Trinity (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 1)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Never had and never would.

  He could be Gamma or human for all she cared. She just wanted him. Always him.

  Whatever his rank, whatever his status in the world, nothing else mattered but the man, not his rank or his profession, resting at her back.

  “In less than a week, I’ve gone from exile to having free run of the family jet. You can’t get much more of leap.”

  He relaxed at her back, enough to laugh a little. “I never thought of it that way.”

  Why would he? Only she knew the harsh realities of banishment.

  The nights where she’d been so desperate for company, she’d approached the naturals to simply be with anyone other than herself.

  The nights she’d allowed herself to be mounted by the male wolves just to start a fight, to burn off some of her aggression.

  Those fights had, ironically enough, been a part of the reason the naturals had accepted her. She fought like them, was stronger than their females, and had bested some of the larger and most powerful males in the pack.

  That had impressed them. She’d been welcomed thereafter, and all down to the simple need to burn off some of her rage at the fate the Gods had handed her.

  Sighing at the memory, she flipped over onto her back. When she tilted her head to the side, she realized how close he was to her. His nose was barely an inch from hers.

  As his scent worked its way through her system, she found her tension dissipating somewhat.

  “I need you to kiss me.”

  He frowned. “You sure that’s wise?”

  She had to smile. “Do we have to be wise?”

  “This is true.” Rafe chuckled. “I just… I don’t know. I don’t want you to associate what happened with me.”

  “It would never be like that,” she instantly countered, hurting at the pain in his tone. “Never.”

  He licked his lips and she found her gaze was glued to the movement. He sighed then, and asked, “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I need you inside me. I want you knotted in me so neither of us know where you begin and I end.”

  His nostrils flared at that and she had to laugh when she found him suddenly on top of her. Grinning up at him, she murmured, “Someone likes the sound of that,” even as she rocked her hips up and wriggled in delight at the pressure of his hard bulge at her belly.

  “I like the sound of being inside you, but being knotted? I love that idea even more,” he said, his voice almost a purr.

  She moaned as his lips caught hers, and within less than a second, his tongue thrust deeply into her mouth. Wriggling again, she shifted so that she could spread her legs and the minute she could, locked her calves around his hips. The new position had him moving on top of her, settling further down so that his bulge was right against her core.

  Just this had the deep freeze of her body that always came after a dream melting. She felt herself getting hotter and hotter, her temperature soaring as he set her alight. Her nerve endings buzzing and close to vibrating with the desperation that surged through her.

  It felt like they hadn’t made love that morning, like they hadn’t made love twice a day since they’d met. Her body was empty and it mourned his loss.

  She felt his hands slide up her legs, rubbing them even as his mouth was focused on hers. The way his tongue was thrusting robbed the air from her lungs as he supped from her lips like a rapacious invader intent on staking a claim. She whimpered and tore free from him as she gulped down air.

  “Oh Gods,” she groaned even as she rocked her hips once more, needing the pressure of him against her most tender self. She slid her hands down his back, loving that he wore no shirt, no trousers, just his boxers. Not that she didn’t hate the boxers, but at least they’d grant her easy access.

  Thalia gulped down air, gasping like she hadn’t taken a breath in five minutes, then, she whimpered as he moved further down, his lips latching onto her throat. She arched her neck, baring herself to him, submitting to him in this, needing his pleasure to feel her own. When she felt him pulling on the tender skin, leaving marks, she ran her hands through his hair, letting her nails scrape along his scalp.

  He grunted and she felt his teeth nip and nick at her there, making her tighten her thighs about his hips and pin his ass down harder against her core by locking her feet above his butt.

  “I need you inside me,” she whispered, brokenly mewling as he carried on leaving her little hickeys, hickeys she’d display with pride for the world to see.

  He didn’t move his mouth, but she felt him push against the tight grip she had on his hips. When his hand moved between them, she didn’t complain, especially as he nudged down his boxers—a feat she helped with, using her toes to pull the fabric down over his ass. His fingers fumbled in the close confines with her own panties, and she felt the sudden heat as he jerked the gusset aside, settled his cock against her opening, and started to slide in deep.

  She was wet, but not drenched, and somehow, that made her feel his every inch all the more as he slid it in slowly, letting her experience all of him as he carried on raking his teeth down the side of her neck.

  Whatever she’d expected when she’d started this, wasn’t this. Not that she was complaining, but it surprised her. Hell, that was an understatement. It stunned her because this, the simple mating of him on top of her, was so fucking intense, it felt like her head could explode.

  They were making out and touching like they were fucking in the backseat of a car, but the truth was, they were desperate. They needed the connection they could only find in one another’s bodies.

  She shuddered at the thought, then moaned as he hit home. He was thick and long and she felt him in the choked confines of her channel. Sucking in air, she forced herself to relax, even as she wondered at how full she felt when this was hardly her first time with him.

  Then, as he rocked inside her, not thrusting, not exactly. Just nudging deeper into her, and that had her eyes flaring wide open.

  What. The. Actual. Fuck?

  There was something going on down there. Some kind of…

  She gasped. “Sweet Gods!” she cried. What the fuck was that?

  It reminded her of when she touched her clit, but it was inside. And deep. So deep.

  His chuckle didn’t even piss her off, not when the tender vibration had her throwing her head back more, not stopping until the sinews strained as she tried to contain the prickling sensations he was stirring to life inside her.

  The pleasure he triggered in her core was close to painful. It made her muscles twitch and jerk; and not just her internal ones.

  Another whimper escaped her as he dragged his teeth down to her shoulder, and then she cried out as he bit down hard, enough to leave a bruise, and began to fuck her.

  It was hot. It was intense. It was deep.

  From love-making to fucking and in less time than it took to blink, she found herself being dragged up to a precipice that made her dazed. Everything inside her, the She-Wolf included, wobbled on the precarious ledge he brought her to.

  His hips pistoned, and she felt him reach under her to grab a hold of her shoulders. It stopped her from rocking, held her in place, and if she’d thought he was fucking her before? Caelus on a cracker, that was nothing to now.

  When he began to knot inside her, his climax hitting him, she wanted to rail out her disappointment. He stopped moving as a result of the lock, and she needed that friction, that area, the one he’d just discovered deep inside, needed more, needed movement, fuck, it needed his cock nudging it, rubbing it like his fingers would her clit.

  And then, without the blur of her own orgasm, she felt the knot. Actually felt it. Normally, she was too high, soaring with her own delight. But now? She experienced it. She half wondered what it looked like, but a male could only knot inside his female so there was no seeing it, but she could feel it. It was magick and therefore, made no sense, but as it formed inside her, she felt him swell. He was already thick, but now? He burne
d her. And that heat and that thickness? Sweet Gods, it was what that sweet spot inside her craved.

  She felt his cum scald her deep inside, and in her ear, he mumbled apologies at climaxing before her, but she shrugged those sorries aside, too focused on what was happening inside her.

  His cum, the knot, the thickness, it all boiled down to something she wasn’t sure how to attain. Rather than say anything, she began to pump her hips, jerking them up and knocking at the knot, tugging at it as it insisted on staying in place. Rafe moaned and dropped his head beside hers, his forehead pressing into the pillow. It wasn’t a pained sound so she carried on, fucking herself with him, needing to reach for the stars she knew were close.

  Feeling frantic with the desperation, she hissed, “Get up, get up. I need to touch my clit.” She didn’t even know where the strength to utter the words came from, but she pushed him off her and the minute there was space between their bodies, her wrist slid over the sweat-slicked skin of her stomach as she reached between her legs, the backs of her knuckles nudging his lower belly.

  Normally, she rubbed her clit. Caressed it.

  Now? That wasn’t what she needed. She didn’t know how she knew that, just did. She pinched the nub. Pinched it hard. Enough to hurt. And then Rafe surprised her. He reached for one of her nipples through the soft cotton bra she wore, the one that had no seams, and pinched. Equally as hard as he did.

  Thalia howled.

  The climax that hit her was a tempestuous storm not the flights of delight he usually guided her to.

  It raged inside her, the furious joy roaring to life as she was tossed around in the tidal wave that besieged her.

  It buffeted her, tossed her around, and the music to her ears?

  She heard Rafe panting then felt another deep slug inside her as he climaxed again. The knot throbbed, his cock seemed to swell harder, and then, that was it.

  She was done for.

  ****

  “Your highness? We’re approaching Reagan airport.”

  The voice came loud and clear over the speaker and both of them jolted in bed.

  Thalia blinked in a daze but she didn’t move. Rafe was still on top of her, their bodies glued together with sweat and all kinds of other things that were probably gross but made her feel like a sex Goddess.

  Her lips twitched at the thought, but the smile broke free as Rafe kissed her temple, then with a deep groan, rolled off her.

  They both moaned then, and she whimpered as he slid his cock from her.

  Wow, that had been intense.

  “I didn’t realize how much time had passed.” He rubbed his chin over her temple and sighed. “We need to get moving.”

  “I know. There’s no time for a shower either. I’m going to smell of you all day,” she said cheerfully. “We’re going to make a great impression on whoever’s about to come on board.”

  That had him grunting. “I wonder who your grandfathers have hired.”

  She thought about that a second. “Grandfather. Just one. Not three of them.”

  He tensed behind her. “Sorry?”

  “Louis,” she clarified, peering over her shoulder to stare at him. “He’ll have been behind this. Ade and Matthew will be clueless. Louis always was too good at chess,” she ended ruefully, then sighing, whispered, “I guess we’d best get dressed.”

  “We need to get to our seats,” he confirmed, sliding out from between the silky sheets. “Otherwise the steward will be knocking on our door sooner rather than later.”

  She grimaced, knowing he was right, and climbed off the bed too.

  The walnut paneling, the silk sheets, the leather touches to the console tables, all of it spoke of a wealth far outside the reach of most men and women. But this was her life. Her world.

  She was at ease with wealth. Having lived in the palace her entire life, having once had the freedom to buy whatever she deigned necessary—even as a child she’d had an open checkbook—this level of elegance didn’t faze her.

  What did faze her was the notion she was free, and that her grandfather, goddamn him, was trying to keep tabs on her.

  Would she never be allowed to just be?

  Not even for a moment?

  She wriggled her shoulders as her She-Wolf began to pace back and forth inside her mind. The agitation came from her thoughts, but was rolled up in her grandfather’s cunning as well as the dream she’d just endured.

  Uneasy now when she’d been in a state of bliss just minutes before, she slipped into her jeans and the sweater, and wished she could slip out of her skin and into her She-Wolf just as simply.

  The last thing any of them needed was her beast roaming around the small confines of the private jet, however.

  Rafe was ready before her, but he waited on her to leave the room. He watched her smooth back her hair into a simple plait from his position at the foot of the bed, then held out his hand when she was finished and was just staring blankly at herself in the table-top cheval mirror.

  Was that really her? Thalia asked herself as she looked at the vital lines of her face, the crystalline blue of her eyes that spoke of her heritage whether she wanted to reveal it or not.

  Her hair, so white, was like the brightest patch of sunlight. Unrelieved and silky with it. She gleamed with good health and vitality even though she felt tired and weary.

  Before this journey, she’d been excited. Faintly tired from the excesses of the past week, the emotional catalysts, but hopeful for the future nonetheless.

  All of that had been wrecked thanks to a meeting with her mother, the meddling of her grandfather, and then a dream of her mate fucking another woman.

  Rafe, seeming to sense the strain choking her, folded his fingers about hers with a tenderness that pricked her eyes, and pulled her into his chest.

  “You’re my haven,” she told him, her tone watery as she burrowed into his hard chest.

  “Hardly,” he denied ruefully.

  She frowned, hating that rueful edge to his words. “Dammit, Rafe,” she stated thickly. “You are! I mean it. I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean.” She pulled back to peer up at him—yet another odd facet of the man who was her mate, he was remarkably tall for a Gamma. Had a good six inches on her. “I want this to stop.”

  “Want what to stop?” he asked warily.

  “Your belief that you’re not good enough for me because you’re Gamma. It’s like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop and for me to realize you’re not my mate.” She flexed her cheeks at the very notion, and with their still joined set of hands, lifted the union to her cheek. She pressed a kiss to his knuckles, then moved their hands to settle between the swell of her breasts.

  “You are mine,” she told him fiercely, using the tone that had upset many a councilman in her fathers’ court.

  She knew he heard, recognized, and was surprised by the tone because his eyes widened at the dominance that spilled from her lips in an ethereal wave he couldn’t avoid.

  “You are my mate. For all time. You are not Gamma. You are not Beta, nor are you Alpha. No rank matters now. You are mated to the TriAlpha’s daughter, and that makes you powerful on a national level regardless of your beginnings.”

  “You know it doesn’t work like that,” he argued, but his tone was wistful, like he wished that weren’t the case.

  “Since when have the TriAlpha followed any other rule but their own?” she said on a growl. “You will govern this land one day, Rafe. You will reign at my side with my other mates.” She wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but knew they were important, and knew he needed to hear them now and accept them. Now. It was imperative and she wasn’t sure why. “You will be one-fourth of the most powerful members of this pack in the future. It is time you shed the skin of your Gamma self and realize that you’re so much more today than you were a week ago.”

  Silence fell as she finished speaking, and as she stared into his eyes, looking past the delicious burnt caramel-colored orbs
that were shot with gold and amber, she saw his unease. His fear. His insecurity.

  He cleared his throat as though trying to relieve some tension, but it didn’t work. His brow was still puckered and he reeked of confusion. “How can I shed something that is an intrinsic part of me?”

  “Haven’t you realized yet, love? Nothing about us is intrinsic.” She closed her eyes as the truth of her own words hit her. “Nothing about us makes any sense because it’s not supposed to.”

  Quiet settled between them until the speaker clicked once more. “Please prepare for landing, your highness.”

  She tightened her grip on him for a scant second then made to pull away, only insofar as their bodies separated—they kept their hands clasped as they headed back into the main seating area.

  They sat beside one another instead of opposite as they’d done for take-off, and they didn’t say a word once they’d settled into the butter-soft leather seats and the belts kept them secure for landing.

  Her beast was on edge, knowing what was happening and whom they were about to meet, but Thalia was used to the creature’s restlessness. There would be no curing that until she ran in her other skin once more, and that wouldn’t be possible until…

  Well, it wouldn’t be possible.

  A run required a welcome from the local pack, and though she was heading to Austin and the Summerford Pack as a mate to one of its members, she was there on business that would displease the Alpha.

  No one liked to think they needed outside help to govern their people, and with arrogant assholes like the Summerford Alpha allowing Betas to run amok, raping Gammas without consequence… well, the bastard wasn’t going to be happy about her arriving in an official capacity as Triskele.

  Plus, if Gammas were allowed to be treated so badly, being mated to one wouldn’t bring her much of a welcome in Rafe’s native pack, which filled her with sadness on his behalf.

  No wonder it was difficult for him to see past his ranking. They’d only been mated a short while; just as she had things to learn, he had too.

  They would both be going through a mutual evolution as they grew to know one another. That evolution would bring them closer together, binding them tighter and tighter. Truth was, she could think of nothing better than that fate for herself.