The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (51 page)

She met his eyes, throat
bobbing in a nervous swallow, but she didn’t resist. He couldn’t help her if
she wouldn’t let him.

The smile that curved his
lips was admiration and, with a wink that shot heat between her thighs, Mac
knotted the fabric at the back of her head, blotting her vision to black.
Fingertips brushed her cheek.

‘Breathe … relinquish your
fear … in order to attain control, you must first let go.’

Tears knotted her words and
she was grateful for the silk catching the few that escaped. ‘I’m afraid.’ Her
control was rarely relinquished. It kept her together. It had protected her for
so long, she found it difficult to hand it over.

‘Reach inside yourself,
Ashling. Find your place, your serenity.’

‘My place? I don’t ...’
Honestly, there wasn’t a place she could think of that was serene for her. Her
life had been lonely, or nightmarish, or hectic with overwhelming passion, and
she couldn’t think. The smoke was making her drunk, a fog in her head that
barely took the edge off the unnerving sensory deprivation he’d wrapped her up
in. He didn’t speak but she could feel him on the peripheral of her senses. She
focussed on that as her anchor, while the rest of her body floated.

B
reathe
,
don’t think, relax. Her eyes closed behind the blindfold and she exhaled,
blowing away the fog in her head and finding a clear gap in the haze. Huh, am I
tripping right now? Because the mist gave way to a circle of stones that was
all too familiar. She even had a guide. Ash lurched forwards in her dream-space
on unsteady legs, her hands sinking into silver fur as the large mutt waiting
on the outskirts of the graves bounded into her. His slobbering tongue felt
real, his coat silky, bunched around her fingers. Setty! She was dead, or she
was glimpsing heaven, her mutt attention-seeking with a damn gnawed sock
hanging proudly from his jaws. But he didn’t want to play. He nosed at her hip,
pushing her forwards when she would have halted just to pet him. He yipped,
and, bemused, she looked to where he’d crouched, tail wagging in the air like a
flag. Beyond him … Ash staggered. What was in the centre of those stones was
surely a hallucination. At the epicentre of this place her brain had conjured
from the drugging smoke, Connal was laid out on a marble slab, surrounded by
the graves, like a very male equivalent of Snow White, dead but not dead.

Of course, he would be her
serenity.

Her knees buckled at his side
and her hands clutched desperately at the lapels of his jacket, lips meeting
lips in a tender crush to his cool mouth. He didn’t awaken, no fairytale magic
infused him with life. Her heart twisted in her chest, a pain so deep she
didn’t think she could ever surface from it.

Shhh … it’s okay Little
Red ...

Ash’s head whipped up,
red-rimmed eyes shooting to Connal’s face. It was his voice, but he hadn’t
stirred.

She choked, breaking up her
words. ‘No, it’s not okay, Big Bad. I’m sorry, Oh God, I’m so sorry. I lead you
to your death.’

And there it was. The truth,
the guilt, that she’d killed the man she loved and she’d never got to say she
was sorry. That she loved him more than she’d been able to tell him. They’d
never even had a chance before they’d been thrown into hell.

No sorries, mo ghrá.
Everything happens for a reason.

God, she’d missed his voice.

‘But you are my reason! It
wasn’t supposed to end like this.’ The flats of her palms pounded his chest.

I don’t believe in happily
ever afters, Little Red
, he still
didn’t move
, but I would go happily into the ever after, knowing I finally
did something right. We are so right together, Ash.

She quivered, holding back
the grief that threatened to tear her from this moment.

Her voice was soft, breathed
to his mouth. ‘I’m so alone, Connal. I’m afraid. Don’t leave me, please. I love
you.’

She was clinging to his
motionless form, as though her presence alone could bring him back. She wanted
to see his eyes open, to watch his mouth shape the words that were so clear in
her head.

I am never, ever letting
you go, Little Red. You need to fight. Whatever it takes to survive, Ash. You
are stronger than you know
.

‘You are stronger than you
know ...’ The words were distorted, layered, Mac’s voice superimposing itself
over Connal’s.

She cried out a protest as
the hallucination broke under the lash of the whip. It snapped over her skin
and she lost her hold on Connal. The animal moved beneath her skin and she
torqued in the restraints. You are stronger than you know … Latching onto
Connal’s words, Ash reached deep and tugged at the leash, holding back the
violent tide of the change. Breath ragged, a sweat broke on her flushed skin as
she forced the blaze into retreat, her bones realigning, fur subdued.

Mac’s howl was joyous and she
could only imagine how he looked, watching her fight the transformation. ‘Yes,
Ashling! Excellent. You are a quick study.’

Her growl was not entirely
human. ‘You bastard. You’re getting off on this aren’t you?’

His answer was to strike
again, the fall of the whip cracking across the curves of her ass. She yelped,
bearing claws and fangs at the bite of pain.

He laughed, deep and throaty.
‘Maybe, just a little. And so are you. You smell of sex.’ He ran the butt of
the whip down the curve of her spine. She arched instinctively, cursed herself.
Cursed him.

Once more, Ash beat back the
change. It helped if she imagined holding Connal, protecting him from her own
reactions. She didn’t want to claw him. And she damn well wouldn’t give Mac the
satisfaction of seeing her lose control. ‘Go fuck yourself,’ she spat blindly
at him.

‘I’d much rather fuck you.’

Ash held herself in check,
refusing to rise to the bait. ‘You’re not half the male your brother was.’ She
said it quietly, but the sudden stillness on the other side of the blindfold
told her he’d heard. She could feel the stinging impact of her words in the
shift of his breathing.

He got guttural.

She was beyond caring. ‘You
could never satisfy me the way Connal did. Is that why you killed him? So you
could claim top dog? Well, guess what, Mac. Born a runt, always a runt.’

The king’s breaths became
ominous rumblings. MacTire was beyond words.

She laughed and it was a
little bit smug and a whole lot mocking. ‘Aww did I pull your trigger, Mac?’
Dripping sarcasm, she fed his words back to him. ‘Just breathe … relinquish
your fear … in order to attain control, you must first let go.’

A whining snap crackled
through the air and she flinched, bracing for the punishing flay of the whip.

But it wasn’t the whip that
hit her.

Before she could utter
another word, Ash collided with rock and was overwhelmed by a mass of fur and
muscle. The giant beast snarled at her neck, canines clamping a possessive
grip, threatening to puncture her exposed skin. The leash was out of her hands.

She let go.

A roar all her own ripped
from her throat and was buried in his pelt as her teeth sank through tendons in
a Pitbull grip. Violence raged her head with growls. The blindfold snapped. She
felt like she was exploding. Her jaw locked in the wolf’s throat, trapping its
jugular, and she relished
the howl that shuddered the mammoth beast against her
body. Fuck. You.

Fuck yes …

Everything was amplified, his
heart rushed in her mouth, kissing her tongue with frantic beats that only
clamped her jaw harder and tore growls from him. Rage and power and lust became
who she was, what she was, and it opened the gates for him to get through. Ash
had no defence when Mac’s massive jaws clamped her shoulder, fighting for what
was inside her, biting deep. Ash screamed, raking her claws down the heavy,
furred spine. The vines snapped free, no match for her newly powerful limbs.
Her body splintered in an orgasm so vicious, so complete, that she swore she
died.

Their howls mingled and
seconds later, fur and fangs melted away to rough-grinding muscle,
sweat-glistening skin on skin. Mac leaned into the contact, his forehead
pressed to hers, panting heavily, a breath from her lips. His eyes were glassy,
blissed-out and high on something other than incense.

Ash was molten, crushed up to
his chest, hips plastered to his. He’d been right. His pants hadn’t survived
the shift. She couldn’t look up, couldn’t look down, kept her gaze on the rings
glinting through his nipples. She sickened herself. The wet heat between her
thighs filled her with disgust. Her inner muscles flexed with an orgasmic
aftershock and she whimpered. He’d brought her to her knees with not much more
than a bite. Then again, he’d fallen first, and by the look on his face, he’d
fallen harder. Enough was enough.

She shrugged off his
possessive drape, ducking under his arm while he came to his senses. He turned
to her, agape. She’d taken control, and he knew it. Black eyes gleamed at her,
brightening with the realisation.

Ash bent to pick up the
discarded robe and closed it around herself with as much dignity as her arousal
drenched panties could afford. Her glance raked his nakedness, head to toe, and
she took on his smirk. ‘Guess you’re not the one wearing the pants anymore, huh
Mac?’ Ash took pleasure from his expression. He was turned
-
on and working
up from blissed to pissed off. ‘I think, maybe,
’ she laughed,
‘
you’re going to need stronger restraints next time.’

‘W
ake the fuck up, Sleeping Beauty.’

The voice sounded like a
possessed
Speak and Spell
on dying batteries, and something was kissing
him, a soft press of skin against cracked lips. The something moved in rhythmic
undulations … an alien sensation, like no mouth Connal had ever tasted. His
heart rate spiked. Cold, it was so damn cold his numb limbs refused to
cooperate beyond a teeth-chattering shiver. Forcing crusted lids to part, the
space warped in and out of focus. An amorphous shadow hunched over him. It
thrust what looked like a weapon towards his face and Connal jerked back
instinctively, only to struggle against the crude hogtie holding his wrists and
ankles.

The move was a mistake. Pain
ripped through his chest like shrapnel, expelling the air from his lungs on a
grunt. His body curled in, trying to protect itself, but only succeeded in
straining the ligatures tighter. With the hurt, at least, came a clarity that
brought the world, and a face his recognised, into crystal-sharp focus. The
thegn
doctor loomed large before him.

‘The girl?’ Connal croaked.

He probably should have been
more concerned about waking in a world of pain, trussed-up like a pig, and with
Doctor Death for a cellmate, but his first thought, his only real thought, was
for Ash.