The Morrigan: Damaged Deities (47 page)

For a moment she was silent, listening like a small animal alert to danger. 

She gasped.

“Fuck me.  Gotta run, sis.”

Morrie didn’t have the chance to say anything before her sister took off at a breakneck speed.  A couple of moments later, a large shadow sped by, following after her.

“Was that a wolf?” Morrie muttered to herself. 

She took a step forward to follow after both the shadow and her sister, but something pale and human shaped caught her attention from just outside her view.

 Fifty feet from the shore was a small island, barren but for a few shrubs and a spattering of bright green grass.  In its center stood a large boulder and on it was tied the housekeeper. 

Searching the shoreline, Morrie spied a small rowboat, most likely used by whoever placed Lorna on that little island in the first place. 

She hadn’t considered the possibility that the housekeeper had been kidnapped and couldn’t begin to suspect who would do such a thing.

Boots crunching on the rocks, Morrie hurried over to it and pushed it into the lake.  The shock of the cold water splashing around her calves and soaking her jeans took the breath from her lungs in a quick gasp but didn’t stop her from jumping in the boat.  She snatched up the oars, rowing with urgency toward the island. 

By the time the boat’s bottom bumped shallow shore, the muscles in Morrie’s arms burned, another painful reminder that she had allowed herself to become too close to mortal.  But as soon as she turned around and faced the boulder, she became ensnared by an invisible pull she hadn’t felt in ages, one that reassured her she was still a goddess.

The large rock Lorna was tied unconscious against wasn’t a boulder at all. 

Once long, long ago it had been called
maen hir
, now known as a standing stone, the most famous as part of a grouping the humans called Stone Henge.

The ancient humans had used the
maen hirs
to call the gods to the earth, a portal in which the deities would cross realms and take on human form. 

It was through a
maen hir
Morrigan had first stepped foot onto this wild terrain.  It was around these stones that she would join the druid females in their flowy, thin white gowns with flowers in their hair and dance and chant in circles around the rocks.

Something powerful had been placed in these stones at the earth’s creation; others were made more powerful through blood sacrifice. 

The one Chulainn had chained himself to grew more powerful, but it had somehow been lost somewhere in history…

Morrie frowned and studied the rock. 

It was too familiar. 

Along its bumpy and pocked façade she saw the faded stains of the past.  She knew that even after so long, it still wore its bloody marks.  Because demigod blood would be hard to wash away.

Startled at the sudden discovery, Morrie turned around, her eyes wide, her lips parted and took in the loch and land around her as though for the first time. 

She hadn’t noticed it before from the loch’s other shore.  She’d been too long separated from those mystical connections, had ignored them for so long she stopped noticing them.  But now by the standing stone, she felt it all.  She could still see it all in the back of her mind.

The loch was new, compared to that time so far removed.  Much of the landscape had changed.  Two thousand years would do that to earth and rock. 

But she could feel it now, she knew it now.

Spinning, Morrie faced the rock again. 

It was the standing stone where Chulainn had died.  This loch hid the land that held the last great battle against Queen Mebd and her army.  Where Chulainn had been cut open and lost to her forever.  Or so she thought.

The standing stone was strong.

They all held a magic even greater than what Morrie possessed and it still acted like a magnet to her kind all these thousands of years later; a flame to a moth. 

Even now she found herself hypnotized by it, drawn with outstretched hand. 

Fixated so that she ignored the slowly rousing and groaning Lorna.  Drawn to its enchantment that she didn’t hear anything else.  Not the water lapping at the rocky shore.  Not the ravens crying in the distance. 

Not the footsteps behind her. 

It wasn’t until Lorna raised her head, her eyes wide, that Morrie even knew someone else stood behind her. 

And then it was too late. 

Something hard landed with a sickening whack against the back of Morrie’s head and she knew nothing else, but darkness.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-
O
NE

 “The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

Past nightfall the MacLeod brothers scoured the village and its outlying homes, hitting every haunt Lorna was known to frequent, but no one had seen their housekeeper. 

That it had been two days since either of them had noticed her missing laid a fair amount of guilt on Kade’s shoulders. 

Looking at his brother’s scowl, he could tell Kamden felt the same.

Lorna was like a sister to them in earlier years, a mother later.  She had looked after them ever since she was a young girl herself, taking over for Nan when the Seer had to hide her true nature behind an aged mask.

Lorna had cared for them, cleaned up after them and looked after them.  She had kept their secrets, even though she was human. 

And they, with their combined supernatural power, could not find her. 

Couldn’t even be bothered to notice she was missing, so caught up with their own problems they’d been.

But even that guilt couldn’t diminish the sheer frustration Kade felt over Morrie’s stubborn refusal to stay with him.  He had been a fool to think otherwise, to hope…

There were many things Kade was angry at himself about.

Had he so quickly forgotten how long he had hated the Morrigan for what she had done to him? 

Of course, he now knew that she hadn’t turned him into this monster from the loch, but that didn’t change the fact that she had slept with someone else back when he was known as Cú Chulainn.  That she had toyed with him prior to that, flew into a fit of rage just before he’d left for battle—all because she’d believed the lie about his marriage. 

Her response?

To lie on her back for the same bastard who’d lied to her.  The pain of that discovery still remained remarkably fresh, as though no time had passed at all. 

Time does
not
heal all wounds.

And yet when he faced her again…he wanted her more than ever.  Cursed.

Could Kade forgive her now?

Who was he kidding—of course he could, he’d forgive her anything. 

He’d spent centuries despising her, but that was only because the hate was much less painful to feel than the loss.  It was easier to lie to himself that he hadn’t been completely gutted by her. 

It had been thousands of years, another lifetime. 

And honestly, now that he had her back in his life, he didn’t care about anything that had happened before.  He just wanted her. 

Which was why he had no intention of letting her go again.

Kade glanced up at the cloudy night sky as he trailed after his brother back inside the manor.  Through thick clouds the moon tried to show its face, refusing to let the coming storm impede its light. 

A full moon—there to remind him of what he was. 

With all the excitement that had gone on since Morrigan reappeared in his life, he’d forgotten about his curse. 

The full moon had brought him back onto land weeks earlier, and before it fell behind the horizon that night, Kade would either remain human or return to the loch as the monster.  He wasn’t sure which.

As long as he stayed away from the loch, he should be okay. 

He couldn’t go another five years in that form.  He’d definitely lose Morrigan again, if so.  And the guilt of any more blood on his hands would surely break him.

Of course he could also claim her. 

For a kelpie to gain complete control of his inner beast, he had to claim his mate under the full moon. 

Despite what he had said to Nan, he knew Morrigan was his mate.  Kade didn’t need some supernatural instinct to tell him that, he had known many lifetimes ago.

They returned to the study to find one of the goddess sisters sitting peacefully in a chair, flipping through a magazine as though she had no care in the world. 

She’d been known as Macha long ago, an angry lass of a goddess who thrilled only at the sight of strife and bloodshed. 

Kade knew little else of her, had never spent a moment with her, had never seen her anywhere but on the battlefield, shrieking her cursed battle wail.

“Have yer sisters returned?” Kade asked her, but the woman continued to browse her magazine with her nose upturned as though he hadn’t spoken a word. 

All three of the bloody lasses were infuriating.

He shared an annoyed look with his brother, but for Kade it was quickly replaced with surprise at how flushed his brother looked. 

Cheeks red, he looked angered, moved to more emotion than he normally showed.

Kamden stood before the goddess, taking the magazine from her hands.  “Lass, have ye heard from Morrie yet?”

Crossing her arms, she glared up at him like a spoiled, bored child. “No.”

Narrowing his eyes, they seemed to hold a silent battle of wills before his brother finally caved. 

Kamden sighed and turned away, dropping the magazine on a nearby table.

“I doona know where else tae look.  And that blasted groundskeeper canno’ be found either.”

“Who?” Kade asked.

“Danny,” Kamden answered, distracted as he looked helplessly around the room.

Kade had forgotten all about the daft bloke. 

Well, his efforts towards Morrie had been in vain.  Kade damn sure would not let him anywhere near her now.

“Does the woman not have a cell phone?” Macy asked, put out apparently by their distress.

“Nay,” Kamden answered her. “She doesna’ believe in them.”

“Then it’s her own fault she’s missing.”

Kamden glared at the goddess, his nostrils flaring.

“Ye doona mean that.”  Macy made a face, but didn’t respond.

The front door opened and closed.  Kade heard one set of footsteps, moving at a slow pace just as Bev graced the doorway.

The crazy one didn’t look like herself, entering the room with her face pale, her eyes wide. 

Gone was her normal air of mischief and cunning.  Instead, she looked stricken. 

Kade strained to look past her, expecting Morrie to follow.  She took in the room before speaking.

“Did Morrie return?” she asked.

Kade’s head snapped up. “What do ye mean?  She was wit’ ye!”

“I lost her.  We got separated and then…I had a feeling.”

“What feeling?”

Dread was a low blow to his gut, dread of something awful to be revealed.  That it had anything to do with Morrie, should anything have happened to her…

Madness crept upon Kade, threatening to take over.

Bev turned to her other sister, her voice rising with fear. “You felt it, didn’t you?”

But the other goddess barely changed her expression, instead shrugging a cold shoulder.