Triumph Read online

  I know that without you telling me, she snapped, hating that she was taking her agitation out on Rafe when Theo was the reason for her annoyance.

  Did they think she was a moron or something? Gods, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out!

  Mikkel said you’d appreciate that. His tone was so rueful that her lips curved into a slight smile despite her irritation.

  Mikkel knows me pretty well, was all she said as she spun around in a circle. How do I take off with these things?

  Silence, then, Theo says until he can touch you and use glamor on you, you’d be best taking off from a run. And, much as I’m loathe to make the suggestion, if there’s another precipice, you could use that to lift off.

  She thought about that then winced. That had been hell. Literal hell. And she’d visited that place hours ago. She knew what Morningstar’s abode was really like. A cold, dank, cobwebby place with a guy whose ego was as large as the sun—as were his pathological mommy and daddy issues.

  For as far as the eye could see, it seemed to be flat terrain. Nothing more, nothing less. It would have been easier to leap off another cliff, that was true, but she couldn’t even if there were any cliffs to be had.

  Theo says to flap your wings, Rafe instructed. Start running and flap your wings. If you’re lucky, you’ll feel the touch of the wind and will be able to take off that way.

  Knowing that she had to give this a shot, she bitched, Doesn’t he have some kind of Fated Mate GPS to track me down?

  We’re working on it.

  Rafe’s statement had her mouth gaping wide open. Excuse me? He’s tracking me? It would be easier to be outraged later on when she wasn’t up shit creek with two broken paddles and some wings slowing things down.

  He says that’s why he wants you to fly too.

  She frowned. “What?” The word burst from her lips.

  He can’t track you. He can track the baby.

  How?

  Thalia, now’s not really the time—

  Rafe! How? she growled.

  He can sense her heartbeat. I don’t know how. That’s all he told me.

  The babe’s heartbeat was their GPS signal.

  Thalia blew out a stunned breath.

  It was still hard to imagine that she was about to become a mother. Even so, she peered down at her flat stomach, trying to envision the life within. A life so tiny, so unformed, but one that had somehow managed to take over her father’s healing of her mother, after using whatever kind of fuckery to donate her wings to save the pair of them.

  What kind of child could do that?

  It was like knowing you were carrying Damien from the Omen.

  Well, on the bright side, the child couldn’t be Devil spawn. Thalia had just met the Devil, and apparently, he wanted her for his woman. Throw in the fact the Fates would have steered them all down this path for a reason, Thalia had to pray that her child was inherently good, not evil because, quite frankly, that would just fucking suck.

  Patting her stomach, trying to reassure both herself and the kid, she murmured, Okay. I’m going to try.

  With no time to waste, she had to decide which way was the best direction to fly. With no markers to indicate even that, she decided to let the Fates hold sway once more. Though it seemed like they were just throwing shit at the wall and hoping some would stick, she had to figure that somebody, somewhere knew what the fuck they were doing.

  Sucking down a sharp breath, she began to jog. Her bare feet—she’d lost the leather slippers she wore in Heden—connected with the solidly packed ground with dull, jarring thuds she felt in her knees and ankles. The ache was immense, and the bones of her feet protested as she sped up a notch, going from a jog into a sprint, and a sprint into an outright run. All the while, she flapped those heavy, bastard wings like a chicken in the farmyard who had a big fat gun held to its head.

  If she thought about the science of it, the muscles in her chest should have ached as she had to counter the weight on her back to stay upright, but her pectorals didn’t hurt. It was in her back and shoulders where she had to focus her energy. Running fast was no issue—she was a She-Wolf. Born to run. But to fly?

  No. That was another ball of wax entirely.

  She flapped the damn things for only the Gods knew how long, until her skin, lungs, legs, and shoulders were burning.

  Then, just as her hope began to die, and she started to fret that the Dark Fae, regardless of Morningstar’s orders, who’d been intent on hiding her away would catch up to her, she felt it.

  It.

  A delicious swirl of wind.

  Hell, it was more of an eddy. A swirl was far too generous a word. It was slight. Barely there, but she knew she had to seize the moment.

  As part of their punishment for falling into temptation, the Dark Fae lost their wings—Thalia knew how, too. She’d watched Morningstar lop Magda’s off barely an hour ago. But, that was to her advantage here. Once she was off the ground and in the air, they couldn’t touch her.

  And that sounded like a mighty fine thing to be. Untouchable.

  The wings, the wind, and maybe luck merged at that second, and she felt herself take off. Only her supernatural stamina had enabled her to carry on with that pace, but it was with great relief that she could stop running. As the wind tugged her into the air, she flapped her damn wings as fast as she could to try and gain height.

  It worked.

  She could have cried with joy at it working, then cried some more with the exhilaration at knowing she was flying on her own! But it was too fucking hot to cry. Wherever she was, it burned the tears from her cheeks before they had the chance to fall.

  Now, twenty feet off the ground, she heard Rafe murmur, Well done, sweetheart. Now that you’re off, you can stop beating your wings. There are pockets of hot air in the sky. You’re going to have to ride them, they will help you gain more height, and will also help you travel greater distances without having to exert too much energy. I can try to send you some more, but I don’t know if the baby will facilitate that or not.

  Thermals, she replied, having read about this before, and deciding to avoid speaking of a baby she was starting to think belonged as the main character in a horror flick.

  Exactly. Gliding will require far less exertion on your behalf.

  How do I find them?

  Theo tried to explain, but he just says it’s more instinct than anything else. He also said that he hasn't had had flying classes since he was a hundred. He’s forgotten a lot, and they don’t train flyers anymore since there have been no new births. There’s no one to ask either. Plus, he told her, they use glamor to help them. You don’t have that. Not unless the baby is funneling that to you as well.

  He sounded as uneasy about the child as she felt.

  Definitely putting that conversation on hold for the time being, until a time when she wasn’t in danger both from people seeking her out and from being eighty feet in the sky, she focused on finding some thermals.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she called out, but they didn’t listen. Naturally.

  Trouble was the more she tried to figure out how to find them, the lower she fell. That eddy of wind had swept her up high, higher and higher, tugging at the wings and the feathers like a lover’s caress. But as she glided through it, focused on gaining more height, the opposite happened.

  Rafe’s words however, broke her focus. And that was when instinct seemed to take over. Not from her, maybe not even from the child, but from the wings.

  Neither prospect made this situation in anyway more comfortable. Still, legs knew how to run, didn’t they? Once a baby had learned how to walk, running came next. You could do things with your other limbs through instinct. Why shouldn’t that be the case with wings?

  Wings that weren’t her own.

  Pocket after pocket of hot air seemed to confirm that she was on the right track. The energy she’d used to get here left her exhausted and weary, and throw in the hot sun? />
  It annihilated her already crumbled reserves.

  To enter Morningstar’s domain, there was a vortex. It seemed like that was the only way in and out, and her impromptu entrance and exit had made her pass out. Throw in the stress of being kidnapped, finding out she was pregnant, being chased, then falling to her death and suddenly growing wings…? Yeah, she was starting to feel a teensy bit overwhelmed.

  How far she had traveled, she didn’t know. Rafe, seeming to sense her dwindling reserves, stayed silent. That he couldn’t help her was a given. She had the feeling he’d have tried to do so without even telling her his intentions, but when she saw the city ahead in the distance, the sprawling mass of buildings that appeared like a mirage in the desert, her eyes opened wide in surprise.

  Las Vegas?

  The Fates really needed to stop fucking with her.

  The Dark Fae had brought her to Sin City… that had to be a coincidence, didn’t it?

  2

  Rafe

  Sin City, Thalia murmured into his mind.

  Rafe grimaced as he pressed his elbows to his knees and sat forward on the armchair he’d been in ever since he’d first been able to make contact with his mate. In Theo’s, her Fae mate’s office, with her human mate, Mikkel, at his side, they’d been planning their next series of moves as they tried to strategize on where to find her.

  Then, he’d sensed the link between them, and the blood tears he’d been shedding ever since he’d felt her being dragged from Heden, the realm where the Fae lived, had ceased to fall.

  He sat in a pool of blood. The liquid had seeped from his eyes in a torrent he’d been unable to quench; as impossible to control as the agonizing chasm that had appeared in his chest when she’d disappeared from Heden.

  Rubbing at his eyes, he murmured, “Thalia says she’s in Las Vegas.”

  “I know,” Theo surprised him by saying.

  He frowned. “You knew that already? Why the hell are we still here then?” Glowering at the male who was sitting in his desk chair, his head back against the rest, and his body slouched in a position of comfort, Rafe wanted to shake him.

  How could he look so calm when everything had just changed? Their very world had toppled on its head.

  Not only had Thalia been kidnapped and chosen suicide as her get-out-of-jail-free card, she’d grown wings that belonged to the child none of them had known she was carrying.

  How did Theo looked so unaffected when Rafe felt strung out? Mikkel didn’t exactly look at ease either. And considering the man had seen more tours of duty than the video game ‘Call of Duty,’ that was saying something.

  Mikkel was pacing the length of the study, weaving in and out of the books that were magically being sorted—they’d been in huge piles on the ground when they’d arrived here. Now, glamor had them being shelved without any interaction from anyone in the room.

  The heavy tomes were lethal too. Mikkel was swerving in and out of their path like a Nascar driver on race day.

  “Shut up, Rafe,” Theo growled out. “I’m trying to think.”

  “You are?” He shot the other male a disgruntled look. “Seems to me you’re relaxing.”

  Theo just grunted. “I knew her location, Raphael. The minute you told me she was with child, I could track the baby’s heartbeat, but what I didn’t know is when.”

  “When?” he and Mikkel barked simultaneously, then Rafe just sagged. He didn’t even have it in him to wonder how Theo could track their baby’s heartbeat, he was just freaking out over the fact Thalia was somewhere and some-when in Las Vegas.

  Could nothing go right today?

  Seriously.

  He knew that time worked differently in Heden, and he also knew that the Fae had the ability to sift through time and head to the other realm’s past, present, or future, but really?

  Today of all days, she had to be when not just where.

  “Cut us some fucking slack why don’t you?” Mikkel growled at no one in particular, or maybe it was aimed at the Fates. Rafe didn’t know. He doubted it. Mikkel was totally ill at ease with all things paranormal.

  Even things as lofty as fate seemed to give him the heebie-jeebies.

  Caelus only knew how he’d be if he hadn’t been raised in a Lyken household.

  “How are you going to locate her?”

  At Rafe’s question, Theo merely exhaled down his nose. Deciding that was his cue to shut the fuck up, he climbed to his feet. The ache from Thalia’s absence had yet to abate, but since they’d connected, and he’d been able to speak with her, it had eased greatly.

  Aside from when she’d jumped to her death, of course.

  As he straightened, he staggered slightly. Momentum had him tipping forward, and he realized he was weaker than anticipated. Mikkel was there, though, to keep him upright. Leaning against the soldier, Rafe let the other man hold him up.

  It might have been a sign of weakness to some, hell, to many, but Rafe knew that couldn’t be how the bond between Thalia’s three mates worked.

  There could be no infighting. No posturing.

  They were helpmates, not combatants on two opposing fields.

  “You’ll be weak. Fuck only knows how you’re standing considering how much blood you lost.”

  The disgust in his voice had Rafe’s lips twitching. “I’ll try not to leak everywhere next time.”

  Mikkel scoffed, “There’d better not be a next time. I’m chaining her wrist to mine. Damn woman. Can’t keep herself out of danger.”

  Rafe’s lips curved. “I’d like to see you try to chain her to you.”

  Mikkel heaved an aggrieved sigh, acceding to the fact that Thalia would rip their balls off before she allowed any of them to make her dependent on them.

  Thalia was female strength personified.

  Mikkel knew it, even if he was simply scared.

  The Fates had great plans for their mate; Rafe just wished the rest of them had a clue where they were going with it.

  Bear with me, darling, Rafe said, whispering the words into Thalia’s mind. Theo’s working on finding you.

  I already told you, she complained. I’m in Las Vegas.

  I know, but there’s been a complication.

  What kind of complication? she demanded, tone wary but sharp-edged.

  We know where you are but not when.

  When? The question was shrill enough to make the path they used to communicate quiver, and Rafe winced at the ache that scorched into place.

  Yes. When. He wasn’t sure how, but he did as he’d been doing since she’d awoken—looked at the world through her eyes.

  This was a new skill. A new talent that had either appeared out of nowhere or… Had the child done that too? Forged a new link?

  A thousand questions stirred in his mind. He’d felt the baby’s touch. Had been stunned when she’d taken his powers and magnified them a hundredfold.

  What else had she done? What else could the little girl, who was no more than three months along, do?

  A part of him was frightened to ask. Frightened to even think about the repercussions, but nothing was as it seemed anymore.

  Only recently, Rafe had discovered the truth of his heritage. He wasn’t Lyken. He was of Fae descent—a changeling. A child spawned from a Dark Fae who coupled with a human. A child who was dumped, like a cuckoo in the nest, in another family.

  What could that shift in genetics do to their child’s make up?

  A lot, he feared.

  Thalia was a full-blooded Lyken. Theo a full-blooded Fae. But he and Mikkel turned them in a different direction. One that tipped the scales in a direction none of them could even begin to calculate.

  Rafe? Should I be looking for signs?

  It would help. Theo’s doing something to track you, but I can’t tell you what. He peered into the distance, seeing what she did, the town rising from the barrenness of a desert.

  The speed with which she flew surprised him. Was she controlling it or was the wind controlling her
? He’d never know, but he prayed for the former over the latter.

  Wolves were creatures of the earth, not the air. Only the Gods knew how she was controlling herself, but as always, Thalia managed to impress him.

  And then, as he peered ahead into the distance, he saw something that surprised him.

  “She’s before the early two thousands.”

  “Huh?” Mikkel asked dumbly.

  He cleared his throat. “Theo, did you hear me?”

  “I did. What makes you say that?” Theo hadn’t moved and he was still staring into the distance, except he was frowning now. More from confusion than anything.

  “One of the first things I did when I graduated from high school was go to Las Vegas. I’d saved up all summer to visit. It was…” He pinched his nose. “1980? We stayed in the Desert Inn, and Thalia’s flying towards it. But I know it closed around ninety-nine. Maybe a year or so later.”

  “Wait a minute. You can see what she sees?”

  Theo sat forward, his mouth agape in astonishment. Rafe winced at the sight of his bewilderment but nodded. “New development.” He reached up, rubbed his eyes, grimaced when he saw the blood coat his fingers, and murmured, “I need to wash up.”

  “No, dumbass, you need to help us figure out when she’s there.”

  Rolling his eyes at Mikkel, Rafe grunted, “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Wasn’t the Desert Inn famous back in the day? That’s where Howard Hughes lived for like four years, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea.” Then, suspicious, he cut Mikkel a look. “How do you know that?”

  “I watch TV too, ya know,” he retorted, then, sheepishly, he rounded his shoulders and murmured, “I was raised in Las Vegas.”

  “You were?” Theo blurted out. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Why should that have any bearing on the situation?” Rafe asked, frowning at the sudden gleam in the Fae male’s eyes.

  “Because the Fates never do anything without a reason.”