The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (61 page)

Madden sat on the bed, elbows
braced on the knees of his suit pants, and threw Connal a questioning look.

‘All those years ago, your
sister chose me over him,’ he couldn’t bring himself to call MacTire by name,
‘and now, here we are, a millennium later, and the tables are turned. Ironic,
huh? You might say I had it coming.’

Madden leaned forward, a
frown lining his stupidly handsome face. ‘It wasn’t your fault Aoife loved you,
and you don’t know for sure that Ash wants him.’

Connal looked up at the
level-headed bastard from under his brows.
‘Right, because you’ve just admitted she
was sleeping in his fucking bed. And the way they were swapping spit left it
all wide open to interpretation.’

‘She said she wanted to go
with you.’

Madden’s words were met with
a derisive laugh. ‘Yeah, well … with an execution order slapped on your head,
and a pack of wild animals on your heels, who’s gonna complain if the getaway
car is a piece of shit?’

Madden sighed. ‘You could
have let me explain ...’

‘Explain what, exactly?’ The
shoelace snapped in his grip. ‘That, yes, it was me who fucked that girl over a
desk?’ His knuckles went white. ‘That I
was
the one who bit her and
condemned her to the life of a sex slave?’ His voice was mocking, going up an
octave. ‘Oh but it’s all okay, because I was under the influence. If it wasn’t
for Ash’s presence in the city, I’d have been a good boy.’

Madden’s frown deepened, his
dark eyebrows trying to meet in the middle. ‘You hold yourself to too high a
bar, Savage.’

Connal fired the trainer
across the room and it bounced off the wall. ‘Alright, let’s try this on for
size. Yes, Ash, I
was
responsible for the deaths of thousands of men,
women and children, but I swear, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.’

‘That’s the truth,’ Madden
said. ‘The Morrígan tricked you.’

Connal’s pain came out in an
ugly sneer. ‘You and I both know how it works,
Thegn
. The Morrígan can’t
take life. She can only use others to do her dirty work. So however much I may
regret what happened that night, however much I might deny that I wanted them
all to die, the truth remains that the hatred was in
my
soul, and the
Morrígan merely tapped it. I lit the fire, she only fanned the flames.'

Madden’s glance took the
measure of him, judging his perception. ‘You watched your lover and your child
torn apart.’ His words were heavy with sympathy, trying to make him
see
.
‘It’s called a crime of passion, Connal. Not premeditated murder. You may have
felt it, but the Morrígan is the one who acted on it.’ He jabbed a finger in
his direction. ‘Not you.’

Connal pinched the bridge of
his nose.
Fuck.
‘That doesn’t make it right.’

‘And your self-loathing isn’t
going to change anything that happened. None of us is perfect, not me, not you,
not Ashling DeMorgan ...’

Madden shut up after that and
Connal picked at the hem of the hoodie, his forehead creased in thought. The
doc had a point. There were degrees of imperfection, though. He’d known all
along he was on borrowed time with Ash. She had to find out about his past
eventually. Better to cut the cord while one of them still stood a chance of
getting out unscathed.

‘Let me ask you something,
Doc,’ Connal broke the silence. ‘How did
you
deal with it?’

Madden looked up from
spinning his cufflinks, confusion etched into his expression. ‘Huh?’

‘You had to have known when
Liath took up with that wife-beater.’

The doctor stiffened and his
face transformed into a mask of anger. ‘The moment he laid a hand on her, that
sub-human bastard was a dead man walking, except you beat me to the chase.’

‘But she put up with him for
months before things got really ugly. He was a piss-head and a gambler. How
could you stand by and watch them be together, knowing you loved her? That the
boy was yours?’

Madden dropped his head into
his hands, mussing the suave arrangement of his hair. ‘What right had I to take
away any chance she had at happiness, when I couldn’t give her what she
deserved?’

‘You don’t think you’re
worthy of her,’ Connal replied. The statement fit them both, perfectly. Connal
inclined his head in a curt nod, hands braced on his knees as he stood, wearing
clothes that belonged to the man sat across from him. ‘No offense, Doc,’ he
said, ‘but you’re dead wrong.’

‘For the record, Savage, so
are you.’

Connal cleared the gravel
from his throat and slapped a hand on Madden’s back. ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘I
guess this is where you and I part ways
.
Where will you go?’

‘As far away from this
shit-hole as my bank balance will carry me.’

‘Judging by the cut of your
suit, that’s a long way.’

The corners of Madden’s mouth
curled up. ‘First I need to take out some insurance on my investments.’

It was clear the guy wasn’t
talking about stocks and bonds. He was going after Doyle.

‘My promise stands, Doc. If I
make it out alive, I’ll watch out for Liath, and the kid,’ Connal’s eyes
creased, mirroring the doc’s smile, ‘just until you grow a set and sweep her
off her feet, like she deserves.’ As he bent to retrieve the abused trainer, he
could hear the hitch in Madden’s breathing.

‘What about you, Savage. What
now?’

‘I’ll stick to the plan and
go seek out the Morrígan’ Connal said, drawing the hood of the sweatshirt up
over his dreadlocked head, ‘don’t know what else
to
do.’

‘You know where to find her?’

‘I’ll start with the place I
last saw her, the nursing home.’

‘Be careful Savage.’

Connal quirked a brow and
Madden regarded him with dark, intelligent eyes. ‘Did the Morrígan ever tell
you why she holds a grudge against the Fomorians?’

‘No,’ Connal shook his head.
‘But the Ancients draw power from their worshippers. I assume she got her
knickers in a twist because the Fomorians liked to prey on her human acolytes?’

‘Hmm,’ Madden frowned, ‘the
details are sketchy, but the
thegn
scriptures suggest Elatha stole
something from her, and she's had an axe to grind with his bloodline ever
since.’

Connal lifted dark brows ‘Why
are you telling me this?’

‘Because however much you
deny your ancestry, you are a part of that royal bloodline. She’s used you
once, she may not hesitate to do it again.’

‘I appreciate your concern,
Doc,’ Connal smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever
trusted the bitch’s motives, but what are my options, really? I’ve less than
forty-eight hours aboveground before I fry. I can’t shift, so going back to
Fomor will only get me killed quicker. It’s time to pay the piper.’

‘I wish I could help you.’

‘You can,’ Connal said, ‘if
you can get me into the staff garage. Liath stowed my bike there, last time she
caught me drunk outside the club.’ It seemed an eternity since he’d stumbled
into the alley, and Ashling DeMorgan’s life. Things had come full circle. When
he’d met her, he was barred from touching her and sworn to save her life. Not
much had changed then. Except for him. He thought he’d known what it was to be
empty inside. Losing her? It felt like his soul had been ripped out and left
flopping at her feet. A black hole of emptiness had taken up residence in his
chest, and no amount of noble self-fucking sacrifice was ever going to fill it.

E
wwww! If she had any recollection of being born, Ash
figured it would have felt exactly like that. Like the air was being squeezed
from her lungs, her body compacting to fit through a space too small. Not
daring to scream lest she inhale whatever was churning her, she whined through
tight-locked lips and held herself together when slimy forces wanted to tear
her apart.

Keep your arms and legs
inside the ride.

Slippery with primordial
gunk, hair plastered to her head, she was swallowed and spit up on a hard,
paved floor. The cold bit into her cheek, sinking into bones that were refusing
to move. Muscles useless, she just managed to twitch her fingers in a scrape on
the stone.

Damn it. Just her luck. She’d
escaped, only to risk being found on the doormat, immobile and wrapped up in a
pretty ooze bow. At least her lungs weren’t incapacitated. That would suck. She
took deep breaths and willed her body to wake from its shock, taking in the
room she’d been vomited into: a cellar masquerading as a locker room. Metal
cages lined the walls, packed with neatly hanging clothes, bottoms lined with
shoes and accessories. Ash counted about forty three before a tell-tale
tingling spread through her veins in a wash of pins and needles. It wasn’t
pleasant but she pushed through it, got her feet under her and limped around
the lockers.

The exit wasn’t signposted.
She got lost in communal showers and a laundry room before she found the
elevators. Only one was key-accessible. Ash awkwardly angled the key to the
lock in the wall, careful not to snap the cord around her wrist. She prayed it
came quickly. Mac had told her it would get her to his private quarters, and no
one could reach her there. When the metal doors pinged open and she stepped
through, she hoped he hadn’t lied. He’d also promised her an actual shower.
Exhaustion lent itself to convincing herself that she was safe. The illusion
would have to be enough until Mac came for her.

When the elevator stopped,
she padded the short hallway and let herself into the suite. Ash paused long
enough for her other senses to tell her she was well and truly alone and let
the heavy wood door lock behind her. It was a small reassurance.

Another door to her immediate
right revealed a large shower room. That’s what she needed. No thoughts
allowed. Ash peeled the tattered remains of her dress from her body, snagged a
towel from the linen closet and took full advantage of the luxury. Mac’s room
was seriously lush and she’d only seen the hallway. The shower was pristine in
black and red marble. For every black tile there was one holding the Form
emblem in its centre. The place was big enough to fit at least five people, so
when Ash closed herself into it and turned the water to a boiling torrent, she
felt safe. Not claustrophobic, not underground, but in a wide open space with
plumbing and heat. Sinking into the burning spray, Ash shut her mind off,
watching the remnants of Fomor sluice from her skin.

She left the wet haven when
her skin went pruney. Once out, the rush of cool air to her skin had her brain
booting back up. No order to the thoughts in her head, she couldn’t
compartmentalise the emotions that, only a month ago, wouldn’t have been an
issue. She almost wished she could stuff them all back behind the ice wall, but
it was decimated and she had no time to rebuild it.

The plush mattress dimpled
under her weight, silken sheets shushed as she wormed into the centre of the
bed, towel-clad and damp. The view from Mac’s bed was spectacular: she could
see Dublin, twinkling at dusk, alive with the buzz of the full moon. It was so
vast and she was so small, maybe she could get lost somewhere in its streets
and they’d never find her, or she could hop on a plane or a boat and skip the
country for a safer continent. Connal had told her they’d track her anywhere.
That was when they wanted her alive. She was under no illusions that if they
really wanted her dead, there was nowhere she could hide.

She scraped damp hair back
off her forehead, bunching thick fistfuls
. A
wordless cry groaned from her
throat. Helpless, she held onto herself while her mind whirred a mile a minute.
In spite of the luxury surrounding her, her head was still stuck in the pits.
People kept changing: masks were dropped and true faces were shown. No one and
nothing was what she thought them to be, herself included. Reality had veered
so far into the dark and fantastical that Ash was hopelessly lost. She clutched
at the mundane memories she had, rolled into the pillows and stared at the
cordless phone on the nightstand. She craved just one day to be human again, to
go to the cinema, have dinner with friends, get drunk and fall off tables.