The Golden Goddess

Lorcan Romano Black

Lorcan

I dug the balls of my feet into the dry dirt, crouching in my starting position as I glanced over at my Grandpops Logan. His sapphire eyes cast over the three of us as he grinned with excitement and anticipation.

“You know the score. The first one to the edge of the forest to kill the prisoner wins. Lorcan holds the last three victories, Ilaria and Leif. You had better step up your game or we will be starting to think you’ve lost your touch.”

Ilaria rolled her eyes and connected with her vampire demon counterpart, allowing her fangs to snap down as she hissed. She was always my biggest competition physically, regardless of her tiny size. She was just as competitive as me and liked to give me a run for my money. My warlock brother, Leif, on the other hand…

“Are you ready, Leif?” Pops asked, folding his huge biceps over his chest in frustration. Pops was an Alpha wolf like me and hated people not taking training seriously.

“Don’t sweat it, Pops. I was born ready,” Leif muttered without looking up from his phone as he leaned against the rough bark of a tree. I shook my head at my brother’s lack of eagerness and clicked my neck either side. Even though he didn’t have a competitive bone in his body, he was still a force to be reckoned with. The most powerful pure warlock alive since our Great-Grandma Cora according to our tribrid mum and Queen of all species. His powers were effortless and he had never had to learn his craft like other warlocks. He just seemed to possess them without even trying. Which was the reason he was such a lazy, lovable rascal. He could get away with anything using his effortless cheeky smile, sarcasm and charisma. My sister, Ilaria, was much more intense. Being the only pure-blooded vampire in our family since our great-grandfather Lucius, she had a darkness within her that could cause even Alphas to quake in their boots. And then there was me. A pure-blooded Alabaster Alpha wolf. The eldest by only a few minutes, but it seemed to have made a difference. I was bigger, stronger and the one that had to carry all the responsibility for the three of us. Because my siblings sure wouldn’t. We were known as the Romano Black Triplets. The Princes and Princess of the King and Queen of all species.

‘The dog’s bollocks,’ my wolf, Typhon sneered in my mind.

‘As modest as ever.'

‘Only speaking the truth. I’ll prove it in about… five minutes,’ he chuckled.

“On your marks, get set…go!” Pops bellowed out into the forest, but before Ilaria or I could even tap into our supernatural abilities and speed away, Leif lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. We were paralysed; our bodies rigid. Assh*le! He pushed off the tree, pocketing his phone in his jeans and casually strode forwards into the forest.

“Come on guys, what are you waiting for?” he laughed; in no rush to release us from his binding spell. My eyes shifted to Pops, who was shaking his head with a smirk.

“Leif. You know the rules. Ten seconds only!”

He lifted his hand in the air and clicked his fingers before he ran forwards through a bush. Ilaria and I felt the bind break and we were free. My sister’s body became a blur as she used her vampire speed to race ahead.

“You best hurry.” Pops raised his dark eyebrows at me and I shot him a knowing smile.

“You know they always need a little head start. See you at the finish line,” I replied before shifting effortlessly into my enormous white wolf. Typhon’s paws thundered against the forest floor as we dived and weaved between trees, heading straight for today’s rapist prisoner from the human green list. One of us would enjoy tearing him to pieces.

‘That one of us will be me.’

A flash of white to our left caught our attention through the trees and Typhon picked up his speed. It was my grandmother’s Alabaster wolf, Xena. She swerved with elegance but undeniable power and dove straight at us with her sharp jaws open wide, snapping at Typhon’s legs. We slammed our muscular body into her side, shoving her off her track, but she came at us again. This time, Typhon wasn’t messing around. He lowered his head as she leaped into the air towards us and headbutted her in the chest, causing her body to flip in the air and land on the forest floor.

Typhon rampaged on, turning to glance back at Xena standing back on her feet and howling in respect, before she raced in a different direction to attack one of my siblings. It wasn’t long until I felt the presence of a powerful force up ahead, sitting in the trees. My hybrid grandpapi, Arius. Immediately smelling his vampire scent, we knew which tree he was in and headed directly for it. Never run from your enemy. Stand against them. His own wise words were loud and clear in my head. Sharp, spindly branches started to move frantically before us, clawing at our soft fur as he used his warlock powers to try and deter my wolf. Typhon leaped and dived over them until we reached the tree he was hiding in. He jumped down to the floor, his eyes flashing red and then purple, switching between his two supernatural states as Typhon circled him, growling.

“Don’t miss this time,” he smirked with cockiness, showing his razor-sharp fangs. I bolted towards him, but he used his vampire speed to disappear and we felt him on our back. His arm wrapped around our neck but Typhon flipped him off us, his body slamming into the tree trunk. He raised his hand to send a force of dark magic our way and we took our chance. Grabbing his arm between our teeth, we twisted our head until we heard the dislocation of his elbow and then his shoulder. He had always taught us the only way to take down a powerful warlock was to break their connection to their magic; their hands.

Standing up, he smirked at Typhon with pride, nodding for us to continue as he popped his elbow back in place. We took on our dad’s pure-blood white wolf Aero, before we made it to the final stretch. My mum was waiting, holding the prisoner up in the air with her binding spell as I raced towards them. I felt a strong grip on my wolf’s tail and our mighty paws slid in the mud as Ilaria tugged us back and took the lead. Typhon released a powerful roar that shook the birds out of the trees as we charged after her. Her black jumper snagged between our teeth and we tossed our head, flinging her through the air like a ragdoll and out of sight. She’d be back in seconds. Mum released the prisoner, his fragile human body falling to the floor in a heap as his eyes widened in disbelief and fear at my wolf. He scrambled to his feet, his shoes sliding in the dirt as he attempted to escape from our warpath. We dove, our front paws connecting with his back and smacking him into the mud, face first. Typhon threw his head back and roared in victory, ready to rip the man below our paws to pieces. Before we got a chance, the criminal’s screaming abruptly ended when Leif raised his hand and snapped the man’s neck effortlessly from ten feet away and Ilaria sank her fangs into his neck. Typhon growled in frustration at their intervention. They just couldn’t let us have it!

I shifted back into my human form as my mum threw me a pair of shorts and a black T-shirt. Our grandparents and dad, who had been our obstacles in the forest, all appeared in their human forms with beaming grins as Ilaria drank the man’s blood with ravenous gulps.

“Ilaria won?” Grandma Maddy sounded a little surprised as she looked over at me for an answer.

“Of course not! She cheated,” I responded, pulling my fitted T-shirt over my head. “They both did.”

“Oh don’t be a sore loser, Lorcan,” Leif jabbed, chuckling as he pulled his phone out again. “I was the one who snapped his neck so if we are going to be pedantic about it. I won.”

“It was a draw,” mum said, trying to stop the squabbling before it turned into an argument. “They worked as a team in the end.”

Ilaria sat back on her heels by the corpse and wiped his blood from her chin as she grinned up at us all. “I don’t even care who won today. I was just so f*cking hungry.”

“Language!” Mum scolded her as she stood to her feet, stepping over the man’s body.

“Sorry. I was f*cking carnivorous. Better word choice?” she sidled up next to me and I slung my muscular arm around her shoulders, pulling her into my body aggressively as she chuckled. “No hard feelings brother.”

“None taken. I know better than to get in the way of you and your dinner,” I teased as Leif strolled over to us, shoving his phone in my face. His attention was already elsewhere. There was a picture of a good-looking man and an attractive girl who I had seen around the Academy from time to time.

‘Yummy she-wolf,’ Typhon interjected with his pent-up horniness.

“Double date? Are you up for it?” Leif’s multi-coloured eyes sparkled at me with mischief as I tilted my head to the side and huffed. He was nearly as persistent with his plans to get me laid as my wolf was.

“Hard pass,” I smirked, shaking my head as his smile dropped in irritation.

“Oh come on, brother. Let that wild beast out for just one night, you know you want to!”

‘Listen to the witch boy. He should have been my human. He is way more on my wavelength.’

“Leave him alone. You can’t expect all of us to be a filthy hoe like you,” Ilaria laughed, shoving the phone back into Leif’s chest.

“Fine. I’ll just have them both,” Leif shrugged. “More for me.”

“See, I am doing you a favour,” I grinned as he started to walk away through the forest.

‘You are doing no one a favour here. Least of all our poor d*ck. You want it to fall off from neglect?’ my wolf argued, growling in my head as I ignored him.

“Where is Leif going?” Dad asked, walking over to us as the rest of our family collected up all our belongings and the dead body to take back to the palace.

“To have a threesome,” I answered matter-of-factly.

“Use protection, son!” Dad shouted, shaking his head as Leif disappeared between the trees. He turned and gripped my shoulder, giving it a squeeze of understanding before returning to my mum’s side. It was no secret that I was still a virgin. But no one, apart from him, knew the real reason why.

Ilaria peered up at me with her unworldly pink eyes from under dark eyelashes, her white hair falling down her back. “I honestly don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?” I smirked as we started to walk through the forest, arm in arm.

“Ignore all the attention you get. You know every girl at the academy lusts after you, right? You are THE most wanted man by every horny she-wolf, vamp and witch out there! They would all die for a night in your bed. Or even for you to give them an ounce of your attention. And I have seen your phone. You are bombarded with booty calls and messages all day long on social media. You know the more you ignore them, the more you are feeding this hysteria around you. You are making yourself unattainable, which is a complete turn on for women.”

“So what do you suggest I do? Be like Leif and just have s*x with anything that has a pulse?” I smirked, holding her gaze.

“No,” she huffed. “I know you are holding out for your mate which I respect, but do you realise, once you find her, you will never get the chance to have s*x with anyone else ever again? Like until the day you die? We are talking about hundreds of years!” She blinked up at me in disbelief as I chuckled.

‘Exactly! We are wasting precious time with this abstinence bullsh*t!’

“That is how it works, yes.”

“Just checking you are aware,” Ilaria smiled. We fell into a comfortable silence as we headed for the mansion we had grown up in.

Since I turned sixteen and gained my wolf, he had been torturing me with his aggressive need to kill, f*ck and dominate everyone we came into contact with. I am not kidding. He got aroused at the sight of a f*cking poodle yesterday.

‘Hmmm, those tight little curls.’

See what I am dealing with? I had spoken to my dad, my uncle Raiden and Pops about their wolves to see if this was normal behaviour. They all said it was, especially when they were young, but I wasn’t convinced their wolves were anything like mine. I could feel Typhon’s power and dominance coursing through my veins every moment of the day, as if he was barely able to be contained within my skin. He wanted out. He wanted to be in charge all the bloody time. And it was exhausting. It was the main reason us triplets only had elite training with our family. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to control him when I shifted and I wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t kill a student at the supernatural academy. The only people I knew he would never lose control around were our family members. So elite training for us royals happens at the palace or my Grandpapi’s castle grounds in England once a week. But that wasn’t all I was worried about.

Sex. Of course, I wanted to have s*x like everyone else my age was doing. But I didn’t trust him. The moment my guard was down and I relaxed, I felt him coming to the surface. If that happened during s*x, I wouldn’t be able to keep a lid on him. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. So the extremely fun notions of control and self-discipline were what I lived by.

My family all thought I was waiting for my mate to come along. That I was this hopeless romantic, who never wanted to touch another woman before her and part of that was true. I had always been fascinated with the mate bond. And seeing the incredible relationships between my own parents and grandparents just made it even more important to me. I didn't see the point in starting something with someone I wouldn't end up with in the future. It would only cause unnecessary drama, which I have never been a fan of. Having to be responsible, in control and self-conscious all the time was infuriating beyond belief, especially when my siblings were so impulsive. It was hard. All of it was.

‘All of it apart from your dick.’

‘Will you shut up!’

“You okay?” Ilaria looked up at me with concern.

“Yeah, fine. How is Neve doing? When did mum say she was going to wake Kafele?” I asked, trying to change the subject. Neve was our close family friend and Ilaria’s best friend. She was a hybrid—half witch and half wolf—who had just been through quite an ordeal. Thank Goddess, all that was behind us now.

“Tomorrow. Neve is nervous. I mean you can’t blame her. She was kidnapped, drugged, kept in a glass cage for weeks and then found her mate through all that trauma only to escape with him, but then he nearly gets killed protecting her! Now she has to deal with the fact he has been in a magical coma for days and might not actually wake up from it, once mum releases his soul back into his body.”

“Yeah… that is a lot for anyone to deal with. Do we know anything more about him yet? Or why he is here?”

“No. Pops said he has researched the tattoos on his chest and he thinks they are tributes that date back to the first ever wolf who was created by the Moon Goddess. The one you are named after. So, we are guessing he is from some pack that is extremely traditional and loyal to the original beliefs.”

“Didn’t he tell Neve he was from another realm and sent here with a message for mum and dad?”

“Yes. But we aren’t going to know what that message is until he wakes up. If he wakes up…”

“He will…I just have a strange feeling about all of this.”

“What do you mean?” She paused and searched my face as I ran my hand through my black hair and ruffled it.

“I don’t know. It just feels like something big is about to happen. Something crazy.”

“Of course it is!” she laughed, shaking her head and pulling me by the arm into the elegant kitchen. “We are the Romano-Blacks, crazy follows us everywhere.”