10

Mikkel

 

 

 

“What the fuck?” The words spat staccato from his lips as Thalia collapsed against Rafe. But, they weren’t declared in response to her fainting. It was to the six-feet something male standing in the center of a dining room with wings that were, by Mikkel’s estimation, a good three feet bigger than him.

Had he ever seen anything like it?

Deep in the heart of battle, he’d seen a ton of crazy shit. But this level of crazy?

Mikkel’s mouth worked as the wings expanded, spread wide, and then were tucked back into the man’s back. And like that, with a wave of tension that rippled down the feathers, they winked out of existence.

“How did he do that?” Mikkel demanded of Rafe. “Did he really have fucking wings, or am I going crazy?”

“You’re not insane, mortal mate of Thalia Lyndhoven,” the creature called Theodore murmured, his tone polite. “You’re very sane.”

“But you had wings. Who the fuck has wings?”

“The Fae, apparently,” Rafe said, his tone wryer than Mikkel expected.

His head whipped to the side to stare at Thalia’s second mate, then he saw she was lax in his hold, and guilt filling him, he helped straighten her up, but realized he was only making it worse—Rafe had a tight hold on her—she wasn’t going anywhere.

“You can’t be okay with this?” he hissed under his breath.

“What’s to be okay with?” came the rhetorical question. Rafe turned his focus from Mikkel and looked over at Theodore. “You are certain you are mated?”

“Aye.” The male rubbed his chin. “I am surprised. I did not foresee that.” His hand came up to touch his chest, and so simply that Mikkel shuddered, he whispered, “I ache. Here.”

Because he knew that feeling, had felt the emptiness spreading since he’d met Thalia, he closed his eyes in denial.

“I do not ache,” the Fae male continued, still sounding bewildered. “I do not feel these things.”

“Women,” Rafe retorted. “They’ll fuck with you. One way or another.”

Theo rubbed his chest. “She does this? But how? She hasn’t touched me; how can she cause this pain?”

Rafe seemed to chew on the inside of his mouth before he answered, “Do the Fae have mates?”

“Yes.”

“Then, surely you know how it should feel?”

“It is very rare to find one.” He blinked. “Very rare,” he mumbled, and for the first time, his arrogance waned.

“How rare?” Mikkel demanded, curious because he sensed the angel-Fae-dude was at a total loss.

“I’m twelve thousand years old, the child of a leader of my people, and know of maybe five who have heart bonded.”

“Five?” Well, shit.

Mikkel gawked at Theo, surprised at the way he kept rubbing his chest—like the ache was real, not imagined. He watched his fingers, an unease slithering through him as those supple digits worked and moved. They were almost hypnotic, and Mikkel felt a strange kind of heat rise in him.

“Yes. Five. Maybe. They’re rare, and I did not come here with this intention in mind.”

Rafe murmured, “Why did you come here? If not for her?”

Mikkel pried his gaze off Theo’s hand and looked around the sunny breakfast room. Thalia’s family were still moving in a turbocharged—in reverse—slow motion. If he hadn’t seen it for himself, Mikkel would never have believed it. “Yes. Why?”

“I came for her, this is true. But not in this way. The heart bond never occurred to me. . . . There is a prophecy,” Theo whispered, his voice hoarse. Finally, he moved. His steps were hesitant as he strode toward the three of them hovering in the doorway. His long, piano-playing fingers came out to stroke Thalia’s slumped chin, and Mikkel had to fight with the need to grab the other man’s wrist.

He couldn’t bitch about a third mate when he hadn’t allowed himself to claim her, to have her claim him as second mate.

The spoiled brat in him whined, “You’ve known her less than a week.” But that didn’t matter when she’d already claimed one, and a fucking Fairy with angel wings was stroking his woman’s cheek.

Because, yeah, Thalia was his woman.

Shame he’d only just realized that.

Well, not ‘only just.’ He’d known what she was to him. Just hadn’t known what she’d do to him, and for a man like Mikkel, that was the worst evil imaginable.

“What kind of prophecy?” Mikkel choked out.

The angel’s eyes clashed with his, and once more, a wave of heat flushed through him, making his cheeks pinken, searing them with a hot brand he didn’t know how to counteract.

If a man could be beautiful, then this creature was exactly that.

He was tall and strong, his muscles evident through the sleek, silky shirt he wore. But they held none of Mikkel’s own bulk. Theo’s strength was quite clear for all to see, but it was almost passive. It intended no threat, unlike Mikkel’s. Or maybe that was the threat in itself? Peril wrapped up in a pretty package. . . . Could there be a better disguise?

He was blond, his hair golden. The tips seemed to glow, and there were streaks of bronze and white amid the chaotic tumble. His eyes were a light mossy green that seemed to trap the sunlight. Hold it within the irises, so that they too seemed to glow.

In fact, as Mikkel watched this third mate of Thalia’s, he couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Why are you glowing?”

“Because I’m Fae,” Theo replied easily, his focus back on Thalia, and hell, if she’d been awake, Mikkel had no doubt she’d be as confused and as horny and as flustered as he himself was feeling.

And for a very straight man, one who’d never even contemplated fucking another dude until this week, it was seriously confusing.

Feeling his chest tighten—impending heart attacks were par for the course today—he asked, “What does that have to do with it?”

“My glamor makes me glow. It’s magic. Proof of my heritage. The brighter the glow, the more. . . .” He winced. “It is complicated. I will explain when she is awake. And I will explain the prophecy then, too. She needs to hear it first. It’s for her, after all, that we three are here.” His smile was small, but amused nonetheless. “Her acolytes.”

Though Mikkel frowned at that, Rafe was the one who spoke, “Whatever you’ve done to the Lyndhovens, I think you should retract it. They’re turning blue.”

Mikkel tutted under his breath—Rafe’s calm was starting to get fucking irritating.

The dude more than rolled with the punches. He was like fucking Neo in the Matrix! Swerving this way and that before his opponent could do more than blink. If Mikkel didn’t genuinely like the guy, he’d want to smack him. As it was, the desire ran close to the surface. They’d just seen a fucking angel, and Rafe was reacting like nothing had happened.

At the other man’s words, though, Theo blinked, spun on his heel, took in the room with a glance, and then clapped his hands. As one, motion returned, and with it, all four of Thalia’s grandparents began coughing, spluttering, and generally gulped down air as they tried to reassert control over their body’s most basic of actions.

“What did you do to us?” Louis choked out.

“Nothing,” Theo murmured, his tone so bland Mikkel had to hide a laugh—he also made a mental note never to play poker with him. That was one hell of a bluff.

Louis gritted his teeth but, seeming to find no sense in arguing, didn’t follow that particular line of argument. Instead, his gaze caught upon Thalia, still slumped over. “Is she okay?” he demanded, jumping to his feet even if that burst of activity did make him cough and retch as he did so.

“She is fine.” Theo’s words were an order. “You will not worry. All will be well. I will guard her, and them, with my life. Of this you have my promise.”

When Louis plunked back in his seat and nodded, Mikkel frowned at the man’s easy acceptance of that dictate. “What have you done to them?” he asked when the others carried on like nothing had happened.

Nothing at all.

They’d even stopped coughing and spluttering. And they were focused on the dishes before them like breakfast held all the answers.

Breakfast was the most important meal of the day, but that important? Nope.

“Just a little magic to soothe their concerns,” was the smooth retort. So fucking smooth Mikkel cringed. “Now, where are your quarters? Or a private sitting room? I need to speak with you all.”

Mikkel didn’t appreciate the way this Theodore was taking over, but hell, if he really had seen twelve thousand years then. . . . He sighed. He’d been trained to always respect his elders, and you didn’t get much fucking older than twelve millennia.

Rafe, seeming to sense Mikkel’s capitulation, hefted Thalia around and hauled her into his arms. She moaned but settled against him, pressing her face into his throat.

One thing Mikkel was used to when around the pack was how close they always were. They were separate entities physically, but emotionally, it was a whole other ball of wax. On any occasion where they could touch one another, they did.

While it was kind of sweet how Louis and Thalia had apologized for his experience with one step in the pack and the other out of it, the truth was, the only thing that had truly hurt was this.

The touch of the pack had always eluded him.

Was that why Rafe could accept the craziest bullshit? Because he could hold onto Thalia and find a grasp on reality that would forever elude Mikkel?

Horror flooded him at the thought.

He’d watched his brothers and sisters clamber together like the pups they were, always touching even if they were baiting one another. A hand running through another’s hair, touching a shoulder, fingers linking as they slept, one foot connected with another’s leg. Always united, always together even if they were separate.

The ache of that was something he’d struggled to put into words all his life. But now? Watching this? It was there. On the tip of his tongue.

He wanted that. Needed it like he’d never needed anything in his many years. Although, with a guy like Theodore around, ‘many years’ was a relative concept.

Rafe had hefted Thalia around with no difficulty. Mikkel had to admit that knowing the man’s rank was fucking with his head a bit. Even on the outskirts of the pack as he’d been, Mikkel knew how poorly Gammas were thought of, and he hated that it had rubbed off on him.

Rafe’s strength surprised him, so he could only imagine how difficult it was for Thalia’s grandparents to adjust.

The chasm they’d all have to bridge made itself known to him then, and it was a chasm that was only going to widen if Thalia, as Alpha of the North American Pack, only had one Lyken male as her mate . . . a human and a Fae for the other two.

Revealing that to the world was going to be a shit-ton of fun.

Not.

His thoughts were everywhere and nowhere. Focusing was tough, mostly because, at his side, Theodore kept pace with him.

“You can ask, you know?”

Mikkel startled at the man’s deep baritone. “Ask what?” he retorted gruffly.

“Whatever you want.”

That had him frowning. “You had angel’s wings.” They’d been. . . . He gulped. Huge. Like ten feet long, at least fifteen feet broad. Each inch covered in a strange kind of feather. It reminded him of an eagle’s feather he’d found once when they’d been camping out one year near Michigan, but there’d been a shimmer that was anything other than natural.

“They’re just wings,” Theo murmured softly.

“Just? In my world, wings belong on birds.”

“Not a Catholic then?”

Mikkel grumbled, “My great-grandmother was.”

Theo snorted. “Knowing those ways will probably help when it comes time to teach you of my heritage.”

“It will? How?”

The man’s eyes glowed hotter, brighter when he caught Mikkel’s for a sliver of a second. “Because the angels of the Catholic faith? They’re Fae.”