He and Jonsse had read so much about changelings. Or, at least, what the Fae had on the subject matter. He hadn’t read anything about taking blood, and he knew Jonsse would have told him if she’d seen anything like that.
Pulling away from her inner thigh, he saw that the bite mark on her butt had already disappeared, and the sight angered him. He wanted her marked. But more than that, he wanted in her.
He moved over her again, not stopping until his chest hit her back and he pushed her into the mattress.
What are you doing? she asked him, but there was no fear in her voice, just curiosity.
Fucking my woman. Making her realize she can’t leave me.
She sighed. Rafe, I would die for you.
No! I don’t want you to die. I need you to live. The voice was small and panicked, totally unlike him, totally unlike his voice.
Rafe? Thalia asked gently.
He swallowed thickly. N-Nothing. He pushed up so he could grab his cock, then he pressed the thick, pulsing length between her thighs, and sought out her molten hot slit. She burned him with her heat, and he loved it. He fucking loved it.
With a growl, he slipped through the folds and grunted as he notched the tip of his shaft inside her pussy. She seemed to slurp him up, sucking him deep. The silken kiss was the welcome he needed after losing her.
When he was inside her, he kept her pressed to the bed, not wanting her on her hands and knees, wanting her there, where she was, so he could fuck her deep and hard.
He reared his hips up and plowed into her. She squeaked once, then moaned. Long and low. And the sound was like music to his ears as she maintained it, on and on, like she didn’t pause for breath. Like the groan was her air. It filled the space around him, hummed deep in his blood and made him need more of her.
He couldn’t seem to help himself as he pressed his face into her nape again, and as he did, he mouthed the area, plying it with his tongue, seeking a place that was covered in thin flesh. He’d had more luck with her inner thigh than her butt, after all. When he found a perfect spot, he bit down hard again and he felt her come. Felt her pussy squeeze him, strangle him, try to suck him dry even as he tried to do the same to her.
And with each rhythmic pulse as he slurped down the lifeblood that spilled free for him, her cunt tautened around him in an endless orgasm. When he felt her grow weak, from pleasure and blood loss, he pulled away before the curative forced him to. He licked the little wounds he’d made that still leaked with the ruby drops and groaned as the final tastes permeated his senses.
His cock began to spasm, almost like it wasn’t connected to his nervous system. Like his body wasn’t in control, the organ was. Even as he came, he felt it, but didn’t feel overwhelmed by it. Then he felt the knot, and confusion filled him.
He wasn’t Lyken, and he wasn’t a Wolf, so how could he do that?
How was that even possible?
She moaned at the intense pressure inside her as the knot took hold. It was thicker than before, and it pulsed as it lodged itself tightly inside her. He felt it, could see it in his mind’s eye, where before he’d never even thought about it. It didn’t happen every time, after all. It wasn’t a big deal, but somehow, he knew this was.
This would happen often.
He didn’t know how he knew it. Perhaps it was simply instinct, but he knew whenever he was in her cunt or ass, he’d knot.
Was it a changeling thing?
Maybe.
He couldn’t question what he had no clue about, so he didn’t bother. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t down for punishing her further.
He pulled back, tugging at the knot. She flinched underneath him and let out a scream so loud, it pierced his eardrums. Liquid flooded the knot and for a second, he feared what it was, then Mikkel whispered, “Damn, Rafe, did you make her squirt?”
“Oh my God, don’t you dare call it that!” Thalia screeched as she tried to twist around, tried to shift out from under him. Her hands scrabbled but she couldn’t. She was weak.
In his thrall.
The words filtered through his brain making him realize they were true, even if he didn’t know where they’d come from.
Thrall.
Thrall.
Thrall.
It pummeled his brain like an uppercut to the chin.
Then, he jerked back again, and she let out another scream, and another gush of liquid escaped her.
“You’re making a real mess of the bed, Thalia,” Mikkel murmured softly, but he was amused, and he was teasing her.
She let out a low moan. “I hate you, Mikkel. I’m going to kick your ass,” she groaned out even as the last trickles of her release seemed to coat his cock.
The urge to do it again filled him, and he did. The scream this time was enough to wake the whole house. But, and he didn’t know why, he didn’t have a clue why, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even as she flooded him, even as she drenched him with her release, the pleasure he triggered in her caused a catalyst of another form.
Her wings burst free. Popping into existence like they should always have been there.
And, he realized, that was exactly right. They should always have been there.
“What the fuck?” Mikkel declared, and he sat up straighter, bewildered at the sudden appearance of the limbs. “Theo?”
“I didn’t do that,” he retorted, sounding just as perplexed. Something squeezed the air around Rafe and Thalia and he knew it was Theo’s magic, trying to contain the wings.
“Don’t,” Rafe growled, and Theo stilled. His magic, glamor, whatever the fuck he wanted to call it, stilling too.
The wings weren’t hers, he knew that. But they felt right. He leaned down and the feathers fluttered against him, the muscles rippling and shifting as they touched him. He began to thrust against the knot once more, somehow knowing this was what he’d needed all along.
A keening cry escaped her, and the sound seemed to pump in time with his heart. The air around him froze even as he moved, as his body churned to a rhythm he didn’t understand, just required as intensely as he wanted his next breath. Sweat popped out of each pore, drenching him in a heat that was wafted away by the tired fluttering of Thalia’s wings. And then, it came.
Like a two-by-four to the temple, it floored him.
A gasp escaped him as she clenched down on him, making that strangling feeling of earlier feel like a loose caress. This was tight. She was swollen around him, her body so strung out that she was at the end of her tether.
And he’d pushed her there.
He’d come once, but that hadn’t counted. That had taken him to this point.
This was his orgasm.
His pleasure forged from hers.
He roared with it as it flooded his body with a sense of delirious joy, with such wondrous freedom he thought that he knew what it felt like to fly.
But even as he floated away, he was grounded to her, the knot pulsing and twitching as they remained connected. He fell against her, fell into her wings, getting a mouthful of feathers for his pains, but he didn’t care.
Neither did she.
He felt when she passed out, and he was right there, behind her.
6
Mikkel
“Tell me I wasn’t the only one who saw that?”
Theo shot Mikkel a look, but because he wasn’t the best at reading Fae body language—because when did they ever show a fucking thing on their faces?—he didn’t have a clue what the other man was thinking.
“Do we just leave them there? Can you at least change the sheets? Clean them up or something?” he groused, when Theo just stared at him some damn more. Then, thankfully, Theo snapped his fingers and the sheets were suddenly lilac rather than sky blue, and their mates were still sweaty from sex, but not as…
Pungent.
And Mikkel was being kind with that.
Hell, he figured he was being kind with a lot of things. Like how fucking strange that had been. It had
been hot, sure, but he wasn’t turned on. More than anything he was just bewildered.
Still…
“I didn’t know women could do that outside of porn movies,” he mumbled, curious as hell as to how Rafe had even done that. It was like a beast had overtaken him or something. He’d been working to a different agenda, and though he’d always sensed a need in Rafe that spoke of a desire to dominate, this was different.
He’d wanted to punish her.
But through pleasure?
Well, Mikkel had never seen that before and he’d watched a fuck ton of porn too.
Rubbing his chin, he eyed Thalia, who was in such a deep sleep it reminded him of those fucking horrible days when she’d been in a coma. The breath slipped from between her parted lips so quietly that her sleep could have passed for one.
He was hard pressed not to put his hand close to her mouth to feel the heat of her breath, just to know that she was okay. That she wasn’t hurt.
He fought the urge, knowing it was stupid and unnecessary, but he couldn’t stop himself from trailing his fingers through the feathers coating her wings.
Having seen them earlier didn’t take their majesty away any. He could see them a thousand times, he felt sure, and he’d never stop being stunned at the sight of them.
They were smaller than Theo’s, but then, the Fae females he’d seen had all had smaller wings than the males. Unlike most of the women’s he’d seen, they were white tinged with gold.
Morningstar’s colors.
As impotent rage flushed through him, he heard Theo eventually murmur, “I saw them too.”
Mikkel turned his focus back to the Fae male. “What were they?” The weird writing had suddenly appeared on Rafe’s body as he orgasmed. Like someone, somewhere, had decided to scrawl on him as though he were a chalkboard or something.
“Looked like runes to me.”
“Runes?”
Theo nodded, but he ran a hand through his hair as he closed his eyes. “I haven’t seen them for a long time, though.”
“Why?”
“They’re a specific type of rune,” he explained. “Egyptian, maybe?”
Mikkel bit his bottom lip. “They did look like hieroglyphs,” he said as he thought about it.
“Yeah.”
“What do you think they mean?”
“They glowed gold, didn’t they?” Theo asked, and Mikkel got the feeling he was asking for confirmation. Like he hadn’t believed his own eyes and needed the information validated.
“Yeah. They did,” he affirmed.
“I think a Fae did it.”
“A Fae did what?”
“Protected him,” he murmured softly.
“From what?”
“I don’t know. It’s all guesswork.” Theo climbed off the bed and headed for the window on the side of the bedroom.
Mikkel tilted his head to follow his movement. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. No point in hiding stuff from us, Theo. You heard Thalia before. You need to keep us in the loop. Only thing you’re going to do is alienate us if you keep this shit from us.”
Mikkel watched as Theo ran a hand through his hair and wondered if the bastard had some kind of glamor on it. If Mikkel’s hair was that long, it would be a tangle of knots. Theo’s hair always looked like something from a film shoot no matter where he was or what he was doing. He’d have thought it unfair, but what the fuck would Mikkel do with a shoulder-length mane that would do a lion proud?
“I’m not keeping anything from you in particular,” Theo started, making Mikkel snort.
“No? You’re just redacting the good bits?” He cocked a brow at him. “I’m a soldier.” That might have been was a soldier but Mikkel wasn’t sure what his current status was after Louis Lyndhoven had sunk his claws into his file. “I know how shit works.”
“You know how human shit works. Not Fae shit. Dammit to hell, Mikkel, I don’t even know what some of this crap means. You think I’m ancient, because to you, I am, but what are my parents?”
Though that wasn’t untrue, he still got the feeling that Theo was giving him the runaround. “Ancient Egypt was back in your day.”
“Where do you think the hieroglyphs came from?” Theo growled.
“It’s Fae-based?” he asked, surprised and not sure why.
“Of course. Who do you think gave them the engineering know-how to build the pyramids?”
Mikkel ran a finger down his nose. Theo had a habit of doing this. Evading by stunning the shit out of them. The minute they pinned him down on something, he’d inform them of something else. Something that blew their minds because, in comparison, they were babies, and they’d lived their lives sheltered.
Learning the Fae were responsible for a lot of human history had yet to grow boring.
“What’s your next move?” he asked, tone curious as he watched Theo’s edginess start to wear down with each pace of the room he made.
“I don’t know yet. I might have to speak with mother. She had more say in Egypt than father.”
Mikkel winced. “They were Gods there too?”
Theo’s smile was tight. “Why do you think their egos are so big?”
Well, there was no arguing with that, was there?
****
Mikkel
Squinting as the sunlight hit his tired eyes, Mikkel turned away from the brightness bursting into the bedroom from the skylight overhead. As he moved his head, he had to chuckle.
Rafe and Thalia were in the exact same position as they’d been for hours.
Thalia was squashed beneath Rafe, her wings splayed to shelter him as he sprawled out above her.
They were all present. Save for Theo.
The fucker.
Narrowing his eyes as he glanced around again, he growled under his breath then rolled off the mattress in an attempt to not disturb the two lovebirds.
He didn’t think a fucking hurricane would disturb them, but he’d prefer to make sure they stayed asleep until he ascertained Theo’s whereabouts.
Because he didn’t give a fuck, he dragged on yesterday’s boxers and grabbing Rafe’s tee—the dude wore a tee under his button-down, which Mikkel hadn’t even known was a thing—he stepped out of the bedroom and went to hunt someone down.
Any motherfucker with answers would do.
He prowled through the halls, but when he heard no one, he aimed for Louis’ office, the one place in the whole house he was used to visiting.
Hearing a few voices in there, he narrowed his eyes in surprise. His hearing was good, but Louis’ office was soundproofed. No way should he be able to hear anything.
Was this the start, then?
The start of whatever fucked up transformation was heading his way?
He figured he’d handled yesterday like a pro.
So what, he’d seen his dead father before the man had even died?
So what, he thought his father had beaten his mom?
And so what, he could turn into a giant snake that legends were written about?
No big deal, right?
Snorting as he tried to make himself believe that were true, he stopped listening in. Eavesdropping was for pussies. Instead, he knocked on the door and sensed the silence overcome the gathering within.
The door opened and when Louis saw him, he scowled, but waved him in even as he scowled harder at his attire. “Dressed up for the occasion, did you?”
He rolled his eyes, not in the mood for the older man’s shit. “I was looking for Theo.”
“He’s not here,” Matthew replied, tilting his head to the side as he glanced over Mikkel. “Why are you looking for him?”
“Because I think the fairy fucker has gone back to Heden without us.”
Adrian frowned. “Why would he do that?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know, and plenty more you don’t want to know,” Mikkel said uneasily. Just thinking about explaining how Rafe’s markings had appeared was
enough to give him a headache.
Lykens were pretty free-flowing when it came time to talk about sex, but there was liberal and then there was weird—Louis, Adrian, and Matthew sure as hell didn’t want to know about Thalia being bitten and fucked before she soaked the sheets with her cum and then passed the hell out.
No granddaddy needed to hear that.
Louis closed the door behind him, then he sniffed, and that had Mikkel jerking around to bite off, “Are you smelling me?”
“Yeah. You smell different.” Louis’ brow puckered. “Why do you smell different?”
“New shower gel,” he bit off.
Louis snorted. “Yeah, because I can’t tell the difference between a scent and an aroma. How old do you think I am? Five-hundred?”
“Can’t put much past me anymore. Theo’s older than time itself, why shouldn’t you be?”
Narrowing his eyes, Louis grumbled, “I swear, I don’t know why I put up with your snark.”
“Because I’m so good at it.”
Though his nostrils flared, he didn’t comment on that, instead asked, “Your scent has changed, Mikkel. As far as I’m aware, you’re not able to get pregnant. And that’s the only reason a human’s scent changes.”
Despite himself, he had to laugh at that. “Yeah. I’m expecting. It’s Rafe’s.”
Adrian and Matthew coughed into their hands but Mikkel knew they were laughing their asses off too. Just inwardly. Louis’ tongue poked his cheek out, informing Mikkel that he was pushing his fucking luck.
“Heden? Is that where the Fae live?”
Mikkel cut Matthew a glance. “Yeah.”
“Thalia informed me of certain information last night, Mikkel. I was just passing that onto my brothers.”
Mikkel frowned. “When did she do that?”
“She woke up in the middle of the night. I found her in the kitchen. We talked,” he said simply.
Now he thought about it, Thalia had been climbing over him to get into her usual spot in the middle of the bed. And Theo had been out of the bed at that same time.
“Theo was there too?” he hazarded a guess, unsurprised when Louis nodded.
“By the end, yes.”
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