The Morrigan: Damaged Deities (36 page)

No, he had agreed to come with her because he knew this hunt was important to her.  And he wanted more time with her, to convince her to stay in Scotland after she was done, even if it meant coming back to this body of hell water.

But she had been gone too long now.

“
MORRIE
!” he bellowed to only hear his cry echoed back through the rustling leaves. 

After that, silence.  Except Kade’s heartbeat and that was a jackhammer in his chest. 

He began moving again, marching further into the woods to turn back and go the other way, lost, panicked, and rushing in circles it seemed to find her. 

The sound of his footfall across the leafy forest was all that stirred until it became the crunch of pebbles. 

Kade looked forward and faced the loch.

His heart thundered in his ears, his breathing loud.  It all picked up speed, steadily beating towards what Kade was certain of a breakdown. 

But then all sound stopped.

Sharp pain sliced through his head.  Kade cried out, grabbing his temples and bending over. 

Every nerve in his body burned, his bones felt as though they cracked and splintered, his muscles and tendons tearing and as he cried out through the pain, his voice became something else, something animalistic, until he heard nothing at all.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
O
NE

“Then arose the champion and battle-warrior and the instrument of Badb’s corpse-fold among the men of the earth, Cuchulain son of Sualtaim, and he donned his war-dress of battle and fight and combat.”

Táin Bó Cúailnge

The path back was harder to find, a thick fog moving in to cover her tracks and anything else below her line of sight. 

Soon the entire forest was filled with it, dense and daunting.  Even her heightened sight couldn’t penetrate the cloudy wall.

Anxiety slipped into Morrie’s blood.  She had to put her hands out to feel her way around and when the hair on her arms stood up, she knew she was being watched.  Followed. 

Hunted.

She could hear a heartbeat.

“Kade?” she called out as soft as she could. 

No answer returned.

But that heartbeat moved closer.  Like a drum of war its slow, deep rhythm beat inside her head. 

Her feet worked beneath her, taking her where, she didn’t know.  She didn’t really pay attention.  But she knew that whatever lurked in that foreboding fog came along.

It had become suffocating, filling her vision every which way she turned. 

She started to move quicker, using her senses to guide her through. 

Where was Kade?  Had he left her?  Had something happened to him?

A new feeling gripped Morrie—shockingly cold and strong. 

Fear.

An angry snort.

The horse was behind her.  She knew without having to turn around.

Instinct took over and Morrie moved, running blind.  His hooves pounded behind her.  He wasn’t trying to overcome her, but kept pace.  Kept his distance. 

So Morrie ran faster. 

She wasn’t sure if it was the fog or that she desperately needed to find Kade to assure herself that he was okay, but it felt like she moved through a dream, running and running and getting nowhere. 

Anger began to burn through her.  Anger at herself.  If she had her magic, she could use it get out of there. 

To clear the fog or trace away. 

She could have overcome all her obstacles, rather than be forced to play the damsel in distress, stumbling through the woods.

It was too much to handle.  It was too much for her cold goddess heart to take, this fear and anger. 

The two snakes of emotion fed each other to become one, like a black Ouroboros, growing bigger and bigger inside her heart.

Just as she felt herself almost moved to hot tears, she broke free of the trees, out of the fog and onto the pebbled shore of the lake.  She spun around, rocks flying beneath her feet just as the horse emerged from where she had come.

The sight of him was a welcomed one because it instantly cured Morrie of any watery emotions. 

She grinned, slow and predatory.

Who was the hunter now?  And who the prey?

If Kade was out there, it was better the horse was with her.  And if Kade wasn’t and the horse had done something to him…well, then the horse was dead.

Curious, though.  He seemed in no rush to harm her.  She felt no sense of emanating threat. 

The fog rolled across his dark hide, steam burst from his muzzle and he was still impossibly, imposingly large, but other than that the maddened look of murder in his eyes was a little less mad.

“Are you going to come to me this time?” she asked, reaching out her hand, turning her palm skyward.  He stomped one hoof and skittered back and forward a few times. 

In the distance, thunder growled, bouncing in echoes off the highland hills.  A drop of rain hit her nose. 

Face turned up, the clouds completely blocked out the moon now and more drops fell on her.

She locked her gaze back on the horse and took a step forward. 

“Come to me,” she ordered.  “Come.”

A familiar red light flashed in his eyes.  A familiar sense of recognition flashed between them. 

And eyes widening, Morrie knew.

“No,” she whispered.

The horse reared up and cried an ear-piercing whine. 

As he dropped back down he turned to run away, but Morrie was upon him before he could flee.  Her fists grabbing chunks of mane, she clung to him as he pulled her back into the forest. 

Limbs and leaves whipped and scratched her face as she was dragged along, but the trees worked to her advantage, preventing the horse from breaking into full speed. 

It was enough time for Morrie to pull herself up, swinging a leg over the beast’s back and righting herself just as he stormed through a clearing. 

And then as one, they lighted across the green velvet Highlands as though the horse’s hooves didn’t even touch the ground. 

Unlike the other times she road the horse, this was a speed Morrie had never experienced before, one that stole her breath and thrilled her to the core.  Even the rain that now broke from above in a formidable downpour couldn’t stop her from being amazed at the way they moved. 

The torrent blinded her and she could only
feel
…the rush of the wind and water across her face and through her hair, the smell of a land bathed clean.

Thunder bellowed, followed by lightning webbing across the stormy sky.

The horse was in control, she couldn’t guide him, but only hold on as much as she could at their speed but soon they had covered the distance between the loch and manor. 

He was taking her home. 

There were no lights to be seen through the storm so instinct guided him to the stables.  Like a gaping mouth the stable doors were opened wide, allowing them a clear entrance into darkness.

The already nervous Clydesdales were more skittish when the beast rushed past their stalls and into an empty one. 

Life repeats itself
, she thought briefly before once jumping off the horse just as he was inside. 

But this time would be different. 

This time she would stay with him.  This time she would see him through the night. She spun around to shut and latch the gate behind them.

And then a lot of things happened very quickly.

The stall gate slammed shut, she threw the latch closed.  Soaked through with water streaming from her hair, her clothes clinging heavily to her body, she turned around. 

The horse was gone. 

In his place stood Kade, naked and tensed, shaking while water ran down his sleek body in gleaming rivulets, caressing each line of muscle. 

His eyes were focused intently on hers, promises flashing in their dark depths like the lightning piercing the sky. 

And as a tree touched by its electric kiss, just that look ignited an explosion inside her. 

No words were exchanged. 

He didn’t allow it. 

As soon as Morrie opened her mouth to speak, Kade covered the distance between them in an instant, his lips finding hers, hungry, demanding, and strong like his arms, pulling her into his soaked, but warm embrace as he pressed her against the stall door.

A lot of realizations hit her at once, many truths revealed in an instant. 

Even as desire built her up, her meticulously constructed world tumbled to rocks and dust around her as she finally accepted the truth.

“It was you,” she broke the kiss to gasp, shocked by his unrelenting assault on her mouth and how she never truly felt the full power of his desire for her, or hers for him. 

Not until that moment. 

His lips moved to her neck, his hands hungry for her body. 

She looked up to the ceiling and saw only stars, her senses going crazy at his touch.  She was parts realization, parts disbelief. 

Not just the horse.  Kade was Cú Chulainn.  Her Celtic warrior had lived; had returned in this beautiful Scot’s body.  Morrie had no doubt.

 “It was you.”

 “Forgive me,” he entreated between hot kisses across her collarbone. 

He pulled her up against his body, wedging her between his hard muscles and the gate while belting his waist with her legs.  She crossed them at the ankles and held on. 

He ripped her shirt open, his hands spreading across her breasts, the touch hot even through the cotton material of her tank top.

Morrie closed her eyes, her head falling back to offer herself completely to the man and the beast. 

It was almost too much…their need for each other.  Their hunger.  So insatiable, it left her breathless.

“It was always you.”

Thunder shook the walls around but it stood no match to the tempest between the two of them. 

She buried her fingers into his hair as he pressed fiery kisses across the top mounds of her breasts.  Every nerve in her body became aware of him, tingled at his touch.  She moaned.

The sound enough encouragement, Kade yanked her shirt down her shoulders and off her arms. 

Grinding his erection hard against her sex, he thrust his hips and lifted her higher. 

Hands slippery from the rain, he slid them beneath her tank top and pushed it off over her head.  She hadn’t bothered with a bra, but she doubted it would have impeded him anyway.

His mouth was on one breast, his hand on the other.  Lips pulled at her nipple, his tongue tracing circles around the sensitive pebble.  Morrie gasped and ground her sex against him.

While he sucked and licked at her breasts, his hands found their way down her legs to her feet and soon each boot had been tugged off. 

Those eager fingers journeyed next to the button at her jeans, but the wet material and their position wasn’t yielding enough.

Impatient, Kade ripped the thick fabric, easily rending it in two until the denim shreds fell to the floor.

Because Morrie never wore anything beneath her jeans, there was now nothing between them. 

Nothing to keep the sleek heat of their skin from connecting, their bodies melting together. 

She wrapped her legs back around his waist, hooking her thighs on his hips.  His hands splayed across her ass cheeks, pressing her sex against his shaft.