Chapter 19

It was safe to say the expression on Kade’s face was one of surprise and confusion. It was obvious he had assumed Thalia knew something about the place she was in. If only he knew that Thalia hadn’t been able to tell which country she was in for five years now. Sure she had figured out she was in Greece or any part of the Mediterranean but that was as far as her understanding of her location went. She studied Kade, watching him trying to figure out if she was being sincere or playing some unusual joke. But, while Thalia said nothing else, her bruised face showed that she was telling the truth. She had no idea where she was.

"We're in the north of England." Kade finally spoke. "I found you maybe thirty miles south west from here."

Thalia nodded a little, her eyes becoming distant as she let this shocking news sink in. She hadn't realised she was that far away from what she knew. In a way it made everything feel so much more harrowing. She might as well have been on a different planet really. There was nothing about this palace that was familiar.

"Dagmar is right, you should drink the tea." Kade spoke up when Thalia made no attempt to speak but rather seemed to disappear into herself. The beta gestured to the mug on the nightstand. "It will help with the pain so you can sleep. It won't hurt the…"

Thalia glanced up when Kade didn't finish his sentence. She could see his awkwardness but thankfully his posture and facial expression lacked jealousy or anger. It was a slight relief. Thalia didn't have the energy or the mental capacity to deal with the matter that she was pregnant with someone else's child, or children if this Dagmar woman was right. It really should have been no surprise that something like finding your fated mate while pregnant with a demon’s spawn would happen. Thalia’s life had been anything but normal over the last five years but the last few months had been utterly crazy.

“I thought there was only one.” Thalia murmured, resting her hand on her tummy as she looked down at it. “There was only meant to be one.”

“There are two.” Kade confirmed, his voice surprisingly gentle. “I almost missed it as well because their hearts are beating in sync but Dagmar says she can feel their energy.”

Thalia looked up at that, watching with wide eyes as this towering god-like male came to sit on the edge of the bed, his heat radiating out to wrap around Thalia like a soothing balm on aching muscles.

“Why were you out on the moors?” Kade asked carefully, grey eyes studying Thalia closely.

It was like her mouth sealed shut. The memory of how she had come to be pregnant, thousands of miles away from home and at the bottom of a cliff had her heart pounding and a maelstrom of heavy emotions to bubble up. How had she ended up here exactly? She remembered that the night she was taken was no different from every other night before it. October had been coming to an end. Her family had always worshiped Selene (despite their pack namesake), the goddess of the moon and that night, there had been a full moon. The full moon in October signalled the start of the harvest for the Aphrodite pack.

All of the families within the pack and the neighbouring human villages and towns would band together to start the first phase of the olive harvest. Thalia and the other young wolves had of course joined in, perhaps with a lot of reluctance. They would have preferred to be playing or exploring. It had still been warm despite the summer season coming to an end at the beginning of September. However the golden sunlight served well to ripen the first olives ready for pressing and preserving. By the end of the day, Thalia had been exhausted and eagerly climbed into bed ready to sleep.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep for but Thalia was woken by a hand over her mouth. She had tried to fight the black mass pinning her to the bed but they had been stronger. That night she was stolen from her family much like other girls in our pack had been.

“Thalia?”

The deep baritone of Kade’s voice coaxed Thalia back to reality, his expression one of concern. She stared at him, the bond clouding her thoughts and yet she wanted to fight it. She couldn’t drag her mate into this shitshow.

“I was kidnapped.” Thalia blurted out despite wanting to stay quiet. “It happened when I was thirteen. I and other girls from my pack were taken.”

“By the father?” Kade asked carefully.

“No.” Thalia shook her head a little. “He bought me from the people who took me. He said that he would help me get home but he needed me to do something. He was so nice and treated us all really well but somehow he convinced us to have his children.”

"How many of you were there?"

"Six in total. Well, there were six of us that I knew of but someone told me there were others." Thali explained, looking at her hands as she picked at the skin around her nails nervously. "The others were all human, though. They were either victims of human trafficking or in some situation where they were being abused. I don't know where they are now or if they're even alive. Dante's brother turned up one day and it seemed to anger Dante. He decided we needed to leave but on the way to wherever he was taking us, a car came out of nowhere and hit us. That's when I escaped. The doctor told me to get away when I got a chance as we were in danger. He said Dante had no intention of letting us go free."

Silence settled between the two. Thalia could sense Kade's anger through the developing bond. To humans this need to protect his mate might have made Kade seem controlling and perhaps misogynistic. But Thalia and Kade weren't human, not totally anyway. They looked human for the most part but their wolves didn't live by the same rules. They followed the hierarchy and instincts of their full wolven cousins. Being protective over a mate was normal and it went both ways. Thalia would do the same if the tables were turned.

"When you're feeling better we need to get you somewhere safer." Kade finally spoke up. "I can't take you to my pack yet. It's too dangerous for you there at the moment but you can't stay here forever either."

"It will be too dangerous for you to be around me." Thalia countered. "If Dante finds out I'm alive he will come for me. He wants the children even if I don't know why."

"I'll make sure he doesn't get near you." Kade all but growled and it was obvious his wolf wasn't pleased that another male was after Thalia.

"That's very endearing but Dante is dangerous." The she-wolf frowned, her eyebrows pinched together in worry. "He's a demon not some other werewolf you can beat into submission. I didn't think it was possible for demons to exist until I met him. He has a lot of people working for him too. Also demons I think."

"He's not getting near you."

The boiling possessiveness rolling off of Kade was dampened only but his determination and his self-restraint. He didn't want to scare Thalia even more than she already was but the thought of someone touching his mate, let alone hurting her had Kade bristling. Even Legion reacted to the notion. Kade never thought he'd see the day when his wolf would care about anything other than himself and yet here the wiley wolf was, ready to protect this beautiful she-wolf to the death.

And she was beautiful. The bruises and cuts would be gone soon enough but Kade was already struck by the depths of her espresso brown eyes that caught the light so it looked like the moon against a night sky. Her olive skin was golden with freckles dusted everywhere reminding Kade of summers at the beach. She was petite but her waist dipped inwards before swelling as her hips widened to give the perfect hour-glass figure. Kade could almost imagine being hypnotised by them when they moved. Despite her sensual beauty, it was obvious Thalia was shy, as if she wasn't aware of the effect her body had on those that saw her. The sadness in her eyes and almost permanent downward tilt of her full kissable lips spoke volumes of what she had endured.

Kade had been reluctant to accept his mate for his own dark reasons but the longer he sat there with Thalia, the stronger the newborn mate bond became like a forest fire sweeping through parched lands. Still, he doubted he could give her happiness like she deserved but he was too selfish to let her go now he had seen her properly.

"Drink the tea," Kade forced himself to stand and put distance between himself and Thalia. "And get some sleep. Dagmar will keep an eye on you so just ask her if you need anything."

And with that, Kade was gone.