Becoming Bad (The Becoming Novels) (15 page)

‘How fares the boy?’ MacTire stormed up to the door of Tyr’s quarters, where Brandr and Rún were holding up the walls with a matched set of crossed arms and grim and grimmer expressions.

‘It’s been touch and go these past hours, my Lord.’ Brandr’s mouth was bracketed by tension.

‘Is the healer with him?’ MacTire demanded.

Rún shook his head in answer. ‘The doctor's been MIA since the incident at the shore. The
thegn
say he hasn’t reported in topside either. I was going to send a search party to the hills ...’

MacTire growled in the warrior’s face, showing him the whites of his eyes. ‘Maybe you missed the show, but those flying piranhas decimated us out there. If you think I’m going to waste even more lives sniffing out some insignificant, AWOL runt, you’ve got your priorities screwed on backwards, Rún. Find another damn healer.’ His fist gripped the door handle, practically wrenching it off its hinges.

The sight of Tyr laid out on the bed stopped the King dead. Blond curls plastered to his head, a cold sweat slicked the grey pallor of the boy’s skin. Blue lips trembled and his eyes flickered beneath closed lids. His wounds were freshly dressed, broken bones splinted with a care equal to what any medic could provide. Fite emerged from the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel, his silver head ducking to clear the low-hanging lintel. Dark circles framed the torment in his eyes. ‘Is it taken care of?’ he asked.

‘It’s done,’ MacTire replied. ‘The she-wolf is restrained in the cells and the raveners have scattered to the winds. We have twelve men unaccounted for, plus a number of the
thegn
. There were no bodies to recover. Will the boy live?’ he asked, his voice thick with concern.

‘I believe so,’ Fite’s eyes shone with conviction, ‘but
she
cannot be allowed to.’

‘I have spoken on this, Fite. The female is no longer a threat.’

‘For as long as it draws breath, the creature is a threat, my Lord.’

‘And again, you challenge my authority. I choose to overlook it only because you hurt for your félag’s son, but never doubt, I can and will take you down in Contest if you do it again.’

‘Can you take all of us?’ It was Brandr who spoke as the entire
skuldalid
moved into the room, crowding the already tight space.

‘What is this? A fucking mutiny?’ MacTire looked each of his men hard in the eyes.

‘We’d prefer you saw it as an intervention.’

‘It doesn’t have to be this way, my Lord.’ Their voices circled him.

‘Damn fucking straight it doesn’t! I am your King.’

‘Then lead us on the right path,’ Fite implored.

‘Have I not? The female is our future.’

‘You are blind, my Lord. The bonds you share with her have stolen your objectivity. She is our destruction.’ Rún’s measured words struck a chord amongst the combative body language. MacTire looked at the red-haired male as if to say ‘
et tu, Brute’.

Sensing a chink in the King’s defenses, Fite went for the jugular. ‘That thing is poison to our bloodlines. Look what it did to our brother, to Brandr’s
thrall
. You saw her. She had wings. The birds flocked around her head like she was Snow-fucking-White. She summoned them to feast on us like carrion. Would you cleave what remains of our ancient lines to a monster such as she? I demand retribution, as is my right, under the laws of the Old Masters.’

‘You shall not have it!’ MacTire bore down on Fite, fangs bared.

Brandr clapped a hand on the King’s shoulder. ‘We are your
skuldalid
, your brothers and your family. We would die for you, MacTire. But we will die before we let you fall into the Morrígan’s trap.’

‘She has bewitched you, my Lord,’ Fite continued. ‘She is the Morrígan’s creation, sent to punish us over again for the sins of our forefathers.’

MacTire clamped a fist around Brandr’s hand and forcibly removed it from his body. ‘And if we kill her? What then? We throw away our only hope of freedom because we are too fucking cowardly to tame her.’

‘The last untame thing you refused to kill came back to bite us in the ass. Would you have history repeat those same atrocities?’

‘The King must set aside emotional ties,’ Rún said, interrupting the argument. All eyes turned to him as he produced a leather wrap, proffering it in one hand while he untied its bindings. The assembled warriors, MacTire included, fell silent. The flaps fell back to reveal the ornate, bone-handled dagger within. The men drew in a collective breath.

‘This is the
Skil
,' Rún said, 'the mystical blade of severance, forged from Elatha’s steel and hardened with the blood of our foremothers and fathers.’ Rún thrust the knife towards the King. The hilt was said to be fashioned from the bone of the first wolf. Engraved with the phases of the moon and ancient runes, its curved blade was polished to a razor edge.

MacTire’s gut took an express-elevator descent into his boots. He and this blade had history, and not the kind bards wanted to write poetry about. A thousand years and more had passed since he’d last laid eyes on the weapon, since he’d sought to use it to sever his mated bonds and free both Aoife and himself from a loveless union. To say the consequences had been fatal was the understatement of the era.

'You kept it safe, all these years?' MacTire asked, lifting his eyes to Rún's intelligent face. He’d thought the wretched thing lost in the wars. Rún had been there that night, had borne witness to the tragedy with Aoife and the child. Though sworn to take the King’s secrets to the tomb, the unspoken message in the scarred warrior’s eyes was clear:
Redeem yourself. Rise above base desires and prove yourself worthy of their honour and respect once more.

‘My Lord, you have tethered your soul to this female, Ashling DeMorgan, through blood and bite. Your
skuldalid
begs you to see, the King’s judgement has been compromised. With this blade, the bonds can be severed, and true sight restored.’

‘You ask this of me?’ MacTire’s black eyes scanned the faces of each of his loyal men in turn.

‘We do,’ they spoke in chorus.

The King’s hand reached to curl about the thick hilt of the dagger, his grip tightening until the skin across the knuckles was bloodless. Lips pressed into a thin line, he jerked the blade from Rún’s palm. ‘Then you leave me no choice,’ he said.

Ash tried everything, feminine attraction included, but that only worked when someone was in seeing distance of said attraction. No one had been down since she’d woken in the cell. No one to charm or beg. Or, hell, she’d go with punching them through the bars at this point, if someone would just
come down
.

The full moon was upon them and she was running out of time. She was losing what was left of her mind in the dark, with Knutr mumbling and singsonging at her in his lunacy, laughing at her attempts until he rolled onto his back in a crease of hysterical male. She launched her lock-picking bolt at his head and slumped.

‘They’re just going to leave me down here to rot, aren’t they?’

She got no answer but a raspy cackle.

‘You’re no help.’ Ash groused, cheek pressed to the bars. She watched the main door to the cell block with a laser focus intensity, willing someone, anyone to walk through. She shut straining eyes for a second, and the images burst to life behind her lids.

Wolves fleeing, whimpering, claws slick with blood and a coppery tang in her mouth. The drive to hurt, to protect, her hackles bristling as she raised her head to howl.
The same flashes flared up whenever she concentrated, like glimpses of a dream without the sleeping. She couldn’t shake the suspicion that they had to do with her getting jailed.

Ash glared at the door.

The lock turned over with a click.

‘Knutr? Did you do that?’
Did I do that?

‘Hmmm?’ He was napping like a kitten in the middle of his cell, one hand stretched through the bars towards her. Gathering her legs under her, Ash shrank back into the shadows, energy coiling under her skin like a billion feral springs.

The door whined on stiff hinges, opening to admit the wide shoulders of a large male presence and tendrils of a familiar scent. She leapt from the shadows with every intention of batting her lashes and giving him her sweetest apology, but she drew up short once he stood in front of her cage.

He selected a key from the bunch in his hand and went to unlock the door. She could have hugged him for that, if it weren’t for the wicked looking dagger in his other hand.

Mac's brows pulled together, his eyes darker than sin when he looked at her. ‘They’ve left me with no choice,’ he said, examining the curved blade.

The weapon was stunning for sure, but she could admire it much better if he wasn’t planning to use it to slice her into chunks of Ash.

‘Time to go, Ashling.’ The cell was open, and Mac reached for her.

‘I’m not going anywhere if you’re going to make me into your next scarf.’ She wasn’t moving an inch closer until she knew she had a chance of getting around him and making a break for it. She was still, poised. Internally she was shaking.

‘What are you talking about?’ The King looked harassed, twitchy.

Ash waved a hand at the dagger, one brow quirked. ‘You don’t come to a girl knife in hand.’

‘I … this isn’t for you.’ He slipped the lethal beauty into the waistband of his pants, dark eyes beckoning her with a tinge of crimson desperation. ‘Come, Ashling, time is of the essence.’

‘You just said they'd left you no choice.’

‘
They
want you dead, and it’s only a matter of time before they realise I’ve set you free.’

‘Go fly, little bird. No dying in cages.’

Mac’s growl rolled to silence Knutr’s sleepy mumblings. His hand wrapped her wrist, hauling her into his side, and before she could communicate a suitable protest, he was steering her from the cell.

He was pushing her in front of him, his broad body a wall between her and everything behind them. Running through the tunnels was like being on a treadmill, the same environment flying past with no sense of real advancement, except for the fire in her chest and muscles that said she should have gone to the gym more often.

When he slowed, she huffed in air gratefully. ‘I don’t understand, Mac. Why are you doing this for me?’

In the dim light, Mac’s eyes blazed with a dark intensity. ‘I’m not sure I understand myself.’

‘Well, ain’t that the way to make a girl feel special?’ Drawling out the words with a quiet laugh, Ash rested her gaze on him, admiring his stillness. He was so alert, a block of fight, guarding her in the passage as she panted.

His eyes were softer when he glanced at her, lightened by her laughter. His large hand carefully swept the hair from her face, brushing at the sheen of her sweat. ‘We must carry on, Ashling. The conduit is the first place they’ll look, once they realise you are gone, and not dead. We must get there first.’ His thumb stroked her lower lip before he nudged her into a walk.

She gnawed on the inside of her cheek for a few steps. ‘Mac …’

He looked at her with a brow raise but kept her walking.

‘You put me in jail. You can’t tell me that was for my own protection.’

‘It was. In part. It was either restrain you, or destroy you.’

She swallowed.
Bolts of lightning, shocking pain shutting down her circuits. She fought, snarling against the pull of unconsciousness. She went down in a crackle of fury.
They’d tasered her into submission. But not before … Oh God. A stab of pain lanced behind her eyes and she mashed the heel of her hand into her forehead.
The satisfying crunch of a windpipe, the gurgle of blood, a wolf shedding into the form of a curly haired boy.

‘Did I kill Tyr?’ she asked.

‘He lives.’ Mac’s short answer made the thing inside her roll over, and she could feel its disappointment. It had been set on killing.

‘And the others? I don’t remember ... There was blood. Fear.’ She had to talk because if she didn’t, her worst-case-scenarios would explode in her head and she’d be paralytic on terror.

‘You didn’t kill them all. The raveners took most of them.’

That silenced her.

When she would have apologised, he jerked on her arm, dragging her down the tunnel at a new pace until they came to a halt outside the carved door of the temple.

She looked up at him and Mac’s head was canted low, his blond hair covering his face. He avoided her gaze when she dipped to find his eyes. ‘You’re really letting me go, aren’t you? In spite of everything.’

Silence. He opened the door without a word, his shoulders tense, muscles bunched, as though holding up something heavy. The King was suffering. Why? Was he regretting bringing her to the brink of safety? Was he lying to her about letting her go?

Oh … he doesn’t want to let me go.

To save her, he’d have to risk losing her.

‘You’ll be safe in Form, for now at least,’ he said. ‘They can’t touch you on sacred ground. Here, I want you to take this.’ He took her hand and fastened something around her wrist. It was Connal’s necklace. The coin and a key dangled close together from the cord. The metal jangled as she shook. She’d lost it, her last connection to Connal, and he was giving it back to her. With something of his own added. ‘I cannot say what power it holds now, if any, but you’ll need all the protection you can get,’ Mac said, releasing her hand. ‘You’ll emerge in the cellar of the club. The key unlocks the private elevator to my suite. Wait for me there. Don’t do anything stupid. You leave, you die. Understood?’

‘You’re not coming with me?’

‘Not yet. I’m going to head off Fite and the others, put them off your scent.’

‘What about you?’ Ash sought his eyes. ‘How will you explain my escape?’

‘I can hold my own,’ his mouth quirked a boyish grin, ‘I’m the King, remember. Knutr will be implicated. He’s been playing with the locks for centuries.’ She frowned and he answered her unspoken fear. ‘They won’t punish him. He’s family. You’ll be safe in Form until I come for you.’

Not the whole truth. Once the moon passed, she was as dead as any wolf caught aboveground without the red fog. They both knew it.

Yet he was giving her a chance. Against everything he wanted, against his brothers. He was letting her go.