The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (98 page)

A horrible feeling slithered
down Ash's spine.

Her grandmother had lusted
after Connal.

That was why she stopped him.

Nausea rose in a wave that
clogged her throat. The thought of her grandmother’s hands on her man made her
simultaneously sick and rabid. Ash snapped her jaws, but kept her silence. If
she opened her mouth now, there was no telling what might come out and she
wouldn’t risk the Morrígan becoming tight-lipped on her.

‘-that, and I needed someone
to kill for me. He botched my plans, he owed me, and I owned him.’

Either she didn’t notice her
disgust or, off in her own world of reminiscing, her grandmother didn’t care. Ash
curled her lip. ‘So you made him hunt down the survivors.’

'Yes, but you know Connal and
his foolish sentimentality. He refused at first, but we reached a compromise,
eventually. In exchange for the lives of innocents, he agreed to kill any wolf
that strayed beyond the black lake. And I lived off those slim pickings,
growing older and weaker on his feeble efforts. I was wasting away in that
house, an old woman, too weak even to transcend the mortal realm, until now.'
Her smile was sinister.

Ash turned a horrified gaze
on the Morrígan.

Her grandmother’s lips curved
and she stroked Ash’s aching hands. 'I had no choice. Your lover boy couldn't,
or wouldn't, keep pace with my needs. What better than a fertile female amongst
a den of sexually frustrated wolves to spark a little friction? It worked
better than I could have imagined.'

And the love kept on coming.
Jeez.
'You can't be serious. I'm your flesh and blood. How could you do that to me?'
What little experience and understanding she had of family, Ash was pretty sure
selling out your grandchild to demon wolves wasn’t part of the picket fence
ideal.

'You owe me.’ The motes that
had been glittering like black diamond around the Morrígan snapped outward in a
dark lash, sizzling against Ash’s skin with the bite of her grandmother’s
words. ‘I never asked for you to be born. Your mother defied me. She spread her
legs willingly for that filth. The least you can do is earn your keep, and so
far, you have, admirably. Those fools have played right into my hands. I will
finally be free of Elatha's legacy. Already, I have my army amassing.'

That did not sound good.
'Your army?' Ash was scared to even ask.

The Morrígan opened her mouth
to speak, but then hesitated. ‘Ah but look at you,’ she said, ‘drenched to the
bone and shivering. I forget myself. Let me have one of my girls take you to
find some dry clothing, and we shall discuss this properly, in comfort.’

She snapped her fingers and
Ash jumped at the sharp sound, dazed by the quick-change direction of the
goddess' thoughts.

A pale girl appeared at her
shoulder, bringing with her a chill wind that tickled Ash's skin with icy
fingers. She looked down at the clothes plastered wetly to her body and bit
back a shiver. Maybe dry clothes would be nice. The girl turned to her with
unnaturally wide eyes, her mouth opening around sharp teeth to cluck at her,
entreatingly. At least, that's what it sounded like. Her grandmother was smiling
benevolently when Ash looked at her.

'Go with her, refresh
yourself, my dear. I hope you will join me for dinner.'

On cue, Ash’s stomach
growled. What was it with this woman? She mentioned wet clothes and Ash’s teeth
start to chatter. She said the word dinner and suddenly Ash felt ravenous. She
couldn’t blow off the horrible feeling that she was being manipulated to the
Morrígan’s will.

Hands folding primly in front
of her, the Morrígan could have been an angel, all smiles and sweet eyes, but
the grip the summoned girl had on her elbow was a silent threat. Ash didn't
fight it and let herself be led towards a cluster of arches she hadn't seen
before.

The room was a polished
marble dome with a rounded glass ceiling and curved walls that shimmered under
a hidden light source. Ash stood rigidly just inside the doorway as the other
girl went about straightening a perfectly made bed and searching through slips
of fabric hanging in an alcove from silver hooks.

The space was bare and
opulent. Like a sparse, five-star hotel room, it glittered with luxury, but she
couldn't put her finger on why. Maybe it was that the air was iridescent.

A heap of black pushing into
her arms knocked her back a step. Too lost in figuring out her new room, Ash
hadn't noticed the girl had found her something and the clothes spilled over
her fingers as she grasped at the bundle.

The girl merely clucked at
her. Her muteness and strange mannerisms were unnerving.

'Thank you,' Ash said
quietly.

She seemed to take it as an
invitation, skittering forwards, her bony fingers pulling at Ash’s wet clothes.

'Hey, hey!' Ash said, batting
at the grabbing hands. 'I can get changed myself. Thank you.' The girl turned
and walked away with a rattling hiss, leaving Ash to thoughts which were about
as jumbled as the alien lengths of black material in her arms. As she unfolded
the unidentifiable garments, she was half-tempted to call her back.

'Ashling!' The Morrígan
crowed happily from the end of the table as Ash peered into the room. 'I
thought you might have been lost.'

She wasn't too far off. The
place was vast and the architecture repetitive. In the end, she’d followed her
nose. After trying and failing to wrestle herself into the clothing she'd been
left, Ash had hunted down a robe from the neighbouring room, and found a comb
to secure her wet hair off her neck. The result didn't seem to please her
grandmother, if the way her eyes narrowed as Ash stepped up to the only other
seat were anything to go by. The goddess herself looked radiant and dark in her
diaphanous gown, at the head of a table furnished with food fit for a deity.
When she pulled her chair up and set her elbows on the table, the sizzling
scents of the meat consumed her.

There wasn't much room. Side
dishes of vegetables and buttery rolls clustered around her plate. Serving
bowls of pasta and casserole were wedged in beside plates of fries and fluffy
scrambled eggs. And amidst it all, great platters of steaming, carved meats,
cut off the bone into succulent, thick pieces. Ash's mouth watered. Her fingers
curled. Her grandmother laughed.

'Eat, my dear. You must be
starving.’

Ash hovered her fork over the
spread, before choosing a roasted joint with hot, crispy crackling. She speared
a thick tranche of the meat and landed it on her plate, stifling a moan as she
carved off a piece and started to chew.’

‘The apple does not fall far
from the tree.’

‘Hmmm?’ Mouth full, Ash cast
her a questioning glance.

‘We both share a healthy
appetite for dead flesh,’ she replied.

It was all Ash could do not
to spit out the meat. Though it felt like swallowing razor blades, she forced
the mouthful down and rested her cutlery on the plate. ‘You’re not eating?’ she
asked.

‘No,’ the Morrígan replied
with an inscrutable smile, ‘my appetites run to more gamy flavours these days.
But don’t let me stop you, please.’

‘There’s enough food here to
feed an army,’ Ash said.
And speaking of armies ...

‘I was unsure of your
preferences, so I had them prepare everything.’

‘Them?’ Ash asked. ‘Is this
the army you spoke of?’ Picking up her fork, Ash poked a piece of broccoli
around the plate and aimed for nonchalance. ‘Who are they?’

'Let me show you.' She made a
strange sound in the back of her throat and a wind whipped up.
No, not wind
.
The low whump of wings, hundreds of them coalescing into a black cloud above
their heads. Ash craned her head back and watched as raveners swooped through
the air, but in far greater numbers than she had ever seen in Fomor. When she
looked back down, a swarm was gathering at their feet. The girls from the pool
and others crawled forward, open-mouthed, like chicks begging for worms, their
serrated teeth bared. Some were balding, their skin turning leathery, the start
of talons clicking across the marble floors as they scrabbled closer. One sank
her teeth into the shoulder of another and they hissed, biting at each other
like piranha at a chunk of meat.

Something about the girl, the
one currently chowing down on her friend’s upper arm, was familiar. She’d seen
her before, only … only then she’d been 2D, flat on a wall staring out from a
Missing Person’s poster. The Port-wine birthmark on her cheek clicked the
recognition into place. It had struck Ash the first time she’d seen it too,
because a friend in middle-school had borne a similar, distinctive mark.

Suddenly the food didn’t seem
so appetising. Her stomach roiled with bile. ‘They're ... Oh my God. These are
the other latents, aren't they? All those missing girls you said you were
rescuing from the wolves.’

The Morrígan arched a brow.
‘They chose to serve me. They were all given a choice, which is more than
Elatha ever gave me.’

A choice? What? Get fucked
to death by a pack of horny wolves or join your freaking bird mutation
programme? I thought you were helping them. Connal thought it. But all this
time …
‘What have you turned them
into?’

‘I have not turned them. They
come here to Morrígan voluntarily, as weak human females, but sooner or later
they all develop a taste for death. They drink the waters, they breathe the
air, they feed off one another’s flesh and eventually, the seeds of suffering
grow and unfurl into magnificent, powerful wings. They too will have their
vengeance.’

They ate each other’s
flesh…
Fighting dry heaves with every
word, Ash pushed her plate away and skittered backwards, nearly upending her
chair when a half-formed wing, sleek and leathery, brushed her thigh. ‘What are
you going to do?’

‘This full moon, the blond
king plans to unleash all of his monsters on Dublin. He thinks me weakened and the
city unguarded. His own hubris will be his downfall. Whilst he and his brother
are occupied with killing one another over you, my raveners and I will be
waiting to ensure not a rat amongst them returns to their sewer before that
moon wanes. With your help, I will close the conduits and watch them all die in
agony. I will dance in their burning flesh. This
Ostara
, the Morrígan
will be reborn to her true, immortal glory.’

No … Not Connal, not
MacTire
. No. Ash’s claws cut into her
palms. ‘What do you mean, with my help?’

‘I require you to bring me
the
Skil
.’

Ash frowned, incredulous.
‘Why can’t you just get it yourself?’

‘Goibniu, the one you call
Gov, taught you some of the powers of the
Skil
, did he not?’

Ash nodded slowly.

‘So then you know why I need
you.’

Of course,
Ash thought
.
The
Skil
was the chink in
her immortal armour, her one weakness. Mac would never hand it over willingly,
and if he used the knife against her, the goddess could die, like any mortal.

While she thought it through,
the Morrígan busied herself tossing chunks of meat into the gaggle of women
clustering at her feet. Ash kicked a piece of the meat away from her chair
before the mutating women swarmed her. They went for the food like they
couldn’t live without it, every one of them spitting and fighting for the
measly scraps.

‘You’d trust me not to use it
against you?’ Ash asked warily.

‘What good am I to you dead?
Killing me will not end the curse, only the protection I offer you, and your
precious Connal. Besides, you need me to free your
thrall
friend.’

Ash’s mouth worked in
soundless surprise, unable to formulate her thoughts to words. Luckily, the
Morrígan understood. ‘Yes, I do know why you came here, Granddaughter. Do not
take me for a fool. Maura Flannery is one of mine, after all. In exchange for
the blade, I will do as you ask. I will free the
thrall
.’