Knowing Theo to be behind this, she pressed her hand to his side. “It’s okay, Theo, I don’t believe they mean me any harm.”
His lip curled, but he halted his glamor. The breeze fluttered to a halt and her father staggered forward, close enough to fall flat on his face had Adam not grabbed him and jerked him upright.
“What the fuck?” Luca gulped, looking disheveled.
Truly windswept, she realized, feeling, of all things, amused at the sight.
Whatever she’d expected to feel the next time she saw her parents, it hadn’t been humor.
“Theo is Fae,” she explained, her tone calm and free from her amusement. “He is older than you can imagine, capable of controlling the elements. And he doesn’t particularly like you.”
Her fathers looked both perplexed and intrigued at her statement, but at the latter half, they winced. Adam ran a hand through his hair and said, “We need to speak to you.”
“Why?”
“Because we have learned something.” He hesitated. “Something we must share with you.”
“Speak of it now then, pups,” Theo growled out. “We are to return to my homeland shortly.”
Damien’s eyes widened. “Homeland?”
“It’s on another realm,” Thalia informed him. “We sift through time and space to reach it.” She’d come to learn what that word meant thanks to Rafe and his research in the Royal Library.
At her statement, her fathers’ mouths dropped open. But it was Luca who spoke. Luca who huskily whispered, “This is uncanny.”
“What is?”
“That you’re mated to a Fae male and…”
“And what?”
Luca rubbed the back of his neck. “We need to discuss this in private.”
She jerked a shoulder. “There is nothing that you can’t say in front of my men, fathers.”
“I was thinking more of cameras,” he said on a growl, then he growled again when she shrugged.
“I have nothing to hide.”
But he did. She could see it etched into the lines on his face.
“A-A woman we believed to be in our employ revealed herself to us this past week.” His jaw worked and, Thalia had to admit, he looked nauseated.
“Revealed being the operative word,” Damien whispered, seeming more uneasy than he usually did.
“There has been a conspiracy, Thalia, a conspiracy surrounding you and several members of our staff.”
“In what sense?” she barked, stiffening, sensing yet another accusation being headed her way.
“No, child, we’re not accusing you of this,” Adam stated gruffly. “We’re here to make amends.”
“Where’s mother?”
“Dealing with the media. They caught sight of us, and as we had to speak with you, she let us come to you.”
“How very noble of her,” Thalia sneered, making her three parents wince.
“I can understand your bitterness, child,” Adam said. “Why wouldn’t you be?” He released a heavy sigh. “Please. Let us explain.”
There was something in his tone that made her respond to him. Normally, they were so antagonistic. So angry with her. They seemed to reverberate with rage, a rage she’d never been able to understand.
Yes, she was different. Yes, she was a daughter, a single girl child instead of the three precious sons they should have sired. But so much hatred…
And now, as she looked at them. As she studied them, felt them study her in return, she realized that wasn’t there anymore. When they looked at her, there was such a heartfelt regret that she reached blindly for Rafe’s hand.
Because he knew her, because he was a part of her, his fingers were there waiting for her before she’d even realized she needed him. He squeezed her fingers, imbuing her with the strength that was unique to him. And even as she felt relief at his presence, Mikkel edged closer, his heat at her back so welcome and warm she wanted to curl into him. Theo, standing just a smidge in front of her, in full protector mode, completed the package.
She was safe.
She was loved.
She was cherished.
These men, men who should have loved her, could not hurt her now. Not when she was with her mates.
And so, releasing a shuddery breath, she murmured, “Okay.”
Around her, her mates stiffened, but they didn’t argue. They didn’t try to persuade her. Not even Rafe who could have done so silently, speaking to her telepathically to keep their conversation hushed.
No, as they’d done with the challenge, they didn’t try to gainsay her.
Luca licked his lips, and his voice, when he spoke, was hoarse. “Thank you, daughter.”
She bowed her head, but it was Rafe who answered for her, “There are changing rooms around the corner.”
Her brows quirked at that. She hadn’t used that last time. Had, instead, traveled with Torres’ blood covering her until she’d been able to get changed at Rafe’s home.
Theo grunted in apparent disagreement, clicked his fingers, and as was his way, they were standing in Jacobs’ office.
Though not unaccustomed to these rapid journeys, she far preferred when he allowed them to travel by car. She wasn’t sure if these surges drained him, and knew she’d have to ask him at some point. Sometimes they’d sift and sometimes they’d travel. Was it an energy thing? Or was it just variety? Knowing him, it was probably the latter.
Though she wobbled on her feet a bit at the unknown surroundings, her fathers gaped at the office in which they found themselves.
“Theo is Fae, fathers,” she said again, striding around the Alpha’s desk to take a seat there. “He can move anything he wants in the blink of an eye. He’s quite…” She paused, smiled. “Magical.”
When Theo rolled his eyes, she dipped her chin to hide her smirk. Not before she noticed her fathers stiffen, however.
“Glamor,” he growled. “Not magic.”
She winked at him. “Same thing.”
“No, it’s not,” he retorted.
After sticking her tongue out at him, she turned to face her fathers. They were ill at ease here. Hadn’t expected this, and yet, this was the best they could do. The Alpha’s office was, without a doubt, secure.
“This is the Summerford Pack Alpha’s study,” she informed them. “You may speak freely here.”
Adam shot his brothers a look as he strode toward the desk and took a seat in one of the visitor’s chairs. After he’d crossed his legs, she watched him scan her face. He was the consummate politician, and she knew he was trying to word whatever he needed to say in a way that was diplomatic and that wouldn’t alienate her.
A born orator, he had the gift of the gab. Except with her. She’d never been on the receiving end of that talent, and it was strange to realize that was his intention now. Because of that, she ceased looking at him and glanced at Luca, the most irascible of her parents.
“Father, you can explain this situation to me.”
Luca stilled. “Adam’s the better—”
She shook her head. “No. He’s too glib. I’m not a political problem that needs resolving. I’m your daughter. You wished to speak with me, so speak.”
“Or forever hold your peace,” Mikkel inserted, his tone grim.
Luca pursed his lips, but he didn’t look at his brothers as he too headed for the desk. Rather than take a seat, he perched on the armrest and folded his arms across his chest. For a second, he too was silent, just as Adam had been, but she knew Luca wasn’t as capable as Adam. He wasn’t capable of wooing someone; not even her mother.
“Two days after you left,” he started, then cleared his throat. Another pause. His arms visibly clenched through his sports coat. “Two days after you left,” he repeated, his words thick. “I had to visit the Gainsborough Pack in Eugene. It was a routine visit. Adam and Damien didn’t have to go because it was an issue with defenses. You know I handle security.” His nostrils flared as outrage swelled inside him. “I returned early from t
he visit, and knowing your mother was free for the day, I went to visit with her.”
When silence fell once more, she cut her mates a look. Theo seemed bored, if the way he was checking his nails was anything to go by, anyway. Rafe’s eyes were narrowed with distrust, and Mikkel’s hands were on his hips, agitation and suspicion practically rolling off him in waves.
“And?” she prompted when her father didn’t speak for several seconds.
“When I went to visit her, I was already there.”
For a second, she did nothing but blink. And then, when she tried to understand what the hell he was saying, and failed, she asked, “How were you already there?”
“I entered her rooms and I was already with her. We were watching TV.”
“I’m confused,” Mikkel ground out. “What the fuck are you saying? There were two of you in the room?”
“Yes.” His eyes narrowed into a squint. “When she saw me, she thought I was Damien. Bearing in mind your mother has never failed to discern who she’s with, the fact she was with me already, prompted her to believe I was my brother.” The muscles in his cheeks clenched. “In over thirty-five years, she’s never mistaken us. But that day? She had to. I was already there. When I told her I was Luca, she just stared at me. She thought I was joking. I wasn’t.”
Damien placed his hands on the seat Luca was leaning on. His fingers tightened around the back of the chair. “Luca, being Luca, attacked first and asked questions later. He managed to incapacitate the impostor, then he called us.”
“The impostor? You mean to tell me that someone was pretending to be you? How the hell did they do that?” Thalia snapped.
“W-We’d never heard of anything like this before. We just knew we’d been infiltrated somehow. There are many things in this world that we are unaware of. We thought, at first, it was some kind of magic. That was the only thing that made sense,” Damien stated, his voice so husky he was hard to hear. “The differences between the two men were impossible to discern. Not just as we are difficult to pick out, but in that they were identical. Only asking him for information, secrets, that are uniquely known by us, made Adam and I certain that we were dealing with the real Luca.” He reached up and scratched his temple. “It was the most bewildering experience of my life. And we’d had a daughter when we’d been fated to have triplets. I have never been more confused.”
She should have been offended by his words, but they couldn’t hurt her anymore. They’d said far worse to her over the years.
Adam let out a growl. “The impostor is something called a changeling,” he gritted out, and Thalia, as well as her mates, stiffened in surprise. “We’d never heard of them before. Never knew what they were until we came across this creature.
“She’s powerful. Won’t submit to interrogation. We stumbled upon a way to coerce her completely by accident.”
She cut Rafe a look. “How?” she asked quietly.
“Blood. She drinks it.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Like a fish. The blood gives her powers over people. Enables her to turn into them.”
I craved your blood like I was hungry for it, Rafe admitted to her alone.
Enough to cave to interrogation tactics? Where pain didn’t stir you?
Perhaps. It is a new need. It hasn’t had the power to overtake me. He shrugged. With time, who knows?
She clenched her jaw and asked, “You’re sure she’s not a—” She hesitated, feeling ludicrous by even suggesting it, “—vampire?”
Damien shook his head. “You know they don’t exist. If anything, I believe the legends started because of this race of beings. Torture didn’t work on her, but three days without blood did. She rolled like dice when we asked her to explain what she was. And each subsequent day, with limited blood, enough to keep her hungry, makes her speak more of what she’s done.”
Luca blew out a harsh breath. “We must beg your forgiveness, daughter.”
“Why?” Thalia demanded, head tilting to the side in confusion.
“Because I am not the only one she has pretended to be.”
The cogs worked in her brain. “She became me?”
“Yes.” Adam ran a hand through his hair. “Y-You used to attack us, child. Randomly. You would hurl abuse at your mother, rail at us. Your rages were absurd. W-We felt we had no choice but to exile you.”
“Wait a minute,” Thalia begged, her voice as hoarse as her father’s had been. “You mean to tell me she made you think I was crazy?”
“Worse, child,” he whispered. “She made us believe you were rabid.”
11
Theo
Because his mate looked like the very earth beneath her feet was about to cave in, Theo strode over to her side. Resting a hand on her shoulder, he murmured, “What is the difference?”
“Rabid Wolves are put down,” she breathed. “Rabid Wolves kill and maim. They attack at will.”
Adam swallowed. “We’d believed you had killed. Several times. Guards would disappear on your detail every few months.”
Theo watched her fingertips curl into the armrest of the desk chair. “You believed I’d killed them?”
“We knew you had,” Luca commented huskily. “We had footage. Video proof that you were the one. You were so blatant.” His mouth worked a second. “We watched you maim and slaughter for years.” He uncrossed his arms and covered his face with his palms. “You knew we were Hunters. We knew you were rabid, and yet…”
“You kept me anyway,” she said on an exhalation, and Theo wasn’t entirely sure why, but she said it like it was a revelation.
She wasn’t hurt, if anything, she sounded… happy?
Was that possible?
Theo didn’t understand Lyken ways. Not the intricacies, anyway. He steered clear of most supernaturals, preferring the humdrum of humans to the complicated lives of the Lykens. Now? He wished that hadn’t been the case.
“You let me live,” she whispered, perpetuating the madness.
“You’re our daughter,” Damien said softly, his eyes bleak. “We exiled you, and tried to contain you, but…” He shook his head. “It never worked for long. And then, the Elder came. Bahkir claimed you were our miracle in waiting, and we were left wondering how the Gods could be so wrong where you were concerned.
“A rabid She-Wolf? Being the future of our world? It made no sense.”
“Why would it?” she whispered rhetorically. “What was her intention?”
“To create pandemonium. There is not an aspect of our world that she hasn’t infiltrated. For days, she would shift.” Damien swallowed. “Changing faces every six hours. Each time, a new guard. A new administrator. Even an Alpha or two. Only when the hunger came did we see her true self.”
Thalia’s mouth worked a second. “She had an in into every part of life at the palace. Even with the leaders.”
Adam nodded, his mouth curved downward.
“How did she gain access to you?” Theo questioned.
“She was one of the nurses. She can change into us once she’s sampled our blood—you know our vials are on file for security purposes.” Luca growled, undoubtedly at the creature’s audacity. “She could have brought the TriAlpha seat to its knees. Why she didn’t, we don’t know yet. Caelus, we might never know.”
“The worst part is that she destroyed what we had with you.” Adam swallowed, his voice was thick with emotion. “You must believe that… we tried our best with you. Tried to protect you from yourself even when you refused our help.”
Her voice was small, like that of a little girl’s and Theo hated it. Hated how frail she sounded when she whispered, “She really killed guards to perpetuate the belief I was rabid?”
Damien nodded. “Yes. Too many to count. It was getting dangerous. W-We were covering up deaths every year.”
“That’s why you hated me.”
“You represented everything we’d hunted for decades.” Luca cringed. “Keeping you safe in exile was a boon. Any other rabid Wolf would have
been put down long ago. But you’re our child. W-We couldn’t… And your mother? She’d have lost her mind if we’d had to do that.”
Theo recognized the truth to his words. He wasn’t joking. He truly believed his mate would have lost her sanity had they meted out justice to their daughter.
“She hates me though,” Thalia whispered, obviously trying to wrap her head around this revelation.
Someone, for years, had been muddying the waters between them. Making her parents believe that she was rabid. She’d fully admitted to them all about being feral. But there was, apparently, a difference.
Frowning, Theo asked, “What is a feral Wolf? It’s different than rabid?”
“Feral Wolves have a desire to stay as a Wolf. It prevails above all else. In their wolf skin, they never want to harm anyone. Never mind kill them. They just don’t want to be in their human forms. Rabid Wolves, on the other hand, have no issues with shifting, no issues with being in their human skin, but when they are in their wolf skin, the desire to kill is a hunger in their blood they can’t control,” Damien explained quietly. “Why?”
Her hand was shaking as she reached up to grab his. When their fingers entwined, she murmured, “Because I was close to being feral. Before I met Rafe.”
Damien blew out a breath. “We were so wrong about you.”
Rafe cleared his throat, and somehow certain he knew what was on the tip of his tongue, he shot the other male a look. Which he ignored. “I think we should meet this changeling,” Rafe rasped.
Thalia stiffened. “What? Why?”
“Because I need to meet another of my own kind. I have questions she can answer.”
Thalia’s fathers jolted in place. Their heads whipped around, almost as one, to pin Rafe with a stare. “You can’t be serious?” Adam growled.
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