Triumph Read online

  Well, not her fear.

  He needed her to need him.

  He wanted her to submit to him.

  The urge was so violent, his cock throbbed. From half-mast to full-mast, he needed to be inside her like he needed water to live.

  Need. You, he growled again.

  “Guys, what the fuck’s going on?”

  “Rafe’s having a moment,” Thalia told him, her tone quite placid in contrast to her actions which were anything but. She rolled onto her hands and knees and cocked her leg to straddle him. Her hot pussy connected with his thighs as she sat on his lap and pressed her hands to his belly.

  How do you need me? she asked softly.

  I don’t know. The question confused him. How did he need her? Anyway he could get her? Or did he need something specific from her?

  A thought flashed into his mind. A memory of this morning when blood had spilled from his eyes like he’d opened an artery.

  Blood.

  He needed blood.

  He licked his lips, the taste of her on his tongue already. Tangy, perfect, his. He needed that from her. His heart pounded at the thought, and he groaned as his cock pulsed in tandem. She slipped her hand down to his erection and murmured, “Whatever you need, sweetheart.”

  Her understanding in the face of his utter confusion was a relief. He had no idea what was happening, and yet, she wasn’t running scared, so why should he?

  “Rafe?” Theo asked, and he blinked, surprised to see that the other male had taken a seat at the side of him.

  “He can’t talk,” Thalia murmured, her tone matter-of-fact.

  Her lack of fear seemed to charge through him. Filling him with a joy he couldn’t begin to describe.

  You accept me.

  The three words had her attention twitching from Theo back to him. She frowned at him, her confusion evident. Of course I do.

  He licked his lips. You shouldn’t. Something’s not right.

  Then we’ll work through this together.

  You’ve been through enough today. I-I should go.

  Go where? She snorted. Out loud. Making the other two men jolt. They seemed to realize though that she and Rafe were having a conversation they weren’t included in. You’re right where you should be.

  He licked his lips again. The taste of her on his tongue even though he hadn’t sampled her in what felt like a lifetime. I need things from you.

  “Like what?” she asked aloud.

  Things I’ve never needed before. Just thinking about what he needed made him moan as a sudden surge of hunger overtook him. It drowned him with the raging wave of painful sentiment.

  “Like what?” she repeated.

  “You,” he managed to verbalize.

  “You’ve always needed me,” she told him, her tone matter-of-fact again.

  Blood. Your blood.

  At that, her head tilted to the side. Her voice was calm as she asked, “Theo, do vampires exist?”

  The Fae male jolted at the question. “Why do you ask?”

  “Does it matter? Just answer the damn question!” Mikkel, ever impatient, insisted.

  Blinking, Theo murmured, “Well…” He broke off, and Rafe, even in his state, seemed to realize he was flipping through his impressive memory banks. “There are tales, I suppose. Blood-drinkers. But they’re from back in the Dark Ages. Back with tales of Vlad the Impaler.”

  “Rafe says he wants to taste my blood.”

  “Whoa,” Mikkel burst out. “That’s fucking weird, isn’t it?”

  Even though Rafe felt like he was hovering on a precipice, Mikkel didn’t harass him over it. Too accustomed to the man’s shrewish tongue, Rafe just stared at Thalia, watching her communicate with her other mates, watching, more than anything, the pulse at her throat.

  “Weirder than him crying tears of blood?” Theo demanded, but his tone was dry.

  “Tears of blood?” Thalia squeaked.

  “Rafe was the one who figured out you’d been taken,” Mikkel told her, but his tone was gentler now.

  “How?”

  “He was in the library with Jonsse, the librarian. She said he just keeled over, clutching his chest. Like he was having a heart attack or something. She called for me, and when I got there, Jonsse said he was suffering because you were far away from him. That a great distance was between you. He was bent over, slumped in his seat, and when he managed to look up, I saw his eyes. He was bleeding from them.” Theo scrubbed his hands through his hair as though the memory alone was enough to stress him out.

  Her mouth rounded in a perfect circle, and Rafe wanted, quite desperately, to slide his cock between her pillowy lips.

  The sudden urges that swelled inside him were dark, twisted.

  They frightened him.

  They frightened him because he never wanted her to be scared of him.

  “You didn’t think to mention that to me before?” she snapped, and the tension in her thighs transferred itself to Rafe as she squeezed him between them.

  “It’s been a pretty busy day, Thalia,” Mikkel retorted drily. “When should we have told you? When you were jumping off a cliff or flying to Las Vegas? How about when my dad told me I’m half monster or when you were passing out in your grandfather’s arms?”

  She slouched her shoulders. “Sorry.”

  He snorted. “Don’t worry about it. The day’s been more action-packed than it would be out in the sandbox. I can tell you for sure, you offer more excitement than the US Army, babe.”

  Thalia grunted. “I aim to please.”

  He chuckled. “I know you do.”

  Though her cheeks turned pink, she ignored his sly comment, and instead, turned back to Theo. “Maybe changelings were what humans called vampires?”

  He shrugged. “Could be. I’d heard of them, but I’ve heard of a lot of things over the years. I don’t know anything specific.”

  Jonsse would know, Rafe whispered in Thalia’s mind.

  “He says Jonsse might know.”

  “Could be. But I’m not sifting back to have a conversation with her. We have things to do on this realm before we return home.”

  “There you go again,” Mikkel growled. “Putting priorities before us.”

  Theo glowered at him. “That’s because someone has to be the adult here, Mikkel.”

  “Bullshit. You can’t keep worrying about politics and shit before you consider us. That’s not how this crap works. If I’d done that with my unit, none of the motherfuckers would have trusted me.”

  “While he’s right, Theo, now isn’t the time for this conversation, Mikkel.” She turned to look at her soldier mate. “Rafe is going through something right now. I really don’t want to agitate him further. I can sense how close he is to the limits of his control.”

  Mikkel grimaced, shot him a sheepish look, and mumbled, “Sorry, bud.”

  Rafe didn’t even have it in him to jerk his chin in acceptance. Truth was, he hadn’t cared if Theo and Mikkel would have started brawling at the end of the bed. All his focus was on Thalia.

  His teeth ached and his tongue felt dry with the need to taste her.

  “Do I let him have my blood?” she asked quietly, her eyes on him, and apparently she saw how close to losing it he was, because she started petting him. Her hand came to rest on his belly and she began to stroke the firm flesh there.

  “I don’t see why not,” Theo murmured.

  “That’s gross,” Mikkel retorted.

  “It’s a common practice among the Fae. We bite.” Theo jerked a shoulder. “You know that, Thalia. From the claiming ceremony.”

  Rafe watched her ears burn and her eyes grow hot as the memory of that night flooded her mind. He wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t even upset that there were two more males here.

  That was the only part of this situation that felt right. Their presence.

  He was, and never would be, alone again.

  Rafe felt that knowledge quench some of the raging thirst that made his tongue fee
l parched.

  “Need,” he whispered.

  She licked her lips and nodded. “Okay, baby. Take what you need.”

  His eyes flared wide at her words and slowly, so slowly he felt like his body moved in increments of inches, his hands moved forward to clasp her. She let out a gasp though and he jerked in surprise as, the next time he processed his surroundings, she was flat on her back beneath him.

  “Slow down, buddy. Slow down.” Mikkel’s hand was on his back, and his voice was close to a croon.

  He tilted his head to look at the other male who was watching Thalia and him with concerned eyes. He wasn’t trying to stop him though, just make him take things slower.

  Trouble was, he hadn’t realized he’d been moving fast.

  Nodding jerkily, he moved toward the bed. His hands were fisted and he leaned over Thalia, rubbing his nose along the side of her jaw, over her throat where he felt the pulse of her blood in his own veins. The sound of her heart was a heady throb in his ears, and he realized this was the first time he’d ever heard it.

  What’s happening to me? he asked her, knowing she wouldn’t be able to respond but also needing her to know that he wasn’t intentionally trying to freak her out.

  She shivered as his tongue flickered out over the sinews of her throat—the shiver wasn’t of revulsion but arousal, and he thanked the Gods that Lykens loved biting as much as they loved fucking. They just rarely broke the skin after a claiming, and when they did, only a few drops of blood would fall. Rafe didn’t want that. He wanted more. He wanted to drink from her like she was a glass of wine.

  He shuddered at the thought and rested his forehead against her pulse.

  It was like reaction had finally set in. After the tears of blood, finding and bringing Thalia back to the fold, then being able to rest as a quartet… now, his body was urging him to capture something he’d lost in a huge amount today.

  Lifeblood.

  “It’s okay, baby. Take what you need.”

  His eyes closed as her words swirled around him like a magical incantation.

  What did he need?

  Blood, yes. But her, he needed her more than even that. He didn’t understand why she was so calm, but he was grateful for it. Grateful for her acceptance and the love that kept him from terrifying her with the urges beating at his control.

  He reared upward, inadvertently knocking Mikkel’s hand from his back. The movement didn’t please him and he reached behind him to grab his fingers and return them to where they’d been resting. If Mikkel was disturbed by that, he didn’t show it, but his gaze flickered between Thalia and Rafe as he watched what they were doing with an intent that stirred Rafe’s blood.

  He moved himself so he was kneeling at her side for a second, then he raised one of her legs, parted it from the other, and slid between them. When he did, her short shorts cut into the seam of her pussy and he stared at the folds of her sex which were thickly delineated as a result.

  His mouth watered and he whispered in her mind, You want me.

  It wasn’t a question.

  I always want you.

  He shivered, knowing that to be the truth. He moved toward her, and as he’d done moments before when he’d scented her throat, he ran his nose over her cunt. She shuddered this time, and he felt it to his bones.

  “Fuck, isn’t this the sexiest shit you’ve ever seen, Theo?” Mikkel growled.

  “Yeah. It is. Better than porn,” Theo said thickly, but Rafe tuned them out.

  He returned to a kneeling position then stared at her sex once more for a second. As he stared, the urge to make her cry out hit him, and he placed his fingers to the wet folds covered in slowly drenching fabric, then he tapped her there. His first spank was soft. Not to incite pain. But the way she reacted made him smile. Filled him with a delight that was hers and hers alone to bestow upon him.

  He did it again.

  She moaned.

  And then he remembered the urges that had flooded him when he’d taken her with Mikkel. When Mikkel had spanked and fucked her. Made her submit to him.

  To him. A human. For that was what he’d been at the time.

  Rafe wasn’t feeling connected to that half of himself. The darkness in him that came from a father he didn’t know, didn’t want to know, felt like it was taking over him.

  He swallowed thickly and rubbed her pussy again. The urge filled him and he spanked her there once more, and then the words tumbled from his lips and he realized where this urge was coming from, “You tried to leave me today.”

  Her eyes flared wide. “Sweetheart, I had no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.” He slapped her pussy again, then grabbed her by the hips and dragged her over onto her belly. He reached for the waistband of her shorts and pulled them down over her ass. He pinged the elastic against the fleshy curve of the cheeks, then left them on the undercurve of her butt. His mouth watered at the mounds before him and he reached down and rubbed his nose there too. With his teeth, he scraped across the ripeness and then, he did as he’d been craving since the desire had filled him.

  He struck.

  A moan escaped him as he bit into her, and as the blood began to drop free from the marks he’d made, he sucked down hard. She let out a groan which was followed by a squeak, and the scent of blood and her pussy blossomed in his senses.

  Her body wriggled underneath him. Not to escape him, but to escape what he made her feel. He sensed the difference from her heartbeat. The organ wasn’t racing in terror, but thudding in time to her quivering breaths in delight.

  He sucked down hard on the wound he’d made, loving the taste of her, loving it and needing more. Only the fact he didn’t want to hurt her stopped him from tearing at the bite he’d made and forcing it deeper. The few drops weren’t enough to satiate him, but the skin here was too thick, too dense for him to slice through with his teeth.

  A shudder escaped him as the blood began to dry up, then he jolted when he felt a hand on the back of his neck.

  “You might have a curative in your saliva, Rafe,” Theo informed him gently. Rafe shuddered as the male began to stroke the ends of his hair, playing with the locks like Rafe wasn’t sucking blood from their mate’s ass.

  He pressed his forehead to the ripe mound, then scraped his teeth down it once more. The scent of her cunt overwhelmed his senses, and he reared back and up, reaching down to slap her ass once more. “You almost left me.” His hand didn’t bounce off the firm flesh, it connected with it dully. This spank was to punish, not to pleasure.

  He didn’t want to hurt her.

  He wanted her to know that she couldn’t leave him.

  I’d die without you. Don’t you know that?

  I had to think of our baby, she whispered, her voice clogged with an emotion he couldn’t name.

  The scent of tears filled the air around them, but the scent of her arousal clouded it. He shuddered but it didn’t stop him from slapping each cheek three more times. The skin wobbled and bounced, and he loved it. Loved watching the way it turned pink under his fingers. He grabbed the mounds and pulled them apart, and then he reached down and tongued the pucker she’d been shielding from them all.

  She’d promised it to Mikkel first, and Rafe would allow him that. If the male needed that virgin hole, he could have it, but it was his to tease first.

  She writhed and gasped as he fluttered the tip of his tongue over the firm rosette, and he did so knowing full well she was sopping wet, that she needed this touch further down. He didn’t care though. This was about punishment. About making her realize she couldn’t abandon him.

  Not like she’d done this afternoon.

  If he was a bastard to her, if they ever mistreated her, if they ever abused her, then she could leave them. Being mated to them didn’t mean she was stuck with them forever.

  But to just forsake hope?

  To walk away because she was scared of the fight ahead?

  “You’re my warrior,” he growled, wond
ering why he could speak again, why the words weren’t failing him now. “You fight. You don’t concede defeat.”

  “For her, I do,” she said softly. “I’m going to be a mom, Rafe. A mother. I’m not just a warrior anymore.”

  Though he could hear the satisfaction in her words at his calling her that, something inside him turned to liquid at her repeatedly calling herself a mom.

  A mother—to their future child.

  He pressed his face into her asscheeks once more, and became aware of the hot heat of Mikkel’s palm on the bottom half of his back and Theo’s fingers which still played with his hair.

  The touches weren’t sexual, but they grounded him.

  He needed that.

  With a shiver, he reached for the waistband of her shorts and dragged them further down her legs. He watched as each curve was exposed to him, and felt his cock harden against the firm mattress, almost to the point of pain, as he revealed all of her to him.

  He spread her legs the minute he could, and when he saw the juicy flesh between them, he shuddered. The perfume of her was indescribable, and he stared at her pink folds for an endless amount of time until, with a swish of air, he struck once more.

  His teeth bit into her inner thigh, clamping down there with more ferocity than he’d done on her ass. She let out a yelp, but soon settled into the motions as he tugged at her blood, coaxed it between his lips. Her ass wriggled beneath him, and the muscles in her legs shifted and tugged as the pleasure she felt when he did this began to plague her once more.

  He loved that.

  Loved that something that was so new to her, which freaked him out, didn’t seem to freak her out. Or, if it did, she was content to ignore it in the face of the pleasure this new oddity of his seemed to provide.

  The bite he’d made this time was more generous, and as the scarlet liquid moistened his lips and tongue, it quenched the bizarre dehydration that had him in its thrall. He sucked down hard, then noticed the blood had dried up again.

  Theo had to be right.

  There was a curative in his saliva.

  Which meant what? That this blood-supping was normal for his people?