The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (84 page)

'You've got some balls coming
back here, cap in hand.' MacTire said. 'What makes you think I won't just have
you killed?'

'When you came into my house,
the night of the fight, I could have killed you. Your men left their weapons on
the table. Hell, during the fight, there was a crossbow lying on the ground. I
could have put a bolt through your head and ended it then.'

'But you didn't,' MacTire
said, 'though not for want of planning,' he laughed. 'Why not?'

'For the same reason I don't
believe you will have me killed now.'

'Honour,' MacTire growled, 'a
curse of our human natures. It's an affliction.'

'But one from which we both
suffer, it seems.'

MacTire nodded and went to
refill his cup. Finding the pitcher empty, he swore loudly.

'So we are to fight,' he
concluded. 'I to finally prove myself the true king, and you to seek
retribution for the wrongs I have done you.'

'No,' Connal said, and it was
the truth, 'I've made my peace with the past.' What peace there was to be had.
The voices of the dead had fallen silent since the night his brother revealed
the truth of his son's death. ‘I only want the
Skil.
We don’t have to
fight at all.'

MacTire shook his blond mane.
‘I say we do. It is my birthright to challenge my
blodbrodir,
one denied
me when your father forced this false brand into my flesh.' MacTire growled and
pulled aside the pelt draping his neck to expose a wolf-brand identical to
Connal’s.

'You weren’t the only one to
feel the iron that night,' Connal replied.

‘I never wanted his bogus
ceremonials. Your father refused to let me fight you then.’

‘But you want to now?’

‘I've wanted it since the day
he brought you home.'

'And if I defeat you? You
promise to give me the blade?’

‘If you defeat me, you’ll
take more than the
Skil.
The victor will be king. You know what I am
asking? We are not the wet-behind-the-ears initiates we were then. If you
defeat me, you’ll have to kill me. If you don’t, the pack will rip me apart
anyway, and brand you a coward. There is no such thing as a retired Fomorian
king. And if I defeat you, when I defeat you, there will be no mercy. They
already think me weak for sparing Fite after his insurrection. Are you prepared
to be their king, Brother?’

Connal didn’t reply. He had
no intention of ruling anyone. His mind refused to think beyond securing the
Skil
.

‘No matter,’ MacTire cracked
a smile, ‘I have no intention of losing to you.’

‘I'm ready to put that to the
test,’ Connal growled, getting to his feet.

‘Not now,’ MacTire waved him
back down. ‘I’m too damn drunk,’ he laughed, ‘and not here. I refuse to contest
you in this prison of bones and blood that the Morrígan has cursed us to. It
will be as a free man, on the soil of my true home, or not at all.’

‘I need that blade,’ Connal
growled, ‘it will not wait ‘til after the full moon.’

‘It will have to wait,’
MacTire replied icily. ‘Those are my terms. If you find them unpalatable, I can
have Fite detain you at his pleasure until everything is prepared. I will fight
you on Dublin soil this coming full moon, and my wolves will bear witness.
Defeat me, and the
Skil
is yours, though you’ll hardly have need of it,
if I am dead,’ he smirked.

Connal sent up a silent
prayer that Madden’s
eitr
would be enough to buy the time they needed.
‘I have my own condition,’ he said.

‘Which is?’ MacTire arched a
brow.

‘When the full moon wanes,
you’re to take Ash back to Fomor with you, and find a way to protect her from
your animals.’

MacTire's brows disappeared
into his hairline. ‘You’d have me take her back here, against her will?’

‘If it comes to that,’ Connal
swallowed and forced the words from his throat, ‘yes, even if it is against her
will.’

‘I don’t understand,’ MacTire
frowned.

‘You don’t need to
understand. All I require is your word.’

‘That won’t be a problem,’ the
King replied, perplexed.

‘So this is where you keep
your secret stash of
eitr,
Doc
?’

Cheek pressed to the car
window, Ash watched the hospital appear. A shudder ran through her. These
places gave her the creeps.

The driveway stretched before
them, and she willed Madden to either speed up or turn around. Every minute
they spent here meant less time with the
Thegn
Master, whenever he
finally decided to take her to him. Madden was dragging his feet on the matter,
too insistent on getting more
eitr
.

‘No,’ Madden replied, ‘this
is where we keep the worst of the
thralls.
’

The ones like Liath, Ash
knew.

‘I left the last of my
supplies here.’

Ash’s window rolled down with
an electric hum and she jerked back from the glass.

‘What? You were slobbering on
it.’

He was so deadpan that she
cut him a glare before inhaling deep.

‘Is something wrong?’ he
asked, the sliver of humour he’d teased her with gone as he caught her fallen
expression.

‘I don’t know ...’ Ash
trailed off. It smelled wrong.

Madden side-eyed her,
catching the flare of her nostrils. ‘Just don’t go pissing on any fire
hydrants. Paddy won’t appreciate it.’

Ash rolled her eyes.

‘Who’s Paddy?’ she asked.

‘The security guard.’ Madden
smiled. ‘You can’t drive through here without him regaling you with his
grandkids’ latest adventures.’

He pulled the car into a
shadowed space and came around to open her door.

She got out, sniffed
discreetly and closed her eyes. It was almost overwhelming here. Even Madden
must have picked up on it. He blanched but straightened his spine and headed
towards a stout shed, half-hidden by a corner of the building.

Ash hesitated before
following. She admitted it. The obvious scent of blood made her more than
reluctant to see whatever was behind that shed. She’d had her fill of tragedy,
but leaving Madden to investigate alone rubbed her wrong.

The sight that greeted them
was every bit as horrifying as she’d anticipated. Mere scraps of a human being
were all that remained of the guard. He’d been eviscerated by something sharp
and hungry, the remains of flesh and fat jagged at the edges. Stringy muscle
clung to the threads of what had been his uniform and his belt looped along the
floor with the sausage-like links of his intestines. Ash’s stomach lurched.

‘Damn.’ Madden’s exhale
echoed her thoughts.

‘Paddy?’

‘Yeah. He was a good man.’

She didn’t have to ask how he
knew it was him. The guard’s head had survived the attack, still attached to
its neck and a shoulder, and was embedded in the shed wall. He’d been thrown into
it with enough force that the wood had concaved around him. Ash spun away from
the grisly sight as Madden closed the guard’s wide, terror-stricken eyes.

‘What did this?’ she asked,
though she knew the answer.

‘I know only one creature
capable of that brutality.’

Ash let her beast have its
head and armed herself with her claws, her gums aching as her fangs crept out
in warning. Her eyes bled to crimson when Madden moved towards the main
entrance, and her hand snapped out, carefully catching his shoulder.

‘Dude, no.’ Ash frowned at
him, incredulous. ‘I just heard you say creature and brutality in one sentence.
You’re not going in there first.’

He stared at her like she’d
grown two heads instead of claws. She could practically see his chivalry
throwing a fit.

‘You’re breakable, Doc.’ He
flinched but she ploughed on. ‘You think I can give Liath her doses? You think
I can be a dad to Josh? You get torn into mincemeat and where does that leave
them?’ She slowly moved him back, using his stunned statue impression to slip
in front of him. ‘We both know that unless my head is removed, I’ll get back
up. Can’t say the same for you.’ He’d relented at the mention of Liath, she
knew, and his shoulder slumped beneath her hand.

They entered the hospital
cautiously, Madden subdued as he navigated them down into the hospital’s
basement. The door that would have kept them out was shattered, the keypad
blinking at them in the gloom, useless now. She’d hoped discovering Paddy had
been the worst of it. The interior of the hospital was far worse than the
exterior. Ash gaped, her mind trying to fit together the gory puzzle pieces of
the scene. Even Doctor Frankenstein himself would have trouble finding decent
parts from the mess littering the floor. Bloody smears and the brownish stains
of viscera broke colour over the otherwise sterile, white environment, gory
arrows leading them onwards. The whole place was silent as the grave.

‘Killian?’ Madden’s raised
voice echoed off the walls.

‘There’s no one here, Doc.’
Ash spoke quietly.
No one alive, at least.
She frowned. ‘What
happened?
You keep
thralls
here, right? That’s all?’ The blood overwhelmed any
other scents.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We kept the
worst of the
thralls
in the rooms.’ He indicated the doors lining the
corridor with a tip of his chin. Ash’s stomach dropped. Most of them were caved
in, the metal bashed off its frames, allowing glimpses of mulched remains in
the rooms beyond.

‘You don’t expect me to
believe
thralls
did
this
?’

‘No.’ His face was closed off
to her, his skin deathly white and clammy with sweat. Fear shivered up her
spine. She snatched his arm and pulled him to a stop.

‘Doc, you have bodies. Not
even bodies, parts of bodies and you’re not even going to tell me what you
think happened?’ Ash had seen the damage a good set of claws and teeth could do
and left unchecked … this was close to how she imagined it might end up. ‘A
wolf did this,’ she challenged.

‘That’s not possible. It’s
not full moon. You and Connal are the only wolves who can breathe above ground,
and he’s in Fomor.’

Yeah, and it sounded like he
was trying to convince himself more than he was her. The destruction and blood
surrounding them wasn’t the work of anything human. She glanced into another
room, half-listening to Madden as he strode up behind her.

Inside this one, the white
walls were clean, surrounding a freaky-ass looking chair in the centre. The
thing would have been better placed in a haunted house of horrors than a
hospital. Big, leather straps hung, mangled, from the seat and headrest and
dangled from the arms in shredded pieces.

The beast inside her edged
under her skin, sniffing. An odd musk clung to this room.

Fur and dirt.

Wolf.

‘You can’t tell me a
thrall
busted out of these babies.’ Ash said. Sure, Liath had been strong, but nothing
human could have broken free of those restraints. ‘Just what did you have tied
up here, Doc?’

‘Doyle,’ he said quietly.

‘Doyle?’ Ash’s eyes flared,
and her vision hazed to red. ‘But he’s one of you.’ A
thegn,
not a wolf.
‘What. Happened. Here?’ Fear was making her lose patience.

‘I pumped him full of
eitr
.’

Ash gaped at him, speechless.

‘I wanted him to suffer for
what he did to my family,’ he confessed. ‘I never thought this could happen. I
tried and failed so many times.’

Ash took a step towards him
but his voice stopped her.

‘The
eitr
must have
turned him.’

‘What? You mean that stuff
flipped him over to the dark and furry side?’

Madden turned his head to
glare at her and his face dissolved into a sigh.

Ash stared blankly at him.
He’d created a wolf? He’d turned
Doyle
into a wolf. The sick son of a
bitch who kidnapped children and gave Liath up to be fucked into literal
insanity, now had the strength, fangs and claws to tear people into compost and
was somewhere in Dublin, roaming free. Only one thing didn’t make sense. ‘It’s
not full moon,’ she said warily. ‘So why isn’t he a gurgling blue mess?’