He pursed his lips but nodded. “I understand and I appreciate your honesty. So, I do have some questions, you’re right.”
“Shoot.”
Her direct gaze didn’t waver as he asked, “I grew up in the pack. One foot in, one foot out. But I didn’t get to take part in pack activities. Not much.”
That had her scowling at him. “Seriously? That’s disgusting.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. Of course it is. You have brothers and sisters, right?”
He nodded. “Sure do. Three brothers and four sisters.” When she coughed, Mikkel found himself laughing. “My mother liked being mated to a Lyken, I guess.”
Her cheeks burned, and a part of him longed for a day when everything was settled and he could tease her about that. Tease her for being so easy to rile, so easy to fluster. Now she sounded winded as she asked, “So, you were the odd one out who couldn’t attend events and things?”
He wiggled his beer. “Kind of. Big events like the centennials, I got to go to. But anything less, rallies or whatever, it was made known that my presence wasn’t appreciated.”
“Sweet Gods, my fathers run a nation of bigots.” She gritted her teeth.
He snorted, though a part of him appreciated her anger on his behalf. Or the behalf of a small, lost kid, he guessed. “Bigots are everywhere,” he told her, meaning it. “Your fathers aren’t at fault.”
She just shook her head. “They don’t help.”
“Maybe not.” He pondered her a second. “Most of what I know I gleaned off my siblings, and my stepfather was pretty good about teaching me shit too. He wasn’t happy with the way I was treated by his pack.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she interrupted darkly.
Mikkel grinned a little, amused, and he’d admit, touched. “It’s okay, Thalia. I wasn’t offended then and I’m not hurt by it now.”
“Bullshit,” she retorted. “No way can a kid ever be fine with that kind of situation where he’s continually overlooked. Step-children already feel like cuckoos in the nest. My people helped perpetuate that feeling in you. It’s a wonder you’re…” She firmed her lips as she fell silent, tossing her head in a way that had her hair flying free over her shoulders, and while a part of him wanted to drag a piece of that hair to his nose, inhale her scent and have his senses bathe in her, he didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Because she was agitated, and it was an agitation that ran deeper than the surface. Something he’d started to realize was a red alert for her. So, instead of reaching for that lock of hair that dangled so prettily over the curve of her shoulder, glinting like white gold in the moonlight, he reached for her hand and covered it with his. He’d seen what happened when she got riled.
Had seen how her She-Wolf ran close to the surface.
He could feel the beast’s anger at his treatment, and knew, if he wasn’t careful, he’d have a pissed off She-Wolf dashing around Rafe’s manicured yard.
Yeah, he wasn’t in the mood to play doggy day-care tonight.
It had been a long day. A hell of a long one. He really didn’t need to top it with a cherry of canine proportions.
To her words, however, he just murmured, “My family made up for it,” hoping that the simplicity of his statement would get through to her, calm her down.
“I’m glad.”
The simple retort had his lips quirking, but he felt how his admission soothed her, eased the anxiety the She-Wolf felt for him. When she turned her hand under his and dragged her fingers along his palm, he firmed his mouth. He’d have liked to say that he didn’t feel that move down to his cock but it would have been bullshit.
He controlled the shudder that longed to work its way down his spine.
Barely.
Though he knew it was wise to pull his hand away from hers, he wasn’t feeling very wise. Instead, he slid his fingers through hers, bridging the gap. Uniting them in a way he wanted to deny but couldn’t.
Clearing his throat, he murmured, “Anyway, I know what the TriAlpha is, but why are they that way? And how is it you’re, well, not like them?”
“You mean, like, are they brothers?”
He nodded. “I guess. I know they’re brothers though.”
“Triplets, to be exact. Although, it’s a little different for Lykens. We have larger litters than humans after all. Something I’m sure you know considering how many siblings you have.”
He hid a laugh at her comment. “More fraternal multiple births…”
“Yeah. They’re rarely identical.” With her free hand, he watched her trace a pattern beside her thigh on the lounger. “For as long as we can remember, the supreme leader of our people has been a set of triplets. What further makes them unique is the fact those triplets share a mate.”
“That doesn’t happen with any other guy, does it?”
She shook her head. “Never. One mate per person, and don’t get greedy,” she joked, her lips curving wryly. “The line continues. The mate has another set of triplets, and their mate has another. And so on.” She pulled a face. “It’s like that in Europe, Australia, Asia… All over the world. The triplets they beget aren’t born of a single brother’s sperm, either.” She tugged at her bottom lip with her free hand, explaining something he already knew but was interested to hear from her unique perspective. “They are, and it’s pure magic but has been proven now by geneticists, born from a merging of the TriAlpha’s seed. In all the years of the TriAlpha, I’m the first non-triplet birth. The first female ever born to a TriAlpha. The first to ever break that mold.”
Pity for her welled in him. “Ouch.”
She blew out a long, long breath. “That about sums it up.” Her fingers tightened on his. “What I do know about my situation, I learned recently. Even then, it’s not much.”
“Then tell me what you do know,” he asked softly, not willing to push her, but interested nonetheless.
“When I was sixteen, and I don’t know why, I had a vision.” The words made her sad. He felt that sorrow tremble through the link that bound them together. “It was of my mate, because at the time I figured there was only one, with another woman. I was too young to watch porn, and I was kind of innocent. But that vision? It was of them having sex.”
He bolted upright at that. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah. It’s as shitty as you’d imagine,” she snapped, eying his hand which he’d tugged free from hers, shattering the tenuous connection that had started to quiver to life between them. “I don’t know which one of you it was. I didn’t see a face. Didn’t really see any part of the guy, I just saw the woman my mate was with at the time.
“That triggered my She-Wolf. She shifted. Out of the blue. Unfortunately, in front of my parents. After that, and when I tried to explain, they didn’t believe me and thought I was rabid.” She flushed.
His mouth gaped. “What?”
“I attacked them.”
“Still, you told them what happened, didn’t you? You didn’t just attack out of the blue.”
She shrugged, but he saw the bitterness in the twist of her lips before she said, “I’m an anomaly. I can’t excuse what they did, not really, even if I can understand their limits.
“We’re stupid when we’re wandering through the unknown after all. I did attack, I did put my mother’s life in danger, and they didn’t know why. There was no way of verifying what I’d said, and they’ve never found it easy to believe me.”
He blinked at that. “If you say so.”
“I do.” She tilted her chin up, and the stubborn move filled him with amusement—despite the way his insides were churning out of pity for her situation. “Anyway, that was the start of it. Female Lyken go into heat. You know that, right?”
He nodded in understanding. He’d seen his sisters during that time. No brother ever wanted to know such a thing—he shuddered. It was way more than a period. A thousand times worse.
“Usually it’s once a year, sometimes, twice. But me?” She re
leased a cold laugh. “I go into heat every month.”
“Are you kidding me?” he demanded, voice hoarse.
“I wish I was. But, over that first year, I learned I had more than one mate. I can’t distinguish features in the visions, but I could sense the man I was seeing was actually men. The fact I go into heat so often suggests…” Her cheeks blushed a delicate peach. “Well, I have to satisfy three men, don’t I? I guess I need the sex drive to match.”
“I guess,” he said doubtfully, overwhelmed by her admission.
“So, there I was. Claiming I could see visions of my mates, plural not singular, having heats every month, and generally shifting out of control because every vision made my She-Wolf rage… Eventually, my parents decided I was a danger to my mother who is half-Lyken, and can’t shift, so is pretty defenseless around our kind. They exiled me to one part of the palace and I’ve been stuck there until recently.”
Astonishment bloomed. “B-But, school? College?” All the fancy education he’d expected her to have, all the hotspot vacation areas and snazzy resorts where she’d be on first name terms with the managers because she visited so often… That hadn’t happened?
“I had a tutor at first, then I had to learn as I went. They gave me the books.” She shrugged. “I did the best I could. Eventually they thought I was too dangerous to be around even a Lyken tutor.
“Then, a few weeks ago, an Elder came to the palace. You know what they are, right?”
“Old dudes,” he said gruffly. “They live longer than the average and are like Shamans, no? Are really knowledgeable about something important to the pack? One might know a lot about healing, another about history or shit like that, right?”
“That about sums it up. Well, Bahkir’s one of the oldest. He was resting up in Canada, in a monastery of all places. Didn’t hear about me until recently. Minute he did, he came. Told my fathers that I wasn’t bullshitting. That yes, I had three mates, and that basically, they had no reason to be ashamed of begetting a single girl child instead of three boys.” Another breath whistled out between her teeth. “According to him, I’m the coming of a new age for our kind.”
Staggered by that softly-uttered admission, he whispered, “That’s not a lot of pressure.”
A laugh escaped her. “Tell me about it.”
As he processed what she’d said, he scratched the back of his neck. “Carry on.”
“I met Rafe the same day I met with the Elder. He’d come to the palace to try to sort out the situation in his pack. The man I challenged today, Jason Torres? He was a Beta who was terrorizing the Gammas here.
“Gammas have no protection. Even if you were excluded from the pack, you’ll know that I’m sure.” When he nodded, she carried on, “He came to petition my mother for her help. When he was there, I caught scent of him and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“Do you still see the men having sex with other women?”
Her smile was tight. “Yes.”
He cringed.
“It’s worse when you’re in relationships. I recognize the women every time.” She swallowed as she closed her eyes and turned her face away from his. “That hurts me, but the She-Wolf gets very, very angry.”
That was why she’d stiffened up at his mention of not being a virgin.
She’d been a fucking eye witness to him being anything other than virginal.
She must have sensed his tension because she snapped, “I didn’t want to see it. And I didn’t get off on it either.”
He frowned. “I never thought you did. Hell, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, Thalia.
“I might not understand the mate bond, but I’ve seen it first-hand. If my mother had seen my stepfather with another woman? It would have killed her.”
Silence fell at his words, but eventually, she whispered, “I only got the visions when I was in my human form.”
That made a hell of a lot of sense. And not just where it was obvious. “You spent a lot of time as a wolf,” he murmured. She’d been a kickass fighter as a human. Her strength and her confidence in her body evident. But as a She-Wolf? She’d been like fucking dynamite.
Despite himself, his body tightened at the memory.
How couldn’t it?
He was a man forged from strength. Trained to respond to violence, to control it and to use it. To have seen that in another? In one so beautiful, so delicate and yet so fucking deadly? Shit, she was like his kryptonite.
All she had to do was cock an AK47 on her hip and pose in high heels to be his idea of a pin-up girl.
“The guards that kept me contained trained with me as a human because, while they kept me isolated, my fathers knew I needed to protect myself,” she explained, sensing his train of thought. “But in my wolf skin, I used to roam our land. I grew very strong.”
“That’s an understatement,” he said gruffly. What he’d seen today was beyond strong.
“I’m my fathers’ daughter,” was all she said. The simplicity of her words made them pack more of a punch.
She wasn’t a woman to underestimate. Not that he was in the habit of underestimating anyone in his life. Regardless of whether they were there for a temporary period of time or a permanent one.
Thalia let out a shaky breath. “Please, don’t look at me like that.”
He frowned. “Like what?”
“I’m not a freak. Please,” she half pleaded. “I’m not.”
He shook his head. “You misunderstand me, Thalia.” At her rough gulp, he gently murmured, “If I wasn’t here to protect you, if we were on opposing sides, I’d say you were a worthy enemy.”
“Why?”
Mikkel shrugged. “The outer packaging in no way represents the product.”
“Why do I feel like you just insulted me?” she asked wryly.
“I have no idea. Not when I just gave you the biggest compliment I’ve ever given a woman.”
She blinked, her mouth rounding into a perfect ‘O’ that, God help him, gave him the worst kind of ideas.
She was a woman made for temptation. And Mikkel’s willpower had never been as strong as it should have been.
Shit had just got interesting.
Well, interesting or very, very real, and he wasn’t sure which was worse.
3
Rafe
His bed was big.
Though the whole house could be considered a luxury, it wasn’t. Not really. He didn’t particularly like the house, nor did he particularly want it. It had been a wildcard purchase. One he’d made when his career as a cardiologist had taken off in earnest.
In some circles, he was internationally renowned.
Those circles, however, weren’t pack. They were human. And therefore, to his people, his folks included, that meant nothing. His talent, his expertise, even his reputation, were worthless to anyone who wasn’t human.
The house had been an attempt at posturing, Rafe guessed.
It hadn’t worked.
His father didn’t give a shit about the work Rafe had done to earn this kind of place, and the rest of the pack felt the exact same way. Well, save for his sister, Laura, and his mother who loved the kitchen.
Of the entire place, the bed was his luxury. It was customized. One and a half times bigger than a king size, it sheltered him and a partner comfortably. But, Rafe wasn’t all that used to sharing his bed so that morning when he awoke, he registered no surprise that the mattress was empty save him. Then, he remembered.
Thalia.
It wasn’t that he’d forgotten.
Not really.
How could he forget, after all, that he was no longer alone, no longer intrinsically apart from the rest of the world?
But being here, back in his own bed, the habit of waking alone was too deep in the making.
He smiled, satisfaction filling him as he stared up at the ceiling. The knowledge that he was a part of something more warming him, inside and out, as he drifted out of sleep and into true wakefulness.
>
The pool’s reflection through his bedroom window had dappling lights dancing over the moldings above him, and he watched them sleepily. Half-wondering where Thalia was, then not really worrying.
She was in his home. She was safe. Not only because she had a guard now, but he’d seen her fight last night. She needed no one’s protection, even if that protection came from another mate.
The lack of jealousy he felt at such a thought surprised him.
Yesterday, he’d been too stunned by the happenstance of Thalia meeting her second mate so shortly after she’d mated with him. Yet, after having had time to process everything before he fell asleep and now, in the sleepy sunny morning, he realized he wasn’t envious.
If anything he was…
Relieved?
Was that the right word?
He wasn’t good enough for Thalia. He was too low in rank. Too powerless. Even if Bahkir was insisting he’d grow into his powers, Rafe knew he’d never be as strong as Thalia. Not after witnessing her in the challenge ring last night.
How many times had Jason Torres cornered him in the back streets of Austin?
How many times had the bastard beaten on him? Torn him to shreds, brought him to the edge of life, had him clinging to it with both hands as Rafe fought death, holding on to this world as he tried to survive the wounds Torres had inflicted?
That same man had been putty in Rafe’s mate’s hands.
A fact his family would never let him live down, he felt sure.
Ah. His family.
Thalia had said last night she wanted to see them, and circumstances aside, he knew it was unlikely she’d changed her mind about that. They weren’t going to be staying long in Austin, not now that she’d won the challenge and her grandfather had sent a babysitter along to watch over her.
The latter, he knew she was glad about considering who Mikkel was to her, but his presence as a guard was unwanted, and she intended to have it out with her grandfather. As a mate, the man was welcome. As a protective detail? No way, no how.
He stretched, liking the tension released with the move as his muscles warmed up. The sheets, soft and comfortable, curled tighter about him with the action, and he contemplated how much of a nightmare the rest of the day would be.
Triskele (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 2) Page 3