The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (22 page)

He’d attacked a door.
Stubborn mutt had pounded the thing right open and was just disappearing into
the dark entryway when crimson smears tore her attention to the floor. If the damn
pup had injured himself ...
hell, that’s more than a scratch
. Ash’s brow
furrowed. Stepping over the drags of red, the brushes of blood caught on the
door and trailed across the floor.

Gingerly, she called out for
Setty, her timid ‘Hello?’ echoing back from within, preceding the dull clang of
something hitting metal and her dog’s signature pleading whine.

It was like arriving in
Dublin all over again. Walking through a door into a place that held a
frightening unknown. And just like she had that first night, she stepped
through it and took her chances.

Whatever she’d been
expecting, the total lack of personality on the other side of the gloom wasn’t
it. It was disappointing. Boring for a serial killer. She felt like she’d been
put in a cardboard box in the middle of Ikea. There was no sight of Setty, but
she could hear him some ways off, muffled and carrying on at whatever he’d
found, bloodied paw prints lining her path around furniture. God, she was an
idiot. Shaking with a dull kind of terror, Ash let her adrenaline drive her
forwards. It was better fuel than her energy drinks, and the worst kind of
compulsion. It kept her going when she should have made herself as small as
possible and locked herself in her room, instead of venturing into a stranger’s
apartment after a trail of blood and a crazy dog.

Stupid and Ashling were about
as synonymous as they could get at the moment.

She tiptoed through to the
bedroom, her attention drawn to a gaping opening in the wall that resembled a
high tech entrance to the underworld.

Light glinted off a thick
vault door, like the bank ones, but scarier, industrial and damn well meant to
keep something out.

Or something in.

But it was open now, inset
with some sort of intelligent computer lock she hoped wouldn’t shoot lasers at
her like
Resident Evil
protection and dice her into little Ashling
cubes. She stepped through the concealed door, sensing out steps that descended
into more darkness.

Ash prayed for light. Light
made the monsters less scary. You could see the whole of them, from claws to
teeth, to multiple heads if they had them. She’d want to know about multiple
heads.

Her prayers answered, the
room bloomed into existence and she hadn’t even touched anything. Taking a deep
breath that tasted of wet dog and old pennies, Ash stumbled off the bottom step
into a vast cellar space lit up by candle glow. A hell of a lot of candle glow.

‘Holy fuck!’ It could have
been a warehouse, right under her home, stretching out a few houses along, into
cathedral-sized epicness. Iron beams and brickwork stretched over her head,
fanning out in lines that dropped to concrete columns and thick swathes of
draping fabric. Sections were curtained off, furniture dotted around like a
raided storage unit. It looked lived in, would have been homey if not for the
blood tracks that spread across the floor and smeared the corners of tables.

As metal clattered and Setty
yelped, she set her creeping to stealth mode, a shaking, petrified ninja
slipping through the cellar room and tripping over books. The couch was
littered with them and torn clothing that was really goddamn familiar.

Her fingers pinched the
material of a shirt like it carried serial-killer cooties, holding it up in
front of eyes that felt saucer-wide. It was
the
shirt. The one she’d ripped
off her burglar in a frenzy of lust.

‘Connal ...’ A whisper,
choked and frightened. Clutching the fabric to her chest, her booted toe
squelched in a congealing puddle. She whipped her foot back, pedalling away
from the pool of blood, catching her weight on her heel as she spun and
tumbled, hands tearing at curtains for purchase.

The fabric gave way as she
fell, dragged down by her weight and leaving her in a bundle of heavy material,
facing a growling Setty as he bounded over to bark at the metal contraption
filled to brimming with ...

Fur. Thick and white and
sleek to a body that had to have outsized a horse even flat on its side as it
was.

A cage. Her stalker had a
cage full of bleeding, mammoth-sized creature.

‘Breathe, Ash, breathe.’ She
couldn’t draw in oxygen around the panic stamping down her throat like a rock
of doom, her limbs too tangled in the drapery to do anything but sit and stare
at the thing.

He’d got one. Her infuriating
stalker had actually captured one of the creatures and he’d locked the thing
up, even as it bled out all over the concrete floor.

Are you completely off
your rocker, DeMorgan? Was that pity we were just feeling? That thing could
have been one of the ones that tore your mother apart.

She was a sucker for things
in pain though, and this beast was in agony. Its every breath pumped out fresh,
hair-tufted streams of blood that threatened to colour her boots in its life.

God, what would happen if it
died in there? Connal would need a bulldozer to remove it. Maybe she should
open the door and it could just crawl-

‘Setty? Setanta! Come back!’
The mutt was flying across the cellar and up the stairs with his tail between
his legs, her hands catching nothing but the air in his wake. ‘Fat lot of good
you are. Protector, my ass!’ She yelled at the tail disappearing through the
vault door before the heavy metal groaned shut, snapping off the sounds of his
barks.

‘The thing is locked up!’ As
though that could bring the pup back. It was a half hearted reassurance that
did nothing to stop the terror coursing through her own veins.

The creature rolled in its
giant cage, groaning growls that rumbled the floor to earthquake tremors.

Nope!
She couldn’t do anything if the beast moved. Too
fucking freaky. Ash leapt to her feet, scrabbling her way up the stairs. If
she’d had a tail, it would be so far between her legs she could have passed for
male.
Flee, run, fuck, just get out of there!

She shuddered as it whimpered
behind her. Again, and again, she shouldered the mass of steel, praying the
locks would give. The door didn’t budge.

‘No!’ Ash struck her fists to
the door as the code bleeped red once more. ‘Who actually has one of these?
Fucking Connal ...’ Cursing him out with every exhale, she slumped, her spine
sliding down cool metal to pool her at the bottom, eyes brimming tears as they
fell on the mass of caged beast panting hard in the corner of the room.

Her brain was ranting,
throwing insults and vicious worst case scenarios where Connal came home to her
beast-eaten remains rotting in a corner. Assuming he was even coming back at
all.

The thing made a plaintive,
agonised sound, expanding its giant chest and crushing it on a howling exhale.
It wrenched at her heart.

Lonely.

That was the sound of
loneliness, soul-deep and tormented. It was baying helplessly and before the
silence regrouped, Ash was down the steps, fingers curling around the bars,
forehead rested in between.

It was suffering, and nothing
deserved to die alone. She sank to the floor in a cross-legged heap, up close
and personal with the thing that haunted her dreams. It was so different to the
beast she’d buried with Connal. They never could have hauled this thing into a
hole in the ground.

For the first time in her
whole life, Ash really looked.

The glimpse she’d caught at
the club hadn’t been too far off. It looked like a wolf, bulkier, broader, with
a barrel chest and strong, canine limbs. Its back legs ended in massive paws,
its front were different and she peered closer. The forepaws flexed out into
something that looked like it could grip, more finger-like and taloned. Its
broad head elongated into a squarer, longer muzzle, the fur thinner, looking
silken, white, dotted with flashes of the same red that stained the beasts
matted flank and ribs.

God, it was so torn up she
didn’t know how it could still be breathing.

She went limp against the
bars and let the tears that had been rising fall free. The scalding cascade
served as a release, letting the fear and terror of the night, the worry for
Connal, the concern she felt for the creature, overflow. She couldn’t stand to
look at it anymore. All bloodied, its coat matted, fleshy strips ripped free
and lifted as though someone hadn’t stuck the envelope down right. She covered
her mouth with shaking fingers, her free hand wrapping around the bars of the
cage. Ash pressed in so close she should have been able to see it breathe.
Frowning, her eyes narrowed and fixated on the barrel expanse of its chest,
waiting for the tell-tale sign of life.

None came.

‘Shit.’ Ash couldn’t leave
the thing to die in a pool of its own blood. She ran for the kitchen and filled
the removable wash basin as full as she could carry. If it was dead, this may
at least clean it, and if it wasn’t, maybe it would make it feel better. Ash
felt like a child, uncertain and too full of the strangest hope. Hauling the
basin back, she tossed the contents in a warm-water crash over the monster wolf
and the concrete it lay on. Drenched, it flailed, thrashing violently.

The cracking of her spine to
the opposite wall alerted Ash to her frantic backpedaling.

Well, it was definitely not
dead.

Her attempt to bathe it had
sluiced some of the blood from its fur, creating a puddle that trickled through
the bars.

Through laboured, huffing
breaths, the beast let out an inhuman groan that grated on her nerves. She
snapped at the creature with a harsh, ‘will you shut up! I don’t know how to
help-’ The yell died in her throat, choking up to a strangled scream. Ash
lurched to the cage, tripping over her feet in her haste to get back to its side.
No, not it. He. Him.

Naked and wet and bleeding
like he’d been cheese grated and pepperoni sliced, there was no furry monster
on a concrete floor now. Only a man she couldn’t reach. ‘Connal!’

T
he icy deluge of foul water was a slap to attention
that drew a gasp from his parched throat. The wet rags of the tunic clung to
his shivering skin like wretchedness. Sandaled feet appeared through the slats
of the timber cage, toenails mangled, split and filthy as old gravestones, a
matching set of broken teeth bared in a sneer as the guard hunkered down to
hurl a gob of spittle in the boy's face.

'You stink, dog.'

The whites of the boy's
eyes showed stark against the grime smearing his face, bony knees drawn up to a
ribcage that stood out like the skeleton hull of a longboat, folded as he was
into the cramped crawl space he had called 'home' these countless seasons past.
The guard's teeth ripped into a meaty thigh of spit-roast flesh, chewing in a
slow, cruel display. The desired effect achieved, the boy salivated at the
smell and it shamed him. Dog eat dog was a literal thing in this cesspit.

The carcasses of the
beasts that fell in the arena were put to use as food, skins ripped from their
flesh and fashioned into winter clothing. His stomach churned. It had been
Bran's fate, that first day, when he’d been kidnapped from his village. The
loyal hound had thrown himself at the wolves in a futile act of heroism. Bran
never stood a chance against so many. He watched his pet dog ripped to shreds
before his eyes while the giant, black-haired brute of a man had stood at the
sidelines, intently watching the boy with those cruel eyes of his, as though
waiting, willing him to break, to cry.

The beasts were closing in
on him, a demonic circle of blood-whetted fangs and prowling menace, but he had
no tears, only blind, possessed rage. He set his jaw and fisted his small hands
and growled at the animals, David before a ravenous pack of snarling Goliaths.
He was going to die, but not before he sank his teeth into at least one of
these evil hellhounds. The warrior at the fence barked a raspy laugh, clearly
revelling in the boy’s abasement. He saw red, literally. He would give the
bastard cause for mirth. The scene became awash with crimson and he wondered if
this was death upon him. But then something snapped inside him, a culmination
of his fury at Bran’s unjust death and the humiliating laughter of his captor.
His wiry body simply exploded. Like the kernels of popping corn his mother
would toss in the fire, it was as though his outer husk split apart, releasing
the huge and ferocious physical embodiment of his rage, a nemesis of lethal
fangs and coiled power. His head snapped back and he bellowed an ear-splitting
roar at the encroaching circle of beasts. They cowered as though the sound were
a lash and began to retreat, muzzles grazing the dirt in supplication to the
savage creature that dwarfed even their substantial size. Cranking his head in
the direction of his tormentor, he growled and leapt through the air, slamming
his flanks into the solid barrier that divided the spectators from the circle
of the arena. As he rebounded into the dirt, the slow clapping of the warrior
reached his ears.