“A child born of three bound souls, her magic deeper than bones and cleansing, purified by a triad born of a triad.
“The light shall imbue her in the shape of the Mother. From her fruitful loins can forgiveness be sought. She shall have the power to bring war, but she is a unit striving for peace. Three bore her, three shall tame her, and three will reign at her side.
“Her trinity of mates will be her guiding light, the final end to counter the bright star of morning’s powers.”
“You can’t be serious,” Isaura retorted, taking a step backwards and away from Theo and his mates.
“I am, Mother. Deadly.” Theo straightened his shoulders—she never failed to make him feel like a child again. “She is born of the TriAlpha. Unique for that alone. She has three mates. And she is the Triskele, has the power of the TriAlpha to seek justice for the National Pack, to fight its enemies and seek out peace. Who else could be the answer to the questions we have no idea how to pose?”
At his words, Isaura began to shake her head. Kane, on the other hand, felt no such reticence. Before them all, the King of the Fae dropped to his knees, bowed his head, and whispered, “Child of the Light, welcome to Heden.”
3
Mikkel
“She didn’t like me.”
Mikkel wrinkled his nose. “You don’t know that.”
“Don’t I?” Thalia cocked a brow at him. “Just because I—” A look overcame her features, one that told him she was thinking of her She-Wolf. She only faltered when it came to thoughts about her bitch.
As he’d been since she’d awoken three days ago, tactile, Mikkel reached for her and dragged her down to his lap. She came with a surprised squeak, but landed with a quiet grace on his knee. It pleased him that she immediately turned into him, not sitting there with rigid discomposure. He added to their closeness by sitting back into the sofa. The change in position altered her angle so she tilted into him.
With her hand against his heart, they settled there for a second, and he allowed her some silence so that she could gather her thoughts.
As she did, he pressed his lips to her temple and inhaled her scent as he wondered where the sad sap that had taken over his body had come from.
Mikkel Hessel was not the kind of dude who hugged and held hands. He didn’t encourage chicks to sit on his knee. He was a jerk, and proud of it. He loved ‘em and left ‘em. Gave them the score right from the first moment he hooked up with someone, and expected them to realize he wouldn’t give them any more than he originally promised—his body. Nothing more, nothing less.
He didn’t snuggle.
He didn’t even kiss all that much.
And he sure as fuck didn’t smell a woman’s hair.
Jesus, this mate bond was making him a fucking pussy, but even as he recognized it, he accepted it. He would never be able to get close enough to Thalia. Ever.
Even when he’d been inside her, it hadn’t been close enough.
He swallowed at the thought as need and the desire to protect her swarmed inside him. A part of him recognized that if he took her now, it would take her mind off things, but equally, she was still healing.
No matter what she said.
The animal that had been a part of her soul since birth had gone wandering in the Cosmos.
At least, that was as much as he’d been able to figure out.
On top of that, they were staying in some weird motherfucking palace where the walls were made up of real trees that were flat like wallpaper and that had birds flying out of them. Overhead, there was an honest-to-God sky with clouds that moved.
Yeah, normal had pretty much gone out the window a long time ago.
Throw in the fact Thalia was mated to a Gamma who wasn’t a Gamma, a human soldier, and a man with wings from a species humans thought were angels, but were in fact a race of supernatural creatures who’d pissed off the Gods—enough to bring sterility to their people… Yeah, things were complicated.
And, the whole Devil thing?
Yeah, that was one of the Fae.
Morningstar was the dude’s name, and apparently, he was rolling with the homies somewhere on Earth.
It was a lot for anyone to process. Shit, he hadn’t processed it. Was just going through the motions, because it was either that or freeze in place. Mikkel wasn’t that kind of guy. When it came down to fighting or flying? He’d fight every time.
“You have an erection.”
The words broke into his thoughts, and he snickered at her surprise. “You expect me not to when you’re on my knee?”
Even when he’d thought she was a pain in his ass waiting to happen, he’d known Thalia was hot. And when he said hot, he meant fucking molten.
She was slender. Oddly lithe with long muscles and an animal grace that would have told him she was Lyken without her uttering a damn word. But at the same time, she had an hourglass shape. Her hip to waist ratio made a perfect nook for his hands to settle in when he held her, and that ass? Fuck, he’d worship it any time.
Then, there was her face. Because, fuck, that face? It beat out Helen of Troy’s.
The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen was, he’d admit, Theo’s mom—which wasn’t at all creepy. Thinking that about your mother-in-law—but Thalia more than matched Isaura.
Isaura truly was spectacular, but there was something in her eyes, something Mikkel didn’t trust.
A sentiment that was reciprocated.
After she’d stalked out of their quarters two days ago, they’d yet to see her again. Kane had stopped by twice to gawk at Thalia, but for the most part, they’d been left alone here. Rafe was currently showering in the bathroom—a room like no other Mikkel had ever seen. And Theo was doing something in an office that connected to this suite.
Unlike teacher’s pet, Rafe, Mikkel didn’t speak Latin so he didn’t have a fucking clue what Theo was talking about as he spoke to the only other Fae he’d met since that awkward showdown with Isaura and Kane.
Theo’s assistant was a female, small, slight, gorgeous in a cold-as-ice way, apparently clever as hell, but freaky as fuck. Her hair moved.
Constantly.
Like in anime moved.
Mikkel wasn’t talking about shit where the locks moved with her movement. Nope. Each individual strand had a mind of its own. It made him think of Medusa, and ever since, he’d not been able to stop seeing serpents on Magda’s head—it didn’t help that Theo had informed him the Gorgons, while not a true representation, had been based on Fae like Magda.
Their hair was a conduit of Aer, Theo had said.
It was creepy.
Apparently, ‘Aer-heads’ weren’t stupid, they were the best brains in the land. Magda was Theo’s second. Mikkel merely assumed that was Wingman’s version of the Assistant Detachment Commander to Mikkel’s Detachment Commander.
He realized Thalia had taken a while to answer his question, then she wiggled. The move just happened to give his cock a really nice rub.
“I wasn’t sure.”
“You weren’t sure about what?” For a second, he could only gawk at her.
Was she being serious?
“That you were attracted to me that way. I just thought… I don’t know, it was the mate bond? But without my She-Wolf, the bond could have been made weaker.”
There was enough concern on her face for Mikkel to realize she wasn’t lying, wasn’t even halfway close to yanking his chain.
He’d known Thalia a very short amount of time. In fact, she’d been unconscious for longer than he’d known her, and yet, vulnerable wasn’t something he’d ever seen her be, and he loathed it.
This woman was not made for this.
She could be soft to his hardness, and he wanted her to bend not break, but this woman was a fucking Zulu. She was fierce and ferocious. She bit off wife-beater’s fucking earlobes, wiped off the blood with a napkin like she’d smeared ketchup on her face then thought nothing of giving out pizza to kids in the next breath. She was
untouchable. It didn’t matter that a bullet had disproven that. To him, she’d always be that motherfucking badass in the arena who’d taken down a Beta, who’d fought for a whole body of people she should loathe, but instead wanted to save.
This woman, his woman, was a fucking She-Wolf. She didn’t need the bitch to be one.
As the fury of his emotions washed through him, he felt her sudden rigidity on his lap and flinched. He reached for her hand when she started to scamper off, and he held her in place with brute force—something he hated doing, but that was imperative.
Just because he was fucking useless at explaining how he felt did not mean she should suffer for it.
“You know when I found out about the shooting?”
She stilled. “No. When?”
“When Theo brought you here. You were already in Heden, had been for two hours before I found out. Your grandfathers came back with the news and I just…” Could he begin to describe the despair he’d felt? “I don’t even want to think about those hours when I knew you could be dying and were lost to me. I thought I was going to go out of my fucking skin. I wanted to break shit, I wanted to destroy everything in sight.” He sucked down a ragged breath.
“Who told you?” she asked quietly, and though he knew the topic was sensitive for her, she snuggled back into him—giving him comfort when she was the one who needed it.
God, he was even fucking this up.
“Louis. He was half-mad with grief himself, but I was waiting for you in the sitting room with Rosa, and he told her more than he told me. Rosa started sobbing and she looked like she was about to pass out or something,” he confessed in a gravelly whisper. “To be honest, I felt the same. You couldn’t die. I’d only just been claimed by you; I mean, how could you be gone? You couldn’t be. But your grandfathers were mourning you like it had already happened, and then they said the one word that killed my hopes.”
She licked her lips and reached up to press her hand to his chest. Beneath her palm, his heart began to pound in remembered terror and horror. “Mercury,” she whispered.
He swallowed. “Mercury,” he confirmed. “I-I thought I was going to die, Thalia. I’ve never felt like that before. If you’d died, you wouldn’t be the first person I’ve lost. I’ve seen some of my men blown up in front of my fucking eyes, and I’ve seen some cling to life only to lose it in one of the clinics. I know what death is, what it takes from you. It’s why I refused to be in a relationship with anyone while I served.
“No way was I putting someone through that. Not when I knew how it felt.”
“You were alone. You needed someone,” she countered.
He shrugged. “I managed. Some can’t. I don’t think badly of them, but I just… I didn’t want to leave a war widow behind.” His tongue felt thick in his throat. “I was comfortable with the idea of my own death. I expected it every time we were sent off on a mission. I embraced it, even. It made me reckless, but when I’m reckless, I’m fucking strong. There’s a reason I lead my team, because I’m like lightning. I don’t care if I live or die. My team, the job, it’s everything. As long as my guys get back, I’m good. I served my country, you know? I died doing something that means something.
“But being comfortable with my own death is different than being comfortable with death. The idea of you passing?” He shook his head. Then, when the memories of just a week past flooded him, he tilted his head back against the comfy rest and closed his eyes. “I’m not good with expressing myself, Thalia. I’m not. You’re going to have to get used to that until I learn differently. But just because I don’t say the words doesn’t mean I don’t want you, don’t need you.”
“You rejected me on the plane when we first met,” she whispered, and he heard the agony in her voice.
“I rejected what you stood for.”
“That’s the same as rejecting me.”
“No. It’s not. You were the war widow in the future. You were someone who’d tie me down, who’d make me uneasy about dying. My acceptance of death would change with a mate in my life.
“Then there’s the fact that you’re the Pack Princess. You’re Louis’s Granddaughter. I didn’t want a spoiled bitch in my life. I certainly didn’t want to deal with one embroiled in a prophecy, and one who had three mates to boot.” He snorted. “Fuck that.”
“What changed?” she asked softly.
“You changed. And I changed.” He opened his eyes, saw she was pleating the folds of the weird toga shit Theo kept dressing her in, and he reached over to cup her chin to make her look at him. “I chose you, Thalia. I chose you with my eyes wide open. That day when you claimed me, I made you mine as much as you made me yours.”
“What changed though, Mikkel? Why that day?”
“Because I was a jerk and I was jealous,” he replied gruffly, understanding exactly what she meant. “I saw you fawning over the Wingman’s feathers and I was…” It was his turn to press his hand to her chest, where he felt the solid thump of her heart. “I’m human, Thalia. Theo’s special, different. Rafe is all kinds of weird. What the fuck am I? A soldier? That’s it. I’m nothing different. I’m not unique. Not like you three.
“I saw you touching his wings and something inside me just snapped. It was like I couldn’t see the wood for the trees until I realized it was my own inadequacies that were holding me back.” He hesitated. “Does that make sense?”
“It makes sense,” she said softly, covering his hand with hers. She turned limpid blue eyes on him. “I want you inside me,” she whispered, making his own gaze flare with need and surprise. “I want you in me until neither of us know where the other ends.”
He gulped. “You know how I feel about that.” He arched his hips. Talking about his feelings had softened his hard on some, but fuck, she was on his lap. Cuddled into him, alive and well, and so fucking beautiful he wanted inside her as badly as she wanted him.
A small smile curved her lips, and the tiny gesture made him want to roar at the sight. This was his woman. Self-assured and aware of her appeal.
She lowered her head and hovered her mouth above his. He let out a growl when she nipped at his bottom lip before she dove deep and sought his tongue. They both groaned at the touch, and for countless seconds, he was content for her to take the lead. She savored him, explored him, tasted and reveled in him. He could feel the urgency in each kiss, the rampant need as she thrust her tongue against his.
Shifting, she slung one leg over his lap—he loved when she straddled him. She pressed her hands to his chest, not to put space between them but so she could feel his heart. Her hips began to rock as they ate at each other’s lips, and he grabbed her waist and pressed up for maximum pressure. The way she ground herself down on his shaft made him want to howl, but instead, he burst into a flurry of motion.
He could wait no longer.
He grabbed her tightly about the waist, then jerked her off him, pushing her down against the sofa cushions with one hand while grabbing one of her ankles with the other. As he came down to lean on her, he levered that ankle up high and spread her thighs so he could settle between them.
When he met softness, a growl filtered from his lips and he pressed his face to her throat. The need to mark her there was an urge he’d never experienced before. He wanted her covered in bruises that were made by his mouth, and he wanted the same markings on him.
He needed it.
Needed the visual representation of what those bruises meant, and he had no fucking clue why.
Some other part of his brain was at work now, and it was a part that had been stagnant, dormant even, since forever.
He sucked down hard, using his teeth to rake down the tender skin he found. Because she was a She-Wolf, she loved it. She went wild underneath him, her hips bucking even as she used her free foot to dig her heel into his ass and push him harder against her.
“Stop teasing me,” she bit off, the rage in her words inspiring him.
A part of him wondered if they’d
ever be soft with one another. Last time they hadn’t, and this time wouldn’t be either. But they had a future to explore this side of their relationship, and though he knew he should be gentle with her after what had happened, neither of them needed that, and Mikkel just fucking needed.
He’d needed this since she’d taken that fucking bullet.
He needed affirmation that she was alive and well, that she was his.
He swallowed down the pain he’d felt, the agony that had plagued him as he’d come to terms with the fact his mate was on another goddamn world, and bit down harder. When she yelped, he grinned and reached up to do as she’d done to him—nipped at her lip.
“What do you want, baby?”
“Your cock,” she gritted out, and he swore he saw her eyes flash. Even if only for a millisecond.
“Where? Your mouth? Against your little clit?” He raked his teeth over the padded swell of her chin.
“In my pussy,” she whispered.
“Soft? You want me to make love to you?”
Her growl made him laugh. “I want you hard and fast and deep.”
“You do, huh? What are you going to give me if I do?”
Confusion flickered, then she whispered, “What do you want?”
With no hesitation, he told her, “Your ass.”
She swallowed. “Now?”
“No. But soon,” he told her, his entire body tightening at the prospect of fucking her there. He arched up, pressing his weight into the forearm he rested beside her head, and with the other hand, he dragged her toga aside. “I knew I liked these weird clothes Theo’s making us wear.” The trousers were weird as fuck, and made from a material that should have been scratchy but were soft like butter against his skin, however they were baggy and comfortable, and allowed for easy access.
Her toga was perfect for fucking. He barely had to tug at the fabric and it all fell away, parting to reveal her very naked self.
Once she was bare, he tugged his own pants down just under the curve of his ass as he freed his cock and not much else. Grabbing a firm hold of it, he pressed it to her slick folds and shut his eyes as he felt the heaven between her thighs.
Triad (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 3) Page 4