by Raven, Jess
Ash’s face was written in confusion.
‘The Morrígan, your grandmother, has agreed to offer you protection from the curse. As long as you wear this ring, you’ll be free to live as you choose ... or to return to Fomor, if that’s what you want.’
‘She’s not coming back to Fomor!’ Fite’s snarl jolted them back to the realisation that they were not in their own world. They actually shared it with a bunch of injured and dead wolves. The silver-haired warrior was struggling against Mac.
The King cocked his arm back and landed a punch on Fite’s jaw. The crack rang painfully loud around the room. ‘Not. Your. Decision,’ Mac said.
Fite glowered, rigid and unwavering. ‘Finish it then, my Lord.’
Ash could see Mac gearing up to hit him again.
Channelling a rumble of her beast’s authority, she ordered them. ‘Stop. Please stop.’ She made herself meet Fite’s glare, directing some of her words to him. ‘It’s ok. I won’t go back. I’ll stay. I want to stay here.’
Mac’s face shuttered, but he wasn’t quick enough to hide the injury her words had caused. If she hadn’t been focussed on him, she wouldn’t have seen the pain. Something in her chest clenched and she had to shake herself. His face was blank as he backed off Fite, mechanical where there had been emotion, he lowered his fist.
Ash was feeling too much to arrange a facade; every thought was on her face. She looked back to Connal, her soul crawling into her eyes. ‘What about you? Are you safe?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. His fingers touched the chain stretched tight around his thick neck, delicate and ... hers! The pendant was hers. But why was he wearing it? Ash’s hand subconsciously stroked the coin dangling from her wrist. He was grim and surly and he wouldn’t look her in the eye, but he’d given her a ring and he was wearing her necklace. Her heart did a backflip, and she steeled her spine. She couldn’t dare to hope.
LOCKED IN, SHUT OUT
Bruised and aching from the fight, the wolves traipsed single file through the vault door into Connal’s home in the basement of the DeMorgan house. A low whistle of appreciation came from the back of the line as they took in the high ceilings and old-world industrial feel of the space. If anyone had told him just days ago he'd be holding open-house to this shower of bastards, Connal would have had them measured for a hug-me jacket and a padded cell up at the funny farm.
My enemy’s enemy is my friend, he told himself.
Dublin's streets were heaving with the army of thralls that descended on Form every full moon. Much as it galled him, Connal had to acknowledge that sending a pack of half-naked, bleeding wolves out into the fray would be lunacy. The thegn evacuation MacTire was arranging via cell-phone couldn’t come fast enough.
They were quite the band of merry men, shirtless and barefoot in their borrowed jeans, Ash clutching the dusty tapestry around her breasts like a sarong. Fite, Tyr and the other rebels were herded into Connal’s wolf-cage at gun-point. The silver-haired warrior with the Fu Manchu mustache sneered at him through the bars as Connal secured the lock. Fite’s reluctant submission remained conditional on Ash not returning with them to Fomor after the full moon. Connal grunted a laugh. If only the guy knew what he was asking.
The Morrígan had granted Connal a stay of just one lunar cycle in which to complete the deed. After that, all bets were off.
He exhaled, eyes straying to the crossbow that the straggly-haired one, Knutr, was laying down on the kitchen table alongside the other weapons. He hadn’t had to ask them to disarm on entering his home, they’d done it out of respect. Connal strode over to the table and his hand brushed the weapons, hovering over Mac’s handgun. So many ways to end a life. Ash's voice filtered into hearing-range and he tuned into the conversation.
‘What will you do to them?’ she asked.
‘A night in the lock-up should cool their mutinous asses.’ MacTire looked so relaxed in her company, and she in his, when she didn’t know Connal was watching.
‘But the full moon ends at dawn,’ she frowned, ‘they’ll die.’
The sleazy bastard leaned in close to Ash’s ear and whispered. ‘I have every intention of releasing them before then, not that they need to know that. Nothing like a brush with your own mortality to crystallize your priorities.’
Connal stared daggers at their backs as MacTire tucked a stray lock of hair behind Ash’s ear, his thoughts running to strangling the son of a bitch with his own blond ponytail. How about that for a brush with mortality, asshole?
‘That’s twice you’ve saved my life, Mac,’ Ash said, ‘I hope one day to return the favour.’
‘I watched you fight, you know,’ MacTire replied, ‘you were incredible.’
The smile she gifted him had a growl bubbling up in Connal’s throat. Like he needed more ammunition, he could kill him just for having seen her naked.
She was sleeping in his bed, the devil stage-whispered in his mind.
‘Will you be safe?’ Ash asked. ‘Going back there?’
‘Do not concern yourself with my safety, Ashling. I’ve been wrangling these unruly beasts for centuries.’ He grinned, smug. ‘A taste of humble pie will soon deflate their egos.’
Obnoxious, cocky bastard, Connal thought. I’ll ram your humble pie so far up your ass you’ll be picking it out of your teeth for weeks.
Connal turned away, unable to listen to more. Everywhere he turned, the King’s men were lounging, cleaning their wounds and manhandling his stuff. Christ. He'd never get the stench of them out of his furniture.
‘Thank you for letting us into your home.’ Connal turned back to see MacTire striding towards him. ‘It means a lot, given everything ...’ the King stalled, leaving an awkward moment of silence. ‘We will not abuse the hospitality. Will we, men?’ MacTire kicked Brandr’s legs off Connal’s coffee table and walked to the kitchen area to smack the refrigerator door shut on Knutr’s face.
Connal entertained the fantasy of trapping the lot of them inside, shutting the door and just waiting for them all to die. Like a bug bomb for Fomorians. The clean-up would be a killer though. Covering the distance to the fireside bookshelves, he snatched a bottle of twelve-year-old Redbreast from the paws of another wolf. The guy put his hands up and backed away, offering an apologetic smile. Connal glared back and stalked to his bedroom in search of peace. He sat on the bed and necked the bottle, running a hand over his shorn head. The havoc out there wasn’t a patch on the chaotic state of his mind.
‘Are you just going to pretend I don’t exist?’
Connal’s troubled eyes cast up to see Ash standing before him.
‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ he said. Dropping his gaze, he drank deep from the bottle, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
She wasn’t going away.
‘Neither of us is getting any older, you know,’ Ash sighed, ‘and eternity seems a long time to be walking on eggshells.’
Eyes glued to the floor, he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, let alone answer.
‘Am I so repulsive to you?’ she demanded.
Connal felt a sickening tug in his gut. The Morrígan had used those exact words, before she'd forced him ...
‘Is that why you made me cover up? Does the new me disgust you?’ She sounded sad.
‘No. God, Ash,’ fisting what was left of his hair, he dragged his eyes up to hers, ‘I couldn’t stand for them to see you naked. You are beautiful, Ash. The most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on,’ his hands fell limp across his knees ‘and I want to do violent things to any other man who so much as looks at you.'
‘Then why won’t you look at me?’
God, that tremor in her voice was going to break him.
‘I don’t want to admit that you’re better off with him.’
‘I don’t want him.’
'I've seen you with him, out there,' he said.
'Yes. Because he's the only person willing to talk to me. The rest of them want me dead, and you? Ever s
ince the Temple, you look at me like I'm day-old dogshit on the sole of your shoe.'
‘I’m no good for you, Ash. I have no future. I'm damned, and I won't drag you down with me.’
‘You are not damned Connal.' She dropped down and placed her hands on his knees, appealing to his averted gaze. 'You gave your life for me. You came back for me. I don't know what you had to do to get this ring, to buy my freedom, but I know it cost you.'
Her fingertips tentatively touched his hair.
He shook his head slowly. ‘Those things he told you about me. It’s all true. I have blood on my hands, Ash. So much blood. And there will be more.’
‘You blame yourself. I get that, but you did what you had to do.'
He cradled his head in his hands, scrubbing at his skull. 'I didn't have to bargain with the Morrígan. I didn’t have to bite that girl.’
'So you bit her. Know what?’ Ash said.
He turned his bloodshot eyes to her.
‘I cut her to ribbons in a jealous rage. I kissed your brother in a moment of weakness, and I will regret it for eternity. I almost killed that kid, Tyr. And up there in that freaky attic, I wanted to finish the job. Somehow, I attracted those freaking bird creatures to the contests and they decimated the wolves, ripped their heads off and ate them alive. Hardly surprising they all want me dead, is it?'
Holy shit. His lids flared. 'I didn't know.'
'I didn't intend it, but that shit happened. I bit you. I coerced you into biting me against your will and it damn near killed the only man I've ever loved. So if you're a monster, what the hell does that make me, Connal?’ With a hitch in her voice, Ash got back to her feet.
‘Are you going to say you don't love me because of the bad things I've done? Tell me. Say it to my face that you don't love me anymore, and I'll walk away.'
Connal looked up to meet the strength burning in her sapphire eyes. He swallowed on a dry throat, aware of each breath that marked the silence when he didn’t answer. After an eternity, his gaze dropped back to the ground, jaw clenched.
'You can't, can you?’ she murmured. ‘Because you do still love me.’
His head snapped back up.
‘You don't get to choose who you love, Big Bad. You can tell me all the awful things you've done in graphic, filthy detail, and it won't change the way I feel about you. Not one iota. You were dragged into this, so was I. You didn’t ask for it. You did what you had to do to survive. There is a wildness in you. I understand that now, because ever since you bit me, I’ve been just a howl and a hairsbreadth from giving in to it myself.’
Ash took a deep breath.
‘So here’s the thing,’ she said. ‘You don't get the luxury of stonewalling me this time, you stubborn, self-sacrificing pain in the ass. I’m prepared to wipe the slate. We’ve both done things we’re not proud of, but we only lose when we stop trying. So get up and try ... just ...'
‘Shut up.’ Connal was on his feet and towering over her.
‘What did you say to me?’
‘You heard me. I said. Shut. Up.’
‘Make me, Big Bad.’
And the Gods help him, but he did.
MAKE ME
Connal took possession of her mouth and kissed her with the kind of raw desperation she could feel from the curl of her toes to the depths of her soul. He was animal and vulnerable all at once, rough hands framing her jaw and knotting in the fall of her hair, angling her mouth for the fever of his kiss. His tongue invaded the parting of her lips, wet-velvet intimacy stroking inside and reaching deep to tug at the core of her.
She was drowning in sensation, with no desire whatsoever to come up for air. Palming the nape of his neck, her fingers twisted into the short spikes of his hair, tugging and clawing at his scalp, dragging him deeper. When she sucked his lower lip between her teeth, he groaned and the sound made her clench, low in her belly. God, compared with this, Mac had felt like kissing her granny. Dizzy and needy, she went up on her toes to reach for him and the makeshift sarong slipped from her breasts.
Their tongues tangled in open-mouthed passion as she scaled his hard body, her weight carrying them over until his back hit the bed and she was mounted across his hips. His rough hands rode the curve of her spine to shape the naked rounds of her ass, grinding her down the thick length of his arousal. She needed him naked, skin on skin, buried deep and easing the furious ache inside her. His hips bucked between her thighs and she reached blindly between them, fingers grappling with the fly of the over-tight jeans. Her hair whipped across her shoulders as she tore herself from his mouth.
Their gazes locked and Connal’s expression was wild with the same lust that burned in hers. Coming full-circle, they were back to the beginning, to the very first time he'd intruded on her life. Electricity still crackled violently between them, only this time the intensity was fueled by love and not adrenaline. Not a frying pan in sight.
He lay there, watching her, straining with desire as her eyes scrolled down his naked chest. Running her hands over sculpted muscle and the wolf-brand in his skin, she mourned the loss of his metal, his flat nipples scarred where the rings has been ripped from his flesh. So many bruises, so much pain. Her heart squeezed in her chest. Close up, the scratches and bites around his throat and ribs bore an unmistakably female signature. Had he gone to a thrall, after she’d hurt him? Ash supposed she’d lost the right to ask.
No. The slate was wiped, she had her man back in her arms and she was going to love him so long and hard that any trace of another would be obliterated. She was wolf and she was going to mark her mate.
She hooked her lower lip between her teeth and her hands moved lower, stroking the hard ridge of his cock. He was shaped in glorious anatomical detail by denim so tight, it must surely be painful.
She could take care of that.
Popping the button, she drew the zipper slowly down over the tensed fabric. He moaned and her growl was all animal satisfaction at the reveal. Even more impressive in the flesh, the rigid girth of him pulsed in the stroke of her palm. His hips canted up off the mattress and she peeled the jeans down his hard thighs. Her hands pushed at his knees, making room for herself in between, nipping the sensitive inner skin.
Pleasure thrummed in her throat, she couldn’t help it. Ash was luxuriating in the intimacy, branding him with kisses and the threat of sharpened canines. Chancing a look from under her lashes, she saw Connal’s face, taut with bliss and restraint, his hands clawed into the sheets. He looked a kiss away from breaking and she had barely touched him. She wanted him to come undone for her. Mine!
Her mouth was merciful. She flicked her tongue out and watched him shudder. Tremors ran through his muscles, clenched his abs and rolled his hips in a silent plea. Torture, and not just for him. He smelled divine; musky and raw and aroused, an aphrodisiac she couldn’t resist. Her flattened tongue curled over the blunt head of his erection, sleek and warm, encompassing him in the gentle suction of her mouth. When he pushed for deeper, she slowed, punishing him with a low laugh and a playful graze of teeth. Rolling just the tip of him between her lips, Ash locked their gazes. His eyes had long bled from polished steel to blood crimson, setting her heart thundering. He needed more and Ash was brutal in her obedience. She waited for the pleading kick of his hips before she growled low and swallowed him. Thick inches stretched her lips around his girth, and she hollowed her cheeks in a harsh draw on his iron flesh that had him bucking into her mouth. His groans stoked fires under her skin and she was moaning with him, her lips sealed in a stretched kiss at his base.
Connal bowed up, all straining muscle. Ash revelled in the sight and taste of him as he took her mouth in a slow-rising tempo. No longer the frightened mouse, afraid of her own shadow, Ash was a lion-tamer, and she had her beast on a short leash and panting. For her. She was embarrassingly wet, arousal throbbing at her core as she took him into the constriction of her throat. He was stunning in his surrender, stomach muscles tense-relaxing a rhythmic dance with the rough beat
of his hips. It drove her crazy, made her heart soar.
His snarls, hoarse and hungry, ignited her soul, lit her up, inside and out with animal possession. Connal was hers, those sounds were for her.
‘Fuck, I need to come inside you, Ash,’ his voice sounded wrecked. The please went unsaid, but his hands were in her hair and his body was arched, begging.
Her satisfied laugh hummed on the head of his cock and then she was releasing him with a parting kiss to his pulsing erection.
He hauled her up his body, twisting them in one ragged motion so she was breathless beneath him. Despite his urgency, he was careful with her.
She was going to change that.
Ash scratched at his nape, grasping at his short hair. She fed on his mouth, deep, bruising, biting her lust at his lips. Hips winding, she was needy and hot with his weight pressing down on her, the heavy shaft of his tongue-slick cock riding the cleft of her sex. She jolted when he glided over her sensitive bud. Connal’s large hand spanned her stomach, holding her down ... he did it again and her hips jumped, a whimper falling into the air. The bastard was actually teasing her, now?
‘You know, if you want to come inside me, you have to be inside me ...’ She was beyond frustrated and painfully turned-on.
His strokes quickened, his thumb pressed to the tiny bundle of sensation and when she was a snarl away from pulling rank and commanding him, they collided. Connal was tormenting her one stroke and slamming inside her the next.
He stilled, his weight settled between her thighs. Nose to nose, chests heaving, his breath warm on her lips, they looked into each other’s eyes and she felt it deep. His hips kicked, kissing that depth.
‘I love you Ashling DeMorgan. I have never stopped loving you. Whatever comes to pass. Never doubt that, never forget.’
