Becoming Bad (The Becoming Novels) (20 page)
Read Becoming Bad (The Becoming Novels) Online
Authors: Jess Raven,Paula Black
The world pitched as Connal listed sideways, hitting the earth with a hollow thump. Staring up at the Morrígan as she spoke was like looking down a tunnel through a narrow-angle lens.
‘Brevity, I have found, adds infinite poignancy to life’s fleeting moments. The morning frost, the blooming rose, the sexual awakening of a young woman. All must wither and die. Such finite beauties are the most coveted of all, are they not?’
‘Will you help her, Anann?’ Connal squeezed the plea through the invisible constriction around his throat.
‘You really do have romantic delusions about the girl,’ she regarded him you might an alien, unfathomable creature, ‘I may have use for you yet, Connal Savage.’
‘Anything.’
‘You know my price.’
He looked her straight in the eye and nodded. ‘Death. Your price is always death.’ It was an easy decision. One he’d already made in the car when Ash was dying in his arms. The aftermath had never felt like anything but a brief stay of execution.
‘Yes, beautiful, glorious death,’ the Morrígan licked her blood red lips.
‘You promise me?’ Connal asked, ‘If I give you what you want, Ash will be protected from the curse. Free to live above-ground, or below, as she chooses?’
‘Pathetic, love-struck fool,’ the noise from the back of her throat was pure contempt, ‘you’re just begging to fall on your own sword to atone for your wickedness, aren’t you?’
‘Just swear to me you’ll keep her safe,’ he demanded.
‘Give me what I want,’ she stroked his jaw where she’d struck him, ‘and it shall be done. I’ll even grant you until the next full moon to see her safe.’ Her smile was cruelly magnanimous. ‘There is danger yet, while the wolves roam free.’
Connal’s lids closed as he tasted the Morrígan’s temptations. Death was always on the cards, but by allowing him to protect Ash, she was offering him a chance to see her, one last time. How could he refuse? ‘What of my wolf?’ he asked, pushing himself up from the ground. ‘You did something to me. I can’t change form.’
‘Indeed,’ she smiled, self-satisfied, ‘a gift, in exchange for your gross insubordination. A small demonstration of the control I hold over you still.’
‘I can’t protect her like this.’ His hands spread out, displaying his weakened body.
The Morrígan approached in that ethereal way she had of moving. White teeth hooking into full, red lips, the heel of her hand rode down the crotch of the sweats. ‘Reinstatement of your animal strength will require brokerage of a different nature.’
‘I can’t. I won’t.’ His mouth curled in disgust and he backed away from her touch.
Her hand gripped his waistband, hauling him back.
‘Oh, I am afraid this part of the bargain is non-negotiable.’
With the Morrígan, there was always a catch.
Ash skidded on street-filthy feet, horror jerking her to a standstill with so much force she nearly impaled herself on the iron-work fencing her home.
Towering, the house greeted her with a wide open door and spilled contents. A bomb had hit, exploding books and drawers and nick-nacks to the front garden, and any hope that this was still a safe-house went up with it. The windows were pushed out like mouths: screaming, violated. The curtains were drawn and all the lights were off. Ash shuddered, her hand stalled on the gate, gathering herself to step inside.
It may not be warded anymore, but she was still going in, however briefly. If Connal was in there, she had to warn him. Maybe they could run together. Besides, no matter how animal part of her was, she could not go on the run without any shoes.
She feared the mess they’d left.
She’d just got it looking like home.
Sadness twinged somewhere deep, the loss reaffirming what she already knew. She had no home. Not one of brick and possessions, not one of family, not one Connal-shaped and growly. The wolves had systematically torn all of them from her, starting with her mother. They left her with only the stain of their involvement. She was tainted, one of them. Monstrous to the one person she ached to reconnect with.
Snapping her head back into action, she swore she felt the warm breath of warning skitter down her spine. There could be no more delays. Ash opened herself up to the adrenaline of panic and made her way into the house on sore feet.
The path to the stairs was hazardous. Great bulks of furniture had been hefted into the hallway. A grand wooden desk was propped between two walls, leaving just enough space for her to slip under or over it. Ash dived down and four-pawed it, head cocked for sounds. She took the stairs in a two-step lope. Aware the way she moved wasn’t quite human, she gave in to it regardless, needing everything she had to survive, beast included.
The door to her room was ajar, though that wasn’t what gave her pause, or what made her eyes close and her mouth fall open. The thing inside her
whined
and her nostrils flared. Oxygen. Breathing easy for the first time in forever, air came to her, saturated in his scent. She could taste their intimacy on her tongue. It let her imagine him still in her world, as he was in her sheets.
But no muscled mass dominated her room, no gorgeous stalker lurked in her shadows. He wasn’t there, but he had been, not too long ago.
God, what had he been doing? Rolling himself in her sheets? That was too painful an image to linger on. The idea stole between her ribs and settled his scent into the beating drum of her heart. She could pretend he had.
He was gone, and she told herself that was a good thing. She needed to be gone too. Stat. Wasting time, mooning in
Eau de Big Bad
, would get her dead. Ash rummaged under her bed for the duffel bag she’d hidden there.
She jammed the closest clothes to her into its belly. Her stuff was strewn around the room, the wardrobes bare, hangers dangling. A couple of shirts, two pairs of jeans and whatever else she’d grabbed later, Ash was worming her feet into socks and exchanging Mac’s baggy sweats for some of her own. Turfing things aside in her forage for shoes, she pushed on the first pair she found: ratty Converse knock-off’s she should have thrown out years ago. They’d have to do. Tossing the bulging bag onto the mattress, Ash searched her dresser with quick fingers, finding by touch the DVD case and its precious contents. Her stash. Whatever the burglars had been looking for, it hadn’t been money. The disc had been long discarded and the box held a billfold of cash, enough to get her away and a room for a few nights.
Too long in the house already, there was one more thing she needed. It was the only thing she had of her mother’s, that last link. Ash feared it lost in Fomor; still she looked, rooted through the few items of jewellery she possessed, poked under fallen books and dragged herself through the sheets, disturbing Connal-scented clouds as she hastily flipped them up. No ring, only memories, lay amongst the scattered pillows. Shit.
As she shouldered the duffel, the first howl struck the air into quivers, the chime on the Grandfather clock of her impending demise. They were close. Garden close.
Double shit.
Fucking Connal and his addictive scent.
Death by dawdling. How majestic.
Ash crept along the hall. Her senses stood to attention as though her ears were pointed, as though her muzzle was long, as though she was covered in fur and walked on stealthy, padded paws.
Down below, a heavy crash tore through wood in a splintering crack and she was off, darting down the hall. She leapt the assault course of obstructions, spun to race down the stairs, but skidded to a halt when her brain screamed that they were
coming up.
Footsteps hammered her floorboards, the threat swarming into her house on waves of aggression.
Out, out, out, Ash, GET OUT!
Blood pumped her into motion, roaring in her veins, pushing her upwards, urging her to take the stairs to the attic and flee.
It was an area she hadn’t dared explore, bad-vibing her that one time she’d convinced herself she needed to check the place out for vermin. Heebie-jeebies had won out then. This time? The heebs were no match for survival instinct. Ash wrenched the door open. The hinges protested the jerk, but she couldn’t even care about the noise attracting the wolves. If they hadn’t already sniffed her location, they soon would. Her only hope was to find a way out. Old terrace houses like her grandmother’s and its neighbours usually linked up. If she could get next door or shimmy down a drainpipe from a skylight, she’d be halfway to staying alive.
Stumbling into the attic, any plan she had formulated flew from her head, knocked clean out by wonder.
This can NOT be an attic.
A glance behind her confirmed that it was. Those were her stairs leading down to the top floor. Blood rushed between her ears, dampening the sounds of the wolves below.
At first glance, the attic appeared normal, the rafters not a head higher than her. But that wasn’t quite right. A squint changed the view, setting the wood beams miles above her. Her fingers reached to touch one whitewashed surface, but brushed nothing. The real wall was yards away. Her head ached as she struggled to grasp the concept. It was an impressive illusion. The attic was massive, a mansion inside a cardboard box. Spatial distortion. She was in the TARDIS of loft spaces.
A very creepy TARDIS.
Her eyes adjusted to the unreality. Rows of supporting columns extended either side of the vast space. From them, bones jutted, worked into the plaster like macabre coat hooks. They weren’t holding up coats though. Skulls hung from the femurs, staring out from the walls with empty eye sockets. Others were looped from the ceiling in death-stare garlands. Skulls in plaster, fortifying the attic’s supports. Wolf skulls, hundreds, thousands maybe. They were trophies, piled in corners, proudly displayed on every surface. Ash risked a look down, relief huffing from her lips when she found nothing inset into the floor. Dead people in walls was fine. If she was stepping on them? Ummm, no. Nope. Not cool. The irony hit her and a laugh bubbled up, hysterical and rough. Traumatised, Ash valiantly held down her lack of stomach contents. She was going to die among the dead.
The thud of boots on frail stairs torqued her body towards the door.
Minutes had run down and she’d trapped herself, no time to scout the room for access to next door’s attic, no time to squirm her way through the skylight (not that there was a skylight). Ash did the only thing she could think of: She backed herself into a corner and locked her eyes on the door. At least no one could come at her from behind.
She couldn’t stop the assault from the front though. Taking a breath, her heart jack-hammered harder as the footsteps got louder.
Three. Two. One.
The knob rattled and the door groaned. Not battered down, they knew she was trapped. This was predator toying with prey.
Fite’s smirk was the first thing she saw ... and then wolves poured into the attic and he wasn’t the greatest threat anymore.
Faced with at least half a dozen red-eyed, claw-sprouting, fang-flashing males, Ash drew herself up and felt the answering rush of energy bound around under her skin. Her wolf was eager, not afraid. It was salivating, and she let it bleed through her humanity. Her vision shifted to crimson, her mouth ached, her fingertips flexed. Just a show. Reminding them she would not be going down easily.
A shiver ran through the pack, the ones she wasn’t so familiar with biting out whines that were silenced by Fite’s glare. The other members, Mac’s personal guards, simply flinched, stone-wall faces flickering for a second. Apparently, her wolf had some kick with the males. A growl filtered from her throat and Fite snapped into a defensive position, a crossbow whipped from his back-holster and trained on her head.
Well damn.
Wolf or not, she doubted she could duck the arrow’s trajectory before it lodged in her brain.
The voices crowded in on Connal as he dry-retched, bent double, alone again amongst the graves of the dead.
Worthless slave. Dirty. Animal. Murderer. Traitor.
Pathetic. Dog. You thought you were worthy of her?
Arrogant fool.
You fucked it up.
Again.
The faces of his past loomed, a jury of wraiths. His father, his brother, the Morrígan, the prison guards, that nameless girl in the red-soled shoes, the countless, faceless, souls he’d taken from this world, all bearing down on him with the weight of their incrimination. Somewhere, a baby was crying inconsolably. He clamped his hands over his ears but the voices only got louder, the crying more shrill.
With his body aching from the Morrígan’s abuse, Connal fell to his knees in the dirt and squeezed his eyes shut, but there was no escaping the terrors. Ash’s face was imprinted on the back of his lids, as she was when she was dying, sickly blue and patterned with the black veins of death. Her eyes opened, irises glowing crimson, black-tinged lips moving.
What did you do to me, Big Bad? How could you do this to me?
Blindly, he drew the blade from the earth where it had fallen. Clutching at his hair, he ran the knife close to the scalp, shearing off a fistful of dreadlocks. He went at it again, a sawing motion that saw another clump fall to the ground, then another, the movements of the blade growing desperate as he hacked away until there was nothing left but jagged spikes and patches of bleeding scalp.
The dagger spilled from his limp palm. His forehead dropped to the headstone of his son’s grave and the pain wracked his body in heaving sighs. He sought out the chain at his throat, gripping the talisman in the hand that wore Ash’s ring, both pieces irrevocably altered by the Morrígan’s binding promise. He got what he’d come for. But at what price?
A hand came to rest on Connal’s shoulder and he stilled, caught in a moment of déjà vu. It was at this very grave stone that Ash laid her hands on him. That touch had been the game changer for him, but, God, it felt like centuries ago.
He pivoted his shorn head and looked up into a familiar pair of eyes.
In them he saw a shock of recognition that made Connal feel exposed. He averted his gaze, focussing instead on the wolf carved into the headstone. ‘Doc,’ he rasped, ‘aren’t you supposed to be a couple of continents away by now?’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be the handsome son of a bitch?’ Madden replied. ‘What happened? Another one of your pets die?’
Connal threw him a
what the fuck?
expression.
‘The ancient Egyptians shaved their eyebrows when their cats died. I thought perhaps ...’ Madden gestured to the heap of dreads littering the ground, brows popping.
‘Is that supposed to be a fucking joke,
Thegn
?’
The doctor’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘Maybe ...’
A rumble erupted from Connal’s chest, low and growling. Laughter, rough and sawing, followed. ‘Very fucking funny,’ he wheezed, and his eyes were wet with unshed tears. ‘What brings you here, Doc? Come to torture me with your gallows humour?’
Madden’s expression turned deadly serious. ‘Ash has left Form.’
Connal was on his feet with unnatural speed, confronting the doctor. ‘What do you mean?!’
‘The wolves tracked her to MacTire’s penthouse. She ran before they could break down the door.’
‘Son of a ... and you let her go?!’ A growl ripped from Connal’s throat.
Madden arched one dark brow. ‘Perhaps you failed to notice, but your girl is fierce, Savage. She would eat this
thegn
alive.’
My girl.
Connal swallowed hard.
Fuck. ‘
Where did she go?’ There was nowhere safe.
‘I believe she went looking for you,’ Madden replied.
‘She thinks I’m at the DeMorgan house, but that's the first place they'll look.’ The echoes of that damn phone, ringing out into the empty hallway, sounded like an alarm in his head. ‘The wards are down. They can just walk right in.’
‘And that, my friend, is why I came looking for you.’
‘How long ago?’ Connal pressed.
‘I came straight after she left. Took a little time to locate you, though.’
‘How did you track me down?’ he eyed the doctor suspiciously.
‘We
thegn
have our ways,’ Madden replied cryptically as he bent to retrieve Connal’s discarded biker jacket from the dirt. He dusted it off and held it out to be worn, but the call to action was unnecessary.
Connal’s vision had bled to scarlet, huge canines distorting his mouth as he shoved his arms into the coat and took off running, hell for leather, back through the forest. The Shadow would be faster than his wolf, but, with bloodlust pumping through his veins, holding back the change was a physical struggle.
‘Your wolf is back, then?’ Madden’s question brought up the rear as he ran, chest thrust forward, thighs and arms pumping, flat-out,
Chariots of Fire
straining to keep pace with Connal’s superior speed. ‘What did she make you do?’ he wheezed.
Connal threw the doctor a look over his shoulder that was a great, black hole of
don’t even go there
. To his relief, the exertion of running kicked any further conversation to the curb, along with any ruminating over the sick shit the Morrígan had made him do. If the extra speed and strength tipped the balance of life and death in Ash’s favour, then it was worth it, a thousand times over. Even if he could never look her in the eye again.
Crashing through the forest, they broke from the cover of the trees and Connal threw a leg over the motorbike, kicking the engine to a roar that scattered the birds.
‘You need a ride, Doc?’ he shouted through the gas fumes.
Madden shook his head. ‘I’ll only hold you back. Besides, I got my own.’ The moonlight glinted off Doc Madden’s shiny Beamer.
Connal tipped him a salute and squeezed the throttle, the wheels spinning dirt as he shot away. Somehow he knew Madden would be following, and sure enough, the sleek BMW and Connal’s Black Shadow were careening neck and neck for much of the hair-raising sprint down the mountain.
Rural green morphed to cityscape in a motion blur, Connal’s bike edging the car through congested junctions of night-time traffic. When he pulled up outside the DeMorgan house, Madden was bringing up the rear.
Dismounting, Connal stepped through the wrought-iron gates. Light was glowing through the twelve-pane windows on the upper floor, where Ash’s bedroom was. Connal had switched it out before he left with her jewellry. The heavy front door was swinging on its hinges, and in the doorway, arms crossed on over-pumped pecs, stood that greased-up, slime-ball bartender, Doyle.
All the arrogance bled out of the
thegn
’s expression as he registered Connal’s terrifying, back-from-the-dead presence. Doyle’s feet tripped down the stone steps, palms up in submission, clearing a path to the house in hopes of avoiding the brunt of the Savage’s vengeance. Connal snarled, baring his fangs. As the man cowered, a hand landed on Connal’s shoulder. He whipped around, prepared to rip whatever had touched him to shreds, only to see it was Madden.
‘This son of a bitch is mine,’ the doctor sneered, slipping off his suit jacket and draping it neatly over a bush.
‘You sure you got this, Doc?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Madden growled, turning up the cuffs of his pristine dress-shirt. ‘You go get your girl. This one will be my fucking pleasure.’