The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (108 page)

Ash’s heart hammered over the
sound of gushing water.
It’s a water feature,
Ash told it with a
slightly hysterical laugh. S
omeone just flipped on the power, or maybe it’s
motion-activated.

Except slowly, inexorably,
the fountain of glowing water spread, moulding itself into a living shape.

‘Aw, cra-’ Ash didn’t get to
finish. The water hung in the air, splashing onto the bare feet of a being made
of pure light. Dread locked around Ash as the ethereal features of a woman
emerged from the watery glow. It hurt to look at her. The opposite of her
grandmother, this woman was petite and heavily pregnant, her blonde hair close
to white and lifted on an invisible wind, her face delicate and perfectly
symmetrical. Ash was terrified. This was no party guest she’d invited.

‘Who are you?’ Ash asked,
though in her pounding heart, in the dread pit of her stomach, Ash already
knew. Gov had warned her that killing her grandmother would have repercussions.
There would be no happily ever after, after all.

A tinkle of laughter, like
wind-chimes on a sunny day came from the pretty rosebud mouth. 'I am Danu,’ the
apparition said, confirming Ash’s worst suspicions. ‘I have come to set the
world to rights, Ashling Morrígan.'

‘You do know we’re relying on
you two to keep the Fomorian race alive.’ Brandr, merrily drunk, slapped Connal
on the back and clinked their glasses together, spilling champagne into the
grass. ‘Call it your civic duty, now you’re finally one of the pack,’ he
laughed. ‘Can’t have us dying out and allowing that Morrígan bitch to
reincarnate herself.’

‘No,’ Connal agreed with a
distracted smile. ‘The last thing we need is another Morrígan on our hands,
right? Have you seen Ash?’ he asked, scanning over the heads of the guests,
seeking out the red of the poppies in her hair, but coming up empty. ‘Would you
mind?’ He handed Brandr his glass and moved off into the crowd, growing ever
more agitated at her absence. Having exhausted every huddle of guests in the
gardens, and brushed off their attempts at humorous conversation, he strode
across the grass, beyond the firelight, and dipped beneath the canopy of the
trees, searching the woods. The day had been overwhelming. Maybe she’d just
needed a breather.

He’d been about to turn back
and try the house when he spotted her, moving through the trees towards him.
Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. She caught him looking at her and
seemed momentarily flustered, but quickly schooled the expression into a smile.

‘There’s my bride,’ Connal
growled, hauling her into his arms. ‘Where did you disappear to? I thought
you’d run from me.’

‘If I did, it was only so
you’d catch me.’

He ran his hands up her
spine, dragged her lower lip through his teeth and groaned. ‘It’s too crowded
here for my liking,’ he murmured, casting a longing look at the woods. ‘Wanna
go pick flowers in the forest, Little Red?’ His growl was quiet enough that
only she could hear, but laden with erotic threat.

Ash inhaled sharply, swaying
into his body in a link of arms and a flush of carnal heat. ‘Fuck, yes, Big
Bad, let’s go … pick flowers.’

‘I will pluck your luscious
flower,’ he purred, plucking a poppy from her hair and trailing the petals down
the blushing porcelain column of her throat.

She arched for him, humming
passion in her throat as her hair cascaded ebony silk into his waiting hands.
'Pluck hard,' she purred.

'Always hard for you,' he
growled, pressing a kiss to the pulse at her throat.

'Wicked. Fuck.' Her fingers
curved claws into his arms, her lips turning to bite a kiss to the rasping
stubble of his jaw. 'You're wicked, Big Bad.'

'Big,' he said huskily,
grasping her hand and moulding her palm to the hard bulge of his erection. 'Bad,'
he moaned, closing his teeth on one earlobe. 'Wicked,' he breathed to the shell
of her ear, grinding his cock on the heel of her hand, 'and all fucking yours,
Little Red.'

'Oh God,' she cried, 'I can’t
do this. I have to go, I'm sorry, so fucking sorry.'

She pulled herself from his
arms and fled into the woods.

'What!' Connal stood a
moment, gob smacked at the sight of Ash thrashing through the undergrowth in
her wedding gown. His instinct was to give chase, and he gave into it,
oblivious to the cheers and wolf-whistles of the pack as he left them far
behind.

He was deep into the woods
when she leapt at him, landing on his chest and sending him flat on his back
into the mossy undergrowth.

'Christ Ash, what's wrong?'
he pleaded.

'Nothing is wrong. Everything
is just perfect. Don't you see?'

And then he did see.

She grinned down at him with
a mouthful of beautiful canines and eyes as crimson as the flowers in her hair.

'I had to run before Carla
saw. I couldn't hold it back. You bring out the animal in me,' she laughed,
nipping playfully at his throat.

'But how?' he asked. 'I don't
understand.'

'It was a wedding gift from
Danu, the mother of all creation,' Ash beamed, 'apparently she liked our
dedication to her. The old gods don't get a lot of love these days. She offered
to give me back my wolf.'

'It's incredible,' he growled
and licked at her fangs, then grasping her face in his hands he met her eyes,
'but you know I'd have loved you regardless.'

'I know Big Bad, but this way
you don't have to be gentle with me.'

'I ...'

'Shhh,' she whispered,
silencing his protests with a deep, penetrating kiss, 'I know how much you've
been holding back these past weeks.' She peppered his mouth with biting kisses.

'I can make love to you
without biting you,' he protested, pulling back. 'I do have that
self-restraint.'

'Yes,' she moaned, hitching
her dress to seat herself firmly in the saddle of his lap, 'but that's not what
I want.' She clawed the shirt from his chest. 'I want you wild, Savage like
your name, and unrestrained,' she reached between her legs, making short work
of his fly to palm the magnificent girth of him. 'I want you buried deep inside
me, in every imaginable way. I want you to take me, hard and fast, until we lay
heaving and sweating, with you spent inside me. I want you drenching me, inside
and out with the mark of your possession. I want to make you believe in happily
ever afters, Big Bad, because you are mine, and I am yours. For fucking ever.
So show me.'

And he did exactly that.

THE END

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GLOSSARY

***Warning:
This glossary contains SPOILERS. If you prefer a spoiler-free reading
experience, we suggest leaving this until after you finished the book. ***

A
leanbh
- Gaelic for ‘my child.’

Blood
eagle
- An ancient Norse method of
torture and execution, performed by cutting and breaking the ribs of the victim
and forming them into a semblance of bloody wings. The lungs would be pulled
through the wounds and salt poured into the chest cavity. A punishment reserved
for the worst traitors to the Fomorian race.

Blód-brother
- B
lood brother or sworn brother.
See félag.

Blód-Samhain
- A
Fomorian feast day when the full moon coincides with the Celtic feast of
Samhain, which coincides with modern day Halloween.

Céad
míle fáilte
- Gaelic for ‘a hundred
thousand welcomes.’

Dubh
Linn
- The old Norse from which
Dublin got her name. It translates to 'black pool or lake'; the ancient site
adjacent to Dublin Castle where the Vikings decided to settle. The actual black
lake was filled in during the late seventeen/early eighteen hundreds.

Eitr
- The blue-tinged, opalescent venom in a Fomorian’s
bite, it has an adverse effect on humans (see Thrall). In Fomorians, the
exchange of
eitr
heightens sexual orgasm in a biological incentive to
mate and reproduce.

Elatha
- A Fomorian moon god, whose blessing of the red fog
permitted the Vargs to walk the earth during full moon.

Ellén
Trechend –
Three-headed, bird-like
monster from Irish myth, said to have emerged from a cave in Rathcrogan, County
Roscommon.

Félag
(pleural félagi) - Old Norse word meaning
‘fellowship’ or a ‘bringing together of strengths’. On reaching maturity,
Fomorian male litter-mates born to different fathers undergo a ceremonial
branding and contest one another in battle to establish dominance. Thereafter,
the blood-brothers are sworn, one to the other, in a lifelong bond of
allegiance, which included the sharing of a single mate.

Form
- A nightclub built on the site of
the original Dubh Linn. Neutral territory (see Haven Law).

Fomor
- A mythical, subterranean world, in which the
Fomorians have been condemned to dwell forever by the Morrígan’s powers.
Fomorians retain their immortality only as long as they maintain contact with
Fomor. If they walk the earth outside of the full moon, they age instantly and
die a slow, agonising death.

Fomorian
- A mythical, semi-divine race that were the first
inhabitants of Ireland. Gods of chaos and wild nature, they have been variously
described as grotesque beasts and as beautiful men. Defeated in battle by the
Tuatha Dé Danann, the Fomorians were driven beneath the sea, never to walk the
land of Ireland again. What is not written in the myths is that over millennia,
cracks appeared in their underground prison, the Tuatha Dé were forgotten, no
longer worshipped, and fissures, conduits to the surface, developed, leading to
black lakes, through which the Fomori began to escape and terrorize the human
people in the form of giant, wolf-like creatures. The people of Eblana kept
wolfhounds as protection and stayed clear of the known dangers of the black
lake where the wolves appeared at full moon in a haze of red fog. But one
fateful night, a large fleet of Viking settlers arrived and moored their
longboats on the black lake, unsuspecting of the dangers. That full moon,
something happened. The Fomori possessed the souls of every man, woman and
child on board the boats, using the power of the full moon to cleave themselves
to human forms in an attempt to finally free themselves of their curse and roam
the land they considered was rightfully theirs. Thus began the second great
reign of the Fomori, into which our characters were born, a reign that was to
last until a terrible battle once again drove them below ground, cursed to live
out their immortality in their subterranean prison, or die an agonising death
above ground.