The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (83 page)

He took another step back and
Madden moved up to her side.

A smile strained her lips,
put there by sheer force of will. Connal’s answering wink made it genuine.

Another step back and he fell
into the manhole and was consumed by the swirling crimson waters.

He was really gone.

Ash exhaled, gathering up the
frayed ends of her ragged emotions as she turned to Madden. 'So, once Connal
comes back with the magic knife, what do you have to do to fix Liath?'

There was such a long
silence, Ash had to look at him to make sure he was still there. He cleared his
throat. 'To be honest, I'm not actually sure how the blade works. If it works.'

She spun on him, palms out.
'Hold up, Doc. Rewind. You're not fucking sure?’ The words were growled. ‘You
mean to tell me you've sent him down there on some wild goose quest for a blade
that only
might
work? And that's
if
you can figure out how to use
it!'

His eyes were wide and the
pulse in his throat jumped. He reached out towards her as if to soothe. 'It's
Liath's only hope. Tell me you wouldn't do the same for Connal, if it was him,
lying in that hospital bed.' He was just as desperate as she was, she knew
this, but fear was swamping her sense.

Her hands curled into fists
as she paced away from him. 'No Doc. You don't understand. Connal has gone down
there with everything riding on your stupid knife. He actually believes some
greater good can come out of his death.'

Madden’s confusion was
palpable. 'His death?'

She nearly snarled. 'Yes.
He's going to die, rather than kill Mac, because the Morrígan wants blood in
exchange for lifting the curse on us.'

His dark brows popped up.
'That was his bargain? Fuck. I'd thought ...'

Ash cocked her head, eyes
narrowing. 'What?'

'Nothing,’ he said quickly,
‘I just thought it might have been something else.'

She shrugged his words off.
'I can't think of anything worse. But it's irrelevant. Now that Connal knows
Mac wasn't responsible for killing his son, he'll die sooner than go through
with it. That blade, curing the
thralls
, is Connal's absolution. And now
you're telling me that, for all you know, it's as useful as a fucking butter
knife?' Sharp pain dug into her palms and she took a deep breath. Clawing the
doc up wouldn’t help anyone.

'It was only a myth. I didn't
truly believe it existed.' To his credit, he wasn’t lying. He hadn’t known.

Ash sighed and rubbed her
hands along her jeans, leaving smears of blood on the dark fabric. 'Somebody
has to know how to use the damn thing. Connal says your
thegn
have all
kinds of mumbo-jumbo voodoo tricks.'

'The
thegn
do not
practice voodoo.' If his lips got any thinner, Ash feared they’d snap right
off. Obviously she’d offended him. He was practically bristling.

She arched one brow. 'But
brainwashing isn't beneath you.'

He didn’t respond to that
with words, but his glare spoke volumes. 'The Masters might know. The
Skil
is a very ancient artefact, and they are the keepers of Fomorian history.'

'The
Thegn
Masters?'
Mac had talked about them, but she'd assumed they were long extinct. 'Where do
they hang out?' Hopefully somewhere close and cosy instead of weird and creepy,
though she doubted it.

'There is one here in Dublin,
but he won't take kindly to being disturbed.'

Ash smiled sweetly. 'If he
refuses to help us, I’ll show him disturbed.' She’d
kindly
rip him a new
one.

‘Take me to your leader.’
Connal coughed a wet laugh as he spoke to the circle of giant bodies blotting
out the red, sunless sky above. ‘I’ve always wanted to say that.’

He squinted, failing to make
out the faces of the looming shadows, but judging by the growled mutterings, it
was pretty clear the welcome party of wolves was not amused.

'What? No torture this time,
to welcome your prodigal prince? I feel positively snubbed.'

Silently, grudgingly, they
dragged his limp body from the blood-stained shore and the ever-present threat
of the raveners. In spite of his reluctant truce with MacTire, Connal wasn’t
expecting to win any popularity contests down here. One poxy handshake didn’t
erase a millennium of bad blood. All the same, tossing him on his ass in a cold
prison cell seemed to be stretching the bounds of inhospitality.

‘I let you drink my whiskey
and sleep on my rugs, you mangy ingrates,’ he called after them as they locked
up and left him to the dank darkness.

‘Good to know the art of
conversation is alive and well in my brother’s realm.’ He huffed and strained
mentally to realign his sprawled limbs, but his useless muscles were about as responsive
as the surly guards had been.

The dungeons were utterly
deserted, without even a token lunatic to while away the time it took his motor
functions to boot-up from the paralysing ride down the gloop-chute. He wondered
absently what had become of Knutr since he’d helped MacTire overthrow Fite’s
little rebellion, and how relations were holding up between the King and his
skuldalid
.
They were hardly holding hands around a campfire singing Kumbaya.

An interminably long wait
later, a brace of guards came to fetch him from the cell.

Shrugging off their attempts
to manhandle him, Connal squared up his shoulders with a menacing growl,
pressing his height advantage. Royal blood had its perks. The guards had the
good sense to look intimidated, and allowed him to walk unmolested to their
destination.

‘Enter,’ MacTire’s bass order
carried through the solid door.

Connal stepped inside while the
King dismissed the guards from the room, leaving just the two of them.

‘Aren’t I the one who’s
supposed to look like shit?’ Connal asked.

It was true, MacTire looked
dog-rough. His braid was untied, blond hair falling messily to broad shoulders
that seemed to sag under some invisible weight. Gravity was messing with his
stupidly handsome features too: he looked drawn, and dark shadows had taken up
residence under black eyes that were shot with red.

‘At least I put some clothes
on for the occasion,’ MacTire smirked, lolling back in his chair. There was a
slur to his words and Connal guessed the pitcher on the table held something
stronger than water. ‘If I’d known we were getting our cocks out, I’d have
summoned the Royal Measurer.’

‘What can I say,’ Connal
grinned humourlessly, ‘your men seem to like me bare-arsed. I assumed it was
the fashion down here.’

'My men would like nothing
better than to sink their teeth into you, Savage.'

'Your men can suck on my big,
hairy wolf balls.'

'They'd probably like that
too,' MacTire laughed hoarsely, ‘Ahh fuck it. Pull up a pew, Brother.’

Connal dragged over a chair
and sat opposite. Despite the macho posturing, there was a horrible familiarity
to this scene: the King looked how Connal felt whenever he tried to drown his
demons. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want a piece of his brother. That
image of him kissing Ash still haunted his every waking moment, and thanks to
the mating bond they shared, MacTire never really left them. Connal could feel
the bastard whenever he was in Ash’s thoughts. He’d been there in the shower
with them, almost a physical presence that no amount of hard, possessive
fucking could erase. The Gods knew he’d tried. Liath’s tiles had the cracks to
prove it. So yes, a less noble part of him wanted his brother dead, but
another, untapped part of him hated to see him like this, weakened.

‘You didn’t bring her with you,’
MacTire said wearily. Hands shaking, he poured two cups of ól and pushed one
across the table in Connal’s direction. ‘Let us drink. To fucked-up family
unions, and reunions,’ he pronounced and drained his cup in one.

Connal’s cup stayed on the
table.

‘Not thirsty, Brother?’
Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, MacTire lifted leery eyes to him,
then took the second cup and drank deep. ‘No. You do not thirst, because you
are not denied what your body craves, as I am. Do you know what it is to be physically
bonded to a female you cannot touch? To suffer the pleasures she feels from
another man's body?’ His hands curled into fists on the table. ‘No, you
wouldn’t know. How could you? But I did. I knew exactly how it would be. It was
the same with Aoife. You'd think I'd be once bitten, twice
fucking-learned-my-lesson. Funny how a thousand years can dull the memory of
even the worst pain.' MacTire dropped his forehead to the table and ground it
into the wood. 'The worst is that this worthless piece of meat between my legs
refuses to harden for any other.' He cupped his crotch and growled. 'In a sea
of willing
thralls
, I find myself wilted. But,' he sighed wearily, 'as
you have not come to relieve me of my misery,' he said, raising bloodshot eyes
to peer at Connal through his drunken haze, 'to what, then, do I owe the
pleasure of your premature visit?'

‘I want something from you.’

‘What have we in this
godsforsaken hole in the ground that you have not already taken from us, Connal
Savage?’

‘A blade, ' he replied,
ignoring the edge of bitterness in the King's tone. 'The
Skil.
You told
me you once tried to use it on Aoife. I want it.’

MacTire froze, then, leaning
back in the chair, he narrowed those black eyes on Connal.

‘That was a thousand years
ago. What makes you imagine it’s still in my possession, after all this time?
That accursed knife was lost to me, the night Aoife used it to take her own
life.’

Tension rippled down Connal’s
spine at the reminder of the night that changed history irrevocably for the
entire Fomorian race. ‘You’re lying,’ he said. ‘Ash saw you with it.’

‘Ash,’ MacTire exhaled and
his head sagged. ‘You mean to use the
Skil
to sever the mating bond
between us and have her all to yourself.’

‘The thought never occurred
to me,’ Connal lied, ‘it’s for another.’

‘Sure it is,’ MacTire
smirked. ‘You’d think I’d welcome the severance, given how much fucking
suffering it causes me. But that, my brother, is the cruellest irony of love:
the more it hurts, the harder it is to cut the cord. I cannot give you what you
ask.’

‘I must have it.’

‘Then you will have to fight
me for it.’

‘Fight you?’ Connal tilted
his head and regarded MacTire with renewed curiosity.

'You know you want it, just
as much as I do. Deny it.’

No denial came.

‘When you last left this
place,’ MacTire continued, ‘I told you to come back when you were whole.’

Connal nodded tightly. ‘No
glory in plucking low hanging fruit, you said.'

'And here you are, whole
again.'

'Indeed.' Connal bared
daggered canines in evidence and his eyes flashed a crimson warning. ‘Looking
for a chance to vanquish that demon on your back, once and for all?’

One blond brow quirked up. 'I
wouldn’t say you were a demon. More like a festering boil.’

Connal bared his teeth in a
grin. ‘But one you’re just dying to squeeze, right?’

‘I seem to recall a truce,'
MacTire laughed.

'I promised not to hunt your
men so long as they gave me no cause. Word on the street is you plan to make
the St. Patrick's Day festivities into your own personal freedom orgy.'

MacTire breathed deep and
raked powerful hands through his long hair. 'A King must appease his men, as
well as subjugate them, else his arse will not long warm the throne. Relations
with my
skuldalid
have been strained, as well you know. They need this
release, if I am to prevent Fomor from imploding into bloody civil war. And
believe me, should they supplant me, any one of those wolves will make my
tyrant king impersonation look like a fucking puppy tantrum.'

'So you agree. Neither of us
is bound by that handshake.' It wasn't a question.