Under His Skin (29 page)

Shocked by
his own
urges, Brec shoved himself back and nearly fell off the bed in the process. What was he thinking? What would his brother say
,
to see him fighting the urge to strike a sleeping woman--whatever her crimes?

Trembling with confusion and dismay, he stumbled off the bed. His feet caught in his clothing, still lying on the floor where he’d cast them last night and he toppled over. He hissed in horror as he landed on Ana’s fur. The scent of ashes tickled his nose and his breath caught in his throat. Nearly deafened by the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, he swallowed hard and eased himself off of the damaged skin.
Ana sighed and rolled over.
Brec’s heart nearly seized, his gaze darting to the bed.

Once again, when his gaze settled on Ana’s sleeping form, a moment from his past came rushing out at him. Suddenly it was that first night he’d arrived. He was standing in Ana’s bedroom, his skin itching with the need to feel his sealskin. He was staring at her, lying there on her bed, naked under his skin.
The thief who’d nearly stolen his will to live.

 
His nostrils
flared,
his pulse quickening. She would have sacrificed his life for hers. She would have left him to freeze in his human skin while she wrapped herself in his fur. He clenched his hands into fists, the tendons in his neck throbbing as he strained not to fly at her. She deserved to be punished for her crime.

Before he realized what he was doing, he shoved himself off the floor, launching himself toward the bed. As he braced his hand on the floor to push himself up, the heel of his hand ground against the charred edges of her fur and he nearly cried out in frustration as his body froze, mid-lunge. He stared down at the ashes on his hand.

Hasn’t she been through enough?
Nausea rolled through his stomach. It was hard to hold onto his anger when part of Ana’s skin was stuck to his hand. A grim reminder of the nightmare he could only imagine.

Brec grabbed his head and closed his eyes, wondering if he was going mad.

Morrigan
.

An image of the war goddess danced in his mind’s eye and tension gripped Brec’s shoulders.

“I will fight anyone you wish.”

“You won’t be the first one to regret those words.”

Suddenly the emotions ripping him apart made perfect sense. Morrigan was feeding his temper.

“I want to see for myself if you should have been mine.”

No one could match the unmitigated fury of a
skinwalker
fighting for their skin. Morrigan was pushing Brec to remember Ana’s theft. He raised his hand, staring down at the black smudge. She had planned for Ana to wake and find him touching her fur, to make her believe he was betraying her trust. Oh, the battle that would have followed . . .
skinwalker
against
skinwalker
,
lisitsa
against selkie.

“Not tonight,” Brec whispered. He turned away from Ana.
The sight of her made Morrigan’s influence over his temper worse.
He couldn’t look at Ana lying under his skin without feeling old emotions, an old desperation for vengeance. Better to keep his eyes off of her.

He picked up her skin, as reverently as one would pick up a sleeping newborn babe. He would give Morrigan her battle, but it wouldn’t be with Ana. He would use her spell to give Ana her old life back and then he would dive into the deepest depths of the sea. There were plenty of
toos
in the water for him to fight. Surely the hatred he felt for those people would be enough to satisfy the
bloodthirst
of the goddess?

Silently, he backed out of the room. Once her bedroom door was closed securely behind him, Brec turned and practically flew down the stairs. The Morrigan had said he didn’t have much time, most likely her way of ensuring that it was Ana he tested his battle prowess on. If he was going to circumvent that tragedy, he had to hurry.

He turned on the lights in the kitchen, giving him enough light to see by without turning on the living room light and risking the glow creeping into Ana’s room and waking her. Holding his breath, he retrieved his knife. The feel of the weapon against his palm, the blade shining in the light, heated his blood.

Before he realized what he was doing, he’d turned back to the stairs--back to Ana’s room. It wasn’t too late to punish her. It would be so easy . . .

Sweat broke out on Brec’s forehead as he fought to turn to the lower level of the cabin. The thirst for vengeance was like a lover’s whisper in the dark, beckoning him to depravity. He had to hurry if he was going to do the spell and still have time to flee before Morrigan really turned her attention to him. The war goddess was not playing fair.

He spared only a moment to locate the mortar and pestle he’d used earlier and then turned to leave the kitchen. After quickly making his way down to the circle of herbs and oils, he laid Ana’s fur on the floor. Given what he was about to do to it, he felt almost silly being so gentle, but he just couldn’t bring himself to be otherwise. This was Ana’s life he held in his hands and to treat it with anything but respect was unacceptable.

The sight of the brilliant white fur surrounded by the harsh ashen edges twisted his gut, helping him to fight back his temper. He forced himself to imagine what it would be like, to dig his fur out of a blazing fire only to find it burnt beyond healing.
Lost to him forever.
Surely he could forgive Ana . . .

Suddenly the image of the person throwing his skin into the fire wavered and changed. Now it was Ana holding his skin as she stood before a fireplace full of flames. She swung the fur toward the blaze and he lunged forward. He could almost feel her neck snapping under the strength of his fingers, her head lolling lifelessly against the floor . . .

Biting his lip to hold back a cry, Brec shoved those images out of his mind. Morrigan was growing impatient for her fight. He had to hurry before she resorted to full out hallucinations.

Forcing himself to concentrate, he ran his gaze over the herbs in the circle, mentally comparing it to the list of ingredients in his head.
Lanolin, beeswax, almond oil, foxglove, poppy, poplar leaves, and aconite.
He frowned. She didn’t have any cinquefoil. His gaze fell on a green plant with yellow flowers surrounding a brown center. A trickle of relief eased the tension in his shoulders. Henbane would work just as well.

Gathering up the herbs and oils he needed, he put them in a pile. He wiped off the mortar and pestle with a clean cloth before adding the ingredients he needed. Working diligently for several minutes, he carefully minced up the herbs and put them all in a small clay bowl. The beeswax and lanolin added a thick gooey texture to the mixture and the sweet scent of the almond oil just about canceled out the bitter scent of the henbane. Taking a deep breath, he set the bowl to the side and turned his attention to the skin.

Slowly, he picked up his knife, bracing himself against the
bloodthirst
that touching the weapon now brought him. The bone blade shone in the light and Brec’s mind whirled to another time, and other place. What if Morrigan had been right? What if he’d been meant for the battlefield?

He’d only ever told Micah about one of his battle dreams. His brother had brushed it off as the subconscious fantasy of a younger brother wanting to be a warrior. But Brec knew now that those dreams had been more than just dreams. The nights when he’d woken up with a flush in his hands, as if the blood he’d spilled in those gory dreams had stained reality . . . they’d been shadows of a possible future.

Brec’s head swam in heated waves as he fought off memories of those dreams. Never had he been as confused, as conflicted, as he was tonight. Bu there was one thing he was certain of--he could not leave Ana without her skin. He would use Morrigan’s spell to return her life to her and then he would take the skins she’d stolen and return them to their owners as well. No
skinwalker
would face another sunset without their skin--not if he could help it.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and then put the razor sharp blade of his knife against Ana’s skin. A wave of nausea washed over him as he began to slice a strip from the middle. Brec gritted his teeth. All he needed was a strip, three fingers wide, of undamaged fur. It would work. It had to work.

It was unnatural to cut up a skin.
Wrong on so many levels.
The pit of his stomach boiled with revulsion, instinct screaming at him to stop. Morrigan was right, this was a sacrifice. All that was missing was the blood.

Every slice wound his nerves tighter. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he had to fight to keep his hands from trembling. He was cutting out the only part of her skin that wasn’t blackened, the only part that still looked like what it had been. If this didn’t work, she would have even less than she had before. Even less . . .

He almost threw up when he finished. Before him, Ana’s
skin lie
in ruins, a perfect strip of fur amidst a pile of burnt scraps. It didn’t even look like a fur anymore.

The room swam around him and he put a hand to the floor to steady himself.
It will work, it has to work, oh Morrigan, please make it work.

He groped for the ointment. Clutching it in a shaking hand, he began to smear it over the back of the fur, along the soft layer of skin. He whispered another prayer that it would work. When he was finished, he held up the strip of skin. He wouldn’t know if it worked until he put it on her. Could he put it on her as she slept? Could he--

“Brec?”

Ana’s soft voice cracked against his ears like a whip. Brec’s shoulders tensed, his hands closing around the strip of her mutilated skin in his hands. He swallowed hard, his throat dry with sudden nerves. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to show her. Not with him still kneeling amidst the ruins of the thing she held most precious.

Slowly, Brec turned to look over his shoulder, his mind reeling as he tried to think of some way to hide the scraps of her fur while he explained what he’d done. He opened his mouth to speak just as his gaze landed on Ana.

She stood there behind him, naked except for his fur clutched around her like a blanket.

“You stole my skin,” he choked. “You stole my life. Without it, I couldn’t return to my home, my friends, my family.”

“Tell me why you did it,” he whispered, a wild demand echoing in his tone. “Tell me why I shouldn’t take your skin now, the way you so readily took mine.”

“You’ve done this to others?”

“You think you can steal that which is most important to us and not suffer any consequences. You don’t know what it’s like to suddenly find that the thing that makes your life possible—the thing that makes your life worth living—is gone and can never be replaced. Tell me how many skins you’ve stolen? How many lives have you ruined?”

“Listen to the lack of sympathy in her voice. She’s a monster and she has to be stopped. You can make her tell you where those skins are. You can end the others’ suffering . . . Don’t let her act fool you.”

One memory after the other slammed into him, fanning the flames of his fury. She’d stolen his skin. Why had he forgiven her for that? Why was
her own
loss so important that it excused taking his skin from him? The vein in his temple throbbed, pulsing with each thud of his heartbeat. He clenched his hands into fists, glowering at the siren before him. How could he have fallen in love with this thief? How could he have ever forgiven her?

Ana’s eyes widened. Her hands clutched his skin, pulling it tighter around her as if for protection. The sight of her nails digging into his fur broke the thin thread of Brec’s control.

Time seemed to slow down. Brec flowed forward, releasing Ana’s skin to fall to the floor as he dove for his own. Ana’s eyes widened even further and her jaw dropped.

“Brec, what are you--” she gasped.

He knew the moment her gaze landed on her skin. Mid-lunge, he saw the horror blossom on her face, the shock in her icy blue eyes. His hands closed around his skin jerking it from her body even as she threw it off in a desperate lunge for her mutilated skin.

Brec stood there sucking in deep breaths, clutching his skin to his body. Behind him a heart clenching howl pierced the air. Tendrils of unease curled around his nerves as he slowly turned back to Ana.

“You bastard,” Ana sobbed, falling to her knees beside the pile of scraps that had been her fur. “You’ve destroyed it. Why?
Why
?”