The Morrigan: Damaged Deities (50 page)

“Kade, no!” Morrie cried, tugging with all her might against her chains and cursing her weakness.

Rocks flew from under its hind legs and again those legs kicked.  Morrie flinched and closed her eyes, turning her face away as hooves flew at her. 

A heavy force hit just above her head, slamming into rock and metal with a loud clang.  Dust and stone sprinkled down on her and with another loud bang, her hands were free, falling limp at her sides and bringing her down to the ground.

A sharp pain lanced through her hand as she hit the rocks, barely catching herself from smashing face first. 

But shock and excitement kept her from really registering the sting, her wide eyes still trained on the horse. 

Her hands were now free because of him, the shackles but heavy bracelets around her wrists.  And yet the beast still looked murderous, snorting puffs of air into the night, his eyes like two pits of hell.

Morrie laid her hurt hand on the stone and pushed herself to her feet, careful to not move too quickly.  Her other hand she kept out in front of her, a barrier between her and the horse.

“Kade, if you can hear me,
please
,” her voice wavered, no matter how hard she fought to keep it calm. 

It wasn’t fear that made her this way, not fear for herself, at least.  It was because that monster held Kade prisoner and kept him from recognizing her.  From seeing her.

“Kade, it’s me.  You know me.  I’m your Morrigan.”

The beast reared up on his hind legs. 

Gods, he was impossibly tall.  Morrie wouldn’t be able to fight him, she didn’t think she could overtake him.  Not this time.  He had the full moon on his side and it gave him an unholy strength.  The only option she had was to run. 

But to where?

“Kade, please,” she begged. “I’m yours, I’m yours!”

The horse screamed again, raising the hair on the back of her neck and Morrie turned to run.  She slipped and fell, scurrying back to her feet, feeling hot panting on her back.  The rocks were slick and sharp, cutting and digging painfully into her bare feet, and rain had started to fall, making the ground slippery and uneven. 

But Morrie struggled and ran, hoping to be able to get away.  She barely made it a foot. 

When hot hands clamped around her arms, she screamed. 

They weren’t the hard and lethal hooves she had expected and for a moment she was dazed.

The world blurred as she was spun around and in a moment where everything was fast and nothing made sense, it took her several moments of fighting and struggling against the flailing arms and hands to finally focus and see Kade standing before her.

He had fought the power of the moon, the hold of the beast and shifted. 

Grabbing for his face, she couldn’t reach his mouth fast enough, pressing her lips against his. 

He felt it, too, this uncontainable fire they shared for each other.  They were connected by forces greater than them; together they were a force greater than any other—Morrie could deny it no longer.

She had been afraid.  Afraid of losing him to the beast.  To death.  Again.

But not afraid of him.  Never afraid of him. 

With a strength of will that left her breathless, he had fought against the pull of the moon and shifted back.  He had wrestled control of his body and nature from the supernatural beast within.  For her. 

Her desire for him burned her, set her insides aflame. 

Kade’s body crashed into hers, they fell against the standing stone, wrapped up in each other’s arms, legs, and kisses.  Not the moon, not Samhain, could break them apart.

With a deep grunt, Kade drove deep inside her, his hands clutching her backside so hard the pain was ecstasy.  She wrapped her legs around him and moved her hips to meet his thrusts, taking him deep inside. 

The tendons in Kade’s neck tensed and strained, the muscles in his shoulders bulging with his efforts. 

His eyes locked on hers and they were filled with midnight and fire.  Pleasure boiled from deep within, stoked hotter by that look of his.

Grabbing her by the nape of her neck, Kade held her gaze as he plunged deeper and faster. 

With a feral growl, he roared, “Ye are mine, Morrigan.  Ye are mine, forever.” 

Morrie knew she’d been claimed, under the powerful moon, against the standing stone.  Kade claimed her body and soul. 

And for the first time in the two thousand years they had known each other, she let him.

“Yes!” she cried, her entire being surrendering to him.

“Say ye’re mine, lass.  Say it!” Sweat gleamed in the moonlight across his perfect brow, steam rose from their bodies.

“I’m yours, Kade!” she screamed on her release and his seed met hers, spilling inside her as he bellowed her name to the heavens with each final thrust. 

With matching pants, their bodies sagged against the rock, still connected. 

As Kade gently brushed the hair from her face and kissed her cheeks and temples, something inside Morrie clicked.  A realization that could never be undone.

Ah, gods, she loved the big bastard!

Gasping with the knowledge, Morrie leaned back and gazed at Kade…Chulainn…her hero.  Her eyes were wide and her lips parted, but she could barely breathe. 

“What is it, lass?” he asked with a frown.

“I—”

The ground began to tremble, shaking and rumbling like a giant had awakened beneath its surface.  They found themselves washed in brilliant, white light. 

With Kade’s arms around her, he and Morrie stepped away from the standing stone, the ground beneath it the source of the light. 

It was the portal between worlds.  It was the magic of the gods.

“But how?” Morrie had barely asked the question before she saw the second hand print on the stone; her hand, her blood.

She looked down at her open palm and watched as the cut that had offered up her unwilling sacrifice healed.  Morrie and Kade shared a look.

As she opened her mouth to speak, a powerful force exploded from the center of the stone, throwing Kade and Morrie back, both tossed sprawling on the ground. 

She felt it then, like a battery charged, her power roared to life within her veins.  Its recovery kept her lying on the ground in shock for a moment before evil laughter brought her back. 

Dagda stood on the shore’s edge, his blue skin glowing with the essence of the gods. 

Stretching his arms out wide, he shouted ancient words, conjuring dead souls from the recesses of being. 

Just as he spoke the last command, Kade bellowed in a fantastic frenzy and rushed him, tackling the god to the ground.  Pebbles sprayed as their bodies collided with the shore and the two powerful beings—one god, one demigod—grappled and wrestled.

But Dagda’s work had been done.  And what an abominable plan it had been.

From the ground ghoulish creatures rose, their decayed flesh gray and pallid, their clothing tattered. 

Etched into that dying skin were ancient runes Morrie recognized. 

They were the Tuatha De Danann, the venerable army of Irish kings, queens and heroes, though now ghostly specters of their former glorious selves.

Morrie jumped to her feet and spent her first splash of magic on conjuring clothes and weapons for herself. 

The leather corset and metal breastplate she had once donned in battles long, long ago fit around her now with an ease and comfort she hadn’t realized she missed so badly.  Her leather skirts flapped in the wind, her knee-high leather boots protecting her once vulnerable feet to the rocks.  In the lightning, her favorite sword glinted and sang, ready for battle.

She threw out her opened hand towards Kade and then he, too, wore the protective gear from his days as the Celtic Hero. 

Wrapped in the tartan kilt of his clan, his vest and boots of leather fit his new body perfectly.  He fought on without even flinching at the change.

Morrie smiled. 

Gods, it felt good to have her powers back.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-
T
HREE

“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.”

Bertrand Russell

Kamden stood at the loch’s edge and watched with mixed awe and horror at the scene unfolding before him. 

He and the two goddesses had arrived at the eastern shore and then split up, each taking a direction around the large body of water in search of either Morrie or Kade. 

When a blast of light exploded to his left, Kamden rushed towards it in time to see strange beings rise up from the earth and his brother battling an odd, blue man.

He had just shifted back to his normal form when Macy and Bev joined him.  The lasses stared at the sight unfolding on the little island in the middle of the loch, their bright eyes reflecting the strange and crazy flashes of light. 

Kamden had never seen his brother as he was now, somehow bigger and bulkier as he battled the other man.  He was dressed like the Scottish warriors of old and yet there was something more amazing about him, more mystical.

Their watching party was interrupted when one of the weird beings—they looked like costumed ghouls from a Halloween haunted house—stumbled upon them and tried latching its rotting teeth into Macy’s arm.

Instinct roared within Kamden as he lunged for the thing and ripped it from the goddess. 

Surprisingly strong considering its looks, Kamden grappled with it before finally wrestling it to the ground and ripping out its throat with his teeth. 

Black sludge dripped from his lips and chin, a common sight because of his nature that had always brought him shame, but when he looked up at Macy, the cool-eyed lass didn’t even flinch.

The gaping injury to the creature’s neck didn’t stop it and with gurgling, gasping sounds, it reached its hands up, lurching at them again.

Its progress was finally stopped permanently when Morrie appeared like some warrior princess and removed its head from its body with her sword.

Bev smiled at her. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks,” Morrie replied. “Dagda’s back.”

Bev made a face while sliding a withering glare at their other sister. “Yeah, we know. You have Mace to thank for that.”

The faintest of frowns graced Morrie’s brow as she glanced at her sister, her lips pressed in a line.  But the lass impressively kept her cool.

“We can discuss that another time.  I need to try to get to Kade before Dagda kills him.”

“He doesna look like himself,” Kade observed aloud, unable to decide if he should be concerned for his brother or not.  He looked not much different than the god he battled. “I barely recognize him.”

“It because of his
riastrad
,” Morrie’s lips hinted at a smile. “As Chulainn, he would enter this battle frenzy, mad and blood drunk, and just level anyone who stood in his way.  He won wars like that.”

“Gods, you are so turned on right now,” Bev grinned, earning a full scowl from the little lass. 

Laughing, Bev nodded towards the two men still exchanging blows on the island. “He seems to be holding his own.”

“I can’t take the chance,” Morrie watched them over her shoulder. Back to her sisters, “I don’t know how many of these…zombies there are, but they are spreading out to the village.”

“There’s more heading this way,” Bev pointed to where a group of the attackers were moving with mounting speed, dragging rusty swords and hammers with them.

Bev narrowed her eyes as she watched them.

“They look familiar.”

“It’s the army of the Tuatha De Danann,” Macy said, glancing briefly at Kamden as he stood beside her. “Dagda has resurrected them to do his bidding.”