The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (5 page)

‘How are you doing that?’
Cheeks burning, she glowered at him.

‘Doing what, exactly?’ he
replied, his lips pulling into a smug, lazy smile.

Bastard. Ash backed off him
slowly. She had the feeling the smooth talk was an act to lull her into a sense
of false security, that she was, in fact, releasing a wild animal, of the
cornered and pissed variety. He stilled as she sat back.

Right onto something rigid
and iron.

She shifted her weight,
trying to reposition, and got nowhere. She was trapped, straddling his hips,
fighting to disentangle her legs from where she’d locked them to pin him, when
his moan rumbled into the air. Louder than a growl of thunder, it rolled
between her thighs and shimmied up her spine.

Later, she’d convince herself
it was some sort of quick-fix Stockholm deal that had her attacking him. A
brain aneurysm or a temporary blackout. When in reality she just couldn’t pick
one thing to feel, and it cocktailed into the insanity of a feral kiss that
rocked tall, dark and klepto right at the centre of her and crushed them into a
grind so close that she could feel the steely hard press of his ... gun ... in
shocking detail at the apex of her thighs. Yeah. Aneurysm for sure.

Her hands got tangled in his
hair ...
so soft
... clawed at his nape and tore down the neck of his tee
to reach skin as her mouth got familiar with his, a biting, tongue-duelling,
lip-bruising assault that panted her frustration, her fear and her lust into
shared breaths. He was raw and animal, tasting of rain in the forest, moonlight
on water, fresh and primal. Fire to her ice.

His rough hands were all over
her, hungrily seeking every inch of her skin, riding her tank top up the
straining cage of her ribs to palm the soft swells of her breasts, grazing the
tight peaks of her nipples that begged the wet suction of his mouth, his teeth.

She was pliant, bowing into
his hands. A low moan escaped his throat. His hips pumped up between her thighs
with shallow fuck-thrusts and his hands grappled blindly at the waistband of
her sweats.

Feeling the friction of his
straining zipper, she drove down with her hips, making rough circles as she
melted through the thin fabric of her sweats. Hardly protection, right now,
they were too much. She panted aroused frustration, needing him naked. Forcing herself
from their kiss on a gasp from bruised lips, her breasts, bereft of his warmth,
chilled to the air and her nipples ached a protest. Left unattended, she
throbbed. He groaned a protest while she set to her struggle with his clothing
...
No stopping
...

Ash tugged on his zipper so
hard she thought she’d rip the thing right out of the fabric, but it didn’t
budge.
Come on!
She needed skin.

Her fingers hooked into the
neck of his shirt, hauling him back to her mouth with a satisfying growl. There
was a rip as the fabric gave way to her clawing lust.
Grrrrrr
... Her
own passion amused her. The strength of an emotion she usually couldn’t stoke
up enough to want to kiss someone had poured out of her. And all it had taken
was an intruder, a frying pan and rough hands.

Ooooh, skin!
Her eyes caught on the flash and her fingers splayed
over the taut muscles of his chest. If he got to touch, Ash was damn well not
going to be denied. She grasped ...
Metal?
...
Yes
... Small
hoops pierced through his nipples. Her smile was hungry on his lips, her
fingers hooking in and tugging hard in a twist that ripped a snarl from his
mouth and shot her gaze to watch. He liked that. She did it again, hips
winding, shimmying to help him divest her of her sweats. Molten, she was a volcano
of need strung tight and ready to ... Freeze.

The crack of ice as it formed
should have been audible, it spread so quickly to chill her ardour, imprisoning
her in a frozen block of terror that stopped her heart and stamped it into a
roaring Grand National gallop of panic. Ash jolted back as the flames between
her thighs recoiled, extinguished by a brand she saw every night on the waves
of darkness.

She’d never thought to see it
again. Not on living flesh and blood, anyway. Dream bodies didn’t count. But it
was here, larger than life, lying between her thighs. A tattoo scarred straight
into muscle: a stylised, Celtic wolf.

Death, how she remembered it.

‘No...’ She was talking to
the man beneath her, but she was addressing the demons from her nightmares, her
undulations switched to frantic, thrashing attempts at escape.

‘What exactly is your
problem, beautiful?’ His growl was as ragged as the torn shreds of his shirt.

All she could do was stare,
her eyes wild with terror, fixated on the wolf-brand on his chest. Pallor
drained her cheeks of what little colour they had. The sexual heat that had
sizzled between them not a moment before shrivelled and died, leaving only fear
in its wake.

Her burglar retreated,
dragging his ass back until his shoulders hit the wall. He pinned her in the
hard glare of his breathless frustration.

‘Get away from me!’ she
demanded. Even to herself, she sounded one scream from a straight jacket and a
padded cell.

‘I’m nowhere near you,’ he
replied, eyeing her suspiciously. ‘What are you doing in Anann DeMorgan’s
house?’ he asked.

‘Granddaughter ...’ The word
was thready as hell.
Breathe, Ash, breathe. You die and they win
.

‘You’re Anann DeMorgan’s
granddaughter?’ he asked, incredulous, raking her with a gaze that seemed to be
seeking out a resemblance.

Ash nodded.

‘You might have told me,’ he
growled, ‘Nan DeMorgan would have my bollocks in a jar if she knew how close
we’d been to ….’ he trailed off, pushing a hand through his dreads. ‘So you’re
the new
latent
?’ he said, looking up at her. ‘She wasn’t messing when
she said you were different to the others.’

‘What others? What’s a
latent
?’
she asked warily.

‘Hasn’t your grandmother told
you anything?’

‘My grandmother is in a
nursing home. She can’t speak.’ Ash backed further away. She should have
trusted her first instincts. The guy was a delusional psychopath.

He tapped a hand to the wolf
branded into his chest, addressing her like she was a cornered animal. ‘You’re
afraid of me, because of
this
, right?’

She couldn’t peel her eyes away,
couldn’t blink, damn it, she couldn’t even gather breath enough to scream. He
was talking, but only certain words filtered through. Her brain was on a dimmer
switch, dizzying out and coming back on in flickers. Her heart was one beat
away from hammering itself right out of her chest and flip-flopping on the
ground until that demon from her nightmares gobbled it off the floor in the
guise of an intruder. ‘You’re here to kill me,’ she stammered.

He shook his head.

‘Get out ...’ she croaked.
Not even a mouse would obey such a weak, reedy line of command. But here she
was, expecting tall, dark and probably homicidal to just up and leave her be.

He scrubbed a hand down his
rough jaw, coolly observing her from beneath hooded eyes. ‘Fuck me,’ he said.
‘DeMorgan’s own flesh and blood, home alone, and cowering under the mark of the
wolf. What is the old bitch playing at?’

‘Get out!’ she repeated,
slightly stronger. Her entire body was pulsing with her frantic heartbeat, her
skin chilled under the cold sweat of fear. He needed to leave. She needed to
pass out.

He hesitated, then taking a
step forward, he yanked up the zipper of his leather jacket to hide the ravaged
mess of his shirt. He ran his fingers down the thin silver chain around his
neck and grasped the engraved disc that hung from it, stroking the metal along
his lower lip. Head tilted slightly to one side, he took a long look at her.
‘I’ll go,’ he said, ‘but know this: I’m the least of your worries. Come full
moon, every male in the city will be gunning for you. Don’t say I didn’t warn
you.  This isn’t finished, angel,’ he said, then turned his back on her and
walked away.

S
he collapsed. For a second, or damn, it could have
been an hour. The world was as black as the shadows, her eyes blinkered down,
her body weak and huddled where he left her. Shit. He left. He left her and he
didn’t touch her. God, how she’d wanted him to touch her.

Stupid, stupid, Ash!
Urging your nightmare to just climb up on you and hump you ‘til you scream.
Solid plan at defeating those demons.

Great, she was mocking
herself now. Something cold touched her cheek and she flinched, fearing the
worst. The wet kiss of a chilled, blood-stained blade, an icy claw ... a doggy
nose, snuffling at her scrunched face. She batted the soft muzzle away and was
rewarded with an attack of warm, drooling licks.

‘Silly, mutt. You couldn’t
have come when I was being invaded? Fat lot of good you are, you can’t even
keep the wolves from my door.’ Muttering about shitty guard-dogs, Ash pulled
herself up and cautiously let her eyes wander, seeking out a hulk of man in the
shadows. There was no-one there. The wolfhound settled his weight into her
side, following her gaze with curious brown eyes and a cock of that large,
silver head.

‘Now you choose to protect
me? When the psycho has left?’

Ruffling his fur, her sigh
was shaky with adrenaline and fear. She pushed off the floor, using the dog as
leverage for her wobbling limbs and wound her fingers into his moonlight pelt
as they padded warily to check the bolt on the door. With trembling fingers she
secured the chain and turned the key, petting the door, as though a kind touch
could persuade the wood to keep any further demons from her threshold. It would
at least keep her from groping any other burglars that might wander into the
hoarder's paradise she found herself tied to. Any number of people could be
living among the stacks. Maybe that’s where he’d come from. She’d moved just
enough paper to uncover his den and he had to kill her. Like the tribes in the
Amazon rainforest. Except her pygmy warriors were giant man-mountains that
somehow bore the mark of her past. Mmmhmm. Tomorrow she would admit herself
into the nearest insane asylum and blame it all on inhaled poison fungi spores.

Shit.

Her breath was still coming
harsh. Ash could taste fear, could feel it chipping away at the barriers her
therapy had set up. Dublin had already stuffed a crowbar in the smallest crack
and was prying it open. And now that tattoo, that damn Celtic wolf had cranked
something wide and let the darkness out.

A whine broke through the
sound of her breathing. The thump of a tail beat against her leg.

‘How about you come to bed
with me and you can hunt the wolves if the Sandman lets them in?’ Another tail
wag swished against her ankle and Ash about faced with her furry guardian at
her heels, navigating through occult nick-nacks to the relative serenity of the
bedroom. It couldn’t have been her grandmother’s, it was too pristine, in
gentle shades of blue and black, a large bathtub in the centre of the room.
She’d slowly bled into this room, her clothes creeping out to fill the empty
wardrobe, cosmetics and books littering the dark wood desk.

She could breathe here.
Pretend that it wasn’t Dublin outside her window, but Cambridge. She wasn’t in
a house full of strange totems; she was in an upscale apartment. Ash stamped
down the strain of fear, shaking off the memory of his hands on her. She dove
onto the giant mahogany four-poster bed, rolling in the sheets. The mutt barked
and she had to fend off the dog paws bouncing all over her cuddled-up form.

‘Settle, mutt, or I’ll
rethink my need for a bed mate.’ Ash scruffed behind his ears as his huge head
landed on her stomach, pillowing himself there. ‘And you need a name.’ Drowsy
now, the words felt heavy, her eyes locked to the ceiling, watching the
occasional shadow dance across the Robin-egg blue painted into the stippling.

Her eyes drooped and the
night took the opportunity to steal a figure into her bedroom. Black crossed her
lidded vision; fur caressed her hands and weighed her down. A kiss silenced her
scream with a hot-tongued invasion. A familiar mass settled between thighs that
spread far too eagerly. He was back. Ash moaned as her hands snaked up the
broad expanse of her phantom intruder’s back, sculpting naked muscle with her
fingertips and pulling him closer. Crazy, she was crazy, but the heat had her
in its grasp, fending off the chill of an oncoming nightmare with a hard
grinding pleasure. She half-hoped she wasn’t dreaming. He was at her throat,
speaking kisses to her pulse. His palms urged her thighs wider. Ash toyed with
the rings hooked through his flesh and her spine arched, seeking friction.