“You couldn’t be romantic if you tried,” she blurted on a gasp, then howled out another laugh when he began tickling her.
For himself, Theo watched on in bemusement as his, up until now, staid mate began to gulp down air as Mikkel attacked her.
Shooting Rafe a look, amused to note he didn’t seem surprised by Thalia’s response to this assault on her nerve endings, Theo rolled upward to avoid the flailing arms and knees that kicked out at random. When the tickling ended in a long kiss, Theo watched as Mikkel reduced their mate to breathy sighs that were in complete contrast to the giggles of moments before.
She wouldn’t have awoken yesterday if she wasn’t getting stronger, but it relieved him that she was so robust physically. Mentally? He wasn’t so sure.
She’d taken his news well. Better than he’d hoped for. It indicated that his female was used to rolling with some particularly nasty punches which, in turn, made him want to gather her parents up and drop them into the Grand Canyon.
That she could cope with this news, with such a grievous and heinous loss, without barely any interaction or healing on his or Rafe’s part, spoke of an inner strength that shouldn’t have stunned him but did.
His mate was too young to be so fierce, but she was, and while the necessity of such a shell saddened him, at this moment, he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
With his knees up, he rested his forearms on them and watched the kiss with enjoyment. The Fae were a voyeuristic lot, and Lykens were particularly at ease with their sensuality too. It came as no surprise to see Rafe was sporting wood.
Curious on where Mikkel intended to take this, Theo just sat back. Until he heard steps outside his room and winced when the chimes started singing.
Thalia jerked away from Mikkel and sat upright, peering around as the chimes danced and dove on the wind, encouraging the birds to start chattering as they hopped around the trees on the walls. It seemed that this was the first time she noticed them because she let out a squeak. “There are birds in here!”
“Enchanted ones,” he dismissed, amused by her gaping mouth as he rolled off the bed to the side. With a click of his fingers, the four poster bed curtains swung around to cover the interesting tableau on the mattress. Hiding his mates from his mother’s eyes was imperative; the last thing they needed was to draw her attention.
Though he could have opened the door with another click of his fingers, he headed to the opening that was so well hidden among the trees, he had to use his gifts to find it. The aperture had a habit of moving—rooms that were enchanted to this degree, and by a Fae as powerful as his mother, tended to take on a life of their own. Unfortunately, that ‘life’ was usually mischievous.
Opening it up, he was surprised to see not only his mother but his father too. Taken aback, he just gaped at them for a handful of seconds until the petulant look on Isaura’s face had him inwardly wincing, although Kane seemed jovial.
“Is it true?”
He blinked. “Is what true?” he asked cautiously.
“That you’ve brought a female back to these chambers, of course?” she demanded on a huff.
It didn’t surprise him when she burst past him into the room. He’d set the chimes specifically to warn him of her presence because Isaura made ebullient seem timid. She didn’t understand the concept of privacy, and saw no shame in some of the more sordid acts that mankind considered to be the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Theo, who held very few limits, was considered conservative in comparison to his mother. Gods, in comparison to most of his people.
Thalia, Rafe, and Mikkel’s eyes were definitely about to be opened.
Rubbing his nose, he watched as she prowled around the bed. She clicked her fingers, but his own desire held—the curtains remained closed.
“My bed partners are my own business, Mother,” he told her blandly, before Kane grabbed him and hugged him tightly.
“It’s good to see you, son. It’s been too long.”
Theo winced. It had been close to two centuries on Earth’s timeline since he’d last come here. And though time wasn’t relative here, and it was fluid and changeable, where his parents were concerned, it wasn’t.
They were too powerful, too all-seeing for two hundred Earth years to disappear in the blink of an eye. “Sorry, father. Time slips away over there.”
There was a twinkle in Kane’s eye. “Aye, I well remember.” He rubbed his hands together. “What fun there is to be had though.”
Isaura ceased her prowling to huff. “You had more of it than was good for you.”
Theo winced—not this again.
He cleared his throat hoping to change the subject. “I was going to seek you out at Court before the week was out. You had no need to fear I was being rude.”
Isaura stared at him, her head tilting to the side as she considered his answer—he hated that she could read him easier than a librarian could sort books into the Dewey Decimal System. “There is a woman here,” she murmured, her tone strident, refusing to harbor any doubts.
“I don’t know where you learned that…”
“The birds, son,” Kane told him, tone commiserative. “You know they answer to her.”
Theo growled at his own incompetence as well as his mother’s inability to keep her nose out of his affairs. “Are you spying on me?”
Isaura’s nose wrinkled. “Do you think I wish to know the sordid things my sons and daughters get up to in the privacy of their quarters? No! Of course not. But I still need to make sure you’re all safe and well.”
“And you do so by spying on us,” Theo retorted on a deeper growl, stacking his hands on his hips as he glowered at her. “Mother, we’ve talked about this.” And he hated that he still sounded as much of an adolescent as he had when this conversation had first taken place twelve millennia ago.
Privacy and his mother were two seemingly incompatible subjects.
Isaura’s beauty was as magnificent as ever. The years hadn’t changed her for she still glowed with it. Was incandescent with it. Her silvery blonde hair sparkled like a cold fire strewn with diamonds, and her skin was the palest cream, smooth regardless of her age. She had eyes brighter than emeralds, and a nose, mouth, and brow she’d passed onto him.
How often had he been told he was as beautiful as his parent? Theo couldn’t count.
It was easy to forget how deadly she was, how lethal. How could something so exquisite turn as swiftly as Isaura could?
The last time… well, there was a reason he hadn’t been home for two hundred years.
“Who is she, son?” Isaura half-purred, trying to charm answers from him. “Is it wrong that I wish to know?”
“Yes,” Kane and Theo said simultaneously.
Kane shot his mate a cheeky smile that had even the harpy that was the Queen of the Fae melting. Was it any wonder thousands of human legends had been born from this male, Theo wondered drily?
“Dearling, a man needs his privacy.”
“From his mama?” Isaura asked her mate with a pout that had Kane’s eyes drifting to half-mast—the two were incorrigible. Theo often thanked the Gods his very ‘active’ parents had only been blessed with seventeen children. “He never brings females here. Therefore this one must be special.”
Theo winced. He’d learned that Thalia had been cursed with visions of her mates with other people, and that she’d seen him with Brian—his beloved former partner. It was one of the reasons she’d been reticent with him when they’d first met—she’d feared he and Brian were still a couple.
The last thing he needed was his mother affirming that he’d always had a penchant for men.
Be that true or not.
Rubbing the bridge of his nose again, he murmured, “Must we have this conversation when the female in question is obviously behind those curtains?”
Kane snorted. “She’ll not leave until she meets her, son. You know she’s like a dog with a bone.”
“I’ll for
get that this once, Kane,” Isaura grumbled. “No female appreciates being likened to a canid.” She sniffed her disdain of that particular animal.
“It’s okay, Theo. If you can cover me though, I’d appreciate it.” The voice was small, not because it wasn’t strident but because he’d made the curtains become a shield from his mother’s interference.
Wincing, he called out, “Thalia, we can do this another time when you’re more prepared for it.”
Isaura sniffed once more. “Prepared for what? Honestly, you’d think I was an ogre or something the way you carry on, Theodore!”
He cut his mother a look, which had her narrowing her eyes in an irritated squint. Before she could comment, he clicked his fingers. Calling on the elements, he cleansed and clothed the three on the bed.
On Earth, such acts were fairly difficult now. As humans grew more inane and stupid, they veered from natural fabrics and fibers to man-made ones. The former, he and all Fae could manipulate. The latter were impossible to bend to their will.
Here, fabrics were made from plants.
The silkiest came from the softest of petals, and while he’d dressed Rafe and Mikkel in standard garb this week—soft hemp trews and no shirt—he upgraded the material to a linen that matched Kane’s in quality. Because his mother was Queen and did demand some degree of respect, even in close quarters, he topped it with a bright cerulean shirt that was cut like an Indian Kurta.
Long, it hung to their calves in a loose fit that covered their arms too. The neckline was cut with a deep slit like that of a kaftan. But because they were male, the only decoration was the bright color—that of Theo’s house.
Thalia, on the other hand, he dressed with all the elegance his rank insisted upon.
The best clothes, from the finest lilies, in the clearest shade of aquamarine he could make, swathed her from head to toe.
With the gust of his breath, he released Wind’s hold on the curtains and tugged the drapes free. When he saw her, she looked pink and flushed, as did Rafe and Mikkel. His lips quirked as he realized he’d been a bit rough and ready with Water, Wind, and Air as he’d cleaned them up and dried them off.
Still, Thalia looked perfect.
Her blonde hair wasn’t golden like his or Isaura’s, but a shade of white that was enhanced by the aquamarine of her garment. Though she wasn’t overly endowed in the chest department, the toga squeezed her breasts together before curling around her waist and thighs. Togas were Fae dress, but they were unlike the togas of human variety.
Instead of gravity, the elements kept Fae togas around the body, which meant they were skin-tight, and were often looped into wild creations. He’d kept Thalia’s simple. At heart, she wasn’t a dressy person. He’d seen her wearing Rafe’s shirts more than any other items of clothing, and he highly doubted she didn’t have access to a delightful wardrobe of her own. Rosa, her grandmother, was not the sort of woman who wouldn’t outfit her granddaughter’s closet on the child’s behalf.
That woman was Italian to her bones, and probably slept in Dior pajamas and dried off in Versace towels.
Thalia couldn’t be more different—a fact Theo was innately thankful for.
After the great reveal, silence drifted among the room’s occupants. Isaura and Kane weren’t easily shocked but Theo could sense they were perplexed at the presence of a male Lyken, a human male, and then a female… with no scent.
The She-Wolf’s absence meant Thalia presented as nothing. Not even human. Which made her a mystery. Which made her enticing.
He sighed glumly as he saw Isaura’s eyes spark with curiosity at the puzzle his mate represented.
“Well, this is certainly an unusual tableau. Especially for my son.” Isaura tilted her head to the side, glee written into every line of her face—not that there were many. “Not that I’m surprised to see you boys, but the girl… Yes. She does come as a surprise.”
Thalia’s mouth set at that. “The girl has a name.”
“Even better, the girl has a voice,” Kane mocked, but it wasn’t cruel. And the Fae certainly knew how to be cruel.
Theo stepped toward the bed and held out his hand for Thalia. Rafe shuffled over the side of the bed at the same time as Mikkel did, freeing Thalia from the center of the mattress. She reached for his fingers and squeezed them—he wasn’t sure of the message she was trying to impart, but there was no glare in her eyes as she looked at him, merely hesitance and uncertainty.
Not wanting that, needing her to be at ease so shortly after awakening from the deep sleep she’d been in for the past six days, he raised her fingers to his lips and kissed the back of her knuckles.
She’d been quiet since he’d arrived in her life. Rafe and Mikkel had informed him of that, and Theo didn’t like it at all. He’d seen an ebullience that matched his mother’s that day in the arena when she’d challenged and killed Jason Torres, the Summerford Pack Beta, and he hadn’t seen it since.
The last thing she needed was to be cowed in the presence of his family.
She was a member of the Royal Fae line now. People cowed before her, not vice versa.
Their eyes caught and held. Her light blue orbs darkened into deep pools that enticed every single spark of elemental power in his veins. He fought back the urge to cocoon the four of them from his parents’ sight, but knowing this would be better to get over with now, he traced a circle on the back of her hand with his tongue.
She shivered, eyes flaring wide with awareness, as he turned from her and tugged her along with him.
Isaura, though he resented it, had actually been patient by allowing him to be in this realm for a week without intruding once. He had to repay that by doing the respectful thing and presenting her with his heart-bonded female.
“Mother, I’m proud to introduce you to Thalia Lyndhoven,” he stated quietly, his tone modulated.
Apparently not enough if the twittering of the birds was anything to go by.
She squinted at them—even though her eyesight was beyond perfect. “Thalia Lyndhoven? The triplets’ girl?”
Only here could some of the most powerful Lykens in the world be spoken of with such inherent lack of finesse.
Choosing to rub the back of his neck lest he throttle his mother, Theo remained silent. Thalia managed to soothe him by murmuring, “Yes, the triplets’ girl.” She sounded, Gods love her, amused.
Isaura stalked forward and, on the cusp of circling the pair of them, he snapped out a hand and reached for hers. “Mother,” he said, his tone loaded with warning.
Kane cleared his throat. “Isaura, behave.”
The Queen pursed her lips. “I just wish to see who this girl is.”
“I’m the Triskele of the North American Pack.”
“But I discern no scent from you.” Isaura’s confusion wasn’t intended to maim, but it had that effect anyway.
“Thalia was injured on pack soil. I brought her here to heal.”
“She is healed. I sense no injuries on her.”
Rapidly losing his patience with his mother’s lack of diplomacy, he blew out a breath. “She was hit with a mercury bullet. I got to her in the nick of time.”
“The She-Wolf is disiungere?” Isaura demanded, her mouth falling open when he nodded grimly at her.
Thalia’s fingers tightened about his own. “What does that mean?” she asked quietly.
“Disjointed,” Rafe inserted before Theo could explain, and he slipped beside Thalia, his other hand coming to reach for hers.
At times, there was a distinctly paternal edge to the way Rafe protected Thalia. But from the way he looked at her, that wasn’t how he thought of their mate. Theo had seen many unusual connections throughout the years and had to wonder how this one would pan out.
His lips quirked at the prospect of Thalia being spanked in the future by her overprotective and dominant Wolf—because he didn’t give a flying fuck about what any of the pack thought. No way, no how, was Raphael Santiago a Gamma.
“How do y
ou know what that means?” she demanded, a frown puckering her brow as she stared at him.
“It’s Latin. I learned it for med school.”
“Talk about an overachiever,” Mikkel grumbled as he nudged Rafe in the side.
“I had a long time to wait before I could attend college,” Rafe admitted with a dry smile. “It was useful to learn the whole language.”
Thalia seemed to relax at this exchange. Theo wasn’t certain why, but he was relieved she calmed. His mother wasn’t known for having a soothing personality, so that she could find any sense of ease at all in her presence pleased him greatly.
“The mercury spread to the bone,” he told his parents softly. “I had no choice.”
As usual, his mother showed little sympathy for another’s plight. Isaura frowned and demanded, “You brought her here to heal? Why?”
“She is my heart-bonded,” he replied, not willing to tell her more.
Isaura’s head tilted to the side. “I do not scent this.”
“We are not claimed.” It was his turn to purse his lips. “She was injured before we could ascend to the next step.”
“But who are these males? They scent of sex but you do not,” Isaura questioned, but Kane stepped closer and his hand reached for hers. Theo’s eyes went to their bound hands, and he saw the tension in his father’s fingers as he squeezed Isaura’s—enough for them to bleed white. “Kane, you’re hurting me!”
Her cry had little effect. Not only because it would take a lot more than a finger-squeeze to hurt Isaura, but because Kane wasn’t hearing anything.
From the look on his face—wide eyes, mouth agape, nostrils flared—he’d managed to recognize the uniqueness of the situation.
“She is the child?” he asked hoarsely when Isaura tried to shrug off his hand for the third time and still failed.
“Aye, she is the child,” Theo said softly
“Which child?” Isaura commanded, her tone haughty.
Kane answered in Theo’s stead, but his voice was hoarse as he recounted the prophecy that all Fae were taught from birth:
“And there shall come a day, when a child of light shall swathe through the darkness. She shall bathe in the blood of her enemies as she fights for those who are weaker than her. But she is pure, good. All that is decent.
Triad (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 3) Page 3