The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (71 page)

Ash ran her nose lazily
behind his ear and purred, Connal’s weight a living blanket securing her
languid curves beneath him. She was content, surrounded by his scent, her hands
smoothing down his spine, long strokes that made him arch up into her palms and
pushed his face into her shoulder. He was burying himself in her hair, tonguing
at her skin and she smiled, gathering him closer.

It was the smallest drop, but
it was warm and it tickled as it slid over her skin. A tear. Connal's body
hitched slightly, his hands tightening on her. Wetness pricked at her eyes and
she nodded into the curve of his neck. She carded her fingers into the soft,
short spikes of his hair and just held on. It was all ok. They were free, and
they were together, and she would fight tooth and nail before she let anything
separate them again.

C
onnal lay awake, propped on one elbow, watching the
small miracle of Ash breathing. She was alive and sharing his bed, and wearing
his bite-marks on her throat. He curled the ends of her hair in his fingers.
This incredible woman was his one in a billion: somebody he didn’t have to lie
to about who, or what, he was. With her, he had the chance to be himself. No holding
back his true nature for fear of hurting her. No cold sheets from sneaking away
in the night. No fear of forming attachments he could never honour. Connal had
lived his lone-wolf existence for so long, he’d forgotten what is was to not be
lonely, if he’d ever known. Ash loved him. Unconditionally. And it scared the
hell out of him, because that unconditionality was about to be severely tested.

Brevity adds infinite
poignancy to life’s fleeting moments.

The Morrígan’s words taunted
him. A life for a life, she’d said, and Connal thought he’d got off easy. Now?
He realised she’d done this on purpose.

His thumb stroked Ash’s open
palm, and the dual crescent-shaped mating marks embossed there. However much
Ash protested wanting his half-brother, Connal was no fool. Her scent had been
in MacTire’s bed, just as it was in his. He’d watched them kiss, and though
they might be faded now, he’d seen the teeth marks in her skin that weren’t his
own.

MacTire had tied their blood.
Why else would Ash have goaded Connal into having sex with her that day in the
forest, if not because they all three shared the same biological link? It was a
tragic legacy of their birth, and it was more than that. Connal witnessed Ash
and MacTire’s friendship, and felt the stab of jealousy at their easy
exchanges. The King had saved her life, and had turned on his own men to do it.

And that was precisely why
the Morrígan, in all her sadistic generosity, had granted him this month’s
stay. She wanted to make it harder on him, to prolong his agony. He
should have
done the deed as soon as he knew Ash was safe, but he was weak, he couldn’t
bear to let her go. This moment alone with her could prove to be his last, and
so he cherished it, committing every detail of her sleeping form to memory. Ash
was going
to
hate him for what he had to do.

Food first, death later.
Connal’s stomach growled, a reminder of how long it had been since he’d eaten a
proper meal. That would be the steak and eggs Ash cooked for him. Assuming the
pack outside hadn’t devoured the entire contents of his freezer, he planned on
repaying the favour, with breakfast in bed.

Slipping silently from the
sheets, he pulled on a pair of his own jeans and navigated the sprawl of
passed-out wolves, following the scent of freshly-brewed coffee to the kitchen
area.

MacTire was at the table, mug
in hand. Their eyes met in a guarded truce.

‘You look like shit,’ MacTire
laughed, ‘was your barber drunk? Or only blind?’

Connal scrubbed a hand over
his shorn scalp. ‘Long story,’ he said, ‘and not one I want to talk about.’ The
bargains he’d struck with the Morrígan were not on the table for discussion.

MacTire poured a second mug
and slid it across the table. Connal’s hand hesitated on the back of the chair
before he reluctantly pulled it out and sat. A plate of hot, buttered toast was
pushed in his direction. To an outsider, this scene would be so ordinary, he
thought. Two brothers trading insults over breakfast. In reality, this was the
closest he’d been to his half-brother in almost a thousand years. United by a
woman they both loved, yet doomed because of her.

‘Cheer up,’ MacTire grinned.
‘Only a few hours, and we’ll be out of your hair. The
t
hegn
are mobilising to evacuate the prisoners as we speak.
I’ll have them take care of the mess upstairs too.’

‘I appreciate that,’ Connal
answered tightly, cradling the mug.

Dark eyes met Connal’s across
the table. ‘They said Doyle, the bartender, failed to report in. You know
something about that?’

‘Nope.’ Connal’s expression
was shuttered. Reluctant truce or not, he didn’t trust MacTire when it came to
Madden.

MacTire shrugged. ‘Saves me
the bother of killing him myself.’

Connal popped a brow.

‘Kidnapping children is not
my style. Doyle will be made to pay for his rogue actions, if he hasn’t
already.’ Mac regarded Connal briefly, then drank from the mug and ripped his
teeth through a slice of toast. ‘Go a month without bread,’ he groaned, ‘and
you forget how damn good it tastes.’

Connal strummed his fingers
on the coffee mug. 'Tell me something, MacTire. Why did you do this?’

‘You know the answer to
that,’ MacTire replied, ‘though I don’t believe you want to hear it.’

Because the bastard loves
her.

‘No,’ Connal shook his head,
‘I get why you saved Ash. But why spare me? You’ve had ample opportunities to
finish what you started.’

MacTire dropped his toast and
looked Connal square in the eye. 'This will be hard for you to believe, but I
am a man of honour. The laws are clear. You withstood your punishment a true
warrior. Balor knows how you survived the blood-eagle and the raveners, but
some higher power chose to spare you, Connal Savage. The debt between us is
paid. In my eyes, at least.’

Connal stared back at him for
a long moment. ‘You know I won’t let you take her back there,’ he said quietly.

‘I would have her come to me,
willingly.’

Connal felt the muscles
tighten across his spine. ‘You’d really let her choose?’

MacTire topped up both mugs
and scratched his temple. ‘These centuries leading the pack have taught me
something of life. When a man is handed his every desire, or can simply take
what he will by superior force, how shall he ever know the measure of his own
worth? There is true satisfaction only in what is rightfully earned.’

Connal’s brows disappeared
into his hairline. ‘You’re prepared to risk your people’s future existence over
pride?’

‘I follow my instincts.
Second guessing destiny only makes it harder for her to find you.’ MacTire
drank deep and exhaled. ‘Did you know the
t
hegn
unearthed an ancient prophecy claiming the next
generation will be the one to break the Morrígan’s curse forever? I believe in
prophecy, and therefore in fate. What will be will be, however tortuous we make
the path.’

‘So what happens now,’ Connal
asked warily. ‘You’re just going to walk away?’

‘I can’t compete with a dead
man.’

‘I’m not dead.’

‘No, you aren’t.’ MacTire’s
mouth curved in a half-smile as he licked the melted butter from his fingers.
‘You know, I think a part of me knew all along you weren’t dead. You can
separate
félagi
, but you can’t sever the connection. It was the same
when we were boys. For years, after you were taken, your father would ask me if
I could feel your life-force. He was obsessed with finding you. I did
everything in my power to win his respect, but it was never enough to make him
forget you. I could never measure up to the perfect son he’d conjured in his
head.’ MacTire stared into the depths of his coffee cup. ‘So you see, even
then, I was competing with a ghost, and that’s one fight I learned you can’t
win.’

‘You’re not going to fight me
for her?’ Connal asked.

‘What would be the point?’

‘We are physically matched.
Who knows, you might even win,’ Connal laughed humorlessly.

‘And have Ashling forever
resent me for killing you? Such a contest would have no victor. Perhaps I
prefer to watch you fuck it up with her, Brother, and drive her back into my
arms.’ MacTire’s smile didn’t reach his black eyes.

‘We are not brothers.’

‘We were, once. Our fates
could so easily have been reversed. Sometimes, I even wished it so: to be the
favoured, prodigal son, free to fight and fuck, with none of the
responsibilities of leadership.’

A growl ripped from Connal’s
throat. ‘I was not free. That man you call my father made me no better than a
slave.’

MacTire’s blond head dipped
in acquiescence. ‘He thought he was doing the right thing, teaching you to
survive in our world. He believed your human upbringing made you weak, but I
admit your father's treatment of you was wrong. I could have intervened, but I
resented my wife’s affection for you. I knew all along that Aoife was fucking
you, just as I knew the child was yours, and that she was planning to run.’

'And so you killed her, and
my son ...' Bitterness twisted Connal’s voice.

'I didn't kill them.'
MacTire’s expression was level. ‘Their deaths were a tragic accident.’

'Impossible,’ Connal’s mug
hit the table hard, spilling its contents over the rim, ‘I heard you arguing,
you released the untame on them. You said to me, on the sands, that you slit
her throat.'

'A lie,’ MacTire’s mouth
thinned. ‘I wanted you to hurt as I had,’ he confessed, ‘I
loved Aoife. I
knew she was leaving me, for you.’

Connal’s jaw went lax.

‘I wanted a clean break, for
both our sakes,’ MacTire continued, ‘I went to her to sever our bond, so we
could both be free to mate again. She owed me that much.’

‘Is that even possible?’
Connal asked.

MacTire inclined his head. ‘I
consulted the
thegn
Masters and they gave me the
Skil
. Do you
know of it? I don’t suppose you would. It is a blade whose steel was forged in
the blood of our forefathers. It's cut is said to sever the mating ties of our
kind.’

Connal’s eyes flared. ‘And
does it work?’

‘I never found out. I
followed Aoife to the arena on the night of the Blód-Samhain. And yes, we
argued, because she didn't believe me. When I drew the blade, she saw it as a
threat to her and the child. She snapped. Right there on the sands, she
shifted, and the outcome was disastrous. The child was swaddled too tightly in
her robes. He was crushed by her wolf form. By the time she realised what was
happening and shifted back, it was already too late for Quillan. Aoife took the
dagger from me. I thought she meant to break the bond herself. Instead, she
used it to take her own life.'

Connal’s breaths were shallow
and a tic worked the corner of his left eye. 'But you released the untame.'

'I did,’ MacTire’s face was
grim. ‘I wanted to spare her and her family the shame. There is no crime more
heinous to a Fomorian than infanticide. I thought, if I made it look like an
accident ...'

Connal shook his head, hands
curled into fists on the table. 'How can I believe you? After all this time,
after everything?'

'Rún was there that night. He
will corroborate every last detail. I never wanted them to die. I never wanted
us to be at war.'

The heavy weight of silence
settled over them. Elbows on the table, Connal tunneled his hands through what
remained of his hair. 'But you hold me responsible for the genocide,’ he said.
‘You wanted me dead, you ordered my execution.'

'What choice did you leave
me, Brother? You set those beasts on innocents, you turned your back on us, you
hunted my men ... can you blame me for hating you?