The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (105 page)

‘You can relax everyone. The
Cavalry has arrived,’ Gov announced drolly.

‘Looks like the party's
already over,’ Creed said, looking around at the scene of the carnage.

Ash growled, ignoring the
lack of animal threat in the sound. ‘
Now
you decide to help?’ When
they’d lost lives and the goddess was shrivelling in her own blood?

‘The
thegn
doctor came
to see me. Said you had a little bird-control problem.’ Gov looked down at her,
his hands clasping in front of him. She wanted to smack the grin off his face.
He was far too happy about being late.

‘Madden went to you?’ Connal
asked, almost toe to toe with the god as he moved in front of her. She wouldn’t
be moving from her spot on the ground any time soon. Her wolf deserved to be
held right now.

‘Yes. Your friend has been a
very bad boy.’ Gov laughed.

‘Did you punish him?’

‘We decided that poor
bastard’s suffered enough already. He’ll be stripped of his
thegn
status
though, and I had to reverse the brain-washing he did on the girl. That’s
against the rules.’

‘You mean Liath will remember
who he is?’ Ash asked.

‘I believe so, yes.’ Gov’s
smile was smug, but Ash could have hugged him then in spite of it.

‘And if he’s not a
thegn
any
more, then he no longer has to be celibate?’

‘Nope.’ Gov wagged his brows
at her.

Ash bit her lip to hide her
smile and rolled her eyes, catching a glimpse of Luc kicking around in the
Morrígan’s remains, turning the decomposing body into black ashes.

‘Dammit, she actually killed
her,’ he said.

 ‘Ding. Dong,’ Creed laughed
and Gov and he exchanged a high-five.

‘We had a bet on you being
the one who’d fulfil Creed’s prophecy. I won,’ Gov grinned.

‘You mean you didn’t know for
sure? In the cave you told me ...’ There was a note of threat in Connal’s
voice.

‘I told you what you needed
to hear. These things are never written in stone.’ The Master tipped a
shoulder, looking none too concerned that he had an angry alpha wolf less than
a foot away from him.

A voice came from behind her.
Mac. 'Is the curse really broken, forever?'

'Oh yeah. We all felt that
cosmic ripple, didn't we boys?'

'Louder than one of Balor's
legendary farts,' Luc nodded.

'So the Fomorians are free to
live aboveground? Even after the full moon?' Ash had to be sure. She'd hoped to
get to the Morrígan before she closed the conduit. That way the wolves would
have an escape route if her gamble hadn't paid off.

'Free to live, yes, provided
they abide by the old laws of the Masters, and some new ones. There will be no
more wanton enslaving of the human girls. No wolves terrorising the streets. I
run a tight ship.'

'You're going back to work?'
Ash quirked a brow at him and he smiled down at her.

'Somebody needs to put
manners on these beasts,' Gov replied, clearly enjoying the prospect. 'And what
of you, Ashling DeMorgan?'

'Me?' She wanted a long, hot
bath with her man.

'Danu finds herself minus one
goddess of death and war. Vacancies destabilise the Tuatha Dé. As the
Morrígan's killer, one assumes you will take on that mantle? You're already
dressed for the part,' he said, crouching down to finger her black robe and fix
her in his gaze. 'Your wolf is free. It will only be a matter of stripping your
blood of what remains of your mortal ancestry.'

'What? I ... no!' Becoming
what her grandmother had been was not in her life plans.

Gov cracked up. 'See. I had
her going there.'

His brothers just rolled
their eyes and she knew the feeling. She really wanted to hit him. He was an
ass.

'So I don't have to step into
her shoes?' she prodded.

'No. Not unless Danu decides
to claim you. She hasn’t claimed you, has she? '

'No.’ Her head shook so hard,
the wolf in her lap stirred. ‘I'm staying right here.'

He inclined his head.
'Perhaps your sister will step up, in time.'

Her sister
. Ash had a sibling. That was going to take some
getting used to.

'In the meantime, you have
something that belongs to us.' His eyes fell to the
Skil
in her hand. 'I
suggest you hand it over, for safe keeping.'

She eyed him warily and
clutched the blade. He sighed like one trying to take a toy off a stubborn
child.

‘You can’t harness its
powers, if that’s what you were thinking. Your blood is as red as any human’s.
Cut yourself with that and you’ll die like one. We won’t allow it to get into
the wrong hands again. The
Claíomh Solais
belongs where no single god
can use it.’

Ash hesitated.

‘I’ll give it to you,’ she
said finally, ‘but I want something in return.’

‘You
are
the
Morrígan’s granddaughter,’ Gov laughed. ‘What is it you seek?’

‘I want you to break the
mating bond between me and MacTire.’

‘MacTire? But I thought ...’
Gov’s dark brows disappeared into his hairline as he looked from Ash to Mac, to
Connal, and back to Ash once more. ‘I see.’

It was her turn to be smug
and she smiled. He hadn’t seen that coming.

‘And I also need you to free
the remainder of the
thralls
from their addiction
.’

‘You ask much, but nothing
for yourself?’ He looked at the red wolf, its muzzle cradled in her lap.

‘She’s going to die, isn’t
she?’

Gov inclined his head. ‘One
soul cannot survive as two separate entities,’ he said.

‘I know what I sacrificed,’
Ash replied softly, ‘and I know there is no way back for me. You told me
yourself, the
Skil
can only break bonds. It would require creative
powers to re-forge them.’

Gov nodded. ‘Powers that,
sadly, I do not possess. I am sorry for your loss, Ashling DeMorgan. I cannot
restore your wolf to you. Your other requests, however, I am prepared to
honour.’

‘Thank you,’ she said through
her tears.

Ash stayed perfectly still as
the pretty brunette fixed the poppies through the black strands of her hair.
Rún had told her it was tradition to leave it loose, so it had been washed and
brushed until it shone in perfect curls to her waist, and now the small braids
Red Shoes was weaving the poppy stems into were curling through her hair in a
fall of red flowers. Ash had to admit, the former
thrall
had done a
spectacular job of making her look the part. She felt like a bride. The dress
she wore was a soft ivory, draping her in wisps of fabric in all the right
places.
Like a long-lost, ancient goddess
, Gov had told her when he
poked his head in to see how she was coming along. She’d glared at him and
lobbed the hair brush into his smirking face, but only laughter remained where
he’d been. She didn’t want to be a goddess. She wanted to be Connal’s.

The flowers had been an
afterthought, she’d never seen herself with flowers, but Ash had found them
strangely beautiful when they’d stumbled across them. In the days after the
full moon, most had been in a state of shock, disbelief the ruling emotion
amongst the newly freed wolves and the recovering
thralls
. For her, it
had been sleepless nights and days of looking over her shoulder, expecting her
new nightmare to tear apart the fragile peace they had. Connal took her back to
the site where she’d killed her grandmother, for closure, he said, and maybe
he’d been right. She had needed the reassurance that the world truly was set
back to rights, that they could live in it without fear. It worked, and Ash
didn’t know what she’d been expecting to find when they got there, but it
definitely hadn’t been poppies. Growing from the cracks in the cobbles, on the
spot where her grandmother had closed the conduit, the most beautiful red
poppies were pushing through. It was a little bit of hope: Something beautiful
that could grow from the rubble of tragedy. Connal told her the flowers
reminded him of her, because they symbolised dreams, just like her name. She’d
chosen them there and then and Dublin’s flower shops had been invaded by groups
of brawny males hunting the red blooms.

‘Turn for me, Ash? I need to
make sure they’re even. These stems are fun, but they keep twisting.’ Ash
chuckled at the irritated British accent over her shoulder and turned her head
towards the girl. Red Shoes. Her real name was Sam. She had to remember that. A
hairdresser from London, Sam had accepted Ash and Connal’s apologies with more
grace than Ash herself thought she could have mustered, were their roles
reversed.

If she was honest, the gentle
acceptance embarrassed her. Asking her to help with her hair was a peace
offering of sorts, though guilt stabbed at her every time she spied the
still-healing scars beneath the neckline of the other woman’s dress.

She’d been wrong about the
thralls
.
Most of them weren’t at all like Liath: mindless sex zombies. She’d been an
extreme case, whereas the others, like Sam, had been more aware than Ash had
given them credit for. True to his word, Gov freed all of the
thralls,
but
a number of them decided they preferred their new lifestyle, and chose not
to go home to their old, mundane lives. The rest had their memories wiped clean
and were reunited with their families. For weeks, the newspapers were full of
stories of missing girls turning up out of the blue, found wandering the city
centre with no recollection of where they’d been. Theories of alien abductions
and sex-trafficking abounded, but eventually the reappearances stopped and the
media circus left town.

It had been an interesting
adjustment and one that required serious recalculating in the life planning
department. So many had stayed, that Form couldn’t contain all the wolves and
their ‘girlfriends’ for long. The place had been designed as a nightclub, with
only a handful of private rooms and Mac’s big penthouse suite. They soon got
tired of sleeping around the dance floor, and Mac had been dispatched to find a
suitable residence where they could live together, away from public scrutiny.

With no knowledge whatsoever
of real estate, he’d come to Ash and Connal, looking for help. Things had been
strained between the three of them, after
that
night. It was the first
time Mac had come to visit them at Ash’s house. Things were never going to be
as simple as breaking some magical bond between them, but who knew they’d find
the first step towards reconciliation through house-hunting? Yet here she was, in
Mac’s hundred-plus roomed country pile, preparing to make her new life
official.

Sam fluffed her hair, frowned
at her in the mirror and flitted off, muttering something about shine spray and
vain men. Ash snorted, watching the brunette hunt around the room. There hadn’t
been a moment of quiet or alone-time since she’d awoken to Connal between her
thighs in the early hours. They failed at being traditional and she’d been
ready to sneak into his room when he’d broken into hers.

With her face heating at the
memory, Ash looked around the small dressing table for her mother’s ring.
Toying with the small silver ring in soft contemplation, she didn’t look up
immediately when the door opened. Her mother would be proud of her, she’d
approve of Connal, she’d like the house. Ash slipped the ring on with a silent,
‘Look, Mom, I’m ok’,
and twisted around when she caught the reflection
in her mirror. A silk-clad ass was disappearing out of her window. Carla’s silk-clad
ass, to be more precise. The Maid of Honour dress was a deep ruby red and Ash
had to shake off the lingering attachment to the colour before she could speak.

'You lean out any further and
I'll be scraping you off the pavement.'

'Holy shit, Ash,’ came the
reply, ‘You've really been holding back on me. I mean, if I'd known, nothing
could have kept me from crossing the Atlantic for this.'

'It is an impressive house.'
Ash chuckled, her friend’s exuberance catching.