The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (79 page)

God.
Ash brushed the tears from his face with her thumb
and sat back on her knees, standing him in front of her. ‘Why were you hiding,
Josh?’

The little boy scrubbed at
his eyes with the sleeve of his dirty pyjamas. ‘Mammy told me the bad men were
back and I had to hide under the bed. I’m not supposed to come out for anyone.’
He looked at her then and a child’s fear flashed across his tear-stained
features. ‘Will she be angry with me?’ Ash was confused until she realised he
classed her as ‘anyone’.

She shook her head. ‘No, of
course not, Sweetie. She sent me to come up and get you.’

‘She did?’

Ash nodded at him.

 ‘She said she’d come and get
me, but she never came back.’

How long had the kid been up
there? Judging by his soiled clothes, a while, and he’d obeyed his mother to
the point he hadn’t even dared leave to go to the bathroom. He was in a mess.

‘Come on. Let’s get you
cleaned up and then we can go and see your mom.’ First stop was the bathroom.
She left him to his business to grab some fresh clothes from his drawers and
returned to wet some washcloths in warm water and soap. His giggles as the
cloth tickled him made her smile. When he was fresh-smelling and re-dressed,
Ash hunkered down to his level and tapped his nose.

‘You’ve been very brave,
Josh, your mom will be proud of you. She’s a little sick at the moment, so we
have to be quiet and gentle with her when we see her, ok?’ The boy nodded
quickly and took her hand again, bouncing on his toes. Ash hoped to hell Connal
was telling her the truth, or she could be leading the kid into a bad
situation. ‘Let’s go see your mommy,’ she said.

Hearing Ash move away, Connal
let his head fall back against the door and exhaled, knowing he’d bought
himself a reprieve, however short. Out on the front lawn, the wolfhound pup
started barking furiously. She must have picked up the scent of the wolves, and
it was driving the poor thing berserk.

‘Let’s get you dressed,
Liath,’ he said. The last thing he needed was for Josh to walk in and see his
mother like this. Still gripping her wrists, he manoeuvred Liath backward onto
the couch where she sprawled back, writhing sensually, like a cat. She even
purred like one. He went down on his knees to retrieve a pair of long-discarded
lacy panties from the floor.

‘Yes,’ Liath rasped, ‘here is
good. Take me here.’ Her thighs fell apart, exposing everything and Connal got
an eyeful at close range as he sat back on his heels.

‘Fuck,’ he swore.

‘Yes,’ she replied, slipping
her fingers between her legs.

Averting his eyes, he grasped
Liath’s knees and attempted to pin them back together. The Liath he knew would
be utterly mortified at the display.

She’s not the Liath you
knew anymore
, he thought, and never
would be again. He’d seen this extreme reaction to a wolf-bite many times. This
was only the beginning. The cravings would intensify with every passing moon
phase until the addiction claimed her mind and her sanity forever.

Growling frustration, his
hands got in a fight with the girly underwear, hunting the gusset. More
accustomed to taking the damn things off, the situation might have been funny
if it wasn’t so fucking awful. He gritted his teeth and got to work pulling the
panties up Liath’s legs, every inch a struggle as she kicked and attempted to
wrap herself around him.

Maybe this was a task for
Ash,
he thought in hindsight. No, Ash
had looked ready to rip Sadhbh a new face just for smiling at him. She didn’t
have that much control, not yet.

When he heard the door-handle
turn, Liath’s legs were spread akimbo, the lacy knickers stretched at
half-mast.

‘Don’t come in here,’ he
warned, but it was already too late.

‘Take your fucking hands off
her.’

Connal knew that voice,
though the light from the hallway cast Madden as a dark, fists-clenched
silhouette in the doorway, shaking with anger. ‘You don’t touch her,’ he
growled, lurching forward, ‘she’s mine, you bastard. Mine. Oh Gods.’

Connal had the sense to back
away, though Liath clung to him like a vine and he had to tear himself from her
grip.

The look on Madden’s face as
he approached was pure wretchedness.

‘I’m so fucking sorry, man,’
Connal said. ‘It’s not what it looks like. I swear. I didn’t do this. We found
her this way.’

‘I know,’ he replied, almost
resigned.

Connal looked at him,
questioning.

‘Doyle set a wolf on her, the
night of the fight. You were supposed to be dead, so there was no blood-oath.
Coward fucker scrubbed the blood-runes I’d placed on the house to protect her
and sent an animal to take his revenge.’

‘I promised you I’d look out
for her,’ Connal said, shamed.

‘The deed was already done,’
Madden shook his head. ‘That’s why the bastard was standing guard outside when
we arrived. He was gloating over his handiwork.’

Madden slumped down on the
couch and reached for Liath’s hands. She buried her face into the crook of his
neck and moaned.

‘No, not you,’ she whined at him,
‘you’re no good. I want
him
. Connal. He can bite me.’ She leaned over,
exposing her cleavage and wetting her lips suggestively. Madden locked his arms
around her to keep her on the couch.

Connal looked away. ‘It’s not
good, Doc,’ he said to the carpet. ‘She’s too far gone.’

‘Who’s too far gone?’

He hadn’t heard Ash approach,
and by the look on her face, the scene she’d walked in on was just as bad as he
imagined it was. He knew how it must seem: Madden clutching a half-naked,
sensually writhing Liath in his arms, while her legs spread wider and her
panties stretched tight on her calves. Connal, on his knees, at a great
disadvantage point.

The blue of Ash’s eyes was
crimson in the next blink.

‘Mammy?’ Josh piped up,
peering around her hip.

Connal silently shook his
head at Ash. She got the hint, the wolf leeching away from her gaze.

‘Mommy’s just getting
dressed, Sweetie. You come with me to the kitchen and I’ll find you some
juice.’

Connal exhaled and Liath
arched her hips towards him. He stared fixedly at the spot Ash had last been,
listening to the quiet movements as she set the kid up in the kitchen. She
returned alone.

'Is she
thrall
?' Ash
whispered.

Connal nodded gravely. 'It's
worse than that. You remember I told you some humans react badly?'

The colour drained from Ash's
face. 'We have to help her,' she said, glancing back in the direction of the
kitchen where Josh sat waiting for his mother, oblivious to the fact she was
never coming back, at least not as he knew her.

'There is nothing to be done.'

Fear darkened Ash's
expression and Connal wondered if she was remembering the time she gave him
permission to put a bullet in her head if she ever turned into the thing that
was hissing and writhing to get away from Madden's iron grip.

'I don't accept that,' Ash
said. 'It's an addiction. I should know, I’ve felt it.’

‘It’s not the same, Ash,’
Connal said, ‘you’re wolf. For humans it’s all-consuming.’

‘I appreciate that,’ she
replied. She could hardly deny Liath’s pitiful state. ‘But heroin addicts get
methadone to ease their cravings. Couldn’t the same work for Liath?’

‘That won’t work,’ Madden
said, his arms flexing as he caught a hold of Liath’s worming form. She’d
almost got free, and her hands were still reaching for Connal.

‘How do you know it won’t?’
Ash pressed, one eye on the panting, blonde female.

‘Because I have a lunatic
asylum bursting at the seams with proof.’ He looked at her with tortured eyes.
‘
Eitr
can delay the progression, but it’s only ever a temporary
reprieve. Come full moon, the cravings become like a possession, eventually
driving victims into a catatonic state, from which they never recover.’

‘He’s right, Ash. Doyle
sentenced her to a slow death. Prolonging it would only be cruel.’ Connal moved
further out of Liath’s range, closer to Ash.

‘But it could buy us time to
find a cure,’ Ash said. Desperation was creeping into her voice. ‘That poor
kid. We have to do something.’

‘But what?’ Connal pleaded to
her with his eyes.

‘There is something,’ Madden
said hoarsely.

Both their gazes snapped to
him.

‘A blade. But it’s only a
myth,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t exist. The Gods know I’ve searched every avenue for
a cure.’

‘Every myth holds a grain of
truth,’ Connal murmured, echoing something he’d said to Ash all that time ago,
when they went to bury a wolf. ‘What is this blade?’

‘A blade of severance, said
to break and bind the bonds of our people.’

‘The
Skil
,’ Connal
replied.

The Doc's eyes lit up with
recognition.

‘It does exist,’ Connal
continued, ‘MacTire told me. He’d meant to use it to break his mated bonds with
Aoife the night she died. She mistook his intentions. Your sister’s death was
an accident, Doc. We were both wrong about my brother. He didn’t kill her.’

Madden's face fell. His
features changed as his brows pulled low and agony wrote itself into the lines
around his mouth. Confusion and pain paled his skin, his eyes closed. And then
he shivered and determination completely replaced the sorrow. Whatever his
thoughts on what happened with Aoife, the doctor wasn't dwelling on them. He
made Liath his priority in that moment. ‘Even if the
Skil
did exist,
it’s been lost for more than a millennium,’ he said. ‘The
thegn
have
searched both human and Fomorian realms. It has never been found.’

‘Do we know what this blade
looks like?’ Ash asked.

‘A bone hilt,’ Madden said,
‘carved from the femur of the first wolf. The blade is curved in a demi-lune
and engraved with runes -’

‘- and the phases of the
moon.’ Ash finished for him. ‘It does exist. I’ve seen it.’

‘Where?’ Connal and Madden
asked in unison.

‘Mac had it. In Fomor.’

‘Of course he’d fucking have
it,’ Madden growled.

‘I’ll get it,’ Connal said,
rising to his feet.

‘What!’ Ash moved as he did,
coming to stand in front of him with a growl in her throat and warning in her
eyes. ‘No, you won’t. I should be the one to go. Mac will give it to me, and I
wouldn’t have to kill him for it.’

‘You know you can’t set foot
in Fomor,’ he replied, ‘Fite’s just begging for an excuse to kill you.’ For the
first time, Connal was genuinely thankful Ash had a bounty on her head. Wilful
as she was, he knew he’d never talk her out of it otherwise, and he wasn’t sure
which image disturbed him more: Ash venturing back into the wolves’ lair, or
Ash kissing up to MacTire for favours. ‘Madden can’t go either. He’s broken
enough
thegn
oaths to earn a spot in MacTire’s torture hall of fame. He
won’t stand a chance.’

‘And you will?’ Her lips
trembled, desperation cracking through her words.

‘This is something I have to
do, Ash.’ He cupped her cheek, hating the tears of frustration pooling in her
eyes.

‘They’ll tear you apart.’ He
heard her heart break in the tone of her voice.

‘No, they won’t,’ he
insisted, with a confidence he didn’t truly own. ‘We made a truce, remember.’

Before she could form a
protest, he rounded on Madden. ‘This might take me some time,’ he said, ‘is it
possible to hold off the cravings ‘til then?’

‘She’ll need
eitr
,’
the doctor replied. There was a glimmer in his eyes that looked suspiciously
like hope.

‘Connal’s not biting her!’
Ash growled.

Liath chose that moment to
moan her enthusiasm, clearly tired of their talking and unable to get a hand
between her thighs. She bowed in Madden's arms, her legs kicking her panties
off and stretching out to rub her feet up Connal's thigh. If she was free, no
doubt she'd be trying to hump his leg.