The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (78 page)

Doyle gaped.

Oh yeah, the bastard had a
nice clear mental image.

‘Now imagine its a giant wolf
attempting to tear itself out of your body. It's agonising, blood-broiling. I
really can’t begin to describe the pain, but it lasts for days and leaves you
begging for death. But that’s just a single bite, of course,’ Madden held up
the syringe and depressed the plunger until a tiny stream of the liquid shot
from the needle, ‘whereas this multiplies that effect one-hundred fold.’

‘You sick son of a bitch. You
wouldn’t dare. You’re a doctor, and a pussy. What about that hypocritical oath
you took?’

‘That’s Hippocratic oath, you
moron, and I think you’ll find that getting ass-raped by a pack of wild dogs
has a funny way of honing a man’s homicidal tendencies.’ It was true, for one
who gravitated towards non-violent conflict resolution, Madden’s fists had done
a lot of talking lately. He tapped at a large vein that had popped up in the
crook of Doyle’s restrained arm and positioned the needle. ‘This is for Josh
and Liath, for what you put them through.’

‘You’re still a pussy,’
Doyle’s words were defiant, but they held a note of panic and his arm tensed in
a futile struggle to pull away. ‘Your little bastard won’t last long, not now
your dirty little secret’s out,’ he blurted, ‘and by now your whore will be
putting out for every wolf in a hundred mile radius.’

‘Now who’s bluffing?’ Madden
sneered. ‘Liath is protected.’

‘Oops. Here’s the thing,’
Doyle laughed hysterically. ‘Those blood-runes you used on her? I may have
broken them … and I might have let slip to one of Fite’s wolves that she was up
for it. Some of those men haven’t fucked in a very long time. I’d say it went
rough for her.’

The syringe shook in Madden’s
hand. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? You took an oath not to harm her.
You’ll die for breaking it.’

‘I’m no oathbreaker,’ Doyle
spat blood, ‘unlike you.’ He stared long and hard at Madden. ‘The Savage was
supposed to be dead, making my oath null and void. Not my fault MacTire screwed
that up too. Sorry, man, but like I said, you shouldn’t go getting yourself
attached to the prey. They never make good pets.’

‘You fucking son of a bitch.’
Madden roared. He’d never intended actually using the
eitr
on Doyle.
He’d only meant to make him sweat for a few days, maybe inject him with some Viagra
and test the limits of the placebo effect, but at Doyle’s heartless admission,
something in him snapped. In that moment of madness, he lashed out, stabbing
the needle straight into Doyle’s carotid, plunging the entire contents of the
syringe straight into his arterial bloodstream.

The convulsions started
almost immediately, the body jerking and foaming at the mouth even as Madden
fled the room. He had to get to Laith, and his son, before it was too late.

Liath’s front door looked so
fractionally off-kilter that Connal wondered if he was imagining it, but as he
pushed, the door yawned open, triggering alarm bells in his head that snapped a
rigid line of tension down his spine.

Ash was bringing up the rear
with the wolfhound pup.

‘Stay back,’ he warned.

‘What’s that?’ she called
back. He turned to see her grappling with the animal. It had stopped dead at
the threshold of the property and was growling, lips curled off its teeth,
refusing to budge, despite Ash’s coaxing. ‘I’ll be right there,’ she said,
exasperated, ‘just as soon as I get this stubborn-ass dog to do what she’s
told.’ Tugging on its collar only made the young hound dig its heels in harder.
‘Maybe I should call you Connal,’ she muttered.

‘I heard that,’ he replied,
but maybe it was better that she hadn’t heard him.

The door chain clinked in the
breeze, drawing Connal’s attention to the locks. Every one of the numerous
deadbolts and mortices remained engaged. Something had simply ripped them right
through the doorframe. The mess of splintered wood spilled into the shadowy
hallway. On a spike of adrenaline, he ventured inside, his eyes adjusting
rapidly to the change in light. The shards of a blue and white vase crunched
underfoot. Its contents had been trampled into the beige carpet, filling the
hall with their scent of fresh violets.

‘Liath,’ he called, ‘Josh?
Are you here?’

There was no reply. It seemed
every curtain in the house had been drawn closed, enveloping the place in a
stygian darkness. Picking his way through the debris of scattered bills and
toys, he reached the living room. The door stood ajar, and from within came a
scent that no flowers could mask: it was the raw smell of sex.

As he stepped warily over the
threshold, the shadows shifted. In a flash of movement and a whip of blonde
hair, pale hands fisted the lapels of his leather jacket, hauling him into the
room. Momentarily caught off balance, his back hit the door and it slammed
shut, closing him inside with his would-be attacker.

‘Oh Gods Connal, thank fuck,
it’s you,’ Liath groaned, plastering her body up against his and biting at his
jaw. She radiated heat and just the smell of her lust was a physical assault.

Connal pushed her away
uneasily and she whimpered.

‘Liath,’ he breathed, ‘shit.’

Cheeks flushed, mascara bled
around wild eyes and blown pupils. Her hair stood on end like she’d spent the
night humping a Van de Graaff generator and her only shred of clothing was a
ripped tee shirt, mercifully just long enough to cover her otherwise naked
body.

Her thighs scissored and she
rubbed a hand along their clenched seam. ‘It hurts Connal,' she moaned, 'the
ache is so bad. Please, make it go away.’ She clawed at the neck of her shirt,
baring one milky breast, squeezing it in her palm and plucking at the tight
nipple. ‘Please, I’ll do anything. I just need to feel it again. That bastard
left me too soon, after I begged him,’ she snarled. ‘I’m going to
die
without it.’

Connal stared in horror at
her mutilated neck. ‘Who did this to you?’ he demanded.

Mistaking his concern for
permission to touch, her hand snaked up his throat, tunnelling into his hair as
she mashed her breasts up against him and attempted to push her thumb between
his lips. Her nail-beds had already begun to discolour, a dusky grey that would
soon turn black. His gut twisted, knowing the signs all too well.

‘I can pleasure you, Conn,'
she said huskily, ‘I’ll make you feel so good. Just bite me.’

He peeled her off him like an
obstinate sticker, and when her hand went to his groin, he removed that too,
gripping her wrists to hold her sexual advances at bay. She glared back at him
like a petulant child denied a treat.

‘Where is Josh?’ Connal
countered, hoping to snag some residual sense from the sex-starved fog of her
mind.

‘Who?’ she frowned back at
him.

‘Josh. Your four year old
son, Liath. Your reason for living.’

‘Oh, do you think
he’d
bite me?’ she asked, trembling with nervous enthusiasm.

Disgust rolled up Connal’s
throat. Fuck, this was beyond bad. Even with the full moon at its zenith, most
thralls
didn’t exhibit this degree of craving, and that could only mean one thing:
Liath wasn’t going to make it to the next full moon.

‘Who bit you Liath?’ he asked,
more gently. ‘Please tell me.’ Because he was going to visit a world of pain on
the sick son of a bitch.

A rap rattled the door before
Liath could answer. ‘Connal? Are you in there? Are you okay?’ Ash’s voice
called through the door, edged with concern. ‘It looks like there was a
struggle and the place stinks of wolf. I can’t find either of them.’

‘Liath’s in here with me,’
Connal replied levelly.

Liath leaned in to purr in
his ear. ‘Make her go away,’ she said, ‘so we can be alone. So you can fuck me.
I want you to fuck me. I want your teeth in my flesh.’

Connal bit back a growl,
warring with the deep-rooted instincts that wanted to respond. Liath was right
about one thing. He did need to make Ash go away.

‘Is everything alright?’ A
note of suspicion had leaked into Ash’s voice.

Had she heard? If Ash saw
Liath like this, crawling all over him like a rash, her inner cavewoman would
be on a rampaging war path. Hell, she’d admitted what she’d done to the
thrall
in Fomor. If she caught Liath in flagrante? They might be burying a
body today after all.

She'd be better off dead,
a voice inside him goaded
. It would be a mercy. She
wouldn't be the first insane thrall you'd put out of their misery.

Fuck, no,
Connal thought. Madden would never forgive him. He
wouldn't forgive him anyway. It would break the poor bastard's heart to see her
like this. And there was Josh. He'd promised to watch out for her, and he'd
failed. Failed them all.

‘Liath is … sick,’ Connal
called back to Ash. ‘We don’t know where Josh is. Can you search the house for
him, while I deal with this?’

Ash’s ears strained to
capture the low-clipped timbre of Connal’s words, and the answering feminine
tone. She couldn’t discern much. Suspicion clawed up her gut but she ignored it
under Connal’s raised-voice assurances. Liath was sick, he’d deal with it. She
trusted him.

‘I’ll look for Josh,’ Ash
nodded, even though he couldn’t see her, brushed her fingers to the door and
turned away. The wolfhound pup barked at her from where she’d secured the
stubborn thing to the gate and she shushed it, wishing she could be out there
with it. If the overwhelming scents weren’t enough to make her head ache, the
sheer intimate family feel of the house made her want to run. She was an
intruder, pushing into their personal space as she searched, straightening
family photos that had been knocked askew and stepping over toys. Half of her
was still trying to hear through the door Connal had disappeared behind. A step
creaked under her weight. Above her head and to the left, a scrabbling noise
skittered, too soft for human ears. She wasn’t the only one moving about. She
hunted it to a bedroom door decorated in cartoon stickers and a name-plate. A
height chart had been marked on the door jamb in blue crayon.
Josh.
Ash
turned the handle and the acrid scent of fear smacked her full in the face. The
room reeked of it, and a heartbeat drummed out a terrified rhythm from a corner
under the bed. At least it didn’t smell like wolf. Lowering herself to her
hands and knees, Ash slowly crawled forwards.

‘Josh?’ She made her voice
soft.

A small whimper answered her
and the bed banged into the wall. The boy was petrified, and trapped in his
hideout. He couldn’t get much further away from her. Her heart ached for him.

‘Josh, it’s Ashling, from
next door.’ She dropped flat to the floor and peered under the bed. He was
huddled in the far corner, his little body trembling.

‘Hi, do you remember me?’
Please
remember me
. His young eyes were wide and red and cautious. She could
almost hear him trying to figure out if she was safe. It broke her heart.

Extending her hand out to
him, she wiggled her fingers and waited, smiling reassuringly when he uncurled
from his protective ball and inched closer. Closing her fingers around his
smaller ones, Ash drew him from his cramped space, out into the room. How she
managed to smile at him while her eyes and nose were assaulted by the condition
he was in, she’d never know.