. I can feel the trauma. As I’m tending the wound, I can even feel flashbacks of how it came to be.”
Her eyes flared wide. “So, the Gamma females who were raped…?”
He gritted his teeth, looked away. “Yeah. I-I know more than anyone could even imagine. And you’re the only one who knows that. I don’t pass it around.”
She reached over and placed her hand in his, linking them once more, and easing something inside him that had been roiled by her pulling away from him. “I’ll die protecting that secret.”
His lips twitched. “I wouldn’t go that far, sweetheart. It’s not that necessary.”
“To me, it is,” she said, her tone somber, deadly serious.
He squeezed her fingers. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not, but we all have our own particular crazy talents and that’s yours. Mine is… you scent that wound. You can sense trauma. Well, I sense a weakness. My bitch focuses on it and she won’t let go. It can drive me mad sometimes. It’s inordinately difficult to focus when I can scent that difference.”
“Where’s my weakness?” he asked quietly, knowing she wouldn’t like the question, but curious nonetheless.
Just as he’d suspected, she wriggled in place, fidgeting as she mumbled, “It doesn’t matter. And it’s different with you, anyway. My She-Wolf doesn’t want to attack your weakness, if anything, she wants to shore up your defenses.”
He squeezed her hand again. “I know. It’s okay. I’m just curious.”
She clenched her jaw, and keeping her head ducked low, mumbled, “You have something with your ribs… and your right leg.”
Her words had him frowning a little. “Something? What exactly?” As far as he knew, every beating he’d suffered, had healed fine. He had no pain after all.
She sighed, still wary. “Do we really have to do this?”
“Yeah, we really do, if I’m to have a chance of understanding,” he retorted, trying to keep his tone bland.
Thalia raised her free hand and rubbed at her temple. “Two ribs healed but they’re weak. The right pressure would have them piercing your lung if they were hit a certain way, and my bitch has already calculated the angle required to ensure that happens.”
“How does she calculate that?” he asked, astonished by her answer. “Wolves aren’t known for their math skills,” he teased a little, trying to ease her tension.
She wriggled her shoulders again. “I don’t know. It’s like my wolf calls on my human brain and figures it out. I never do anything in a fight without already knowing the odds of what’s about to go down.”
He thought about that a second, figured it made sense in a way. His own healing talent was a part of his beast’s nature, but he supposed the Wolf also called on the human to figure out what was what. “Okay. So, you know how to kill me?”
She blew out an explosive breath. “Caelus, Rafe!” she growled, slamming her hand against the bed. “Don’t say it like that.”
His lips twitched. Her reaction answered his question whether she wanted to say it or not—she knew, and just didn’t want to admit it. “It’s okay,” he repeated.
“No. It isn’t.”
“What’s going on with my leg?”
“Your knee. Do you run a lot as a human rather than a wolf?
” When he nodded, she murmured, “You’ve damaged it. Nothing major, close to minor even, but it’s just enough to make you unsteady in a fight.”
“Okay, so you’d target my knee to bring me down, and know the way to end a challenge.”
Her head was bowed, but he saw her nod. It was slight. There, but barely.
“What are your fathers’ weaknesses?”
“Sometimes, it’s not physical. You know the stronger we are, the more we heal in a shift. That’s why those minute injuries aren’t being healed when you become your Wolf. But in my fathers, their weaknesses aren’t physical like that.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
“It does?” she questioned, shaking her head slightly. “I’m not sure if any of this makes sense. Anyone else would just think I’m nuts.”
“Think about it. Gammas are the weakest of the species for a reason, sweetheart. It manifests in more ways than just our submissive nature.”
She snorted. “You’re the weirdest Gamma I know. You’re not submissive.”
“Aren’t I?” he asked, taken aback. Submissive was pretty much the go-to state for all Gammas, and he’d felt that way for most of his life around stronger Lykens.
But, curious enough, not around her.
Or Bahkir. Or even the Lunoi, now he came to think of it.
He rubbed his temple where an ache was starting to gather.
“No. You’re not submissive,” she repeated, her tone dogged. “I can have strong Betas pissing themselves, Rafe. You? You might bend, but you don’t break.”
His brow puckered in a scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She half-shrugged. “I don’t know. Not really. It’s just something my She-Wolf knows.”
He blew out a breath, stunned by her words, then, unsure of how to process everything she was saying, asked, “Okay, so going back to your fathers. If their weaknesses aren’t physical, what are they?”
“Damien is the weakest link. You take him out, the others crumble.”
Her matter-of-fact tone was close to robotic, and he stared at her askance, realizing that she knew, in minute detail, how to overthrow her fathers.
She hadn’t though.
He didn’t think she ever would either.
Another testament to her strength. But it didn’t stop him from wondering how many times she’d thought about challenging them…
He held up a hand. “It’s okay, Thalia. I don’t need to know anymore.”
Confusion bled into her eyes. “You don’t?”
“No.” He didn’t need to hurt her by maintaining this topic of conversation, and that was exactly what he’d do—hurt her. He could see it in her rigid, defensive stance. Hear it in her wooden tone, feel it in the agitation she let off.
“I believe you know, and I believe you won’t act on it even if your bitch has prepared for that eventuality.”
A shaky sigh escaped her, and he saw the crystalline glimmer of tears in her eyes as she looked up at him.
Rafe didn’t know why she was staring at him as though he offered her the world, but at that moment, a new connection surged between them. Uniting them in a way they hadn’t been mere moments before, and in which his Wolf, usually so absent and without presence in his psyche unless it came to matters of healing, suddenly stirred to life.
“T-Thank you,” she whispered, sounding so shaken, he was floored by her humility.
This woman had just admitted she was, by the ability to take down her fathers, the most powerful woman in the continent. And she was thanking him.
A nobody.
What could he do but rear up, cup her face, and tilt her head so that his lips could seal the new promise uniting them?
He could feel this fresh tie between them and rejoiced at its presence.
She was, he knew, exactly what he needed. But more than that, he was what she needed, and by today’s revelations, Rafe was starting to realize exactly how pivotal his role would be in the future.
For all her strengths, Thalia’s stance would always be aggressive. She’d never seek a peaceful resolution; unlike him. Her She-Wolf wasn’t wired that way. He could help her see both sides, make her realize violence wasn’t always the answer.
The trouble was Thalia was so accustomed to being alone, had been so intrinsically isolated, that it hampered her. He could change that. No, he would change that, because now, Thalia never had to be alone ever again.
He just had to show her that.
11
“Oh. My. Gods.”
Wincing, Rafe pulled the phone away from his ear. “Caelus, Laura! There’s no need to shout.”
“You’re mated to Princess Thalia?” When a girly squeak shrieked down the line, he winced harder.
“Yes.”
“You’re such a shit! Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I’m newly mated, sis. I have better things to do with my mate than tell you about her.”
She snorted. “My brother’s getting him some royal pussy.”
He pulled a face. “That’s gross. And demeaning.”
“I know, but you totally deserve it,” Laura hooted then in the blink of an eye, grumbled, “I can’t believe I had to find out on the internet. Is it true they wouldn’t let her into the Kids section at the Centennial festival? That’s what they’re saying online anyway.”
Shit, what did he say to that? He’d never lied to his sister before, and yet, here he was… his loyalties torn. Laura wasn’t a big mouth, not at all, but she’d think nothing of sharing such a conversation with family because, in her mind, Thalia was exactly that now.
And while that was the case, their family circle now encompassed the most powerful and most important people in the North American Pack. Laura was no dummy, but getting her to keep her mouth shut on this subject wouldn’t be easy.
“It wasn’t like that,” he said eventually, hedging his bets, and utterly relieved he’d stepped out into the back yard off Thalia’s bedroom. His bedroom too, he guessed.
She was sleeping. Last night, he’d watched her in concern as she tore through some old law textbooks, trying to find bylaws to quote to her father—apparently, Damien was a stickler for legalese and if shit came to shit, quoting it back to him might make him bend to her will.
She’d been flushed, almost frantic as she read late into the night, and he’d fallen asleep without her at his side, waking up only when she’d slumped next to him.
Not even his cell phone ringing this morning had woken her, and he’d been quick to answer it once he’d seen it was Laura. With the terrace doors open all night, he’d decided to head out into the yard and talk to his sister there.
Though the suite was beautiful, it did make him feel claustrophobic sometimes. He wasn’t sure how she’d stood it all these years; being locked in there. Caged in.
He shuddered. It wasn’t natural. Especially not for a wolf as strong as she.
“Rafe?”
His name being barked down the line had him rolling his eyes. “What?”
“You zoned out.”
The pout in her voice had him snorting. “My mind was elsewhere.”
“I’ll bet,” she said drily. “I totally waited until it was nine AM too. I know what it’s like when the mate bond first strikes.” There was a wistful tone to her voice that had him grimacing; the last thing he wanted to think about was his sister in the full throes of her mating heat.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. It’s just been crazy here.”
“I can imagine. When do we get to meet her?”
“We’re coming down to Austin as soon as we’re able.” He mentioned nothing about the situation with Jason Torres.
“You are? Holy shit. I need to…” A wail hit his ears.
“You need to what?”
“Redecorate.”
The note of soft embarrassment had him pausing mid-stride. He’d have teased her, but he could sense her discomfort. “You could always use the money I set aside for
you.”
“That’s yours.”
“No. It’s not. You know I save it for you.” He’d never understood why she refused to touch it. He was rich, had more money than he needed. Why she wouldn’t let him share it with her, the only family he had that he really gave a damn about, he didn’t know.
“It’s not right,” she mumbled, but he could hear in her voice that she wanted him to convince her.
Despite himself, and his worries about what Thalia was going to do today, he had to quell the need to laugh. “Thalia won’t mind if your house isn’t perfect. She wants to meet you, not the furniture in your kitchen.”
That had her huffing. “Men. You’re all the same.”
“I’m sure,” he said drily. “It’s up to you. The money’s there if you need it. And you know how to access it, right?”
She grumbled, “Yeah. I have the card.”
“Well, then. The max you can draw out is twelve thousand, I think.”
Laura squeaked. “Twelve thousand?”
“Yeah. If you need more, I think you have to go into the bank.”
Her breath sounded heavy. “More? Caelus, Rafe, how much is in there?”
He paused, calculating as he peered at a particularly pretty lilac in a flowerbed about twenty feet from Thalia’s bedroom. Beneath his feet, the lawn was like velvet, and overhead, the morning sun had a heavy pendulousness to it that told him it was going to be a hot day. He could hear the sounds of tools in the distance, the clanging as the Centennial was dismantled for this year and stored for the next.
As a bee buzzed by, he murmured, “About two hundred thousand, I think.”
Silence fell at his words. “You can’t be serious.”
“No, I’m lying,” he retorted. “Of course I’m being serious.”
“That would pay off my mortgage and would let me put Eric in private school.”
That had him sighing. “You mean, exactly what I wanted to do from the minute he was born?”
The sound of her swallowing was audible. “I-I can’t, Rafe. It’s not right.”
“Why isn’t it? I make good money. I want you to have it. I want the best for my nephew too, and that school is crap. He deserves so much more, and don’t even think about letting your mate dissuade you. If his pride and ego is too big to let you have this, then he’s a fucker.” Duncan would never be good enough for Laura in Rafe’s eyes.
Trinity (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 1) Page 16