“Gods dammit, Theo,” she growled out, but she wasn’t fighting it. Wasn’t fighting this or him.
Sucking down a breath, wondering why the fuck she wasn’t kicking him off her, she felt a sudden languidness slip through her veins. It was powerful and it was potent. And it made her crave a taste of him too.
She reached between them and grabbed his chin. Jerking it upright, she slammed her mouth against his. The instant he thrust his tongue into her mouth, she pulled back, grabbed his bottom lip, and as he’d done, kissed it before biting down.
Hard.
More blood scented in the air.
Her She-Wolf might be gone, and the creature might have robbed her of most of her instincts, but not her senses.
She was still a Lyken in that way.
The breath shuddered from her parted lips as she saw the silvery orbs staring down at her. He was as into this as she was—the lack of green in his eyes told her that more than anything could. And maybe it should have freaked her out. The need for more. The swirling obsession to taste more of him. Dammit, all of him. But it didn’t, because this was right.
So right she felt it deep down in her soul.
She shuddered, her thoughts triggering a physical response, and slipped her mouth along his chin, up his jaw and down to his ear. He shivered as she trailed her tongue along the same path, then she made the shape of a cross.
X marks the spot.
He tensed up, and she felt his cock bob between them, and it had nothing to do with the swirling liquid all around them. And the sudden heat on her stomach was hotter than the stones at her back—the kiss of precum was enough to make her want to tip back her head and howl out her need, but that would mean pulling back.
And that she could not do.
She raked her tongue along the sinewy area of his neck, then, she tested the X spot with her teeth. Liking it, she nipped, and when he tensed, she bit down.
Hard.
He groaned and jerked his hips against her, and when the scent of his blood grew riper in the air, they both moaned.
She pulled back and stared at him. “Why are we doing this?” she asked on a soughing breath.
“Because the Lyken aren’t the only race who like to bite,” he growled out. “Where do you think you learned it from?”
She blinked at that, but before she could ask anything, he struck.
He did as she’d done. Tucked his face in her throat, trailed his tongue along the sinews, made the sign of an ‘X,’ and then, he nipped. She froze, adrenaline collecting and pooling as it longed to surge forward in anticipation of his bite. And then it came.
This was the hardest yet.
The pain slammed through her. The ache made her throat throb and yet, her pussy was so fucking wet, she made the damn pool look dry!
Sweet Gods, she needed. She needed him.
Inside her, on her. Every fucking way she could get.
She reached up to run her fingers through the blood he’d spilled on her throat. It didn’t drip or ooze, it fell. Not in copious amounts, but fast enough to know she could follow through with her intention.
With her fingers coated in her lifeblood, she pressed them to the bite she’d made on his neck.
He shuddered as she rubbed the wound, as she touched it with her blood.
“You’re fucking mine, do you hear me?” The snarl slipped from her, its source stunning the crap out of her because she hadn’t meant to say that.
If anything, she’d thought she’d say, “Give it to me,” or some suitably porn-like demand.
Instead, this was rough and raw.
Almost masculine with its intent.
“Yeah? I am? You didn’t want me.” His top lip curled in a sneer that made her eyes flash with rage.
She tightened her thighs around his hips, preempting any attempt he might make to move away—but he didn’t, and she knew he was exactly where he wanted to be.
The thought flooded her with an immense satisfaction.
Meeting her mates certainly hadn’t been great for any of their egos.
Rafe had denied her, for less than a half-hour but that was thirty minutes too damn many. Mikkel had outright ignored her and avoided the mate bond, and then, she’d done the same to Theo.
The thought had her burrowing into him, remorse flooding her even as she delved between them and grabbed a hold of his cock. They both hissed when the tip of his sex brushed the slickness of hers, and when she felt the skin-warm piercing slide over her too, she wondered why she was only just responding to that now. Was it because she felt so hot, so molten that even the metal, which had reached his body temperature, was cool by comparison?
She shuddered as their piercings touched, and felt something inside her break with the urgency she felt to have him deep in her core.
There was no pissing around now, no more biting or teasing. No more contests or waiting. She notched him to her gate and he took himself home.
She shivered, her back arching against the hot stones as he took her. Claimed her.
He was thick, a lot thicker than her other mates who were long but just right. Theo wasn’t like that. He was so damn wide he spread her tissues apart, but even though she wasn’t used to it, and even though she was still small—she’d only been having sex for just shy of two months, and she’d spent a week of that in some kind of Fae coma—it was perfect.
She whimpered as he carried on, deeper, deeper, not stopping until their pelvises touched.
She clung to him now, her arms wrapped around his shoulders like a spider monkey. Her mouth worked as his thickness opened her up, and she, with zero intention, pressed her teeth into his shoulder and bit down again.
The roar that escaped him at that touch had her eyes widening, but it didn’t make her pull back. She clung to him even as he fucked her, using what had to be glamor to maneuver them to the perfect angle, which shouldn’t have been possible in the water. And then, she opened her eyes as a cool breeze drifted across her face—not for the first time—and saw why.
His wings.
They were moving.
He was fucking her while flying and swimming at the same time.
Talk about multitasking, she thought, releasing a desperate laugh as the move had her back skimming the water, its heat sapping at her strengths as he began to slide in and out of her.
Suddenly desperate to see his face, she pulled back, utterly confident that he wouldn’t let her fall back into the pool. His hands moved to accommodate her new position, and she moaned at the sight of his features which were illuminated as the moon had come out from behind the thick clouds. It spotlighted them both in bright but cool rays that let her see his eyes were pure silver now.
She shivered, because he was so intense, so fucking feral at that moment, that everything in her responded to him. How could she not? She’d spent her life on the precipice of being completely feral, and here he was, embracing it.
She was under no illusion that her variety of feral was different to his, but she celebrated the rupture in his control anyway.
“Do you accept my body, my blood, my seed, my name?”
The words jolted her from the stupor that overcame her as he thrust in and out. She was dangling there, impaled on him, and quite content to just let him do his thing because every time he went as deep as he could? That G-spot Cosmopolitan had mentioned a million times or two? Well, his piercing nudged it.
And that metallic kiss?
It was better than his bite.
It was enough to zone her out, enough to make her forget her name, enough to make her just want to lie there, letting him fuck her, not even doing much more than lying back and thinking of England because simply being was so damn wonderful, for the rest of her life, she’d see stars.
“Huh?” she asked dumbly, well aware he was fucking the brains out of her. Well, the sense, at least.
He repeated the statement, and from the way his nostrils flared, she knew the question was important.
/> Not just a query, but a demand.
A vow seeking an answer.
Her eyes flared wide as she took in the request, and realized what he was saying.
Were these the Fae claiming words?
She blinked and, licking her lips, murmured, “Yes.” There was no prettying it up. It was how it was.
She would take all of him. All he had to give, and she’d give it back in return.
His smile was wicked, sensual, and so fucking hot, she wasn’t sure whether the sight of it made her want to laugh or cry.
His eyes glinted brighter, hotter, and she felt herself tumbling into them.
It was like the day Mikkel had claimed her. She’d joined them at the side of the pool, had stared overlong into Theo’s eyes and had been mesmerized. Earlier, the defense system, as Theo called it hadn’t worked, but now?
It was working.
Oh fuck, was it.
Suddenly, they were no longer in the water. Suddenly, they were soaring through the clouds, and she didn’t even realize it because her eyes were trapped in his and her cunt was impaled on his shaft and that was the only thing that mattered.
As they surged upward into the night sky, into a sky she hadn’t been born under, among a strange expanse of glittery depths that cosseted and blanketed, he took her.
He took her the way only a Fae could.
And that meant they flew.
His wings powered, churning through the air like it was nothing. His strength overwhelmed her to the point that she wanted to cling to him as well as watch him because he made her so damn hot she just wanted to burn, and then wanted him to fall into the fiery depths with her.
He didn’t thrust.
He didn’t have to.
The sheer motion of flying took care of that. The way his wings flapped had his muscles shifting, and the forward momentum of their trajectory, had her core being constantly buffeted by that pierced tip.
She felt sure she’d go mad, and then, she thought she did.
He stopped flying, and he changed the angle, and instead of moving steadily forward, they dove.
And the terror that flooded her system combined with a thrill so deep, she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
It was like being fucked on a rollercoaster, and she wasn’t even sure if that was a bad thing or the best thing in the history of ever.
“Oh Gods!” she cried out when he changed angles again, this time veering up. He fucked her that way before diving once more. Surging up, diving down.
He never let her relax, never let her come. Just barraged, over and over, her G-spot, that pivotal point of her pleasure, with his thick solidness.
This was the worst, and the best, plateau ever, and then a sudden urge overcame her. She reared up, grabbed a hold of his shoulders, no longer content to dangle, to just accept this.
Was it a mistake? Maybe. She wasn’t used to hugging a male who had wing rootings on his back, after all. But her fingers dug into those muscles, and her nails might have accidentally scraped them.
At her touch, they froze in mid-air before they began to drop.
This was different.
This wasn’t a controlled ascent. Before she could scream, he let out a roar that deafened her. His hands came to her hips, and he began to fuck her. As they fucking dropped to their deaths.
She didn’t even have it in her to panic as he growled and thrust her onto his cock again and again, harder and harder until finally, he came. And that was what she’d needed.
She wasn’t even sure why.
It was like…
Well, call her crazy, but some higher power had made it so she couldn’t come until he had.
As though there was a schedule to a Fae claiming, and someone else had made sure she followed it through.
Because the way he’d been attacking her G-spot for the last twenty minutes was criminal. Or, that was to say, it was criminal she hadn’t had four orgasms by now.
Still, the flooding of her cunt with his seed was the direct line to her finding her own pleasure.
And then, before she could even cry out as her senses detonated, she was bombarded again.
Her nose recognized the scent. Unlike healing waters on Earth, there was no scent of eggs or anything faintly sulfurous. It was a clean scent that she discerned. Something that reminded her of pine and salt.
Subconsciously, she prepared for it, but every other part of her was blasted to another stratosphere with the delirium of the orgasm pummeling her.
Until, that is, they speared into the water. Sinking deep, deep. So deep, she couldn’t breathe, until air was lost and her lungs burned.
Then, his mouth came to hers, and he kissed her. His tongue speared into her mouth, his lips nipped at hers as though they weren’t dying from a lack of air. As he plunged into her, his cock still thick inside her, she realized, out of nowhere, she could breathe. She wasn’t dying. Her lungs weren’t actually burning, she just thought they were.
And that was the last thing she remembered before sleep overcame her and she blacked out.
8
Thalia
It was only when they passed through another three atria that Thalia realized how Theo had been containing them to certain parts of the palace.
There was no change for her there. Hadn’t she always been contained, shoved off to certain safe areas? Be it for her or another’s good?
She was growing tired of it though, weary and bored of being hidden away as though she were some pariah.
In this instance, she was well aware it was more to do with her safety than anyone else’s. Theo, she knew after last night, felt he’d brought a ticking time bomb into the palace and had no idea what the ramifications of that would be.
Besides, she was in a remarkably forgiving mood. Last night, she’d made Theo hers, and as a result, was feeling a hell of a lot lighter.
The sword swung at her hip, hanging low and ungainly, it bashed into her thigh with every step. Eying Mikkel who wore his weapon on his back as well as a quiver of arrows he’d yet to learn how to fire, Rafe and Theo were the only ones who looked any semblance of normal.
Of course, Thalia’s normal was starting to skew, because Theo’s wings were out and on full display.
Even as they trudged down another atrium, passing yet another gloriously splendid room that put any Renaissance palace to shame, she felt the weird vibrations that had been buzzing through her veins ever since she’d realized she hadn’t needed to breathe underwater. Ya know, like every other living creature?
Biting her lip and fighting the strange need she had to grasp a hold of one of Theo’s wings and to cling to it like a little girl would cling to her father’s hand in a packed crowd, she was relieved when a grand set of doors appeared before them.
Not unlike at the TriAlpha palace, these doors actually made grand look shoddy. They weren’t forged from wood but…
She tilted her head to the side.
Gold?
No. Fucking. Way.
They were made of gold?
Her mouth dropped open as she took in the etchings on the metal’s surface. Well, she supposed engravings was a better way of phrasing it, ones that were decorated with jewels and other precious metals that created a swirl of images that beggared belief.
“Is that you?” Mikkel asked, sounding a mixture of awed and dazed at the sight of, what could only be, Theo.
In a silver metal.
A full-sized Theo. All six feet and two hundred pounds of him.
What. The. Fuck?
And he wasn’t the only one. The doors were so big there were—and she counted—eighteen other people on them.
“Your family?” she guessed, remembering he said he had sixteen siblings, so with his parents, there’d be nineteen to his family in total.
Lykens had large families, but that large?
Nope.
Even as she recognized Isaura, formed out of what was undoubtedly platinum and rose gold, she pitied the woma
n who had to birth seventeen kids, because sweet Gods, that would put anyone in a bad mood.
Theo’s wings fluttered, drawing her attention to his slightly pink face.
Was he embarrassed?
Her lips curved in a smile at the thought.
“It’s an important door,” was all he grumbled.
She cocked a brow at that, because it was so important there were no guards shielding it?
Saying that, the TriAlpha council doors had no guards. If there’d been protection there, it would have been a display of weakness not only for her fathers, but for the several hundred-strong council of National Pack Alphas.
But Isaura was a Queen. Surely she’d have need of a security detail?
And then, as that thought crossed her mind, she winced.
Why would Isaura need a guard? Did Thalia? Nope. Could Thalia kick ass? Yep. Could Thalia kick the most powerful asses in the United States—AKA her fathers’ behinds? Yep. So why the fuck couldn’t Isaura?
Feeling guilty for thinking less of her mother-in-law because she had a pussy, when that was something they shared and in no way was it a weakness, she asked, “Is your mother’s Court behind it?”
He nodded. “But it’s important for other reasons.”
“Like what?” Rafe chimed in. He was to her left, and though he’d usually have held her hand along the long walk to this portal, he couldn’t—not with the sword in the way. And the sword was so in the way she feared it would lop off his hand.
She knew he was good at healing, great even, and probably was going to shape up being the strongest ever healer known to their kind—he was mated to her for a reason, after all—but still, she highly doubted he could glue his own hand back on after she divested him of it by accident.
“It’s spelled. If anyone with darkness in their hearts passes through it, the magic strikes them dead.”
As one, Thalia, Mikkel, and Rafe staggered to a halt at Theo’s calm explanation.
“What?”
“The fuck?”
“Excuse me?”
The three of them spoke at once, and they all gaped at Theo as they did.
“What kind of darkness?” Thalia asked, totally uneasy by such a vague reply.
Triad (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 3) Page 15