The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (42 page)

T
he lock clicked open and Fite waited, head cocked,
listening. She could be sleeping but he doubted it. From the state of MacTire,
she was up and armed. He knocked. There was no answer.

Balancing the tray on one
hand, Fite stepped inside. Locking the door behind him, he scanned the room for
hidden spaces where she could lie in wait. MacTire would skin him if the female
got out before he was ready for her.

She’d thrown the King a
curveball and it had struck him dead in the face. Fite chuckled silently. It
was a rare sight to see their leader get his fur ruffled. MacTire was hiding in
the safety of his throne room, licking his wounds, and Fite had to be the
fucking one to go in and feed the crazed female.

Setting down the tray, his
muscles tensed as whispers of sound reached his ears. Soft breaths, a
ragged-beating heart. The little female was hiding. He stalked her. She’d been
exploring; her scent lay in heavy trails until it thinned, aired out and
drifting towards the balcony.

Fuck!!!

She hadn’t … she wouldn’t
...

He was praying she hadn’t
jumped when the sight before him drew him up short.

She hadn’t plummeted to her
death, but the reality wasn’t much better. Neck deep in raveners, the strangely
subdued creatures clustered around her hunched form. One wrong move and she was
bird-food.

Miss Ashling …
He projected the words in her direction as he
wall-hugged his way closer. Scared eyes snapped to his. Pulled from the terror
that had held her immobile, she scrabbled on the rock.

Don’t, don’t move, it’s
ok. You’ll be ok.
Fite let the
impressions touch her mind.

Her chin dipped in a tight
nod, eyes shadowed in confusion and fear, but she was responding.

He was going to distract
them. And he was going to have to be quick about it.

Inching along the rock-face,
arm outstretched, the raveners caught his presence, their loose necks turning
to pin him in a death-glare. His body went taut as a live-wire, muscles strung
into bunches by the buzz of wild adrenaline, but the creatures made no move to
attack.

Ashling!!
Fite gripped her wrist and snatched her behind him.

The raveners rose up on a
shriek of outrage, a tsunami of beating black wings, talons outstretched,
reaching for what he protected.

They would destroy him, but
not without a cull of their own.

Lips pulled back in a snarl,
Fite’s claws tore through the metal tips of his gloves as he stood ground
against the sea of fury.

They raged at him, only lithe
speed keeping him from their snapping jaws. Fighting a dance of feathers and
claws, he pushed back, trying to maneuver Ash towards safety.

She stubbornly refused.

Her claws flexed into the
bare flesh of his biceps and he hissed. He could feel her heart thudding
against his back. She had every reason to feel threatened, but he couldn’t calm
her now.

‘You’re provoking them,’ she
said. She tugged on his arm, ducked under it, laid her weight against him in a
hard shove. Christ. Males were hard-wired to protect the females of their race,
and this one flung herself into the path of enraged raveners.

The momentary distraction was
enough. The sky-piranha’s jaws clamped into his thigh and he bellowed. ‘What
the fuck do you think you’re doing?
’ he growled.
‘
Get
inside before you get us both killed.’ He grabbed a hold on the rock as the
creature yanked, trying to shake him free. He was fucked. Couldn’t hold out
against its superior strength.

‘Let him go!’ The she-wolf
railed at the attacking creature. Bright eyes tainted red, she flung out her
arms. He expected to see nothing but bloodied stumps when he looked back, but
the damn thing obeyed her, releasing its hold.

The raveners were off the
attack, weaving like cobras to the sound of the flute.

He banded his arms across her
chest, dragging her back. Hisses rattled up the raveners throats, their swaying
halted, focussing with predator-precision on where he held her. Wings pounded
the air, their shrieks tearing at Fite’s eardrums until Ash shoved him back,
separating them.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she gritted
out, ‘don’t you see it sets them off? Just wait.’

She reached out, soothing her
fingers to leathery skin. ‘He won’t hurt me ...’

Fite bristled.

‘You should go,' she said to
them, 'Wolf-boy is getting antsy, I don’t want him to hurt you.’ Ash motioned
them away and a whining song rose into the air with the steady whump of wings.
Reluctantly, they left, great spectres in the sky, dark blots against a darker
canvas.

Fite slumped, the tension
wiring his body dissolving into relief. Adrenaline put his back to the wall, confusion
narrowing his eyes on the little female.

She’d dismissed the raveners.

The fearsome raptors,
commanded away by a creature they should have seen as prey. She was an anomaly.
He just couldn’t fathom if that was a good thing, or something very dangerous.
Fite gathered his features, settled his racing heart and took her elbow,
silently steering her into the safety of MacTire’s rooms. There was no
resistance and, as she stepped through the gap before him, Fite couldn’t resist
looking over his shoulder, fearing the threat at his back.

Ash ignored him. She was
shaken, her whole body on a fight or flight program she couldn’t shut off. Half
of her was frantic, raking up her insides with terror of the things she’d so
calmly petted, and yet the other half? It liked them, accepted them, thought
them more budgie than harpy. Her knees hit the end of the bed and Ash collapsed
into its support, hands limp in her lap.

‘That was some magic trick
you pulled out there.’ The mattress dipped beside her, taking Fite’s weight.
‘We should have been torn to pieces.’ There was humour in his voice, but she
couldn’t manage a smile.

‘Are you ok?’ she motioned to
his ragged thigh.

‘Just a flesh wound.’

‘What are you doing here?’
She wasn’t in the mood to entertain a train of studs.

‘MacTire wanted you fed and
clothed
,
’
he
said,
pull
ing
the tray of
food closer. ‘It wouldn’t serve you well to disobey. If you don’t eat, he’ll
feed you.’

Piqued, her emotions changed
and her body flexed to contain something that wanted to break out. Claws
lengthening, a growl lodged in her throat.

A hand covered her own. ‘Just
breathe. In time, you will be able to master your triggers.’

His smile was gentle as he
took her hand, turning it palm up.

‘What are you doing?’ Ash
tugged, but he didn’t let go. His thumb feathered in her palm, circling a small
crescent scar that she didn't remember incurring. He was more intent on
studying the black talons sprouting from the tips of her fingers.

‘It’s been hundreds of years
since I’ve seen a she-wolf’s claws, I’d forgotten how delicate they could
look.’

They kept calling her that.
She-wolf
.
She growled, hand swiped away as his laughter rang out. He was teasing her.

Curling her fingers, Ash was
hypnotised by the movement. They seemed to retract when she flexed them,
disappearing under the skin.

Her voice dropped to a
whisper. 'I'm not turning into one of them? Those girls ...'
Sex zombies
.
'The ones you call
thralls
. Am I?'

It was insane, but a tiny
part of her wanted to scapegoat the sexual arousal she'd felt with the brutish
stranger who'd woken her with his mouth between her thighs.

Fite shook his head, the bars
of his silver moustache lifting in a smile. ‘Far from it. This?' He drew her
hand towards him and brushed again over the scar she bore. 'This is a mating
mark. The brand of a wolf.'

A flush crept up her throat.

She studied her strange, new
nails, hair falling to hide her burning cheeks. Her mind was whirring, turned
so far inwards that she didn’t catch his movement until it was too late.

‘Ow!’ She turned on him,
startled, probing the pinprick of pain in her scalp. ‘What the hell did you do?
Was there a grey hair or something?’

He held up a strand that was
far from grey. It was a brilliant red, silky with a copper sheen that caught
the firelight when he twiddled it before her eyes.

What the … ?

He just frowned and tucked it
away.

‘What’s happening to me?’ Her
voice was plaintive. ‘How did I get here?’ Hands bunched nervously in the
sheets. ‘Last thing I remember, I was in his bed.’ She toyed with the coin
secreted away in her bed-sheet dress, and sorrow rippled up her throat. ‘He’s
really dead isn’t he?’

Fite stiffened. ‘That bast
... that man doesn’t deserve your tears, Miss Ashling.’ His hand twitched, but
those steel-tipped claws were not made to comfort, and clearly, neither was he.
‘Connal Savage was a liar and a traitor, a murderer of innocent women and
children. He manipulated you.’ The intensity of his green-rimmed irises
threatened to mesmerise her into believing him. ‘He used you, and he bit you,
aboveground and outside of the full moon, knowing full well the
eitr
in
his bite could kill you.’

‘No.’ She shook her head in
denial.

‘The truth hurts, but don’t
fester romantic delusions about that twisted fuck.’

Her vision was swimming with
tears when she met his hard expression. ‘He wasn’t like that.
I
manipulated
him.
I set him up to bite ...’

‘You what?’ Fite’s lids
flared. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘Because! I thought I’d
become
thrall
, or go insane from it. Then you animals wouldn’t want me
anymore. You’d have given that little boy back to his poor mother.’

‘Then he didn’t bother to
explain all the possibilities,' Fite frowned, 'like you might actually
be
one of us, and would suffer and die as we do without the full moon.’

‘No,’ she was adamant now,
‘he refused to bite me. I had to force him. I bit him first, I gave him no
choice.’ Ash rubbed absently at her throat, brow furrowed. She never considered
the greatest side effect:
dying.
Never thought she’d end up like that
blue mess she witnessed, expiring in her backyard. But obviously Connal had.
His refusal made so much more sense. ‘Oh God, was I like that?’ she asked.
‘Decaying
and blue?’ Did that make her one of them? Ash couldn’t deny the clawed proof.
The white-haired, porn-tashed hunk of Viking warrior clearly believed it.

Fite fell silent.

‘I saw what happens,' she
pressed, 'how am I not dead?’ Her head wasn’t wrapping around it. There were
fractions of her memories missing, a black void that came after explosive
ecstasy and agonising pain. She couldn’t shed light on them herself.

‘Connal brought you here,’
Fite conceded. ‘He pulled some mouth-to-mouth stunt on you to keep you alive
until you got to Fomor. Weird shit, like he was transferring his immunity to
the curse through his own breath.’