The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (28 page)

‘Running away is not an
option.’ Connal’s tone turned darkly sober. Hinging himself up from the
pillows, his fingers curled into the flesh of her shoulder. ‘The
Thegn
are everywhere, Ash. They have infiltrated all walks of society. Now that they
know of your existence, they will hunt you down, wherever you go in the world,
you will not be safe. They can track you, through your blood.'

She shook her head, refusing
to absorb the dire truth of their situation.

‘If you go, I can’t follow,’
he said. ‘I can’t protect you if you leave.’

No!
Ash refused to see that as the only option, to stay
and die or be abused by monster wolves, to watch Connal get torn to shreds. She
couldn’t survive that again, she couldn’t watch that again and come out of it
with any semblance of sanity. ‘Come with me, please ...’ Her throat caught and
stuttered as she swallowed a sob, desperation a clawing, living thing in her
veins as her fingers curled into his shoulder. ‘We go together, we’ll survive.
I won’t go without you. I ... can’t.’ One, she probably wouldn’t make it far.
She was no match against anything more than human. Two, there was no way that
parting from him wouldn’t be akin to tearing out some vital inside part of her.
‘We could run. If we tried.’

Connal’s head dropped back in
frustration. ‘It’s not possible, Ash. I can’t leave Irish soil, and you
wouldn’t make it past immigration control. The
Thegn
will be watching
every flight and port out of the state. It’s what they’ll expect. The DeMorgan
house is the safest place you can be right now. Stay here, and I’ll give you
what protection I can.’

Panic took her on its back
and it was racing with her. She clung to it, too scared to let go and fall into
hysterics. Her life had become a rollercoaster. From hating the giant wolf
creatures that had killed her mother to having some sort of four letter emotion
towards one who she called ‘saviour’. From only half believing their existence,
to being neck-deep in their world and flailing, screaming around the twists and
turns that splattered her with blood and rode her until she was sore.

‘I’m trapped.’ She was tight
in her own skin, locked in one position because, hell, if she couldn't leave
the country with him, she had to stay. There would be no leaving him to them.
There would be no leaving. Ash exhaled and she curled into the support of
Connal’s body, taking the comfort he offered.

‘Your grandmother is, was, a
very powerful woman,’ he murmured. ‘Countless girls in your situation, she has
spirited away from this nightmare. DeMorgan knew you were coming, Ash. She’s
not here now, but the house is. I don't believe she would just abandon you to
them. Surely somewhere in her Diogenes’ hoard, she’s left some clue, some way
out of this godforsaken shit-storm. We could go to see her ...’

Ash’s nod was hidden in the
coil of his dreads. She was fighting her hardest to crawl under his skin and
hide there until this myth-shaped cloud over her head left them alone, but
reality kept worming through. Connal wouldn’t let her go without a fight, she
had to believe that, and she had to trust that he knew her grandmother better
than she did, had to trust that the older DeMorgan had left her some piece of
the scary ass puzzle so she could get the hell out of Jumanji. ‘We should
look,’ she sighed. And hopefully this time, ‘we’ referred to human-ish hands
aiding her instead of a whining mutt butting his head into her touch every time
she reached for another stack of jumbled papers.

The dog. Crap.

She’d spaced and he’d been
out all night. ‘Setanta ...’

She was already tripping from
Connal’s embrace, getting her legs under her and tumbling off the duvet on
terrified limbs. Alone, he’d been out alone.

Bare-assed didn’t register
through the haze of curses as she dipped to rifle through scattered clothes,
getting as far as the bathroom before she realised the sodden pile of material
beside the copper tub could no longer be used as a dress. Ash backtracked, a
scowl stamped on her face.

Clothes were becoming
important.

She needed to feel a little
more human and a lot less like trapped prey, and where naked was erotic
sprawled across his sheets, it was vulnerable outside of his bed.

Panties! Ash pounced on the
unharmed underwear, dragged them up her thighs and snatched the closest shirt.
Hardly Kevlar, but it smelled of Connal and it fit. It would do. She needed to
get out.

Connal snagged a pair of worn
denims off the floor, stuffed long limbs into the legs and jerked them up over
his bare ass. As he yanked at the zipper, he watched her through the doorway
while she dressed. ‘The mutt’s not in the house?’ he asked.

‘No, he ran off before the
vault door shut, and he can’t get in upstairs.’ She spared a glance over her
shoulder that was more an urge for him to haul ass and open the door than to
check him out ... but she could give a few seconds over to purring
appreciation. The sight of him let her breathe, even as the panic swelled up
her throat and her feet carried her to the metal barrier.

‘Probably hiding in the
garden with his tail between his legs, or scrounging breakfast off the
neighbours,’ Connal replied, padding after her, barefoot and bare-chested,
covering the distance to the vault door in long, easy strides. Drawing up in
front of her, he ran his thumb across her full lower lip and his voice was
husky and accented as he spoke. ‘Can’t say I didn’t enjoy having you locked up
here as my prisoner.’ With a seductive smile, he turned to punch the code into
the keypad and the heavy metal lock disengaged. ‘You’re free to go, Little
Red.’

He acted like she wanted to
go. She didn’t. Once she knew Setty was safe and fed and she had clothes and
food, Ash would be crawling right back down here to sort the papers in the
safety of their duvet fort. Her lips pursed a kiss to the pad of his thumb,
fingers trailing down the strong line of his forearm as she leaned into him for
a second. ‘I’ll be coming back, Big Bad, or better yet,’ she laced their
fingers and squeezed, dragging him through the door, ‘you’re coming with me.’

She wasn’t ready to face the
outside alone.

Ash peered into the
apartment, eyes darting. Connal’s heat was a security at her back as she
stepped through the door, calling the wolfhound’s name. With every quickening
step that brought her closer to the outside, she hoped he was just scrounging
food. Damn mutt. Her nerves vibrated with anxiety, a dark foreboding taking
root and sprouting up vines of thick fear. Her voice rasped a little as she
called his name again.

Connal followed. She felt his
fingers tighten around her hand, holding her back, drawing her gaze to his for
a split second before she went for the door handle and pushed.

‘Is it locked?’ she asked.

Connal’s head shook, but his
eyes were a little wider, his body set in rigid lines as Ash let go of his hand
and braced her entire weight against it, setting her feet firmly on the ground
and heaving into the old hinges.

‘Don’t, Ash ...’ His voice, a
growl over the huff of her breath, turned her head in annoyance and she brushed
him away. He couldn’t let her out of one door and expect her not to want to go
through the other. The thing protested while she shoved. She glared at the man
standing beside her, unmoving and tense, no offer to help as she pushed her
weight into it until it cracked open and the gap widened. Her smirk was all
triumph, a self-satisfied grin kissed to his locked jaw before she squeezed
through the gap, hollering for the dog, eyes roving the undergrowth.

Her foot found the obstruction
before her gaze did. It was wet, and tacky and she drew back with a wrinkled
nose and a furrowed brow.

The thing in front of her was
a grotesque lump of doorstop.

Mangled and an unnatural
blue, the dry-flaking cracks in its skin crumbled when her foot brushed against
it, chipping away at the black webbing of lines pulsing slowly at the surface.
It was humanoid, bloodied and deathly still, save for the rough rattling
breaths crackling into the morning air like too much static. ‘What is that
thing?’ she pleaded.

‘Red fog withdrawal, what
happens when a wolf doesn’t make it home on time.’ Connal pushed at the
pathetic creature’s shoulder with his foot and the flesh disintegrated under
the pressure, collapsing like ash. ‘This Cinderella is on the way out.’

The thing looked so human.
Male. The early morning sun glinted off his face, sending his skin Smurf blue,
a hoop of gold catching the light. Ash looked closer and recoiled. It was the
Bull, the rutting male from the club with his snake hips and a thick ring
through his nose. Death was far from pretty. ‘It’s not moving,’ Ash said, ‘but
look at its eyes. It’s in pain, isn’t it?’ Terror leapt out from the wide, wild
eyes of the creature. She couldn’t imagine being aware when her body was
failing, decomposing with her brain still functioning, still thinking.

‘It’s an excruciating death,’
Connal replied. ‘This one is paralysed. The mutt must have bitten it.’ A foot
to its jaw and the head listed to one side, bloody teeth marks confirming his
suspicions. ‘Wolfhound saliva is poisonous to Fomorians.’

Pity unfurled in her stomach,
bile rising up her throat as the mess of its neck gaped. She shouldn’t feel
sorry for something that killed her family, but she couldn’t help it. The pity
was there and she hated it.

‘Setty did this? He fought
it? The mutt is dumber than I thought!’ Her boot squelched in another
congealing puddle and revulsion shuddered through her. She watched her feet as
she moved around the dying creature. Her frown deepened. There was too much blood
for a single bite, so much she was having trouble avoiding it. She prayed she
was wrong, that whatever switch had flicked on with its gory revelation was a
lie and the path she followed wouldn’t lead to what she thought it would.

She pulled frantically at the
knot of thorny shrubs lining the path, sharp-pricking brambles grabbing at her
as she pushed them back and her skin brushed through fur she’d once buried her
hands in. Her toe caught on a metal stud and her stomach bottomed out, knowing
the stud would be one of many decorating a collar she’d bought to make the
playful pup into more of a badass. Her knees buckled.

She crumbled, like a log
burnt too long, screams lodged in her throat as her knees hit the floor. She
was breathing tears, couldn’t see for them, the world a slash of blood and
silver fur in the tangle of briers. Ash’s hands were halfway to reaching for
him when strong fingers bound her wrists in a silent, ‘No.’

The growl in her throat
sounded like grief, it was angry and terrified, her heartbeat a painful sobbing
drum in her chest as she tore herself from Connal’s grip. He stood so calm
above her, watching with ice eyes as she lost parts of herself to her sorrow.
Ash was barely holding herself together, wrapped in a doubled-over ball of wrenching
tears, her fingers finding their way into a patch of not-so-damaged fur as she
tried not to look, and saw everything.

Setty.

For all his antics, killing
her socks, eating her out of house, gluing himself so close to her that she
tripped whenever she took a step, she’d got used to him being a constant
presence. He’d been a comfort. It was the least she could do to touch him. He’d
loved her scratching his ears, playing with them as his tongue lolled out. Now,
he was torn up, a dog fight gone bad, a killing blow from something with much
larger jaws leaving him bloodied and limp.

‘Connal ...’ She whimpered,
reassuring herself of his presence, but all she got was a wall of frozen
silence. He was there, but those eyes she’d watched go hot with emotion were cold,
unfeeling, the edge of steel crashing into watery blue. He was completely
unaffected. She was drowning in her sadness and he stood there. Heartless.

She’d wondered it once and
the word sprung back as she ran her fingers over Setty’s ears. He had no love
for an animal he’d looked after. Would there be anything felt for her? Did he
have that capacity for emotion she thought she’d seen? Ash knew well she could
delude herself into believing things, it had been her saving grace these years
and, on her knees curled close to a pup she’d loved, there was no comfort from
the man who had held her in his bed, no connection in grief. It was her tears
and hers alone that wet silver fur.

Ash could only offer a weak,
teary resistance when strong hands closed around her shoulders, hauling her to
her feet as she fought to stay in a grieving vigil beside her mutt’s prone
form. She didn’t want him to be alone.