The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (60 page)

‘I
can’t believe you’re doing this for me. I owe you my
life, Mac. Thank you.’

Eyes bright with tears, Ash
went up on tiptoe and grabbed his face, aiming a kiss at the angle of his rough
jaw, but at the last moment he turned, and it planted hard on his full mouth.
Powerful arms wound about her, drawing her flush against his chiseled body,
fusing their lips.

She froze.

The scent of him was a roar
to her senses, wild masculinity enveloping her in the kind of security she
couldn’t remember feeling since this whole nightmare began. She was bone-weary
of staying strong, and Mac felt so good to lean against, solid, an anchor in
the ever-shifting sea of her fear and uncertainty. She felt safe, and allowed
herself a moment of weakness.

His mouth moved against hers
and his tongue stroked the seam of her lips, coaxing her to open for him. It
was as though the connection closed a circuit and her body bloomed with the
current of their physical bond. She let its intensity wash through her, taking
comfort in the familiar intimacy.

This man was not Connal.
Nothing was bringing him back to her, and she knew in her soul she'd never make
that same connection with another. She’d tasted heaven and it had ruined her
for anyone else. But this lust she shared with Mac was something tangible, and
she clung to it now, in fear of her life and her future, and tried to tell
herself that maybe, in time, she could settle for a purely physical attraction,
that the affection she felt for this man could be enough to fill the aching
void Connal left.

Tried
,
and failed.

Connal’s absence was too raw.
The bed of the wound was still bleeding and this kiss only opened it wider.

Mac must have felt her
emotional freeze, because he stiffened and broke their embrace. Oh Hell, Ash
thought. The guy was crossing his own people to save her life. Telling him he'd
always play second fiddle to his dead brother seemed a low blow. She lifted her
eyes to his face, but the apology died on her lips. His focus had shifted
across the room and his body was rigid.
Shit.
The wolves had found her.
Panic made her movements robotic as she turned to face ...

Connal.

Oh God.
She'd lost her ever-loving mind and her guilt had
conjured up this vision of him standing there, covered in dirt and blood,
half-naked, watching her embrace the brother who'd killed him.

Her subconscious had a warped
way of punishing her.

Mac's arms braced her ribcage
and his growl vibrated at her back. ‘You! How …?’

'I'm like a bad penny,
MacTire.'

Her vision was speaking, and
he sounded cold. So cold, it ran a shiver up her spine.

The shadows moved and a
second figure stepped into the light. Either the monks had used some
super-strength, hallucinogenic brand of incense, or that was Doc Rob standing
beside Connal. Unshaven and ragged, he was almost unrecognisable.

‘You will die for this,
Thegn
,'
Mac glared at the doctor.

Ash barely heard his promise.
Her eyes were all for Connal. She stepped forward, only to have her heart break
at his recoil.

Bereft, she wrapped her arms
around herself. ‘How did you … I mean, what are you doing here?’ Shock had
rendered her incoherent and Ash cringed when the words came out wrong.

‘I was coming for
you
,’
Connal said. There wasn’t even a growl to his voice. It was just … devoid of
anything.

She could hardly speak. ‘But
you’re dead.’

‘Dead to you? You didn’t
waste any time, Ash.’

She took a step forward at
his words and he backed up, a one-sided emotional tango with her sorrow and
relief as the music. She was so unbelievably happy he was alive, she couldn’t
think straight. She wanted to touch him just to prove it to herself. But he was
an ice fortress, impenetrable.

Mac took up position in front
of her, a buffer to Connal’s glacial facade. ‘You have no idea what she’s been
through,’ he growled

‘Oh, but you do, Brother?’
Connal sneered and she hated that look on him. He was still maddeningly
gorgeous, despite the bloodied scruff, the knotted dreads. Still glorious, he
still made her heart pound and her knees weak.

‘Yes, I fucking do,’ Mac
replied. ‘Who do you think has been here to pick up the pieces of the mess you
left her in, Brother?’

Connal’s lips parted as if to
speak, but no words came.

‘Ashling knows everything
about you,’ Mac pushed, ‘all the dirty secrets and lies. She’s met your last
victim too, that girl you bit in the club.’

Connal paled.

Oh God, he did bite that
girl …
Ash felt sick.

‘She’s run her fingers
through the bone-dust of the genocide you committed against your own people,’
Mac spoke calmly. ‘Thousands of innocent men, women and children. Can you stand
there and tell her none of it is true?’

Connal could have been a
sculpture, all silent tension facing off with Mac’s spilled accusations. Ash
was quiet, fighting instincts that begged her to go to him. The primal thing
inside her was frantic for his attention, but all she could do was plead with
her eyes for him to deny it.

‘It’s all true,’ Connal’s
voice was brittle.

Her lashes shut him out.
She’d accepted it might be true; hearing it from his own, stupidly beautiful
lips was an entirely different thing. Ash couldn’t decide which shocked her
more: hearing the truth or realising that it didn’t change the way she felt
about him, not one iota.

Doc Rob’s voice broke the
quiet that followed. ‘That’s not the whole truth. He-’

Connal pushed him roughly,
shutting him down. ‘Silence,
Thegn
,’ he gritted, ‘this is not your
concern.’ His steely eyes cut to Ash and she prayed for them to soften, just a
little. ‘I came to take you from here,’ he said. ‘Regardless of your opinion of
me, I brought you here, and it falls to me to get you out. And I will go
through
him
if needs be,’ he gestured to Mac.

Ash levelled him with a
frown, shoving Mac’s shoulder when he snarled his way forwards. ‘You don’t have
to go through anyone, Connal. I want to go.’

Mac continued his forward
momentum, stalking into Connal’s space. ‘Where will you take her, Savage?’ he
asked. ‘What life can you offer her? No life at all. Your bite cursed her as
surely as you cursed us all. Your witch has abandoned you. Without her, you
can’t protect yourself, let alone her. I can. Can you even shift without your
dog-collar?’

Connal’s jaw tightened.

‘I didn’t think so,’ Mac
said. ‘The entire
s
kuldalid
is
hunting her down as we speak. They intend to kill her. Can you swear to keep
her safe if she goes with you?’

They were fire and ice.
Emotion crawled violently through Ash’s veins. With every second they ignored
her, the feral thing inside her was unfurling.

‘You two talk about me like
I’m not even in the room,’ she stepped between them. ‘In case neither of you
meatheads noticed, I've got bigger claws and teeth than either of you. I can
protect myself, and I am perfectly capable of deciding my own fate.’ Like
escaping. That was something she wanted, preferably before the other wolves
came knocking on the Temple’s door. She just caught the white flash of Doc
Madden's smile before Mac wheeled on her.

‘They have weapons,’ Mac
said, ‘They restrained you once. This time, it won’t be stun-bolts.’

His tone got her hackles up.
He was responding to her, but his words were appealing directly to Connal. She
breathed, attempting to control the urge to rip out his chauvinistic throat.
She might as well not have been in the room.

‘The only place that will
guarantee your safety right now is Form,' Mac continued, 'and Connal’s not
planning to hang around there. Are you?’

‘He’s right, Ash.’ Connal's
head sagged on his shoulders. He wouldn’t even glance at her
,
but
she was feasting her eyes on him, devouring him, with her heart flopping over
in her chest and her breath not coming right.

Look at me, God, please.
Big Bad, LOOK AT ME!

He didn’t, just kept on
talking, chiselling fractures in her soul. ‘He can keep you alive. If I take
you with me, they’ll hunt you down, you’ll be dead long before the moon wanes.'

'But you said you were taking
me with you,' she pleaded.

'I changed my mind,' he said,
'you’d only be a liability to me. Go with him, it's for the best.’

Just like that. Dismissed.

Connal backed away and her
heart wrenched in her chest. She hurt, wondering if she ever knew the man who
now treated her worse than a stranger. Connal snatched Doc Rob’s arm
,
walking them both towards the pool of black water.

Mac made a move towards them
and Connal halted. ‘You going to stand in our way, MacTire?’

‘There is no glory in picking
low-hanging fruit.’ A smirk played on the King’s lips, broad shoulders kicked
back. If an entire body could become a sneer, Mac’s would be doing it. ‘Come
see me when you’re
whole
again.’

Connal’s jaw twitched.
‘Another day then, Brother,' he replied. They dove into the dark waters and
were swallowed by the waves.

Gone.

Connal was gone.

Ash was two steps from the
pool when Mac caught up to her, and when she started to crumble at his touch,
he held her to his chest. She’d moved on instinct but with Mac’s fingertips
pressing into the soft flesh of her upper arm, she could think beyond her
heart-stuttering need to follow.

C
onnal stepped out of Madden’s sleek marble shower,
scrubbing a towel over his face and dreads. The black slime may have been sluiced
from his body, and the Gods knew he stank of that high-end soap, but still, he
felt dirty. Some things didn't wash out from under your skin so easily.

The doctor had an expensive
looking suit laid across the bed and was in the process of buttoning up a
formal white shirt.

‘I found you some sweats.’
Doc Madden looked apologetic as he motioned his fresh-shaven jaw in the
direction of the easy chair, where a black hooded top, sweatpants and a pair of
trainers had been left out in a neatly folded pile. ‘The rest of my clothes
won’t fit you.’

‘Thanks Doc.’ Connal picked
up the trainers. They were brand new. Everything else had tags too. ‘I
appreciate you doing this for me,’ he said.

Madden brushed off his
gratitude. ‘I like to keep my private rooms in Form well stocked. The black
passage of doom plays havoc with a metrosexual man's wardrobe,' he smirked,
cocking his chin high to fix the top button of his shirt, 'not that I'll be
needing this little bolt-hole any more.' He flipped down the collar and dusted
off perfectly creased shoulders.

Connal dressed methodically
and in silence. Eventually, the doctor approached to retrieve a pair of gold
cufflinks from the nightstand and spoke without looking him in the eye. ‘Are
you okay?’

A pause then. He was anything
but okay. The doctor turned and Connal looked at him with haunted eyes. ‘It was
his
bed, wasn’t it?’

Madden’s face went tight with
that brace-yourself-for-bad-news expression doctors did so well. ‘Yeah,’ he
exhaled. ‘Fuck, I’m sorry man.’

Connal sucked in a breath,
struggling to hold it together while the hole that had opened up inside him
caved and his gut bottomed out. He didn’t think the doc would appreciate a fist
through the drywall of his fancy apartment and going berserk was liable to draw
unwanted outside attention. Gritting his teeth, he planted himself in the chair
and attacked the laces of the trainers instead.

‘That bitch Karma has a long
fucking memory,’ he growled.