The Morrigan: Damaged Deities (38 page)

That brow furrowing deeper, he looked at her, studying her, searching.

Both locked in a stare that sizzled like a lit fuse, they sat mute and on the edge of an explosion.  Kade in deliberation; Morrie in humiliation. 

Kade had just inhaled and opened his mouth to speak in the same instant realization flashed in his eyes when his brother’s voice broke the silence with a loud and booming, “Kade?” 

Kamden appeared on the other side of the stall gate, surprising them both.

And surprise had accomplished what desperate intention could not.

Morrie shifted. 

Without even thinking she snapped and suddenly became a large, black raven, wings flapping frantically as she hopped around in the hay and realized what she had done.

“What the fuck?” she heard Kamden cry. 

As quickly as it happened Morrie shifted back. 

Her naked body once again resting in the hay, she saw it then in Kade’s eyes. Her transformation had come and gone quickly, but it had been enough. 

Kade finally knew.

So much happened across his beautiful, heartbreaking face. 

It turned pale as his eyes grew wide.  They filled with red rage before his cheeks flushed and every muscle in his body tensed.

“Are ye fucking kidding me?” he bellowed, sliding away from her like she was diseased. “It wasna enough? Killing me wasna enough, ye’ve come back tae do it again?”

“Chulainn,” Morrie tried to soothe him, raising her hands in defense. “I didn’t know.”

“What is going on?” a very confused Kamden asked from where he stood in the stall’s opening. 

His eyes darted between Morrie and his enraged brother, his body poised to grab the man, if need be.

Brought out of his furor for a second, Kade looked at his brother, then back to Morrie’s naked body. 

Jumping to his feet, Kade snatched a blanket from the wall and threw it around her, complaining the entire time.

“Do ye no’ know who this is?” he asked his brother, his voice loud and deep and accusing. “Do ye no’ recognize the
hag
?  The conniving crone?  The ancient, backstabbin’ bitch!”

The nerve! 

Morrie fumed and scowled at her former long-ago lover, hurt more by his words than she would ever show. 

She knew she deserved some of the blame, but he was no innocent lamb himself. 

She had plenty of her own harsh words to throw back.  Names to call him.  Instead she tightened the blanket around her and lifted her chin in defiance as the brothers continued to talk.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, brother,” Kamden answered, trying to defuse the situation with calm reason compared to his brother’s incensed passion.

Kade threw an arm out, gesturing to Morrie as he bellowed, “She’s the
bloody Morrigan
!”  Dropping his head back, he grabbed his hair in both fists, his eyes squeezing closed. “Christ, you didna even change yer name!  Wha’ a fucking fool I am.” 

“What’s a Morrigan?” Kamden asked.

To his brother’s look of confusion, Kade cried with loud exasperation. “Do ye no’ know your fucking history?”

“I know ye need to calm down, Kade,” Kamden adopted a hard tone, but it fell on deaf ears.  Kade could not be assuaged.

“This witch has been the bane o’ my existence through two lifetimes, she’s why I’m the monster I am.”

“How is that my fault?” Morrie fumed at him. 

Ignoring her question, he turned eyes filled with hurt and fury on her. “Why couldna ye just let me die? Why must ye torment me still?”

Morrie’d had enough. 

Her shift was dangerous, but momentary.  That it would have no affect on any supernatural creatures, that it wouldn’t alert them to her presence, she could only hope. 

Because she was also still not in control of her powers. 

The shift in and out of raven form had been completely involuntary.  She still couldn’t find her magic.

As far as Chulainn was concerned…She didn’t have to own up to any of this and frankly, had many questions herself.  But she would not lower herself to ask them now, not after this reaction. 

Decided, Morrie knew it was definitely time to leave.

“I will not sit here and be treated this way.” 

Struggling like a newborn fawn, Morrie rose to her feet.  Sinking into hay as she fought her way through it to the door, Morrie did everything in her power to keep her composure and some of her pride.

“I’m leaving.”

“Oh, the fuck ye are,” she heard Kade growl before she was scooped up in hard, merciless arms and tossed, yet again, over Kade’s shoulder. 

He snatched something else off the wall and marched out of the stall as she futilely fought against his hold. 

“I have ye now, ye will no’ be going anywhere.  I have a millennia of payback due tae me and I’ll be takin’ tha’ payment in the form of yer sweet, wee ass.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
T
HREE

“I am guarding your death and will continue to guard it.”

The Morrigan to Cú Chulainn, Táin Bó Cúailnge

The halls of the manor still stood in darkness, the lamps not yet lit nor the curtains drawn though Lorna should have tended to both by now. 

That little concerned Kade. 

He had more pressing matters at hand.  Specifically, the wee body of his mortal and immortal enemy.

Both still as naked as the morning with the blanket he’d wrapped around the witch barely clinging to her, he stomped up each flight of stairs.  His bare feet slapped the cold wood with colder purpose as he kept the Morrigan draped over his shoulder, the harpie cursing and hitting him the whole way. 

She could cry herself hoarse and beat her fists blue for all he cared.

Logic and reason had abandoned him in haste the moment she showed her true self in the stables. 

He had foolishly thought the first time she broke his heart had killed him, but this second betrayal cut so much deeper, hurt so much worse than death. 

Before, he had known what he was dealing with; he knew the witch’s true nature.  She was a goddess and the gods could not be trusted. 

He had trusted her anyway, idiot he was, but wasn’t so surprised when she turned against him. 

Hurt, yes.  Driven to death and scarred for life, his next life as well, for centuries over, yes. 

But not surprised.

But this time he had fallen for sweet and shy Morrie, his Morrie.  He had completely relinquished his trust and his heart to the lass.  Only to fall prey to her tricks.  Again.

Rage licked at his insides like a stoked fire.  He would not let her trick him again.

“How did ye find me?” he growled as he ascended the last flight of stairs before the hall where his room waited, where their rooms had been next to each other. 

Christ
, she had played him well this time. 

No other transformations, no trappings of glory and fame.  Just her little body and her false rebuffs.  A manipulation of the heart.  Another enchantment.  He hadn’t even felt her magic this time.  She was getting more diabolical.

“Your brother hired me,” she answered in defensive broken breaths, her head bouncing against his ass. “I came because Kamden sent for me.”

“Lies!” He cursed her in Gaelic and adjusted her body so his shoulder dug into her gut, his fingers digging into her thigh.  His hand shook from restraint to keep from physically hurting her. “Ye dae naught but lie, always have!”

“Oh yes, it was
me
creating a story about a killer horse so I could come find you.  Oh wait! No, that was actually you!  The killer horse…killing people!”

The truth in her words stung, but he ignored it and focused on his anger instead.  Felt it best to blame her instead.  Anyway, she had made him that killer horse, had she not?

Still her fault.

The bedroom door banged against the wall when Kade marched through it, slamming it shut behind him.  Without concern, he tossed Morrigan on his bed.

“You fucking asshole,” she spat at him, her face still red from her upended and precarious position. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She clutched the blankets in her angry, little fists, her knees bent, but otherwise she didn’t seem to care that her body was laid bare for him. 

She never had cared and her immodesty around him had always been a little source of pride to Kade back when he was known as Cú Chulainn.  That he was the only one with whom she offered all that glory.

Doubtless she remained that way in the millennia separating them.  He would imagine all of mankind the world over had seen every inch of her in that amount of time, the Goddess of Sex.

Furious that she made him remember her fondly and subsequently jealous, Kade scowled and locked the bedroom door.

“
Go hlfreann leat, Cailleach
.  I’m doin’ exactly wha’ ye did tae me,” he answered in a voice that was not his own, so laced with hate and anger that it seemed to belong to a demon, slipping in and out of Gaelic.

He gripped the rope in his hand tighter, the rope he had snagged from the stables just before leaving them and her flickering gaze took it in for the first time.

“Ye left me tied up tae die, now it’s my turn for a little payback.”

Those blue eyes grew wide and she started to scoot back on the bed.

“You tied yourself to that rock, you impudent log.” Despite her sharp words, she spoke evenly, calmly.  But her gaze kept returning to the rope. “I tried to stop you from going into that battle.  I told you it was fated as your downfall.  But you wouldn’t listen.  You couldn’t bear the thought that your precious little ego had been slighted, so you chose death instead of a rational conversation.”

“Slighted ego?” One eyebrow arched as he leveled a lethal glare on her. 

Slighted ego?!
  He had given her his heart and she ripped it like a cur with a scrap of meat.  She had lay with another. 

Still the thought had a way of turning to bile in his throat. 

His animosity set his body to tremble, his fury mounting. “
In ainm Dé!
Is that what ye think I suffered at yer deceitful hands?”

She parted her lips to unleash whatever scathing reply she held ready, but was interrupted by loud knocking on the door.  It didn’t break their locked gaze.

“Kade!” Kamden called out from the other side, his raised voice traveling through the thick oak. “Kade open this door before I rip it off the hinges.”

Well he couldn’t have that.  How would he keep the Morrigan locked inside? 

Lips twisting with annoyance, Kade turned away to twist the lock and wrench the door open long enough to order, “Fuck off!” to his brother before slamming the door shut. 

His eyes were back on the witch and there was something in her expression that made him suspicious. 

Evil schemes were stirring in that fiendish mind of hers.

“Goddamnit, Kade!”  Kamden pounded on the door. “Do ye want me tae call the authorities?”

“Ye’ll do no such thing and ye know it,” Kade called back, narrowing his gaze on the crone in the beautiful mask. “Now leave me and the bitch be!  We have an old score tae settle.”

He glanced over his shoulder to ensure his brother had given up and heard the blankets shift.  He faced the Morrigan as she twisted her body away from him, scurrying off the bed.