His task, he knew, would be to undo the damage her parents had caused her. Putting her at ease in her human skin once more, and making sure she took care of herself.
Mates went so far beyond love. The bond went deeper than sex. It was about cherishing, about holding that person who fulfilled your soul, in a higher regard than you did yourself. It was something he was gradually coming to terms with; a belief that would settle over time as the bond took over everything that they’d once been, and would transform them into who they’d been born to be.
One of the aforementioned parents cocked a brow at the silence filling the cabin. Neither he nor Thalia had greeted the TriAlpha Queen, their Lunoi, and having heard tidbits from his mate, he knew El enjoyed the respect owed to her position. Although he was predisposed to dislike the Lunoi, she’d been kind to him and the Gamma females that first day, and while his loyalty would always lay with Thalia, he was uncomfortable with being rude.
He remained standing as Thalia settled deeper into a matching bucket seat opposite her mother. The butterscotch leather was a perfect contrast to the simple sweater and jeans she wore.
In comparison to her mother who was dressed to the nines, Thalia was dressed in regular clothes. He’d seen the labels—they were expensive, designer—but her lack of care where clothes was concerned was something he found comical.
Knowing that she’d let him dress her because she frankly didn’t give a shit, he looked forward to buying her clothes for his benefit.
The devious thought had him hiding a self-satisfied grin. The notion of her in thigh highs and a very short pencil skirt had him grateful for his position behind his mate’s seat—no one could see his erection, and El, as a half-Lyken, had underdeveloped senses so she wouldn’t be able to sense his arousal as Thalia definitely would.
El sighed when Thalia, after taking a seat, remained silent. “You always were so obstinada,” she complained, tapping her nails against the walnut-paneled armrest.
“I had to be. Self-protection,” Thalia retorted, baring her teeth angrily.
“You were a danger to me, and to yourself, Thalia. Your fathers had to do something.”
Rafe stiffened at his mother-in-law’s total lack of remorse over how Thalia had been treated over the years. “How can you say that? She was a child. She needed help, not to be locked away like a monster.”
“She was a monster,” El told him, utterly unrepentant. “She still is.” Her head tilted to the side. “A monster I bore, and who, according to an important Elder, brings the winds of change.” Her lips curved in an unpleasant smile. “Strange how I’ve spent so many years wondering what I did wrong, what ill I’d been a part of that had led to the fate of bearing the largest disappointment to the pack in its history, to potentially bringing a catalyst for change.”
Thalia stiffened, her shoulders tensing to ice under his hands. “That’s what I crave, mother. To not be a disappointment to you. It’s my raison d’être.”
El huffed out a laugh. “I tried to love you. Do you know that?”
Rafe shivered with disquiet. His family hadn’t exactly been supportive over the years. They’d been dismissive of the weakest link in their midst, as had Thalia’s so he hoped for her sake that her other mates had more normal familial relationships. Otherwise they’d all have pulled the short straw on the parental front.
What was it about family that they had the power to destroy a person?
Able to bear down, fight to the maw, dig to the roots of someone’s weaknesses and kick them straight in the gut where it wounded the most.
“You did a shitty job of loving me,” was all Thalia said, and Rafe realized she wasn’t even hurt by her mother’s cold callousness.
Instead, he was hurting on her behalf.
“I said I tried. I’m not lying,” El retorted, narrowing her eyes. “Your fathers did too. But you were so different.”
“You were all too wrapped up in your mate bond to notice me,” Thalia retorted.
“Now you’re mated, surely you can understand why.”
“Perhaps. Not to the extent I’d completely blot out the existence of my child though.” Her shoulders stiffened and the leather creaked beneath her.
“Even a child that was an anomaly? A cuckoo in the nest?” El’s mouth tightened. “Can you even begin to picture the horror of that time? I was accused of cheating on your fathers. Can you imagine?” Tears pricked her eyes. “Cheating on the men I adored since the moment I set eyes on them… There were stares and whispers. I knew your fathers had to hunker down in fear their seat would be challenged; all because I’d given birth to a girl.”
Thalia’s voice was considering as she murmured, “No, I didn’t know that.”
“And why would you? We tried our best to shield that from you.”
So, they’d tried in one aspect of her childhood to be decent parents. Rafe wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing considering they’d stopped all pretense of care by exiling their daughter to her palatial prison.
“Did they believe you’d cheated on them?”
The question was softly posed, and tension had spread throughout Thalia’s body. So finely tuned that only Rafe’s inherent abilities as a healer enabled him to sense it.
“They had you DNA tested.”
A small hiss escaped his mate. “I’m sorry, madre.”
El’s eyes flared in surprise, but she was no more astonished than Rafe was. That his mate could be sympathetic to people who had been at the crux of her suffering for so many years was… Well, it was certainly more than they deserved.
“Thank you for that,” El whispered softly, and she lifted a shaking hand and delicately wiped at her eyes. “It was a difficult time.”
The prim words were a definite understatement.
Thalia’s head tilted to the side when he placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. “Why are you here?”
“To break bread?”
She frowned. “Why would you wish to do that?”
“Because I never wanted to be at odds with you, child. It just… that’s how it happened. It’s how it turned out. I’m well aware you’ll never forgive any of us, and in your position, who could blame you? But I…” She pursed her lips. “My family was close. Before my madre died, we were as thick as thieves. Same with my brother and father.”
It was well known that the TriAlpha’s mate had lost her family in a car crash in their native homeland.
El rubbed her mouth a second before she whispered, “I wanted that for us but it wasn’t to be. That isn’t to say I can’t wish you well though, mija.” She sounded sincere, surprisingly enough. “You have your mate. You may begin to understand the way they…” Her brow puckered, seeming to try to create a sentence that had no desire to be formed. “…take over. Where you exist for them and they for you.
“It’s no excuse, of course. No excuse whatsoever, and I don’t even apologize for it. The one thing that is right about this entire situation is my mate bond. Even though they DNA tested you, I always knew that was more for the council’s benefit than their own. The mate bond is a living, breathing entity for me and your fathers. The truth is, I hope the same for you. You deserve to be loved the way I am loved, and I wish you luck in your journey to find the other two males.”
As her words tapered off, she climbed to her feet. “Now, I shall let you go.” She strode forward on four-inch heels that looked like they could snap in two they were so spindly. Thalia made no move to get up nor to speak, but El stopped beside her and reaching over, patted the top of Thalia’s arm.
She raised her gaze to ensnare Rafe’s. Smiling at him, she murmured, “Take better care of her than I did.”
And with that, she departed.
The minute El was on the tarmac outside, the pilots and steward shuffled on board.
Within five minutes, they were ready for take-off, and Rafe had moved to the seat El had recently left.
Thalia hadn’t said a word in all that
time, and he left her to it, understanding how hard it must be to process what she’d just been told.
To have been given well-wishes on the future, with no apology for the past but explanations for gross and indecent behavior… it was a sorry tale to have to maneuver through.
They remained quiet through take-off, and only when the crackle of the intercom broke the silence, did either of them do more than stare at one another.
“Your highness, we’ll be stopping off in Washington as per your grandfather’s request, thereafter, we’ll be refueling and heading for Austin.”
That seemed to break the ice that had frozen her in place. Thalia sat up straighter in her chair. “Washington?” she mouthed blankly, then, fumbling with her seatbelt, shot up and headed for the cockpit. “Washington? Why the hell are we going there?” she demanded, bypassing the steward and half-tearing at the cockpit door.
From his position, he could see the pilot’s disconcertion at Thalia’s presence in her cockpit—at the still vibrating door she’d slammed against the wall. The woman gulped, and Rafe knew why—the air around Thalia was suddenly turbocharged. It spilled into the fuselage, making every bit of oxygen in the air sparkle and dance in response.
“I’m only acting under orders, your grace.”
“You have no idea why we’re heading there?” she demanded.
“No. Just to collect a passenger.”
“A passenger?” she whispered dazedly, then she growled. “What the hell? I didn’t realize we were air Uber.”
Wisely, she and her co-pilot remained silent and when no other question was forthcoming, Rafe called out, “Thalia, come and take a seat.”
His words had her jerking to attention, and she stared a little blankly about her before nodding.
The steward, who’d been pushed aside when Thalia had stormed forward, quickly closed the door to the cockpit as she staggered forward.
Only when she’d slumped into the chair did he ask, “Have you spoken with your grandfathers, any of them, since you spoke to Adrian and Rosa two days ago?”
She gulped. “No. There was no need. They want to see me, not speak to me. Until I’m in Key West, we won’t communicate that much.”
Though he hadn’t been raised in a close family, he was close to Laura. He’d maintained constant communication with her throughout his stay at the TriAlpha court, even if he hadn’t shared the truth about his relationship with Thalia—not until it had been revealed at the Centennial festival, anyway.
The notion that Thalia and her grandparents had been reunited, if only verbally, and yet had only had one phone call between them… well, it didn’t sit right with him.
“Don’t you wish to speak to them more?”
She sighed. “Of course. But they’re old. They don’t do phones. You heard grandpapa. Nanna moves with the times and has a cell phone, but they’re older. They don’t like them. They never did, and use them only if they have to.
“They prefer face-to-face contact or, if not that, letters. I sent them two before I left,” she admitted.
“What did they say?”
She shrugged. “They were for Matthew and Louis. Basically reworking everything I’d told Ade, but for their benefit.”
He frowned, finding that unusual. “Wouldn’t Ade have shared the news with them?”
Another shrug, and he had to admit, the blank wall she’d constructed between them disconcerted him. “I suppose. But I wanted it to come from my lips. Or, pen, I guess. Nanna will have called them the instant we put the phone down, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t hear it from me too.”
He rubbed his chin. “Gossip always has it that the TriAlpha and the former TriAlpha don’t get on. Is that true?”
Warily, she nodded. “They don’t like mother, and they don’t like how they treated me. My grandparents are more loyal than their offspring.”
“Why don’t they like your mother?”
She waved a hand. “She’s Spanish. They went to war a long time ago with Spain.” She tilted her chin up. “They had interests in Peru.”
His eyes widened, but deciding that was another conversation for another day, he murmured, “Between that call and now, what could have happened?”
She raised her hand and began to tug and pull at her bottom lip. “The notion of my being Triskele will have had time to sink in.”
“Could it be they’re concerned for you? Your fathers, who aren’t close to you, needed proof of your strength. Why wouldn’t your grandparents? And, like it or not, I’m only a Gamma. Men as powerful as they won’t consider me protection.” He spoke with characteristic blandness but the prick to his pride had him flexing his jaw.
The notion that he couldn’t care for his mate stung like hell, but it wasn’t an incorrect supposition. Unfortunately.
She was the strength in their relationship. He was the healer.
Rafe still wasn’t sure how he felt about that; but pride and ego aside, he didn’t care. Thalia was so much more than he’d ever expected. And though she was Alpha, she didn’t dominate him. Didn’t even try to.
For a man who’d been dominated his entire life by somebody, be it his family or a classmate or even a patient, being with her was liberating.
She blinked at his comment, then sighed. “Security. They’ve hired security.” Running a tired hand through her hair, she whispered, “They always had to interfere. I should never have called, but I wanted to hear their voices.”
“Of course you did,” he said, trying to soothe her agitation.
She closed her eyes. “I’m tired, love.”
“I know. Does this plane have a bed?”
News would soon trickle through the nation that Thalia had finally taken her place in the pack, and when they truly learned what it meant for her to be Triskele, more controversy would soon follow. She’d maintained a calm façade throughout the simple swearing in ceremony that had occurred this morning prior to their leaving for the runway. Hadn’t raised her voice or done more than look at the councilors arguing over her new role, but he knew how much energy that had taken.
Thalia was a fighter.
Even with words, she would fight to the end. But she needed to rest; he didn’t have to be a healer to see that.
With a tired exhalation, she nodded. “There’s a bedroom at the back.” She stood once more, then raised a hand. “I need you.” And there, with those three words, he found his place.
Yes, he was Gamma. Yes, she was Alpha. And no, they shouldn’t be mated to one another. But their need was mutual. Nothing else really mattered. And the Mother had decided for them that they would be the succor each needed. When Terra spoke, everyone heeded her words.
Even the TriAlpha’s daughter.
13
A loudspeaker snarled to life overhead. Flight numbers being called that heralded the Japanese couple at his back into squawking as they grabbed their baggage and shuffled out of the airport café. Spying them, watching the too tight clasp of the man’s hand on his wife’s wrist, Mikkel Hessel flicked his finger and dispersed the crumbs from a recently eaten cookie on the table before him. They shot in a dozen directions, trailing along a finer, coarser crumb in their wake. When the couple drifted out of sight, he stared at a chocolate chip that lay adrift and hovering his thumb over it, squished into the table as he sat there, waiting for his cellphone’s ringtone.
Boredom didn’t begin to describe it, but when Louis Lyndhoven called, you didn’t ignore the summons. Even if you were human without an ounce of Lyken blood in your body, you answered his call.
That was something he’d learned over the years, and had never failed to heed no matter the circumstances.
Technically, without Louis’ intervention, he was AWOL. So, ignoring the man in charge would have been lunacy, never mind idiocy.
In the Special Forces, Mikkel had far more important things to be doing with his time than babysitting the TriAlpha’s daughter, but that was the trouble with straddling two worlds…
With his feet crossed at the ankle, and slouching back against the airport café’s armchair where he’d been seated for the last two hours, he was surprisingly comfortable.
Well accustomed to sleeping in far tighter spots, without the promise of fresh cookies and recently roasted coffee beans in the air, this was pretty much as luxurious as it got for him.
Still, he didn’t want to be here and after people-watching morons who were glued to their phones and others who were a little too drunk for their own good, he was bored. Not that he had much say in the matter. Hell, he had no say when it boiled down to it. His opinion on being pulled from an important mission was of no consequence.
He was of no consequence.
Except that Louis wanted him on his granddaughter’s security detail, and what Louis wanted, he generally got.
Louis, though Lyken, was a powerful man in the human world. Sitting on the President’s Chief of Staff for a few years did that to a man, and though he’d retired a years ago, he still had the contacts. Contacts that made a soldier in the Special Forces, one on active duty, suddenly disappear in the welter of bookwork.
Unease slithered through him as it always did when it came to proof of the pack’s might.
He might have been a part of it since his fourth birthday when his human mother had found a mate in a Lyken male, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Unlike his mother, who’d dived right into the new world because she was a part of it, Mikkel had had no choice but to straddle the two societies he’d inadvertently melded into, and had to make the best of a very bad situation.
One issue with that was coming to the attention of people he really wished didn’t know him.
As he tilted his head back and stared at the soaring ceiling overhead, he tried to adjust the angle of his neck so he could get some shuteye.
Of course, Louis chose that precise moment to call.
Trinity (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 1) Page 20