The Morrigan: Damaged Deities (51 page)

Bev’s shoulders dropped. “Awesome.”

“Form a perimeter to drive them back towards the lake.  Take out as many as you can.”

Morrie waved her hand in the air and swords appeared in both her sisters’ hands just before she gripped her own and twirled around, swinging it like a slugger baseball player, swiping through guts and throats in a hail of bone and black blood.

“You gotta remove the head!” Bev shouted as a group of the undead descended on her.  She screeched furiously and charged with her sword raised, screaming as she went, “Die, walker scum!”

Macy turned to Kamden, her face bright with excitement, her hair blowing in the wind.  It was a sight that nearly brought him to his knees. 

She grinned at him and it was almost his undoing.

“Try to keep up.”

And the lass charged into the fray, taking post alongside her sister.  Kamden had a moment to revel in his confounding stupor before one of the creatures jumped on his back. 

Shifting, Kamden swirled around him and ripped his head from his neck.  The body fell to the ground and soon the three of them had many more added to the pile.

The once green grass of his and his brother’s lands was now glossy and black with blood, the hills littered with bodies as Kamden and the three goddesses cut through the army that seemed to never end.  But on the island, a storm raged, lightning exploding the surface of the beach around Kade as he fought the god.

A great and horrifying howl ripped through the thunder and Kamden saw Bev straighten up in a circle of the undead like an alerted meerkat, her eyes darting in the darkness. 

A massive black shadow barreled through the invaders, crushing any in its path as it made a line for the goddess.

“Fuck!” Bev cried. “Sorry, kids, gotta bolt!”

And the goddess was gone with the shadow—a massive wolf?—hot on her heels.

Moving closer to Macy, Kamden kept watch on her and his brother, worried that Kade was starting to lose his strength.  When Kade’s foot slipped from under him and he went down on one knee, Kamden stopped and Morrie screamed.

T
he god was gaining back his strength.  Each blow Kade blocked landed a little harder.  But Kade had thousands of years of fighting on his side. 

His time as a warrior of Ulster had not ceased in this new life; there was always a war.

Only this time Kade had a weakness the blue bastard didn’t share: Morrie.

The goddess seemed to have returned fully, giving Kade protection and a weapon, but as he swung his sword at Dagda, Kade’s focus was on the shore where Morrie fought the creatures called forth from the stone.  The god blocked his swing with his staff.  He was a formidable fighter still.

The battle frenzy that had always given Chulainn inhuman strength was fading, weakening him as his concern for Morrie grew.  The creatures were multiplying. 

And while the goddess and her sisters fought, there were just too many of them.

“You’re still fighting for her, aren’t you?” Dagda dared to laugh even while Kade ducked his fist. 

“Aye,” he grunted, landing a blow into the god’s gut. “And ye’re still trying tae get what ye canna have.”

“But I have had her,” Dagda grimaced as he straightened up. “And I just love Halloween for it, don’t you?”

Kade saw red. 

He tossed the useless sword aside and tackled the blue god.  Both of them skid across the shore and a shower of pebbles. 

They flipped and spun. 

Kade’s lip was split, the god’s eye was swollen.  But he had the god beaten down.  He was gaining the upper hand. 

“She will not want ye,” he growled, his teeth clenched. “She will never want ye.”

The god spit blood and grinned.  “But will she ever want you?”

The shock of the question tripped Kade, just as the god latched onto his tossed sword.

O
ne moment Morrie was cutting through Irish zombies, her sword in her hand feeling like home, and the next she watched Kade trip in his battle with Dagda.  With a powerful backhanded blow across his jaw, the god sent Kade spinning back, unconscious.

Zombies could wait.

The blue god raised his hand, his blade glinting in his grip and as he brought it down towards Kade’s heart.  Morrie moved. 

She transported herself between them and caught the blade with the edge of her sword just before it hit its mark.

Dagda smiled.

“Finally,” he sighed. 

The two began to fight, Morrie’s sword meeting the god’s blade blow for blow. Together they moved more like dancing partners, their attacks and counterattacks quick, precise, and graceful. 

That she dared continue to defy him, that she did not submit, started to anger the god.  She could tell as he swung just a little harder, moved a little more erratic that the god’s emotions were getting in his way.  It was time for her to make a move.

She feigned being weaker, she let him back her up towards the standing stone, now splintered and dead of magic.  Her powers would mean nothing against the god’s, his magic was a match for hers, but she had fought many battles, she was the Goddess of War and she had never lost.

She wasn’t going to lose now.

Pretending to slip, she waited for Dagda to pounce at her before she rolled at him, bringing his leg out from under him. 

Moving at the speed she had once been famous for, Morrie soon had Dagda on the ground, one arm pinned under his own back, the other under her foot, her sword at his throat.

“You know you can’t kill me,” he wheezed, the doubt in his eyes belying the grin on his lips. “You know you don’t really want to.”

“The amount of delusion you have acquired over the years is pathetic,” she sneered down at him, pressing the tip of her sword a little more. 

She couldn’t kill him, but she could certainly hurt him.  Lame him enough until she found a way to contain him again.

“There’s no point fighting it, Morrigan,” He twisted beneath her but she held firm. “My army will go where I tell it.  It will attack every supernatural I deem a threat.  Soon the playing field will be to my advantage and we’ll see who the true warrior is.”

She always hated these unnecessary monologues. 

Lips curling, Morrie gained better purchase on the hilt of her sword as she brought it up and slammed it back down with great force. 

The metal pierced nothing but rocks.  Dagda had disappeared from her hold.

Screaming her frustration, Morrie dropped down on her knees and cursed his name. 

What was left of his undead army, those that hadn’t been laid by Kamden and her sisters, vanished along with the blue god. 

Panting with frustration, Morrie glared around her until her gaze fell on Kade’s still unconscious body, his head bobbing in the loch’s shallow waves. 

Letting her sword fall, Morrie crawled over to him and tugged him free of the water.

“Chulainn…?” She took his face in her hands, searching his body for any lethal injuries. “Kade?”

She ripped open his leather vest, her hand skimming his perfect flesh—unmarked.

“Take off tha’ wee top then, it’s my turn,” Kade grated softly, repeating the order he had given her the night they’d first met in his bed. 

He grinned when she turned wide, surprised eyes at him.

“You’re alright,” she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion.

“Aye, love.  Death could no’ keep me from ye, ye think a wee blow tae the head would?”

Her body sagged in relief even as she smiled at him. “You are a pompous ass, you know that?”

“Aye, but ye love me just the same.”

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest.  Morrie felt his heart pounding hard and strong beneath her hand.  It had not been this way the last time they fought on this land.

 “Aye,” she answered him, brushing her lips softly across his. “I love you just the same.”

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-
F
OUR

 “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

Leo Tolstoy

It wasn’t possible.

Kade sipped his whiskey, relaxed and sunken into the leather sofa of his bedroom as he watched the Morrigan sleeping in his bed. 

The moonlight bathed her bare backside in its soft silver light, caressing the perfect curve of her ass as she lay on her stomach, one leg bent, her arms tucked beneath her pillow. 

Kade had pulled the sheets back so he could admire the beauty of her body—her pale skin glowing in the night.  The way her plump breasts pressed against the mattress, her dark hair fanned across her shoulders. 

She was a goddess and he, her loyal congregant.

The same thought played on repeat in his mind: it wasn’t possible that he finally had her back. 

And not like before, not with that tenuous commitment of hers, that haunting uncertainty that she would leave him again, that she was never his to begin with.  This time she had promised herself to him, given him her heart fully and allowed him the honor of claiming her. 

The last an act he had not been able to achieve in his former life. 

He had the beast within him to thank for that.

Best of all, she had agreed to stay in Scotland and share his home and his bed with him.  A long lost wish of his had been fulfilled.

Now to just convince her to marry me
…

And fill her with bairns.

Another time.  There was still too much threat to their peace. 

With Dagda loose on the world and his crazy army of the undead, Morrie and Kade had agreed to do all they could to help protect the supernaturals and gods that might be at risk.  And they would do it alone.

After they defeated the small army at the loch, Kade and Morrie met up with his brother back at the manor.  Morrie’s sisters had not been there.

Kamden said that Bev hadn’t been seen after a wolf had chased her off. 

The conversation with Morrie had been an odd one:

“
Wolves? There are no wolves in Scotland.”

            “Yeah, well, this particular wolf doesn’t understand boundaries.  Bev made Taran a werewolf and he’s been a little pissed off about it ever since.

            “Aye, I can relate.”

After that discovery, Kamden had admitted to not seeing Macy since the last undead had been felled. 

Morrie hadn’t seemed surprised, knowing her sister likely to run rather than face the consequences of her actions involving Dagda’s release. 

What was more surprising was Kamden’s decision to chase after her. 

Kade had wondered if his brother would ever find his mate. 

Long ago, Kamden had mistakenly thought a young lass from the village had been it, but her death had determined that to be the fruitless hopes of his brother. 

Seeing how quickly and thoroughly obsessed he’d become with Macy, Kade now knew the former had been false.

It had been a night of revelations but the most surprising was the one that also stung the worst. 

Lorna had betrayed them. 

Even the discovery of her lies and deceit didn’t diminish the pain over the loss of her life. 

Kade and Kamden had dug a grave and buried her beneath the protective branches of an old oak tree and muttered a few words of prayer over her.