by Raven, Jess
Fighting for calm, she took up the brush Mac had brought her. Wide and new, it was a welcome gift when her hair had started snarling more than her host.
Her strokes were rhythmic, from root to tip, combing out the tangles. It was a weakness of hers, one of the few happy memories she retained of time spent with her mother. Instantly soothing, her head fell back of its own accord and she fought the urge to purr.
Something stirred in her peripheral vision. Warily, Ash’s eyes caught on MacTire’s movements in the mirror as he stepped confidently into the room. The brush paused, mid-stroke.
‘There isn’t much time,’ Mac said, ‘my men are assembled for the Contests.’
A purr came from his throat, not hers, the brush dropped from her hair to be replaced by his hands. ‘They grow impatient for their audience with you.’
He filled his palms with the wealth of her dark hair, following the sleek cascade down the curve of her spine to shape the rounds of her ass. ‘I will make them wait a few minutes more,’ he growled.
She was on the other side of the room in an angry lash of movement.
Ash’s face heated with flustered indignation as she warded him off. ‘Don’t go getting hearts in your eyes, Wolf-Boy. What happened between us back in the temple was nothing.’
He pursued her across the room. ‘That was not nothing.’
Defiance kicked her chin up, made her brandish the red paddle brush more firmly. She set her face into its cold mask. ‘Less than nothing. About as satisfying as a good sneeze. I should have known all that pumped-up muscle was compensating for something.’ Her eyes dipped to where his lower half was encased in studded brown leather, and she quirked him a pointed look. Her lips curled in a smirk as his expression clouded and his stance shifted. Displayed to his full advantage, the King really was ripped, but his arrogance, and the creepy dead wolf draping his broad shoulders, evoked disgust more than feminine appreciation.
‘You lie.’ Mac’s jaw twitched.
‘Did I touch a nerve, Mac? Wounded your little boy ego? You can’t even compete with your brother. And he’s dead.’ Steel laced the last word, fortified by her ire.
Mac’s jaw hinged open in a gape.
‘Nobody has ever said no to you, have they?’ she said. ‘You think it’s your God-given birthright to be handed everything you want on a platter. You’re nothing but a spoiled, over-privileged brat.’
She jerked something from the pocket fold of her dress and his eyes followed the motion. Rebelliously, she fastened the cord around her neck, the coin nestling at the base of her throat.
The dare was all in her eyes: Come on, take it from me.
‘Connal was never ruined,’ she told him. ‘His adversity made him stronger, a real man, and that scared the ever living crap out of you guys, didn’t it? That’s the real reason you killed him. Get this into your thick skull, Mac. I. Don’t. Want. You.’
Mac ran a hand down his bristled jaw and the handsome bastard had the nerve to look smug. ‘I think the lady doth protest too much,’ he laughed.
Her hands flew up, grabbing the air in front of him like she was going to wring his neck. ‘Oh my God! Your arrogance never fails to astound me,’ she hissed.
The frozen snarl of his wolf-scarf mashed into her chest a second before Mac’s lips descended on hers in a vicious kiss, possession bruising her mouth as she was hauled up against the wall of his muscle. He rode the iron rope of his erection to her belly and heat bloomed at the apex of her thighs.
Son of a bitch. Every time.
Apparently hate wasn’t enough to curb her body’s responsiveness to his lust. She tore from his mouth, her whole body turning from him. ‘I hate you, you bastard. I hate you for the cowardly way you murdered your own brother, I hate that I’m stuck here in the Mines of fucking Moria, and I hate this godforsaken blood tether that turns my own body into a traitor to my own will. I want rid of it.’
His voice was level as a stone skimming still water. ‘I think you’ll find it’s too late for that,’ he said.
Alarm threatened to shake her voice but she stilled it, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth. ‘I don’t understand, what do you mean?’
‘The exchange of eitr is the very essence of intimacy. When you bit me,’ his hand brushed the marks on his throat, tenderly, ‘you bonded us more deeply than any blood-link.’
Fear had a tenacious hold on her, and it poured from her in a rage. She stalked up to him and jabbed her finger to his chest. ‘No! I was defending myself from you. Your wolf attacked me.’
‘Delude yourself, if you will, Ashling, but that was no defensive bite. That was a deep-penetrating rush of hundred-percent-proof, high-octane lust. And you know it.’
She was resolutely denying it, but his satisfaction and conviction had her faltering.
'The proof is written in your flesh, Ashling.' His fingers cuffed her wrist and he dragged her palm up in the space between them, tapping a second crescent scarred boldly beside the first. In the light, the two marks made a full circle and she looked away. 'You completed this. Not I,' he said.
Ash was the one now rendered speechless.
He took advantage of her bristling silence to stroke her hair back over her shoulder.‘Did you know a wolf’s sensitivity to smell is a hundred times that of a human?’ His nose ran along her throat, lips a whisper to her jugular. ‘Even now, in your anger, you smell of sex. My eitr is leaching from your pores, more potent than any pheromone.'
Slapping her palms flat to his chest, Ash heaved him away from her with a furious snarl, biting back with words as her teeth sharpened. 'Then your sense of smell is out of whack, Big Mac. My perfume is pure eau de homicide. I don't want you. Deal with it.' An electric storm brewed between them, sparking them off one another like a pair of live wires. The atmosphere crackled with expectation. Violent, rousing, intense.
He flashed his canines in a smirk and hauled her back into his body, his fingers roughly delving between her legs. Ash caught on too late, clamped her thighs together, but his fingers were already sweeping through the evidence. She was dripping arousal like molten honey. Mac’s growl was dark and ferine in her ear.
‘Get yourself under control, Ashling. My people have waited long enough to see you. We will finish this later.’
ESCAPE
‘Don’t they ever leave?’
Connal sat crouched at the narrow mouth of the cave. He’d been studying the behaviour of the sinister creatures for some time now. Unmoving, they stationed themselves like gargoyles around the surrounding peaks. He plucked a stone from the dirt and pitched it at the nearest bird. The projectile struck home, just below the eye, but instead of scattering, the thing merely swiveled its neck, head cocking to one side until Connal was reflected in its glassy eye. A silent threat.
‘Nope.’ Madden sat back in the shadows, working what remained of his robe into makeshift clothing for two. He’d picked out threads and was using them to stitch the long pieces of red silk together.
‘How’d you even make it past those things in the first place?’ Connal asked.
Madden stood, winding a strip of fabric around his hips. ‘They only arrived after we did.’ He cursed at the improvised loincloth.
‘Not your usual slick tailoring, Doc?’ Connal laughed.
Madden ignored him. ‘Normally, they nest higher up, in the clifftops,’ he said, ‘we must have drawn them down.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Huh?’ Madden hunkered down beside Connal to peer out at the craggy vista.
‘It’s not us they’re watching. Look.’ The scene spoke for itself. Every one of the creatures had its sights trained, not on them, but on the habitations down in the valley.
The doctor frowned. ‘I’ve never known them to behave this way. Something must be attracting them.’
‘You think it’s Ash? You think they sense her presence?’
Madden turned to meet Connal’s questioning expression. ‘She is the Morrígan’s granddaug
hter,’ he said, ‘and the raveners are DeMorgan’s miscreations. Whatever the reason, we’re still effectively under siege. We’ve no choice but to wait it out.’
‘You ever see somebody take one of those things down?’ Connal asked.
‘A ravener?’ Madden’s brows lifted, ‘No. Not without a weapon. Those demon-varmints will rip the head off a wolf’s shoulders and spit it back out without even blinking.’ A bundle of fabric landed in Connal’s lap. ‘Here, put this on, would you?’
‘So modest, Thegn.’ Connal laughed, dragging himself up to try the scrap of material on for size. ‘And here I was, hoping the full frontal might scare the bastards away.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Wolf. It’s not that intimidating.’
Connal cut the doctor a sidelong glare, but a raspy laugh escaped his throat. ‘You know, I’m almost starting to like you, you arrogant son of a bitch.’ Hands on hips, he modelled the ragged silk sarong. ‘Not bad, Doc. Not bad at all. Can you cook too? You’ll make a fine little homemaker one day.’
Madden narrowed his eyes on the male. ‘Quit yanking my chain, Wolfman, and find us a way out of here. Full moon is two nights away, and unless we make it to a conduit by then, you’re looking at another whole month of my favourite, finger-licking fleshworm recipes.’
Connal’s face scrunched in disgust and Madden cracked an evil grin.
‘Hold up,’ Connal raised a hand,‘the raptors are carnivorous, right? What if we used the fleshworms as bait? Think we could lure them from their perches long enough to make a run for it?’
Madden blew out a breath. ‘Damn. I dunno. Maybe. They’re carrion eaters. It’d be risky, though, a real Hail Mary manoeuvre.’ He scrubbed a palm over the nape of his neck, espresso-coloured eyes gleaming in the half-light. ‘You’re insane. You do know that? It’d take a lot of bait ...’
Connal grinned. ‘Where’s the nearest conduit to the surface?’ he asked. The Doc was starting to buy into this hair-brained escape plan, and Connal was determined to run with it before either of them saw sense. ‘How much of a time window do we need?’
Madden’s lips thinned into a grim line. ‘There is a conduit I can guarantee leads straight to Form, but it’s in the Temple of the Thegn Masters.’
Connal arched a brow. ‘Let me guess, Doc. This temple of yours is down there,’ he stabbed a finger towards the labyrinth of firelit caves at the base of the valley, ‘right in the heart of the wolves’ den.’
‘Affirmative,’ Madden exhaled, aligning himself beside Connal to stare down at their seemingly impossible destination.
‘We do have one advantage.’ Madden spoke with the calm reassurance mastered by medics the world over. ‘Assuming the Contests go ahead, MacTire and every male down there will be distracted for hours. If we can get past the raveners, we should be able to slip in unnoticed. I know every passage like the back of my hand, and as a thegn, I have unrestricted access to the Temple. I’m assuming you can take care of any chance encounters.’
‘When?’ Eyes laser-focussed on the settlement, Connal’s question was steeled with determination. Ash was down there, somewhere in the patchwork of lights dotting the darkness, suffering humiliations and tortures only the Gods knew. And it was all his doing.
‘The contests should be held tonight, some time in the next few hours.’ Madden pointed to a dark crater on the horizon. ‘The arena will be lit. That’s how we’ll know it’s time.’
‘Tonight.’ Connal rested his forehead to the cold stone, arms braced above his head. ‘Do you know where they’ll be keeping Ash?’
‘They’d want her on display, at the Contests,’ Madden said warily.
‘What?’ Connal growled. ‘Then how the hell am I supposed to get her out?’
Madden paused, clearing his throat. ‘You could challenge MacTire.’ He held up his hands at Connal’s glower. ‘It is your blooded right, and the perfect arena for it. The pack would be forced to accept your authority.’
‘If I didn’t know better, Doc, I’d say you planned on getting me down there all along. Get it into your thick skull, Thegn. I’m not your champion, and I want nothing to do with this cesspit, beyond getting her out of it.’
‘Do you have a choice?’ Madden countered.
Connal gritted his teeth. ‘I can't leave without her.’
‘What if you don’t find the Morrígan in time? What if she denies you, Savage? What then?’
‘She won’t deny me. She can’t.’ Connal refused to entertain the possibility. How could he explain that watching Ash dying once had broken something in him?
‘Will you just lay down and die?’ Madden asked, ‘Or will you come back and fight for your life? And for hers? You have a birthright ...’
‘There will be no challenge, Thegn. If … when we make it back to Dublin, we go our separate ways. End of.’
The doctor didn’t know it, but he was backing a lame horse. Connal was in no condition to fight MacTire, even if he wanted to. No, this could only happen one way. He’d bargain with everything he had to get her out of there alive. DeMorgan loved to fucking bargain. No doubt her price would be unpalatable, but he was prepared to pay it.
His bite had doomed Ash. He’d handed her into the arms of his own psychopath brother. Eyes screwed tight, Connal sucked in a ragged breath. What if MacTire had touched her, or … fuck... hurt her? Anger and frustration simmered beneath the surface of his calm exterior. He wanted to believe he was a different man to the one whose vengeance had once decimated an entire race, but the way he felt about Ash DeMorgan made him wild, and reckless.
‘Connal?’
‘Yeah,’ he cleared his throat, ‘lets get to work. We’re going to need a lot of flesh worms.’
CONTESTS
The arena wasn’t the one she’d been expecting. She’d anticipated being down with the untame again. Instead, she found herself in a large, open-air crater. The moonless sky shimmered down, a shade of dark-red differentiated against the black shadows. Flames crackled in pits indented in the ground, delineating a circumference of rock big enough to park a double-decker bus. It was nature’s Colosseum, and she was to bear witness to the Contests.
‘Try to relax. They sense your tension.’ Mac’s palm was warm at the small of her back as he ushered her towards the far wall. Every eye in the place locked in on her. Ash cringed into the King, but he sidestepped her attempts to hide. Spotlighted and vulnerable, she cranked her chin up and walked with an imperious air she stole from the male at her side, her fear firmly quashed into her little toe. Wouldn’t do to reveal the true depths of her terror in front of this crowd.
You are stronger than you know, she repeated, over and over. It had become a mantra.
They’re fascinated, she told herself, they don’t want to eat you, they want to fuck you. Break you.
Be unbreakable.
Easier said than done, when the foundations of her soul were quaking. Her nightmares were here in their hundreds. She let Mac direct her around the outskirts of the arena, passing the tiered benches cut into the walls, until they reached a larger rock formation where Mac had carved himself a fancy throne.
Of course he did, she laughed internally. A bench would never do for the Royal Ass.
Her gaze fell to the start of a similar structure beside his. Someone had begun to chisel another seat. Oh hell no.
‘Would you prefer to sit in my lap, Ashling?’ His question startled her. Had she spoken out loud? Mac was seated and patting his knee with that egotistical smile on his face, the one that made her want to smack it off. She thought better of it when she looked back out to the expectant wolves.
‘No, this is good. I’ve got my own chair.’ Smiling sweetly, Ash folded herself cross-legged into the nook, arranging the delicate blue material of her dress to cover her legs. One thing she had to give him, the clothes he gave her were beautiful. Mac watched her with fire in his black eyes as she readjusted a braided strap and brought the heavy fall of her hair over one shoulder. She was fidgetin
g under his stare, nervously waiting for the proceedings to start. In the corner of her eye, she caught Mac motioning for the wolves to line up before the throne. Before her.
They were powerful specimens, the bodies they’d snatched those of ancient warriors. Well duh, they were Viking brutes, Ash thought. Clothed in nothing but strips of leather below the waist, the men were imposing in more senses than one. Ash flushed when she caught Fite’s glare from amongst the pack, his skin paler than the rest, standing out. She took to searching out the ones she recognised, while Mac called orders in grunting syllables. The language wasn’t familiar to her, but it didn’t take a translator to know he’d commanded them to kneel; falling to one knee, they sent howls to the open sky. The sound was so strange coming from the throats of men, like a kitten barking, the visual didn’t fit the audio.
Mac leaned into her and the wolves rose, pairing off. ‘Battle and competition are in our blood, Ashling. The tradition of the Contests goes back to ancient times.’
Mac had her attention but her eyes stayed on the men in the arena. Brandr stopped before her and swept down in a lavish bow. He was rewarded with a crinkle of her nose and sauntered off, laughing.
‘In the days before the Great War, the Contests were more a spectator sport, the untame, pitted against men, slaves mostly.’
‘That’s barbaric.’ Ash felt sickened. Connal’s father had put him in the fighting pits, hoping to purge his human weakness. She couldn’t bear to think of him being used as the entertainment in their sick, dog-baiting spectacle. She looked up at the King, hiding the emotion in her gaze with a sweep of her lashes. ‘What about now?’ she asked. These certainly weren’t men waiting to die, the energy in the room was downright enthusiastic.
‘The Contests were reinstated to decide who gets to spend time aboveground, during full moon.’
