The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (32 page)

It was another outcome, so why
did it still feel like a death sentence? Head hung, her voice came out with a
bitter edge. ‘So when you say slim chance, what you actually mean is no chance.
Don’t sugar coat the pill, I’m not a child.’

‘No.’ His fingers tipped her
chin, lifting her eyes back to him. ‘You’re different from the others. An
unknown quantity, like I said. Anann DeMorgan said it too, she warned me. If
you really are her granddaughter, then you are more than human.’

‘But we don’t know that until
I get bitten and we find out?’ Always the hardest route up the mountain.

‘I’m sorry.’ It was his turn
to hang his head.

A beat of that dreaded, heavy
silence and then her soul was on its knees. ‘I want you to do it.’

‘What?’ His head whipped up,
sure as if she’d slapped him.

Tone sure, she clarified. ‘I
want you to be the one to bite me.’ If she had to be anyone’s sex zombie, she
wanted to be his.

‘I won’t do that to you. You
saw what you could become.’ Fear played across the heavy frown on his brow.

‘But you won’t hurt me, you
won’t abuse me,
or use me to repopulate the world.’

The muscles in his jaw
clenched tight, his hand curling into a fist on the table. ‘I don’t just kill
wolves, Ash. The Thralls, the ones that turn vicious, I kill them too.’

‘If that happens,’
swallow,
breathe, Ash
, ‘I trust you, to grant me the same release, if it goes badly,
don’t let me hurt anyone.’

‘No!’ His fist slammed down
on the wood, drawing the eyes of the drinkers scattered around the other
tables. He glared at them until they turned their attention studiously back to
the drinks in front of them, shuffling their feet in fearful submission.

‘I won’t do it.’ He hissed.

‘You have a better
suggestion?’ Teeth gritted, she was growling, her hands on the clenched fist he
pounded into the table. ‘I turn rabid, you have my permission to shoot me in
the head.’ Her nails cut crescents into his skin, bloodying him with her tense,
mounting desperation. ‘I turn into one of their slaves, they won’t be
interested in me any more.’ She tried for lightness, tipping her head to draw
his gaze to hers. ‘So I’ll be a drooling fembot in the bedroom two nights a
month. I already want you.’

‘You have no idea what you’re
asking of me.’ His voice was lowered to a growled whisper. ‘And what if you
turned wolf?’ Throwing the challenge back at her, he seemed determined to use
all the ammunition at his disposal to turn her from her insane logic.

She took the bullets with a
shocked sort of calm, returned them quietly, steady-voiced. ‘I want to be able
to make my own choices. At least I could fight them off.’

‘I can’t do it. I won’t.’ The
legs of his chair screeched back on the boards, withdrawing himself from the
table of this insane negotiation with a determined glare.

‘And again I say, you have a
better alternative?’

The growl of frustration
ripped from his throat. ‘We go to your Grandmother.’

‘Cause that’s not the longest
shot in the history of long shots.’ Ash huffed, annoyed and angry, scowling at
their hands. He hadn’t let go of her yet and the thought made tears brim as
helpless frustration rocked inside her head. They were on a roundabout,
circling and never agreeing.

Stalemate.

Silence reigned, King of
their bubble, their glasses drained as a tactile link kept them close. She
needed his touch, it was comforting and real. He could lead her through any one
of those doors and she knew she’d follow, trusting him not to hurt her, or
allow her to hurt others.

Any one of the outcomes could
make or break them. It could destroy this whatever they had and doom her.

She barely noticed when he cradled
her hand in both of his to lead her from the table, and the warmth of the pub,
into the cool evening. Ash had never been one for praying, but she begged the
stars above them for something.

An epiphany that could save
them.

 ‘C
rap!’ The mascara wand jerked in her hand as Liath
swept it through her lashes. Moistening a tissue to dab at the black smudge on
her eyelid, she took a deep, cleansing breath and blotted the rouge staining
her lips, suddenly feeling over made-up. First date jitters made her feel
fifteen again, not a mother with a four year old son. Her own mother’s
downstairs toilet, with its dated decor and the thousand memories clinging to
its chintzy walls did nothing to dispel the whole Back to The Future illusion.

She dragged the tissue over
her lips, didn’t want to seem desperate. Doyle was gorgeous, a total ride. A
fella like him could smell desperation on an older woman at fifty paces. With a
mental slap, she reminded herself this wasn’t actually a date at all. But hey,
a single mum on the wrong side of thirty had to grab every opportunity by the
horns. Liath had imagined a very different conversation when she brazenly
scribbled down her number and slipped it into the pocket of Doyle’s tight white
tee. After what Connal told her, though, she’d all but consigned Doyle to her
lost cause basket. So when she’d taken the private number call that morning,
she expected his voice at the end of the line about as much as a call from
Elvis beyond the grave. His news was less surprising. After she’d left the
club, Connal had gotten into a scrap. Doyle broke it up and brought him home,
but Connal was in need of TLC and was asking for Liath.

That she would go to Connal’s
aid was never in question. They shared the kind of ugly past that forges
unconditional loyalty. Copping a ride with handsome and broody was just the
cherry on the cake. Funny, she hadn’t figured those two were tight, but with
Connal, you couldn’t always tell. Knowing her uncanny magnetism for bad boys
and assholes, she squeezed out a silent prayer that Doyle would be different.

God knew she’d picked some
choice bastards in her time.

Her father’s sermonising
voice chose that moment to pop into her head. ‘The portion of fornicators will
be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur ...’ Well, she’d certainly
lived down to the Reverend’s low expectations. The more he pushed, the more she
rebelled and her mother and the doctors could say what they wanted about
blocked coronary arteries, she knew her pregnancy had put him in an early
grave. ‘The dogs shall devour Jezebel ... and none shall bury her.’
Bible-thumping Daddy would be spinning in that grave now, to see her in his
house, painting her face for a stranger. God, there had been a time, once, when
she’d idolised the man, been his perfect little angel. A strand of blonde hair
slipped free, tickling her nose as she peered in close to the mirror, trying to
see the girl she had been then. A flicker remained, and that’s what she grasped
at now. It had taken her good years hunting that light, she refused to let it
get darkened again.

Goddamnit, she was going to
start leaking and spoil her mascara. It was ancient history. She smoothed her
hair into place and stepped into the hall, closing the door on her insecurities
and the ghosts of her past.

‘Mam?’ Liath raised her voice
a fraction to carry wherever the other woman could be, the laughter of her son
joyous and bright as she stepped along the hall. A smile brightened her eyes
when the plump, care lined face poked around the kitchen door, silver-streaked,
ash-blonde curls pushed from her mother’s questioning smile.

‘Are you sure about minding
Josh? I promise I won’t be gone long.’ A soft laugh and the door was pushed
wide, bag of flour held carefully in strong fingers and Liath followed into the
kitchen space her mother practically lived in.

‘Of course not, dear. I adore
having my grandson here to keep me company.’ And he was, on his belly on the
floor letting a small golden dog nose under his body for treats, laughing so hard
his little face was red and he was squirming from the cold-nosed tickling.

It was a pretty picture, her
mother moving around the kitchen, cleaning up after another baking craze, a
fuller figured version of herself, laughter-creased and smile-wrinkled, but
held up with a good, elegant bone structure that still made her one of the most
beautiful women Liath knew. How had she put up with that man for so many years?
The woman was either a saint or a total masochist. Every day it was like
looking into a mirror of a possible future self, but she wanted those laughter
lines instead of the frown furrows she imagined forming and setting up
permanent shop between her brows.

The soft buzz of the doorbell
jolted her renewed calm with a jerk of fizzing nerves, and suddenly she was all
motion, fluffing at her hair, flustered and grabbing up her purse off the
counter. Time to open the door. She could do this. But her path was slow to
reach it, the doorbell going off once more before she managed to swing the
front door wide, and smile a faintly shy smile at the man on the other side.

‘Would your gentleman friend
like a cup of tea, dear?’ The gentle voice reached through before she could
utter any greeting and Liath scowled, a teenager embarrassed by her mother’s
familiarity. Cup of tea, my ass. The nosy woman wanted to vet any male to step
through the doors and kill them with kindness and refreshments. Her mouth was
open to say ‘no, Mam, we’re going to head straight out. No damn tea ...’ but
she only got so far as a huff of sound before Doyle spoke his pleasure.

‘You’re too kind, Mrs Murphy.
I’d murder a cup of tea. Milk, two sugars please.’

That voice, whether it was
the low tone or just the new, strange presence in the house, the normally
docile, sleek furred dog erupted into a frenzy of yapping barks, small paws
scrabbling to dart through legs that moved to trap her.

‘Lady! Where are your
manners? I’m so sorry, she’s usually good with strangers. A terrible guard
dog.’ An uncharacteristic worry line creased Mrs Murphy’s brow. ‘I’ll put her
out. Liath, why don’t you see your friend into the sitting room and I’ll put
the kettle on.’

Liath obeyed simply to speed
along their exit. The quicker the tea was made, the quicker it was drunk, the
quicker they were gone. She led him, and his straight-off-the-magazine,
teenage-fantasy looks, into the cosy spread of chairs that made up their living
room. Nerves made an ordinarily sultry walk, the walk she used when she worked,
into a slight stumbling jitter. She blamed it on the rug. Totally tripped.

Before she could turn to
offer him a seat anywhere he wanted, Doyle was possessing the armchair by the
door, legs spread wide, toe tapping, elbows perched on the arms as his gaze
jumped around the floral walls. He looked too male in a room overrun by lace
doilies and plump, patterned cushions. She was about dying with embarrassment,
her face two shades redder than the blush she’d applied, his sleek, handsome
sophistication only neon signing the time warp she was currently in.

When Josh wandered in, making
a beeline for her with a heart-melting pout on his face, Liath knew his
grandmother hadn’t let him follow after the dog she could still hear barking
outside. Her arms reached to soothe him, settling herself on the arm of the
couch so she could hold him.

He never made it to her.

Doyle swept him off his feet
as he passed and deposited the small boy on his lap with a laugh. Her heart
leapt, a mother’s nerves creeping through the smile on her lips, but the easy
amusement in Doyle’s gaze never wavered, and she calmed some.

‘So you’re the man of the
house?’ A large hand ruffled at the mop of Josh’s blonde curls, his knee
bouncing her son until his child’s laughter sounded through the room. ‘Damn, I
feel like fucking Santa Claus.’

‘You said a bad word.’ That
drew a frown from laughter, little face scrunching up, small hands on Doyle’s
as Josh squirmed to get down and the hold on him tightened. Doyle held fast,
until the boy protested and Liath reached for her son, worry starting a crawl
up her throat.

‘Let him go, you’re
frightening him!’

She would have moved, would
have stood and forcibly removed her boy from Doyle’s lap if the man she’d let
into her mother’s house hadn’t had one thing.