The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (49 page)

A shadow passed in front of
the fire torch in one corner and Ash glanced around. Guards prowled the
perimeter, their eyes averted at every doorway. They risked losing them if they
so much as caught a glimpse of her naked. Mac had been very graphic in his
threats.

She didn’t really care.

Modesty had been lost to the
urge to scour herself clean, and Ash stretched up into the rain of water,
letting its purity strengthen her as she abraded a rough sponge over her skin.

Red raw, that’s how she
needed to be.

Her eyes caught on the blood
tainting the surface of the pool and her knees gave. She was a stain on the
beauty of the place.

God, that poor girl.

Ash curled her legs into her
chest and let the water pound down on her head. It blurred her thoughts with
its crashing noise, but it couldn’t erase the memory. She’d shredded the girl,
carved her anger into the
thrall’s
innocent flesh until the floor ran
red.

She prayed they were only
surface wounds, pleaded for no lasting damage, hoped whatever primitive healers
the wolves had could help her.

They’d all looked so shocked.
Great muscled brutes and they’d drawn up short at the sight.

All except Mac. He leapt on
the damn bomb.

She was explosive and she
couldn’t find the right wires to cut to deactivate the fury. It sizzled under
her skin even now, pushing, as though it was having trouble being contained by
her human flesh. It itched with power.

She couldn’t even cry
anymore, not for the girl she’d destroyed, and not for herself. Even her
emotions weren’t her own.

I’m losing myself.

She shivered, unable to shake
the suspicion that the guards were not for her protection, but theirs. Not to
keep others out, but to keep
her
in. The way Brandr looked at her, dark
eyes blazing with accusation over the mess she’d made of his plaything, had
made her feel so very small.

She’d seen the violence they
were capable of. If even the monsters were repulsed, what the hell did that
make her?

They'd made the
thrall
orgasm. She'd made her bleed.

What were they planning to do
with her? They said Connal had no control, and they killed him for it.

The crash of the water was so
loud, it deafened her. So lost was she in her mire of self-pity that she didn’t
hear the intruder until she was dragged from beneath the spray, her arm clamped
in a cruel, metal-tipped grip. She staggered, slipping on wet rock before he
hauled her to her feet.

‘Don’t you dare scream,
Witch.’

Like she could. Her vocal
cords were frozen in shock.

Fite held her at arms-length,
green-rimmed irises shining with heat as his gaze rocked down her body. Ash
curled in on herself, shielding her nakedness. That look was pure male, so
focussed, she wondered if he was taking her measurements while he eye-raped
her.

Just be glad that’s all
he’s doing, Ash. I doubt he’s here to have a nice naked chat.

He wasn’t.

She was so tense in his grip
that when he eventually released her, she stumbled, landing hard. Sprawled
unceremoniously, half-in, half-out of the pool, Ash sputtered water and
splashed backwards as he stalked forwards. Crab-scuttling, she flipped onto her
hands and knees to avoid the snatch of his fingers, frantically crawling until
her feet found the edge of the pool.

She could hear his growled
breaths at her back, his thoughts beating her with images of her own body,
slices of him entwined with her … cut short and ending in black. Fite closed
down the impressions of desire and she didn’t feel him near until her head was
yanked back in his fist, ripping her off balance and connecting her spine with
his chest.

‘Calm your fucking self,’ he
snarled.

Was he kidding? The
thralls
might welcome him with open legs but she was not about to
calmly
let
him rape her. Her heel rammed at his instep and she was rewarded with his
pained grunt.

He fastened an arm across her
chest, crushing her breasts painfully.

Her elbow beat at his ribs
and her nails slashed at the restraining forearm.

‘By Balor’s cock, Woman!’
Fite released her, spewing curses. He snatched up the robe and underwear she’d
dropped and shoved them at her. ‘Put them on,’ he commanded.

She obeyed, glaring as she
showed him her back and drew the robe around her, tying it tight.

Fite crossed his arms over
his chest and stared her down.

‘Quite the little wildcat,
aren’t you, DeMorrígan?’ he said, icily.

That’s not my name.
Unease creased her forehead as she sought her voice.
‘No, I don’t understand, I ...’

‘First that stunt you pulled
with the raveners, and now this. You think you’ve got MacTire by the muzzle
too, don’t you?’

He was on her before she
could react, metal tips puncturing the soft flesh of her upper arm so hard that
tears sprung to her eyes and a whimper breached her lips.

'What are you?’ he demanded,
‘Why did she send you here?'

‘
You
brought me here!’
she replied. Was he suffering from amnesia? Ash struggled, but got nowhere.
Pain hazed over her vision in crimson and her head shook as a familiar edge
crept up her spine and throbbed at her fingertips. Beneath her skin, something
bristled.

I can’t hold on, I don’t
want to hurt you.

Except it didn’t come out
that way. It ended in a growl that was all feral.

Fite shook her. ‘Don’t
imagine you’ve got us all eating out of your poisoned hand. I’m on to you and
your witchcraft. It’s not welcome here.’

Ash lunged, her own strength
surprising her as she tore herself free of his grip. Her strike caught him off
guard too. Before he had time to react, she managed to get her claws around his
throat. She pushed her advantage, scaling his body, snapping a snarl to his
face. Her jaw ached, the points of her teeth long enough to touch her tongue.
Ash watched Fite’s pupils dilate, saw crimson bleed over the irises, but he was
frozen. With her talons so close to his jugular, he knew better than to react.
She could rip his throat out. Hell, she wanted to rip his throat out.

‘Ashling. Let. Him. Go.’

Ice stung her skin in the
wake of those thunderous words. The voice was unmistakable, but when she looked
over at Mac, his anger was sniper-sighted on Fite. Not her. And Ash had never
been so happy to see the bastard’s hulking silhouette. Slowly, she flexed her
fingers, drawing her claws from Fite’s flesh as she backed down.

Ash shakily stepped away,
allowing Mac to sweep her behind him, but not before his devil-red stare
assessed her bruised knees and bleeding skin. He inhaled and Ash shrank back.
Mac wheeled on Fite.

‘You attacked her?’ he
growled, ‘I claimed first right. Wait. Your. Turn.’

Okay. Clearly, he’d got the
wrong end of the stick. Fite was far from coming on to her.

‘Yes, you did,’ Fite sneered,
‘and how’s that working out for you, my Lord? Does she show you heaven between
her thighs, or has she teeth there too?’

Hauled up and pounded into
the wall, he didn’t get another word out. Mac’s forearm pinned the wolf off his
feet. Fite struggled for breath but he didn’t protest the hold.

Mac’s eyes glittered with
rage and he ground his arm to Fite’s throat, listening for the gagging choke.
‘I’m only asking once. What the fuck are you doing down here with her?’

‘Why aren’t you asking
yourself why you’re defending a stranger over your own fucking family?’ Fite
rasped. ‘She attacked me.’

Ash’s head jerked up as
Fite’s gaze fell to her, and she burned in the heat of his anger.

‘Look at her!’ he spat. ‘You
saw what she did to that girl. She conducted raveners from the skies, for
fuck’s sake. She’s not one of us, my
Lord
.’ Sarcasm dripped from the
title.

Mac’s curled lip snarled a
threat to the other male. ‘The untame think otherwise,’ he said.

‘She has bewitched them, as
she has you. She will poison our blood, MacTire.’

‘I am right here, you know,’
she muttered.

They ignored her.

Ash’s eyes pinged between the
males like they were a violent tennis match, Fite’s total disregard for casting
his insults where she could hear them the ball that kept the battle going
.
She made herself small. There was too much testosterone in the room and she
didn’t want to be caught in the crossfire.

‘She’s just raw, Fite. She
needs to be shown how to contain her strength.’

‘No,’ Fite pressed, ‘she is a
feral animal that needs to be put down. The last time you granted mercy to such
a creature, it devastated us all.’

‘Fuck you and the high horse
you rode in on, Fite,’ Mac spat. ‘He was my brother. Would you have had me kill
him in cold blood? Then again, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?’

The look that passed between
them was devoid of all recognition, making two strangers out of brothers.

That separated Fite from his
restraint. His silver hair lashed across Mac’s face before the king was driven
back beneath a flurry of metal-clawed punches. Ash cringed when Mac took each
one of them, his jaw tight with pain, just letting them come. They rained down
in precise hits, quick as lightning, knocking him back. Fite was yelling, sense
lost to the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

It was payback. It was
deserved. Though Ash couldn’t know the reason, she could see it in Mac’s total
lack of resistance. He really was letting Fite hurt him.

Maybe it was the glimmer of
blood on the ends of those metal talons, or the barely audible grunt that
finally passed Mac’s lips. Whatever it was, it set Ash off. The trembling in
her body emanated from her centre and poured from her throat in a growl so dark
it should have been visible.

Two pairs of eyes whipped in
her direction, two faces frozen in open-mouthed shock.

She had to school her own
surprise when they obeyed.

The males parted in a crackle
of half-shifted bones and bruised knuckles.

Fite tugged his waistcoat
straight and patted his hair sleek as he backed off, a lazy curl of his tongue
catching at the blood staining his claws. ‘You need to get your bitch on a
leash, MacTire. I won’t be responsible for what happens next time she crosses
the line.’

Halfway to the exit, Mac’s
voice paused him.

'It is you who has crossed a
line, Fite. Know your place, or be taught it. Any varg lays a finger on her and
they will pay in blood. This is the word of your King.'

A curt bow was Fite’s only
acknowledgement and then he was gone, a whisper of menace trailing him like
smoke.

A hand passed in front of her
face, drawing her gaze from the exit to the cruelly handsome face of MacTire.
‘Come, Ashling.’

She adjusted her weight, but
didn’t make a move to leave. He let the silence stretch and her words rushed to
fill it up. ‘I attacked him. I did. He was angry and I just … let go.’ Ash
couldn’t raise her eyes to his, spoke to his hand instead. ‘I could have killed
him. I wanted ...’ Admitting she wanted to kill his brother was probably not
the best thing to help her case. ‘I really hurt that girl, Mac. I’m afraid.’
The next words stuck in her throat. ‘You have to help me. I need to learn to
control whatever this is.’

M
ac conceded to her demand for training with an
enthusiasm that worried her more than where he was now leading her. This was
necessary though, whatever he could tell her, show her, that would calm and
cage the thing inside her, would be a blessing. She needed to function enough
to formulate an escape plan. She needed to get angry without being scared she’d
rip someone’s face off. Her claws were still out, less Freddie Krueger than
before, but sharp enough to hurt herself when she fisted her hands nervously.