The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (8 page)

Good. She wasn’t in the mood.
She was still hungry.

The city looked mystical in
the dark, shadows cloaking the corners and tendrils of red creeping from the
manhole covers like they were steaming and lit up from within. She wondered
strangely if Dublin lit its manholes as a warning.

She stepped over to one,
waving her hand through the red mist, mesmerised and standing across the grid
like she was Marilyn Monroe in colour. It was pretty, and slightly horror
B-Movie. Ash scooted back at the sounds of footsteps, a party troupe of people
closing in on Temple Bar. They wore clothes she longed to possess, flashes of
red, bright and loud, beautiful hues of scarlet and crimson. Ash’s brow
furrowed watching them, her eyes on wild hands and twirling bodies. They came
like a pack of cheer and high-floating ecstasy, happy, laughing and all she
noticed, when she managed to tear her eyes from the red, was the fingernails, half-mooned
in black. A trend resurrected perhaps. It seemed to be everywhere, the fashion
of Dublin from old to young.

They moved off into the night
and as the minutes trekked on, the darkness seemed to be growing, stalking her
with lengthening shadows. A twitch in her senses said she was still being
watched. She put it down to the moon, the great Eye of Sauron presence in the
sky keeping guard over her. Ash shivered, pulled her coat tighter and wandered
on, pretending she was tracking her own footsteps.

Fingers trailing the wall,
her gaze was seeking out the next grid when she came up against a glossy
poster. The design was backlit by a blood red moon, a half-crescent of black
served as a banner for the proclamation of ‘Full Moon Party! We’ll Make You
Howl At FORM!!!’ and then the address in silver, glittering in one corner.
Form. Ash tilted her head, looking down the street, and for the first time
noticed that the posters covered every wall in a long line of colour.
How
did I not see that earlier?

Ash was so concentrated on
the path of posters and where they might lead that she tripped over something
small that had been left on the path. Stumbling around a corner, she fell right
into something that was definitely not a grungy alley wall.

‘Hey, whoa there. You okay,
Miss?’ A guy came out of the brickwork to stop her face planting, his strong
hands holding her shoulders as she righted herself against the wall.

‘I’m fine.’ Ash shrugged his
hands from her with a shiver. ‘You always leave cans in the middle of walkways?
Is that how you draw poor unsuspectings down dark alleys?’ She huffed, cheeks
burning with embarrassment. Brushing dust and damp moss from her coat, her
palms throbbed, but she was too aware of being alone in a side street with a
stranger to care.

‘I’m sorry.’ He was laughing
at her, and she scowled. ‘It was an empty can, I didn’t need it. Didn’t think
you were going to walk right into it. It’s not invisible.’

Eyes rolling, she flushed a
bit more and waved at the posters he’d slipped up to the graffiti’d wall,
already papered with shreds of ‘Missing Person’ flyers and ‘Have you seen this
Girl?’ pleas that got lost under his advertising. ‘Are these parties good? Form
seems to be a bit of a name around town.’ Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but
Liath had mentioned it and she didn’t think this guy would protest her bigging
up his workplace.

His head cocked, dark eyes
crinkling as he assessed her, dirty blonde hair flopping around on his forehead
in a carefully styled mess. ‘You’re not from around here, are you? Form’s the
best place in town bar none. And no party beats a Full Moon party. This shit
right here is why people are meant to be on this earth. This is happiness,
sweetheart.’

He shifted his weight and she
shifted hers, leaning away as he came in closer. His words were over-confident
and a little put on. It was his tone and the way his eyes travelled her head to
breasts to toe to breasts again that got her hackles up and gave her the slick
feeling all over. He towered over her, whispering close like he had some secret
to impart, only to her.

‘I could show you, teach you
how we party in Form.’ It was issued as an offer and spoken like a demand. His
eyes threatened as his lips entreated. ‘It’s not far, just up by Dublin Castle.
Not far at all.’

He could have been the
Cheshire Cat for all the wide smiling and purring. But she wasn’t Alice and
when his fingers spread out across the velvet arm of her coat, she didn’t trust
in him to take her to Wonderland.

‘I’m not dressed for clubbing
...’ Ash forced a playful laugh from her throat as she danced out of his reach,
ducking around him to take a step towards the opening of the alley.

He moved quicker than she
could, hands planted either side of her head, walling her in against the brick
with a leering, toothy grin. The exit seemed so damn far away as her face
turned from his and she batted at the hand that slipped to once more stroke his
fingers down her coat. ‘You don’t need to be dressed at all ...’

Ash went cold. The dread that
had been swirling in her stomach dropped a ton of rocks to weigh her down in
panic. She should have got the hell out of Dodge when she’d first stumbled into
him, when she’d got the heebies under his gaze, when the twitching energy that
had possessed her body all week had suddenly up and frozen solid in her veins.
His hands were moving, one squeezing her jaw as his face leaned close and he
inhaled with a Hannibal intensity.
Fava beans and Chianti to go with a slice
of freaking out female, Sir?

‘You smell ...’ He groaned,
and her eyes popped wide. Shit, he really was going to cook her! Ash was
flailing now. The second time since she’d been in this godforsaken city that
she was being surprised by a man intent on doing her harm. If this shit came in
threes ... She fought, bursting into an explosion of fear that had her
struggling to reach something, anything, to crow-bar the idiot off her.

‘You smell too,’ she hissed,
muffling a whimper as his fingers clawed into her hip, his face still buried
against her throat with those wet, breathing inhales, like he was trying to
breathe her in through his own saliva. One hand pushing at his face, she
fumbled, his weight leaning her into the wall and leaving barely an inch for
her to fight into the insides of her bag.

Whereisitwhereisitwhereisit?

She’d thought it a funny
thing to buy, a pretty little piece of Celtic, engraved silver. The street
vendor had even given her a velvet bag to go with it. Ash whimpered again, her
fingers sliding right off the fabric as his body crowded hers, harder, pressing
into her like he could convince her to play along to his tune and dance for his
lusts.

FINALLY! The metal slipped
free and Ash flicked it out, jerking her hand from the bag to brandish the
small blade at the guy’s throat. Her hand shook, slightly dimming the threat
factor as she stuffed the point into the skin under his jaw, pressing to him as
hard as he advanced into her. Far from confident, Ash was psyching herself up
to do what she had to, but suddenly, arming herself didn’t seem like such a
brilliant idea.

‘Back off, fucker.’ Her fear
laid stress to the syllables. ‘I don’t want to go to your club and I’d really
like to keep my clothes on.’ How had it come to this? Ash could barely keep
pace with the world around her, she was moving too fast, or it was, or something
like that.

He laughed, tilting his jaw
into the point, letting her bleed him some as he bore down on her with a gleam
in his eye, all manic. ‘You think I give a damn about what you’d like?’ All
mirth, all unhinged, the switch had been flipped and she hadn’t even noticed
the tipping point.

She was pinned in an alley
with a madman who got off on her little blade being in his skin. Ash swallowed.
Then the world went dark as shadows took possession of the alley.

Connal’s hulking form blocked
out the light as he rounded the corner.

His lip curled and when he
spoke, his voice had the edge of a razor blade. ‘Now would be a really good
time to back the fuck off.’

Ash could only watch as
Blondie’s head whipped around in Connal’s direction, a twisted smirk contorting
what might otherwise be a conventionally handsome face. Whatever smart-ass
remark had been forming in his mind crumbled to dust, though, as recognition
wiped the confidence off his face. She wasn’t the only one scared anymore.

‘Hey, hey now, chillax there,
my man, just helping out a lost tourist, showing her the meaning of the
céad
míle fáilte
, know what I mean?’ Blondie plastered on a fake smile and
released Ash’s face, patting her cheek. ‘Isn’t that right, sweetheart?’

Connal’s eyes narrowed to
slits. Ash felt herself trembling, the little blade she held amplifying her
fear like a seismograph.

‘Uhhhuh,’ Connal sneered,
‘and I suppose she’s cultivating these cross-cultural relations by teaching you
to shave with her nail file?’

Blondie’s hand shot up to his
throat and came away bloodied. ‘Crazy foreign bitch pulled a knife on me!’

‘Good for her.’ Connal’s
mouth curved into the hint of a smile. ‘You know nothing would turn this shitty
night around better than carving the self-righteous smirk off your face, asshole,’
he said, ‘but you’ve traumatised the girl enough for one night. She doesn’t
need to watch me go Freddy Krueger on you, does she?’ Grinding his molars,
Connal stepped aside and growled at the guy to get gone.

Blondie scuttled by, hugging
the wall of the alley furthest away from Connal. If he’d said boo to the creep,
he’d have jumped out of his own skin.

Approaching her slowly, he
wrapped a hand around her fisted knife grip. ‘You can let go now,’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t want you giving yourself a paper-cut with that ... letter opener?’ He
stroked his thumb down her clenched knuckles and levelled steely eyes on her
face. She stared back, wide-eyed, imprinting her panic onto him.

Ash barely felt his hand on
hers. If she let go of the knife ... She wouldn’t be safe. He was talking, and
she forced herself to follow the shape of his words as she waited for her heart
to stop pounding enough that she could hear over the din.

From one nightmare to
another. She could feel her body trembling up a storm of adrenaline, crashing
from the fight that had battled her to knife-point. When she finally persuaded
her mouth to work, what breached her lips wasn’t a scream but an indignant huff
of a verbal stomped foot.

‘It’s not a letter opener,
it’s a pocket knife,’ she said, brandishing it in front of his eyes. The silver
flashed in a way that would have been cool if she hadn’t been so damn
terrified. ‘And you were following me, weren’t you?’ Ash’s heartbeat hammered
back up to a flat out gallop. She was mentally writing his
résumé
.
Breaking and entering. Check. Stalking. Check. Homicidal maniac was pencilled
in. With the way blond fucktard had legged it, she wasn’t crossing it off just
yet. After all, what monsters fear, she figured she certainly should. ‘How long
were you standing there? Did you enjoy the show?’

Arms folded across his chest,
he regarded her from behind his defensive posture. ‘Seems like you should be
grateful I was here,’ he said.

Her exhale could have been a
language all its own, heavy with annoyance and a hint of embarrassment. But
defiance had a louder voice. What did the creepy stalker expect? A red carpet,
hero’s welcome? Hell, she didn’t think she could spit up a ‘thank you’ if it
had been jammed down her throat covered in rat poison. ‘I was handling myself
perfectly well before you showed up.’

One dark slash of a brow
quirked up and there was
amusement in Connal’s voice. ‘So I noticed. Your grand
plan being to poke the bad guy with your pointy nail file thingy?’

‘Oh, right, and that’s the
technical term, is it?’ Ash scoffed, brushing invisible dirt from her coat. She
shifted her weight and looked back up at him. Fuming didn’t begin to cover it,
but laughter was a step behind and she would not let it out. ‘I drew blood. I
cut him.’ Her chin raised up a notch and she dared him to laugh. Her blade may
not be more than a toothpick against his bulk but even a toothpick could hurt
if it was jabbed in one’s eye.

He tilted his head slightly
and the corners of his mouth twitched. ‘And how was that working out for you?’

‘Look, dude,’ the knife
stabbed in his direction, emphasising her point, ‘I can take care of myself, I
don’t need a babysitter.’ Ash bit down on the slice of vulnerability that
threatened to filter through. She was not a child, and she didn’t need to be
watched.

‘And yet you’re out alone,
wandering the streets of Dublin city, dressed like bait. You might as well hang
a sign around your neck saying ‘fresh meat.’’

Her brows shot up into her
hairline, eyes wide with incredulity. Her words were clipped with a growing
vexation. ‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way I’m dressed.’

As though she'd commanded him
to see for himself, his gaze rode a heated track up the length of her body and
the crimson velvet of her jacket. His Adam’s apple bobbed in a hard swallow,
before he settled his low-lidded eyes on hers. ‘Right, and those guys at the
pub weren’t all over you like flies on sugar?’ Connal seemed to recoil from his
own words and his tone was biting when he next spoke. ‘Nice coat.’