Jenna’s bottom lip quivered. “M-Mama, how could you say such mean things to m—”
“I can say it because I’m your mother. Just like you’d say it to Cory and Louisa if they needed to hear the truth when they were refusing to listen.
“We’re going to the clinic. You’re going to be seen to, and we’re going to save one of my grandchildren. Do you hear me?”
Jenna gulped, but her eyes remained trained on their mother. Slowly, she began to nod. Sara reached for her hand and squeezed. “We can do this. Together.”
Without looking at anyone else, without saying another word, they walked off. Rafe watched as his mother’s arm swept around Jenna’s back and they hobbled off together, seeming more like Bahkir’s age.
The entire family watched them depart. For a second, there was silence then, almost like nothing had just happened, the hubbub of so many people in the same area built up once more.
Thalia half-turned, and Rafe knew she was looking back in astonishment at the fact his kin just went on about their business like that entire scene hadn’t gone down.
Then, he had to wince as the astonishment turned to rage.
“Wait a damn minute,” she snarled, jerking her hand away from his when he tried to reach for her. “You aren’t going to go with her?” She gaped at Rafe’s father, his sisters, as well as the mate who’d just been outed as beating Jenna—enough to kill one of the pups she was carrying. “And what about him?” she demanded, pointing to Liam who had the temerity to scowl at her.
“Mates see to their own in these parts,” Rafe’s father intoned, scooping up potato salad on his dish.
If she hadn’t been awestruck before, and not in a good way either, Rafe knew her fury had just reached new heights.
“Mates see to their own?” she repeated, and her words were so calm, Rafe understood why Mikkel strode towards them. He’d been leaning on one of the tables, hovering over a large pizza. Now? He approached them.
“Calm down, Thalia. You can’t change the world in a day.”
“No?” Thalia’s jaw flexed. “You just try and stop me.”
With that, she strode forward with all the grace of the predator she was. Mikkel made to reach for her but Rafe grabbed his arm. “No. Leave it,” he insisted.
“She’s about to kick your brother-in-law’s ass.” Mikkel cocked a brow at him.
Sarcasm dripped from his words as he grumbled, “I hate Jenna, but you think I’d have a problem with that why?”
Mikkel blinked, his flint blue eyes narrowing. “You have a point.” He folded his arms across his chest, then tilted his head to the side when, with the whole family watching, Thalia stalked Liam.
Rafe’s brother-in-law made a good show of it. He didn’t move even though Rafe sensed his desire to step backward, to run. A desire that only increased when she began to circle him.
“Thalia? What are you doing?” Carlos demanded, his fork lax in his hand as he watched his new daughter-in-law hunt down his favorite son-in-law.
“This piece of shit just murdered one of your grandpups,” she said coolly, but Rafe saw the sparks flaring to life around her body. It reminded him of the plane, and though it unnerved him, there wasn’t as much to fret about. Containing that kind of power on a private jet was one thing. In the middle of his backyard?
Nope, she could do whatever she wanted. Even breaking down her shift in a way that not only beggared belief but would trigger fear in the heart of every Lyken who ever saw it.
Shifts were fast.
Instantaneous.
The magic happened inside the body. Not on the out.
Thalia, once again, was unique.
“These things happen.”
Tension made her shoulders bunch. “These things happen,” she repeated blankly. Then, before anyone even saw her move, Liam was suddenly on his knees. “Oops. It just happened,” she mocked.
His weight having buckled out from under him, Rafe had to wince at the sound of Liam’s kneecaps connecting with the tiled terrace.
“Fuck, that had to hurt,” Mikkel whispered, glancing at Rafe who nodded.
“I won’t be healing him,” he muttered. “Bastard can deal with the pain himself.”
Rafe realized Thalia was right. There were times when a Lyken would only recognize punishment through pain.
Before their eyes, Thalia grabbed a hold of Liam’s long black hair and, curling it about her fist, tugged his head back. She got in his face, there was no other way of describing it. Not stopping until their eyes were less than a few inches apart.
“You think it makes you a big man to beat on your mate?”
“It was an accident!” Liam rasped out.
“Like Jenna’s broken collarbone was an accident last November?” Laura scoffed, folding her arms across her chest—what the fuck? She’d known Liam beat Jenna?
Thalia’s eyes flashed and in unison, Rafe and Mikkel winced. Rafe couldn’t even think about how insane it was that his family knew about Jenna and hadn’t done something about it.
His sisters had always sworn they’d never be treated like their mother had…
“Shit,” Mikkel grumbled.
“Sweet Gods,” Rafe spat, glowering at his sister even though she was focused on the tableau before her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Liam to pay for his sins, it was that Thalia’s already shaky control was being tested.
For someone as volatile as she, that never boded well for anyone in the vicinity.
Hadn’t Laura seen that in the arena? Why throw gas onto the fire?
“What about the fractured arm and the broken wrists?” another of his sisters, Susana, snarled, stepping forward, her own rage flashing across her features.
Rafe stilled. “She never came to me with those injuries,” he said softly, wounded that Jenna’s lack of faith was so inherent.
“She was probably ashamed,” Mikkel tried to comfort, and though it was awkward, Rafe appreciated that the other male tried. “She looked like a piece of work. I highly doubt she’d have liked you knowing that her mate was beating her up.”
Liam cried out in pain, and then Rafe wanted the ground to swallow him up—Louisa ran forward from out of nowhere, her small features taut with anger. “You let my papa go.” She fisted her hands at her side, practically vibrating with the combined welter of terror and fury.
Before she could do much more than let a single tear drop, Susana’s mate, David, scooped her up and hustled her off the terrace and back to the pool.
Rafe turned around, and, thankfully, saw none of the other kids had even noticed what the adults were doing. He had no idea how David would explain away what had just happened, whether it was even possible to…
Thalia’s voice fell to a lethal quiet that Rafe strained to hear. Even as he started forward, wanting her to stop what she was doing, not wanting any of the pups to be a witness to this, she whispered, “I’m going to punish you, and you’re going to bear your punishment forever. And when I do it, you’re not going to let out one whimper of a sound. The pups won’t hear a goddamn thing. Do you hear me?”
When Liam didn’t reply, her hand tightened in his hair and she yanked his head back so hard his face turned purple.
“Do. You. Hear. Me?”
“I hear you,” he said on a whimper, and Rafe found himself amazed that the strongest of the males his sisters had mated was felled by Thalia.
So utterly in her control, under her dominion that he might as well have been a Gamma.
He staggered to a halt, curious despite himself what this punishment would be.
Then, when he saw her place her teeth about his ear lobe, and bite down like she was eating a candy bar that had been left out in the sun, he flinched.
She spat out the small piece of flesh and released her hold on Liam’s hair. He staggered forward, falling flat onto his hands before his elbows gave out and he face-planted into the ground.
When Thalia peered at her new family, she murmured, calm as yo
u like, “Mate beaters won’t be tolerated anymore.”
And like that, with all his sisters, their mates, and his father watching, Liam still writhing on the ground as he clutched his head, she strode over to the buffet table like nothing had happened, picked up a paper napkin, daintily dabbed it around her mouth to collect any stray drops of blood, and like she hadn’t just gnawed off a man’s earlobe, picked up a slice of pizza.
Mikkel shot him a look, and Rafe was astounded to see the amusement in the other male’s eyes. “She knows how to make a grand exit, doesn’t she?” he commented, his eyes on their mate’s taut ass as she strode away from the family gathering and toward the pool where David was still comforting Louisa.
He realized then, she’d picked up two slices, and bending down in front of the still-angry little girl, he heard her say in a sing-song, cheerful tone, “We were only playing. Do you want to play too? After pizza, of course!”
Rafe gulped, turned to look at his kin, and saw they were as shell-shocked as him. Only Mikkel, annoyingly enough, didn’t seem affected. But then, Rafe figured he’d seen a lot worse overseas in his time serving for Uncle Sam.
“What the fuck?” Susana asked, sidestepping the lobe that might as well have glowed bright yellow on the terrace in front of a still-downed Liam, as she approached Rafe. “Is she fucking insane?”
Thalia’s head whipped around at that, and the growl that was torn from her throat had every Lyken in the vicinity freezing in place.
Susana, her face pinched, took a shaky step back. Rafe watched as she held up her hands in surrender and retreated to the buffet table.
He jolted in place at the low whistle that came at his side. Peering down into Laura’s still blanched features, he waited for her to speak. “You sure got yourself a catch there, Raphael.”
Mikkel snorted. “Ain’t we lucky?”
“Either that, or you’ve just leaped from the frying pan into the fire.”
Though her tone was concerned, for him, Rafe knew he’d never been safer with Thalia and Mikkel at his side. But what had just gone down?
Sweet Gods.
Rafe didn’t have a single shitting clue as to how to deal with that particular clusterfuck.
Sisters. Couldn’t the Gods have graced him with brothers? They were far damn easier to handle.
** **
Thalia
Thalia wrinkled her nose at the magazine in front of her, it was either read this crap or pace the length of the plane and wear out the carpet. “This is what Lyken females read?”
Rafe’s lips twitched at her disparaging tone. “Sometimes.”
“Your sister does,” she accused.
“Laura isn’t exactly interested in academic things. She’s a housewife and proud of it.”
Thalia scowled. “I can’t read it.” Not even to hide from the nerves that were threatening to eat her alive—very shortly, she’d be seeing her grandparents. The only family she truly loved, and who loved her in return.
Trouble was, what if in the years that had parted them, they’d grown to hate her like her parents did? What if they resented her? Loathed the very earth she walked on?
They’d seemed psyched about her call, but things might be different in person, and that was what scared the shit out of her.
Feeling nauseated, she gladly focused on Mikkel when he threw an exasperated hand in the air and huffed, “Then don’t. Nobody’s making you read it.”
“I should like this shit. I’ve been out of it for so many years, this is a link. This will help me understand my people, but they’re reading crap.” While the internet hadn’t been rationed, access to the Supra Web, the secure server that was used the world over by paranormals of all creeds and breeds, had been.
The lack had cut her off in a way she hadn’t really understood until she was faced with the reading material before her.
Rafe snorted. “You won’t hear me arguing.” He reached over and pressed a kiss to her jaw. “Don’t worry about it. You’re not guaranteed to like something just because your people do.”
She bit her lip. “No, I guess not.” But she’d been looking for a connection and hadn’t found it. That sucked.
Flipping through the magazine, she winced and cringed at the various titbits of nonsense in the gossip rag.
She really understood that phrase now. It was a rag. Loaded with uninteresting shit that meant nothing, and yet, females the nation over were filling their heads with this nonsense. Didn’t they understand the ramifications of their hobby? By wasting time on this, bastards like Torres were being allowed to get away with their abuse.
If mothers the nation over fought for their offspring, regardless of rank, people would have to listen.
A sound of exasperation escaped her as she flipped through the glossy pages. “Why would I want to know who Jonny Hepple is fucking? I mean, who is Jonny Hepple anyway?”
Mikkel grunted. “Even I know who he is. He’s an actor.”
Rafe cleared his throat. “You should know him. He’s famous in the human world.”
That, Thalia was coming to realize, was how they measured success. If a Lyken was famous in that world, then they were ‘mega’ famous in their society.
“So, what’s he been in?”
“He’s a bit part player, but he plays around. Gets into fights. He’s in the papers a lot,” Mikkel remarked as he read something on his phone.
That seemed standard too. Fame in the human world was a relative concept whereas it wasn’t in the Lyken.
“It just seems pointless. Why wouldn’t Laura want to read things that matter?”
“Because, like I said, she’s content with her place in the world.” Rafe settled his head back against the leather rest. They were back on the TriAlpha’s private jet, and were winging their way to Florida, to the private airfield beside her grandparents’ home after having spent the afternoon with Rafe’s family.
To say that she’d been relieved when Mikkel had told her it was time to leave for the flight had been an understatement. The family BBQ had been… interesting.
Only one sister had stood out: Laura. The rest were huge bitches Thalia hoped she’d get away with seeing only once a year. Carlos had been polite and surprisingly cordial, making Thalia question what his mate had managed to dose Carlos’s food with before she’d had to leave for the clinic.
Valium? No way too much salt would have that effect!
The situation with Liam had been regretful, but he’d think twice about hurting Jenna again. That was for damn sure, Thalia thought with no small amount of satisfaction. She’d do it again in a heartbeat, and the only thing she regretted was the pup walking into the melee.
Still, if it stopped the deadbeat father from hurting Jenna in the future, it was all to the good. She felt certain Louisa had believed her when Thalia had lied and told her she’d been playing a game with her dad.
The bastard was lucky pups had been in the vicinity, otherwise he’d have lost a damn sight more than his earlobe.
Her lips pursed at the memory of Jenna’s anger with Thalia’s mate. That was nothing to what her beast felt. Her She-Wolf wanted to tear the woman a new one while simultaneously mourning and raging the senseless loss of a niece or nephew. Even as the creature experienced the same well of rage, Thalia tried to control it and carried on reading through the trite gossip spread out before her in a glossy magazine titled InHeat—ugh, could they be any more pedestrian?
“I wish I was content like Laura is,” she said on a sigh, feeling frustrated as she swiped through the magazine, the papers whirling with the motion.
Although, what was contentment?
Jenna?
Supposedly happily mated and yet, having lost a pup and having to stay in a clinic to heal because the other pup was now high risk?
Was Carlos content? Careful of his words in case his mate took offense and poisoned him with freakin’ salt?
“Your world’s in flux,” Mikkel commented, attention still on his damn
phone even as he broke into her glum thoughts. “You can’t complain about it until the shit settles.”
“You have such a way with words,” Rafe groused, glowering at him. “And if you’re going to be a part of the conversation, then you really should put your damn phone down.”
Mikkel sent them a sheepish look. “Sorry.”
He complied, with zero reluctance, but not before she saw his screen. Snorting, she asked, “Hay Day?”
“What? It’s cute.”
“It’s a game. About farming.” Thalia giggled, charmed that when she’d thought he’d been reading something super important, or talking to someone she didn’t know, he’d been playing a game. A farm game.
Ha!
“It’s relaxing. I like watching the animals. They’re funny,” he said, tugging at his collar.
“I’d have thought you’d be into shooting games.”
Mikkel rolled his eyes. “My life was a shooting game. Except, if I got shot, I didn’t jump up again because I had five more lives.”
She swallowed. “Were you shot?”
“Part of the job,” he told her dismissively.
“How many times?”
“Once or twice.”
That had her gnawing at her bottom lip.
He saw it, and sighed. “I’m okay, Thalia. Honest. Wouldn’t be here, would I, if I weren’t fighting fit?”
She guessed not. “Where?”
“Chest. Arm. Leg.” He shrugged. “Almost died a few times, but huh, seems I do have extra lives.”
His grin had her wincing. “Let’s try not to get shot in the future though, yeah? I really don’t think I could deal with it.”
“Me neither,” he grumbled. “It hurts.”
“Understatement of the year, I’m sure,” Rafe said wryly. “I’m quite certain the patients I’ve dug bullets out of appreciated the morphine afterward.” The leather creaked as he resettled himself in the seat, his eyes trained on Mikkel, but his question, so off topic it gave her whiplash, was aimed at the pair of them when he asked, “When are you two going to consummate the mate bond?”
Thalia flinched. “What?”
Triskele (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 2) Page 13