The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (101 page)

He produced a handkerchief to
dab away a trickle of drool from the corner of her mouth.

Christ,
Connal thought,
she’s a walking zombie. Where is
the strong woman, the caring mother, the good friend I knew?
He took her
hand and squeezed with silent determination. He remembered now. He was fighting
for her.

‘I’d call that a satisfactory
response,’ Madden said shakily, ‘better than I could have hoped for. She’s not
making any connection between you and what her body craves.’ His eyes darted
away, but not before Connal caught the shimmer of his desperation.

I’m fighting for you too,
my friend,
Connal thought
.

‘We should get going,’ was
what he said, ‘won’t do to stand up the King.’ He punched a fist into his palm
and offered the doctor a manic smile.

Madden’s face remained stony.

‘Cheer up, Doc. Might never
happen,’ Connal said. ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Back in that cave,
inciting me to revolution. You’re finally going to get the fight you wanted.’

‘Not like this,’ Madden said,
his voice barely above a whisper. ‘I never would have wanted this.’

‘Better to burn out. That’s
what they say, right?’ Connal clapped his friend on the shoulder and steered
him towards the door with Liath shuffling alongside. ‘Well then, let’s go start
a fire, my friend.’

The hall door shut behind
them with a grim sense of finality, but as they stepped out into the chill
March night, they were greeted by a true sight to behold. Maura Flannery, her
fiery hair a halo of wild curls backlit by street-light, came marching up the
garden path with a brace of wolfhounds leashed in each hand. She looked odd,
out of place in the city with her rubber boots, waxed coat and an expression
that was all about taking no nonsense. Her pups had grown these past weeks,
though still too big in the paws to be mature. She'd brought their mother too,
and Connal's near-blind rescue hound.

'Maura,' Connal greeted her,
'what brings you here to the big smoke?'

She came to a halt at the
bottom of the steps and stared sternly up at them. 'I'm here to ensure a fair
fight,' she said. 'The
olc
may be done-away with, but there's still
monsters aplenty prowling these shores. I don't trust that MacTire scoundrel as
far as I could toss him. He'll think twice about taking advantage of your good
heart this time, Connal Savage, or he'll answer to my girls here,' she looked at
the hounds either side of her before opening up her coat to reveal a matched
set of sawn-off shotguns and enough ammunition to make Chuck Norris blush, 'and
here,' she grinned.

Madden let out a low whistle.
Liath, tucked into his side, blinked once in confusion before going back to
hunting imaginary lint from her sweater.

'I appreciate it, really I
do,’ Connal replied, ‘but you don't have to do this Maura. I've put enough
people in danger as it is.'

'And there's not one wouldn't
volunteer to do the same again, for a good man such as you.’ The look she gave
Madden was challenging. ‘Am I right,
thegn?
’

‘You’re not wrong,’ he
conceded.

‘Don't you forget I'm a
Flannery.’ Chin high, Maura addressed Connal once more. ‘My people belong at
the Protector’s side.’

Madden leaned in to speak in
Connal’s ear. 'You know, for a lone-wolf, you're racking up quite the little
pack of followers.'

'Not followers.’ Connal’s
brow creased. The term rankled, didn’t fit how he felt about this straggle of
misfits who’d rallied to his defence in his time of need.

‘Friends then,' Madden
suggested.

'Family,' Maura piped up.

Nothing wrong with the old
lady’s hearing, Connal thought.

‘Family’s not just shared
blood,’ she said. ‘It’s who you’ll bleed for. We’re your family, Connal Savage,
like it or lump it. Now I say let’s go put some manners on that pup MacTire.
It’s about time he got put in the ha’penny place, where he belongs.’

And the thing was, she might
be a crazy old bird with all the personality of a wrecking ball, but damn her,
she was right. He felt the truth of it swell up in his chest. They were such an
unlikely rag-tag group: the doped-up sex-zombie, the runt doctor with
aspirations to break free of his own genetics, the armed-to-the-teeth partisan
farmer’s widow, and him, Connal, the lone-wolf, traitor to his race and heir to
a throne he’d never wanted. Messed up, every one. MacTire would laugh in their
faces, but they were family. That was something Connal could fight for. What
had MacTire, only his pride? There was just one missing piece, the linchpin to
his newfound life, the one he would bleed his last drop of blood to save,
though it might never be enough.

‘This is a private party.’

‘We’re the entertainment,’
Connal answered drily.

The bald-headed brawn in the
monkey suit looked them over suspiciously, eyeing the hounds. ‘He’s only
expecting one.’

‘I brought a few friends, to
watch.’ Connal bared his teeth in a grin.

With a bored expression, the
bouncer tilted his head and flipped up the lapel of his jacket to speak into
the microphone pinned to it. He reeled off a description, raking a derogatory
look over each of them in turn. ‘Yeah, big bloke with an attitude problem, fits
the profile,’ he said. ‘Got a suit with him and some blonde slapper, looks like
a junkie-’

Connal’s hand shot out,
stalling Madden’s reflex reaction to the slight before he jumped the guy. Their
fight was inside, not with Asshole Door Security Incorporated.

‘- an old lady too, and some
dogs.’

‘How dare-’

‘No need to lose the head,
Mrs,’ he sneered at Maura Flannery, ‘only following orders, know what I mean?’
Plugging the earpiece deeper into his lughole, he frowned as he took those
orders.

The wolfhounds growled and
curled their lips at him, like they didn’t approve of his appraisal any more
than the rest of them did.

‘Alright, the boss says
you’re in,’ he said with a shrug. ‘But I’ll be needing these,’ he ripped open
Maura’s coat and systematically started removing her weapons, ‘and you leave
the dogs out here.’ He removed his bulk to one side and swung the iron gates
just wide enough to let them pass, single file.

Maura Flannery’s glare as she
tethered her growling, agitated hounds to the railings and marched past him
with her head held high was priceless.

Full night had fallen over
the city streets by the time Connal and his friends walked beneath that arched
entrance into Dublin Castle. As they did so, the rhythmic beat of bodhrán drums
settled in their chests like some primal call to arms. Burning oil fumes
drifted towards them on the breeze, their source a ring of torches demarcating
a large circle within the cobblestoned courtyard. The ring was more that
decorative: it demarcated an area outside the neutral ground on which it was
forbidden to spill wolf-blood. At its centre stood MacTire, blond mane loose,
shirtless, skin burnished in the firelight, orange flames dancing in his black
eyes. As Connal stepped closer, the fire-lit faces of a hundred men and more
emerged from the gloom, their cruel expressions and red eyes cast in ominous,
moving shadows beneath the sway of the crimson banners they waved aloft. There
were women too, half-dressed
thralls
with hungry expressions, draped
around the wolves like clothing. A warning growl drew his eyes momentarily to
the untame beast that Fite had muzzled and leashed at his flank. The beast’s
eyes glowed red, bristling a silent but deadly threat. A loaded crossbow hung
from the silver-haired warrior’s other hand. Clearly he was taking no chances
on this night.

The drums fell silent at
their approach, the crowd parting to encompass them into the living circle
while Connal took a single step inside it.

MacTire raised his arms to
the gathering and his breath plumed into the cold night as he addressed them.
‘My fellow Fomorians. Our time has at last come. Tonight we reclaim the city
that is rightfully ours, and tonight, beneath the scales of Lady Justice
herself, your King will prove himself truly worthy of the title.’ He motioned
to the statue looking down on them from atop the gateway to the castle, with
its tipped balance and sword held aloft. ‘It is the duty of all
félagi
to fight one another in contest. Only one can be the dominant male. These are
the rules laid down by our ancestors, and with good reason.’ He turned in the
circle, addressing every face in turn as he spoke. ‘Without control, there is
chaos. The rite of contest was denied me and my blood-brother, and none may
deny that the consequences have been dire.’

The crowd grunted their
approval.

‘Tonight that will be rectified,
and once my brother has been shown
his
proper place in the world, we all
will venture out to establish
ours
. The humans have grown flabby on
excess, their priests have corrupted their religion. We are strong, and we are
hungry. Their Saint, Patrick, boasted of driving the heathens from Ireland.
Well tonight, on the day they celebrate his name, I intend to show them we are
back, we are on the hunt, and our bite is more venomous than any serpent’s.’

His men cheered and stamped
the ground, with Maura Flannery and the Doc, the only two dissenting voices,
drowned out by the din.

‘Are you done crowing?’
Connal pronounced in a bored tone, silencing the pack. ‘They came to see a
fight, not to listen to you pontificate.’

A murmured growl swept
through the gathering.

‘Very well,’ MacTire cracked
a smile, dampening down the crowd with broad arm motions. ‘Let us begin.’

‘Show me the knife,’ Connal
demanded. If he was going through with this, he needed to know MacTire had the
Skil
in his possession.

Rún stepped forward,
unfurling a leather wrap to reveal the curved blade.

Madden’s sharp inhale was
audible in the reverent silence that fell over the wolves.

‘Satisfied?’ MacTire asked.

Connal inclined his head.

‘I am a man of my word,’
MacTire said. ‘Defeat me, and it’s yours, but the rites of passage of
blood-brothers must be honoured, in the old ways. This time around, things will
be done the proper way.’

The crowd took up a slow,
menacing handclap as the huddle of MacTire’s
skuldalid
parted, revealing
a brazier, glowing white-hot with coals. Brandr stepped forward out of the
darkness. Wearing a thick leather glove on his right hand, he gripped a
branding iron which he thrust into the coals, throwing a shower of
bright-orange embers up into the night.

Connal’s gut lurched, every
hair follicle on his skin prickling with dread at the memories this scene
evoked, and yet he could not tear his eyes away from it. His vision blurred and
his heart stuttered as visions of his father wielding that iron swarmed through
his mind.
Son of a bitch.
Talk about trauma triggers. He’d been so
young, he hadn’t understood the pain. Hands braced on his thighs, he forcibly
filled his lungs, hoping the oxygen would clear the vortex in his head.

‘What’s the matter?’ MacTire
jeered. ‘You chicken, Brother? I’ve taken you for many things, but never a
coward.’ The crowd started laughing and catcalling, until MacTire had to hush
them just to be heard. ‘Tell you what, I’ll go first. Show you how it’s done,’
he sneered, dropping to his knees, shoulders thrust back, neck corded, proudly
bearing his chest to Brandr’s approach with the white-hot iron. He did not cry
out as the wolf-brand pressed into his skin and the sizzling scent of burning
flesh filled the air. He barely flinched, though the beads of sweat trickling
down his tensed body betrayed the terrible agony he bore. ‘Now you,’ he
gritted, black eyes boring defiantly into Connal’s.

Connal gave a short nod of
assent and Brandr returned to the brazier once more, plunging the iron into the
blistering heat of the coals.

Swallowing hard, Connal
looked directly at Fite, demanding his undivided attention long enough to
project what he needed to say into the warrior’s mind before it was too late.
As though feeling the weight of his stare, Fite lifted his narrow eyes to him
and Connal seized the moment.
If I lose it,
he said,
if I go beast on
anyone here but MacTire, you take me out. You put that bolt through my head and
end this insanity. Do you understand me?
He couldn’t trust himself to keep
his shit together through this, and no way in hell was he going to let the past
repeat itself tonight. He’d sooner die.