Triumph Read online

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  Triumph

  TriAlpha Chronicles Book Four

  Serena Akeroyd

  Contents

  The Forge

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  To Be Continued

  The Forge

  As Vulcun peered into his realm below, he watched the humans scurry and the Lykens hide among them.

  It wasn’t right.

  Nothing about this situation was right.

  Here he was, in this miserable place, buried in the depths of a Stygian abyss, while his old foes lay amongst the stars, forever peaceful while he raged inside.

  They wanted him dead.

  They’d always feared him.

  It was why he’d taken measures to protect himself, had found ways to ensure they couldn’t get to him, and yet, time was passing, and he felt them at his back. Like vultures waiting to feast on his bones the minute he showed weakness, the second he gave them an opportunity.

  The thought enraged him, and there was only one salve to the horrendous situation he’d endured for tens of millennia.

  Pandora’s box was about to be opened.

  And no one, not even Terra, Caelus, Aer, or Mare knew it.

  1

  Thalia

  The scream that fell from Thalia Lyndhoven’s lips was one of agony.

  She could feel something tearing through her back. Ripping through sinew, muscle. Slicing her spine in half, sending shockwaves of pain throughout her nerve endings.

  Her She-Wolf? The creature, lost to her after being shot with mercury-laced bullets, was she trying to break free at long last?

  Even as joy flooded her at the prospect, it was too late. What could her She-Wolf do when she was falling thousands of feet to her death?

  And then, as the tears pricked her eyes from both fear and the wind buffeting her, she felt them.

  The big, heavy weight. The structure that had always astonished her when she looked upon the Fae. The skeletal system that she’d studied at every opportunity she had.

  Wings.

  She had fucking wings.

  She had no idea how to use them, or where they’d come from. No idea whatsoever. But she didn’t need the answers. Didn’t need to know.

  The agony was still there. Her shoulders, neck, and back screaming with the torment of these things having forced their way to the surface, but she was no longer free falling. In her book, that was considered an undeniable win.

  They began to flap. Whether of their own volition or instinct, she didn’t know. Caught in the thermals, they rode the wind.

  As bewilderment flooded her, Thalia opened her eyes and saw how close she’d been to the ground. The drag on her newly formed muscles was intense, and her shoulders released a tormented screech as the momentum of her downward trajectory staggered to a halt.

  This must be what skydiving felt like. Those agonizing moments as the jumper jerked skyward once more when the parachute was drawn. They surged up with a jolt powerful enough to cause whiplash, before petering out into a steady, calm descent.

  She thanked the Gods for the calm, and prayed she wasn’t about to head face-first into yet another storm.

  THALIA!

  Her name was a scream, and Gods, who could blame him? His terror plagued her mind, splintering it with his distress.

  “Rafe! I’m okay. I’m okay!” she shouted, then she remembered.

  Rafe wasn’t here. He was in her head, screaming down the line that was theirs and theirs alone—a telepathic connection that neither had grown used to.

  Baby? I’m fine. I’m fine, she said, stuttering the words even as she knew she wasn’t fine.

  She was at the bottom of a canyon.

  A fucking canyon.

  And she was getting lower, which meant she’d have to land soon.

  I need you to ask Theo something quickly. Please, don’t question. Just do as I say.

  What? Yes. Ask! His panic bled down the channel, and though she wanted to wince at it, she didn’t have the time. She was less than thirty seconds away from crash landing into a very bumpy, very dusty, rocky-as-fuck plateau.

  Great. Just fucking great, she thought. She’d just been spared the drop, only to end up as mulch in the blender below. One wrong move and she’d be a Thalia smoothie.

  Yum.

  Rolling her eyes at her grim thoughts, then grateful she still had a sense of fucking humor after this shitshow, she tried to be calm for Rafe’s sake as she asked, How does he land when he’s flying?

  She felt Rafe’s bewilderment, but, Gods love him, he didn’t question her, didn’t waste time asking her what the fuck she was talking about. Within seconds, he was explaining, Theo says he tucks his wings and dives down.

  Too close to the ground for that, she replied, heart stuttering at the ever approaching terrain.

  Okay, he says he beats his wings in the opposite direction of the way he’s flying to decelerate swiftly.

  She peered up at the huge limbs that had appeared on her back. They were smaller than Theo’s; substantially smaller. Seeming even smaller than Isaura’s, her mother-in-law’s wings. Why? She didn’t know. Where they’d come from? She didn’t know that either.

  But, as she didn’t really know which way to beat her wings to encourage flight, she tried to let instinct guide her as she beat them in the opposite direction.

  It was hard, because thus far, they’d been acting mostly as a parachute. Staggering the momentum that had her dropping to the ground like a heavy bag of potatoes. Actually beating them in any direction was harder than she could have imagined. When her descent seemed to speed up, she realized it was the wrong way, and switching direction had her screaming out as she tried to force the massive limbs and the unused muscles into compliance.

  They did. She managed to flap them the correct way, and in the nick of time.

  Once more, she was jerked upwards. She didn’t know why, could only assume that drag was involved, but her descent did slow down considerably.

  Not enough to make her fear a splat landing any less, but enough to know that when she connected with the rocky ground before her, she might only break her leg.

  Not her neck.

  Things were looking up—and what that said about her fucking day, Thalia didn’t even want to contemplate.

  What’s going
on? Rafe demanded, and she realized he’d fallen silent.

  To allow her to focus?

  Gods love that man. But hell, they couldn’t love him anymore than she did.

  Her heart felt huge as she took into consideration exactly how much that was, and she knew, point blank, that the minute she saw him again, she was going to climb him like a tree.

  Fuck that, she was climbing all three of her men. They were about to be suffocated with her damn love, and if Mikkel, the shit, bitched or whined, she’d punch him in the gut before kissing his lips off.

  I’m trying to land, she managed to get out, trying to distract herself by focusing on Mikkel—her sourpuss of a mate—and kissing him until he shut the hell up.

  #lifegoals

  He didn’t reply, then he murmured, Theo says if you’re descending at a fast pace, and beating your wings isn’t working, before you’re about to connect with the ground, surge upwards, like you’re going to fly again.

  She thought about that, thought about how that made sense, and tried to force the wings with her will.

  Gods, Theo made this look easy. Whenever they’d gone flying in the past, he’d taken off from inert positions. He’d even managed to take off from within a pool of water of all places!

  Was that disregarding the laws of physics, or relying wholeheartedly on the glamor his race used? Thalia asked herself, hoping that it was a mixture of both because the only glamor she had came with a price tag and a visit to the salon.

  As her wings began to obey, and she flew upwards, she felt the change of pace immediately. The drag on the muscles seemed to cease, and she could breathe in relief—only then did she realize how hard it had been to breathe normally.

  She gulped, her limbs quivering now, as she managed to stutter her movements, hitting the ground with a force that would probably fell a human, but wasn’t enough to do more than make her feet, ankles, knees, and hips ache from the contact.

  The ground was sandy, dusty, and she skidded forward a few paces as momentum drew her forward, but again, the wings acted for her—dragging her to a halt without warning. She seemed to hover in the air for a few, countless moments before she tumbled to her knees.

  She didn’t even feel the bang as her joints connected with the impacted ground. She just pressed her hands to the sandy terrain and leaned over to catch her breath.

  The sun was a boiling, raging mass that powered down on her, making her scalp prickle with the heat, and her body blush with its intensity.

  On it, Rafe murmured and, once again, he used their link to send healing waves to her battered self. As his powers tingled through her nerve endings, she realized then that his heat was hotter than the sun’s rays.

  How that was possible, she wasn’t sure. After all, she’d burst into flames if that was the case. But the heat that welled inside her made sweat pop out from each pore until she felt like one big drop of perspiration.

  A gasp fell from her lips as the heat coalesced in her belly. The temperature then dropped with a suddenness that sent an ache powering through her.

  What the fuck? Rafe’s bewilderment had her gulping down air.

  What is it?

  The baby… I can feel her, but she’s pushing my powers away.

  Before she could even question all the craziness in that sentence—like the fact that the Devil himself had been the one to tell her she was with child—the heat surged once more and, with double the original intensity, rammed itself through her system.

  Where before it had meandered throughout her form, healing as it found aches and pains, now it slammed into her with a force that saw her careening upwards.

  She was jerked up from her position on her hands and knees. The mass of energy aimed her way, had her shuddering in place as she hovered on the boniest part of her knees, her body buffeted by unknown forces, her arms flung wide, her head tipped back as the energy slalomed into her.

  On the bright side, she wasn’t hurting anymore.

  With a huge wave of power, that saw the heat caress her from top to toe, it stuttered and winked out like the flame of a candle in buffeting winds.

  Caelus, Rafe cursed on a whisper.

  What was that? Thalia demanded, her voice as much of a shriek as it could be when she was vocalizing mentally.

  It was her. She took control of my powers, he said, and he sounded as winded as she felt.

  She did? Thalia squeaked.

  Yeah. I don’t know how, but she did. He fell quiet, and she wondered if he was imparting that particular fact to her other mates. Then, he murmured, She didn’t hurt you?

  No. Just surprised me. Your power was already strong, but she seemed to turbocharge it.

  Yeah, she did, didn’t she?

  There was a note in his voice that she couldn’t discern and, truth be told, she didn’t have any desire to figure it out at the moment.

  She was no longer falling to a death of her own choosing, no longer aching or injured. But that didn’t mean she was no longer in danger.

  She’d jumped off that cliff for a reason.

  When the Devil, the actual motherfucking Devil, wanted your baby? You took hard choices and made them your bitch.

  She’d leaped off that cliff to escape the Devil’s—Morningstar was his actual name—minions. They’d been intent on hiding her away, storing her for ‘future use’ so that she could birth her baby and then they could hand it over to Morningstar who was under the whacked impression that her daughter, the one who couldn’t be more than three months in utero, was his.

  And in a world where fated mates existed, Thalia didn’t even want to know what that meant.

  Didn’t want to know what that would mean for her size-of-a-peapod daughter.

  She peered around her, then jerked in surprise when she saw the wings behind her. Yeah, there was no way she was ever going to get used to that.

  Gulping as she took in the mammoth things, she curled her shoulder forward to get a better look.

  They’re white and gold, Rafe whispered in her mind, and she jolted again, startled once more at what he could see via their link.

  The trouble was, she could only deal with so much madness in an hour, and dealing with his talents on that score was a problem for another time.

  Yeah, she murmured, taking in the glorious things. They were half the size of Theo’s, and that surprised her because from the Fae females she’d seen, they weren’t that small. Theo’s wings had a ten, maybe twelve, feet wing span. Magda, the bitch who’d betrayed Thalia to Morningstar, had a wing span of maybe eight or nine.

  But Thalia’s?

  They were smaller.

  Six feet max.

  They were, like Magda’s, pure white, but unlike Magda’s, they had gold striations streaking each feather.

  Once upon a time, Theo had told her that Fae females’ wings took on their mate’s characteristics. Theo’s coloring was that of an eagle. Black and brown, speckled here and there.

  Not gold.

  She closed her eyes as the ramifications of that hit home.

  Rafe? she asked quietly, trying to contain the dread that was starting to form in the pit of her stomach.

  Yeah?

  Ask Theo if he knows what color Morningstar’s wings were.

  There was a brief silence, then he murmured, They were gold. Why?

  Pressing her hand to her mouth, totally uncaring that she transferred dust, sand, and grime to her lips, she whispered, He wasn’t lying.

  Who wasn’t?

  Morningstar said our daughter was his fated.

  So?

  Don’t you see? They’re her wings. She gave me her wings. She saved us, Rafe. She saved us.

  Thalia, when I touched her, I saw how small the fetus is, he informed her quietly. Gently—Gods, that made her want to smack him. She didn’t need gentle. There’s no way she has the power to…

  When he broke off, she inserted gruffly, What, Rafe? Take over your powers? Turbocharge them? How about give her wings to her mo
ther to save us both, hmm? She dipped her other shoulder, stared at the other wing and the gold that stained the feathers that were otherwise so white they matched Thalia’s hair.

  She reached for one, touched it, felt the silk of it, then murmured, He said that she was his fated. And these wings are proof of that.

  You don’t know that.

  Don’t I? she inserted grimly. If one of the characteristics of becoming Theo’s fated was that I’d develop wings, I think they’d have appeared before now. He claimed me weeks ago.

  He went quiet again, and she took that to mean he was conferring with Theo and Mikkel. Because she doubted he’d be able to focus on that discussion with her talking to him too, and regardless of her situation, she wanted answers, Thalia stayed silent, giving them a chance to confer.

  As such, she peered around her, trying to figure out where the fuck she was.

  Ahead of her was an endless desert.

  It really didn’t help her out any. That van… she thought back to what her captors had transported her in. She’d had to fight to get out of the back where they’d dumped her, and when she had, she hadn’t really been focused on the transport that was being used to kidnap her. But, now that she thought about it, when she’d turned around to see how close they were behind her, she’d noticed the side of the road they were driving on was the right.

  But shit, most of the damn world drove on the right as far as she was aware.

  Nowhere in Europe had a desert like this. At least, nothing from her geography classes came to the forefront of her mind. But then, geography always had been her least favorite subject.

  Mexico had similar terrain, didn’t it? And the Middle East?

  Thalia gnawed at her bottom lip as she pondered that, then she murmured, I have no idea where I am. Rafe seemed to have some strange ability to view the world through her eyes, did he recognize the area?

  Almost on cue, he confirmed, There are no distinguishing markers to help us figure out where you are exactly. Theo said that this situation with your wings is something he’s never heard of before, but you have them, so start using them. You don’t know how easy it is to get to your location, and if the Dark Fae you were running from are still searching for you, you need to put as much distance between them and you as quickly as you can.

 
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