Becoming Bad (The Becoming Novels) (2 page)

She was a goddess.

She gave life to the inanimate, moving things that should not move … raising things that should not be raised.

When the glow dimmed, there was no mistaking what his horrified eyes refused to acknowledge. Claws dragged at dirt, mangled muzzles gnashed, as broken, decaying bodies hauled up from the underworld, following the lightning paths, leaking from the doors to hell she’d opened. They numbered in the hundreds, wolf forms barely clothed in flesh and fur, wearing their bones on the outside. Their eyes burned blood-red as they surrounded them, but the Morrígan never lost her placid smile, looking on pups instead of the walking putrefaction of slaughtered untame.

‘What have you done?’ Connal’s eyes drew wide with horror. In his arms, Quillan was cold and still as the grave. ‘No. No, no, NO!’ His eyes pleaded with her. ‘This is not what I bargained for.’

‘No?’ She kicked up her jaw and laughed coldly. ‘You bid me raise the dead.’ She motioned to the prowling, reanimated corpses.

‘You said you would grant me what my heart desires most! This is NOT ...’ Connal gritted his teeth, head shaking. ‘You tricked me.’

‘No trickery here but your own mind’s denial of what the heart holds, Warrior.’ So calmly she spoke, then curled her hand into a fist and pressed it to the wolf-brand on his sternum. Heat seared through his chest. ‘I have looked into your heart, Savage, and the vengeance there is so dark, it obliterates any and all other desires. It is that thirst for death that drew me to you, a beacon of beautiful darkness.'

No. She was lying, manipulating him. Wasn’t she? Doubt gnawed, a rat in his chest. He couldn't think with her crowding him. She was behind him once more, hands tunnelling into his hair, her voice seductive, stroking his neck, again that feeling of invisible wings, feather-grazing his skin.

‘Embrace your hatred, Connal Savage. You despise MacTire. Look at what your own flesh and blood has reduced you to, taken from you. You are the rightful King of the Fomorians. Your brother is a usurper who denies you your legacy. I have given you the power to take it back, by force.’ Her hands shot out once more, the gates of the arena gaping wide at her command, and the great army of undead was unleashed.

Present day Fomor, beneath the black lake.

MacTire, anointed King of the Fomorian people, or what was left of them, inflated powerful lungs and strode into the great banquet hall, where his men were assembled. The clamour of feasting and debauchery rose up, mingling with the familiar scents of roasting meat and caged masculinity. Gathered along the drift-wood trestle tables were the sole survivors of a once formidable race. Hunted and slaughtered to near extinction, they were without a single female to breed a new generation. Until now. Unconscious in his bedchamber, Ashling DeMorgan was the great hope of Fomor.

A hush spread through the crowd with each step the King took towards the top-table. Seated there were his personal guard and four closest allies: Brandr; Fite; Rún and Tyr. Collectively known as the
skuldalid,
a more vicious, cunning and deadly band of warrior vargs you could not find, and they were sworn in their loyalty to the King.

Brandr’s bearded face split into a manic grin. He wiped his greasy mouth and dropped the leg of lamb he’d been chewing on, pushing to a stand. As one, the collected crowd rose to their feet with him.

‘All hail MacTire, Ruler of Fomor, Slayer of raveners, Destroyer of our enemy, and future Sire to our next, glorious generation!’ Brandr punched the air and the room erupted with cries of ‘All hail the King!’ Stamping their feet, the crowd raised their cups of ól to a wild chorus of howls. MacTire’s attempts to silence them fell on deaf ears. Instead, he locked wrists with each of his
skuldalid
in turn before taking his seat for the celebratory feast.

One of the
thegn
servants settled a huge platter of roasted meat and a tankard before him, but MacTire's appetite had deserted him. Concealed in the King’s closed fist was a pendant: a Roman coin threaded on a woven thong. MacTire had torn it from his half-brother’s throat when he ordered the traitor chained and tortured. All had gathered to revel in the execution of their enemy, and in the capture of their long-desired trophy: a breedable female.

Next to him, oblivious to MacTire’s unease, Fite sank his canines into a hunk of cooked flesh, tearing it from the bone and devouring it with relish. ‘Just think,’ he grinned, ‘as we eat, Connal Savage’s bones are being picked clean by the raveners. A suitably inglorious death for the son of a bitch who put us in this godforsaken prison, don’t you think?’

‘With the luck of Balor, the mutant ravens will choke on the bastard’s gristle. Kill two birds with the one bone, so to speak.’ Tyr’s laughter rang hollow in MacTire’s ears.

‘Been a long time coming,’ Rún’s sharp eyes regarded the King in a way that made him wonder if he’d projected his thoughts to the red-haired warrior.

‘A long-overdue favour returned,’ MacTire nodded, looked away and drank deep.

‘We are so few now,’ Rún said, ‘I recall a time when only the privileged feasted here. Now?’ His hand swept over the hall. There were empty spaces all along the benches. Each a fallen brother. The genocide had all but exterminated the Fomorian species. And after? Connal Savage allied himself with the Morrígan, hunting what remained of his own people off the streets of Dublin. Barely five score and fifty full-blood vargs sat before them now.

The
thegn
didn’t count. They were weak-blooded runts, tolerated only to serve the wolves in their spiritual and practical needs. Their flawed genetics allowed them to walk the earth as free men, unlike the cursed full-bloods.

‘Has the DeMorgan female spread her thighs for you yet, my Lord?’ Brandr leered, eyes glassy from the drink. ‘Does her creamy flesh meet with the Royal approval?’

A growl stirred deep in MacTire’s throat and a muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘So impatient for your turn?’

Brandr’s hands went up in surrender. ‘First rights are always the privilege of the King,’ he mumbled, falling back on the plate of meat as though he could gag himself with it.

It was true they shared their women, out of want and necessity. And Ashling DeMorgan was not the first. There had been other latent females: humans with promising genetics, lured to Fomor in the vain hope of a successful mating. When, inevitably, no pregnancy ensued, the woman would be passed through the ranks of his men until she was broken. But this one, his Ashling? She brought out proprietorial instincts MacTire had no right to entertain. He’d known it the moment her blood touched his lips. He had yet to lay a hand on her, but his body resonated for her in ways he hadn’t known in centuries. She had pure wolf-blood in her veins. He could taste it.

‘She is yet to awaken,’ MacTire, who rarely explained himself, felt obliged to now. ‘You yourself saw the girl at the point of death when the Savage brought her through the black waters. Hardly surprising she needs time to recover from his attack.’

A growl of accord rumbled down the line. Their hatred of Connal Savage united them.

‘Has the celibate fucker, Doc Madden, been to see her?’ Fite asked, gnawing on what looked big enough to be an ox’s thigh bone.

‘Celibate fucker? Isn’t that an oxymoron?’ Tyr smirked.

Fite cut him a withering glare. ‘The
thegn
doctor is the fucking moron. He let the girl escape. If Savage hadn't bitten her, she might have been lost to us forever.’

MacTire pulled rank. ‘Madden was punished for the mistake and bore that punishment honourably. It is done, and we will speak no more of it.’ Fomorian justice was swift and brutal. Anything less would lose face in the men's eyes. There were no saints amongst this rabble, and no room for grudges.

Fite scowled, but knew better than to push.

Tyr, as always, broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘Has anyone actually seen Madden since we left the shore?’

‘Probably crawled back above-ground to lick his wounds,’ Rún spoke as he tipped the horn to refill MacTire’s cup, ‘poor bastard.’

The King merely nodded, scrubbing a hand over his nape. This was the way of things. Family brooked no favouritism when his men walked such a thin line between order and barbarity. And as brother to MacTire’s former queen, Aoife, Madden was technically family, though it was regrettable the boy turned out defective and was forced to enter
thegn
life. Regardless, MacTire reserved the harshest punishments for those closest to him.

It was no different in the case of his blód-brother. Connal had it coming; he’d have known when he brought Ashling to Fomor, even if it was to save her, that mercy wasn’t on the cards. The coin cut into his fisted palm.

Call it divine retribution, a mate for a mate. Ashling was his.

He stuffed the collar into a pocket and two-handed a joint of meat, forcing himself to chew through the tough flesh. There was no absolute necessity to eat. Fomorians had the blood of the gods in their veins. They did not age or die, save by mortal injury, such as having your head severed from your body.

Or your bones picked clean by the raveners ...

MacTire dropped the meat and drowned that image in a long draft of ól. They might not age, but they bled, and hurt, and scarred like any mortal, and they still felt the primal desires of thirst, hunger and lust. And so they ate meat their bodies did not need and fucked human women incapable of carrying their cubs. Anything to fill the interminable hours of incarceration.

The sound of cattle lowing broke through the revelries.

‘There goes dinner,’ Brandr laughed. A pair of steers was being led through the caverns, en route to be butchered and spit-roasted for the celebrations. Their meat traversed the black waters on the hoof. Inanimate objects didn’t travel well. Even living things came through in a state of temporary paralysis, which was why larger animals, such as beef cattle, were reserved for special occasions.

‘We’re killing the fatted calves, I see,' the King said. Ironic, given he’d already slaughtered the prodigal brother ... He drained his cup once more and refilled, obsidian eyes trained on the door of the banqueting hall.

‘I tell you,’ Brandr said, ‘lugging fifteen hundred pounds of mature beef steer out of the tide before the raveners get to you requires balls of steel.’

‘I should know,’ Rún smirked, ‘I’ve dragged your ass out of there often enough.’

Brandr clapped his
félag
on the back. ‘Aye, and I yours, my blód-brother,’ he laughed.

The brand on MacTire’s sternum burned as he silently observed their banter.

‘I’ve always wanted to see how the
thegn
smuggle livestock through the streets of Dublin. That requires ingenuity,’ Fite pointed a bone in Brandr’s direction. ‘I mean, how do you parade an animal that size through a city nightclub without drawing attention?’

‘Put it in a dress and lipstick?’ Tyr’s innocent face trembled laughter that was contagious. The entire
skuldalid,
MacTire excepted, cracked up. ‘Seriously. Why don’t we just farm them here?’ the boy asked.

‘And what would they graze on?’ Fite’s voice took on a serious edge, ‘pastures of bone and blood? The raveners consume all, Tyr.’

All drank deep and were silent.

‘Besides,’ Brandr cracked a smile, ‘we Fomorians are hunters to the core, not farmers. And if I am not mistaken, the prey has just arrived.’

Hot on the heels of the cattle came the other live commodity regularly trafficked through the black conduits.
Thrall
girls, and the occasional male for those whose preferences ran to cock. As with the livestock, it was a one-way ticket; Humans could never know of their existence.

Once bitten though, they came more than willingly ... and they
came
too
...over and over, in shuddering ecstasy. The
eitr
in a wolf’s saliva was potently addictive to humans, like sexual heroin. The naked girls filtered through the crowd now, exuding their special brand of blatant sexuality, craving their next fix of teeth in flesh. As they moved they were picked off, possessive arms circling waists, bare buttocks slapped, breasts fondled. They were dragged into laps, thighs hitched to straddle hips, laid out across the tables like food. As the night progressed, the great hall would be transformed into a stadium of fucking, with the vargs as gladiators, taking down their prey in a wet, slapping orgy of rutting flesh.

Delicate female hands snaked over MacTire’s shoulders to toy with the piercings in his chest. A low growl bubbled up from his throat.

‘Will you fuck me, my Lord?’ The
thrall
’s lips pressed to the blond scruff of his jaw, her hair spilling across his neck as she crushed her breasts to his back. She tugged on his metal, a symbol of the King’s royal blood, and one he had ripped from his own blód-brother’s flesh out on the sands ...

‘Find another,’ he said gruffly, detaching the
thrall
from his back. She wasted no time, sliding into Brandr’s waiting lap. MacTire pushed away from the table and strode from the hall with purpose. There was only one female who hardened his cock this night, and she was waiting for him in his bedchamber.