Becoming Red (The Becoming Novels)

by Paula Black

  ‘That’s right, gorgeous, pro-tected status. Lay a hand on me and it’s bye bye surface privileges for you. No more balling all that willing and nubile Thrall ass.’ He managed to wink at the creature, pleased his motor functions were finally starting to return.

  The Fomorians, in this primitive form, were a race of few words, but actions spoke louder. The blades retracted from Madden’s face and after a bit of sand kicking, powerful claws hooked into his armpits. He found himself being dragged across the sands, heels cutting deep furrows in the crumbly graveyard of bone dust. Grunted protests filled his ears as the pace picked up in response to the increasing urgency of the shrill cries echoing around the rocky cliff-tops. The Raveners were hungry and the need to reach shelter was one Madden shared with his surly litter bearers.

  The doors flung open, and Madden’s groggy eyes followed suit, to be greeted by the distinctive silhouette of MacTire darkening his doorway. Madden let loose an exaggerated groan, attempting to hinge stiff limbs up off the rock mattress.

  ‘Haven’t you heard of Memory Foam down here in the ghetto?’ This bed the Vargs had dumped him on to recover from the paralysis was little more than a rock ledge, badly hewn from the indigenous stone.

  ‘Robbie, my boy.’ The low, gravelly register of MacTire’s voice resonated around the small quarters. Giant fisted knuckles rapped down hard on Madden’s skull, and like a kicked vending machine spewing coins, he spat out a low string of profanities, quite possibly a few teeth too. Laughter ricocheted off the rough hewn walls. Fucking A, Madden thought. The only thing worse than MacTire in a bad mood? MacTire in a fit of the jolly back-slapping happies. That slippery, superficial charm was a thin skin barely concealing the psychopath beneath.

  ‘Get some clothes on, you look like Robinson bloody Crusoe.’

  Madden scowled, eyeing the wolf carcass MacTire had slung about his shoulders, complete with paws and rabid teeth fixed in death-mask perma-snarl.

  ‘Given roadkill stoles went out with Adolph Hitler, you are in no position to be doling out sartorial advice to me.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bedding platform and began stripping out of the remnants of his bespoke tailored pants.

  ‘You owe me another suit.’

  Madden was treading a fine line, but he was under no illusions. MacTire allowed him to take liberties solely because he was of use to him, enduring his insolence only for as long as it amused. Regardless of appearances, MacTire was the King of this godforsaken realm and Madden would never rise above runt status in any of the Vargs’ eyes. It didn’t matter that Madden’s family had been high-born, or that his sister, Aoife, had been the King’s consort. Once he’d hit maturity, not even the Queen could disguise his inability to shift form. Their dirty family secret was exposed, and Madden was destined for sacred orders. In spite of their ceremonial pomp and trappings of importance, the Thegn were nothing more than genetic flotsam, left overs from an ancient experiment in sink or swim survival. Too human to ever be accepted as equals, his kind were tolerated as servants, provided they towed the line and swore to the monk-like celibacy that ensured their corrupt bloodlines were severed. If the King demanded a show of submission, Madden would be reduced to putting his lips to the male's nipples, like any other runt Thegn in his service. But subservience was not in Rob Madden’s nature. For him, it was a means to an end, just as he hoped this girl could be the means to releasing him from his infernal vows.

  Unselfconscious, Madden strode naked across the room, shrugged into the dark red robe suspended from a hook on the wall, knotted the sash low on his hips, then retraced his path to retrieve the vials of blood from his ravaged suit, burying them deep in the pockets of the robe. Behind him, MacTire had gone uncharacteristically quiet. When he turned back to face the doorway, the expression on the King’s face had changed, already dark eyes now black as pitch beneath heavy lids. His lips were parted slightly and his breathing had deepened. It made Madden uncomfortable. It made him feel like prey. Rumour had it MacTire’s sexual preferences ran to the extreme. He cleared his throat loudly and the tension snapped.

  ‘You have something for me, Robbie?’ MacTire’s ridiculously handsome mouth curled in a wolfish grin.

  Yes, and it absofuckinglutely does not involve a mutual show and tell of our penises, big boy .

  ‘Come with me,’ the King growled. ‘The others will want to watch this.’ Madden coughed, shuffling the vials in his pocket and following after MacTire as he strode off down the warren of passageways carved out of the rock. The breadth of the walls and ceiling height were more than adequate for any average man, but the King’s frame dwarfed the tunnels. Coarse blond hair hung down his back in a twisted braid that grazed the small of his exposed back. He was built like an Olympic swimmer, massive shoulders triangulating down to narrow hips that barely kept the low-slung waistband of his leather trousers decent. Arrogant bastard preferred to go shirtless, with only gold bracelets adorning the bulk of his upper arms. And there was the road-kill cravat. You had to hand it to MacTire, he was a prime specimen, with real presence. If you rolled that way. Which Madden didn’t. No Sir.

  They stopped at a set of carved iron doors that were unfamiliar. The King punched through with a dramatic flourish, the glint of gold pierced through his nipples catching light like small beacons of royalty. The rings worn by none but the most pure of blood caught the flame light with every move as he opened the doors out onto a scene that loosened Madden’s jaw and struck him uncharacteristically dumb. Naked, save a vertiginous pair of red-soled spike heels and the chain collar circling her neck, the human female on her hands and knees was prowling, her back arching with a grace that was almost feline. A purr vibrated in her open throat as she licked and sucked at the male’s balls and worshipped the underside of his weighty erection. The clawing of her black, half-mooned nails into the tensed muscle of his powerful thighs did nothing to detract from the kitty cat impression. Madden’s eyes ran a slow scroll up from the thrusting mouth to pelvis action to make contact with a familiar set of dark brown eyes. Brandr. One of MacTire's elite Vanguard. With a temper on a short tripwire, hundred-proof testosterone for blood and a homicidal glower, Madden had always pegged the hairy bastard as the hothead of the sextet that formed the King's trusted, inner circle. No, they were no longer six, he mentally corrected himself. Brandr's eyes lit up in recognition, his mouth pulling into a grotesque grin, exposing huge fangs that glistened with the blueish, opalescent liquid Madden recognised as eitr. The Varg’s hips didn't miss a thigh-slapping beat as he ground his cock down the throat of the whimpering brunette kneeling before him, fisting handfuls of her silky hair to pump her swollen red lips down to his hilt.

  Madden tugged the robe tighter around him. Extreme preferences ran riot through the Vargs, and he and MacTire were way overdressed if they were joining this orgiastic feast. He prayed to all that was holy that the King hadn’t brought him here for a practical demonstration.

  'You see how we toil in your absence, Laeknir?'

  Madden arched a brow at MacTire as his laughter ricocheted off the rock walls, addressing him with the pet name of 'healer', reserved for when the King's mood was marginally less than murderous.

  'Nice work, if you can get it,' he muttered, but the words were drowned out by the feral grunting and wet, smacking sounds that heralded the triumphant howls of Brandr's powerful climax. The warrior pulled out of her mouth and cracked his palm across the brunette's buttocks with a hard slap that left the red imprint of his hand on her soft flesh. Her hands fell to her lap in a boneless puddle of female supplication, tear-streaked mascara framing huge doe eyes that looked up to him with an expression of undisguised veneration. ‘Thank you, Master.’ She whimpered, gleaning the remnants of his taste from the corners of her mouth with relish. She ached for him, it was in her every gesture, her hand winding up to stroke the scarred bite mark at her jugular, longing to feel her flesh pierced once more.

  The girl was Thrall, chosen from amongst the countless number
s that flocked to Form every full moon; a living demonstration of how the bite of a Varg could transform a human from sentient, reasoning being to mindless, craving flesh slave, perpetually chasing the elusive sexual rush of the potent salivary secretion, the eitr, released during biting. The humans assumed it was a street drug, one they’d called Rave, and the mind-altering, addictive properties certainly fit the profile. Madden’s presence in the Dublin’s busiest ER was no accident. It suited their purposes to encourage the misconception and deflect attention from the truth of the what was happening in the city’s dark underworld. In reality, it was a simple biological glitch, an inter-species incompatibility discovered entirely by accident. The effects on humans couldn’t have been predicted, but, deprived of any females of their own species, the male Vargs had simply adapted. Humans provided for their sexual needs, if not their procreative ones. And goddamnit, but Red-Shoes, down on her knees, was providing amply. Lucky for the Thrall girl, Brandr was in human form. In their natural, beast physique, there were certain anatomical incompatibilities with human females.

  'Good girl. We’ll finish this later,' Brandr growled in hoarse, thickly accented words. He strode across the room to stand before MacTire and Madden, a statuesque monolith of broad-shouldered, buck-naked, Norse warrior masculinity. Chest expanded like a damn peacock, it seemed to Madden the guy was consciously flaunting the félag wolf symbol emblazoned across his sternum. To the Varg warriors, their individual marks were a brand of fealty, strength, virility. Madden yanked the robe tighter about his body, his lungs suddenly constricted, the symbol fire-branded into his own chest seeming to burn as a familiar shame crept through his veins. Servility, inferiority, celibacy. The symbolism of the two marks could not be more disparate.

  'Welcome.' Brandr extended a hand to the doctor and they locked wrists. Madden resisted the impulse to recoil from the contact. You didn't refuse the accepted extension of Fomor hospitality unless you were looking for a front row seat at the feeding of your own entrails to the Raveners.

  MacTire interjected, the deep, bass tone of his voice resonating around the room. ‘Come, Laeknir, Brandr, away to my quarters. Let us convene the Skuldalid, I would have news from the Overworld.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sit.’ MacTire gestured broadly to the procession of warriors filing into the stone chamber. He sprawled out in the hulking monstrosity of a throne. The Royal seat succeeded in dwarfing even the substantial bulk of the King's frame. His heavy palms stroked the smooth white bone of the Ravener skulls that curved to shape its grotesque armrests. Legend held that the man himself took the winged predators down with his bare hands during the battle that saw the Fomorians decimated and driven beneath the waters to this hell-forsaken prison. The Fomori maintained that the throne was constructed from the skeletal remains of the King's glorious victory. Victory, my arse, Madden thought. The Savage’s army had been both merciless and brutal, every woman and child hunted down and slaughtered, until the waters ran red with their blood, while the males cowered in the caves. More than a thousand years later and their bones had crumbled to grains of sand, a grisly monument to the terrible genocide that saw the surviving males retreating into a troglodyte existence and living in fear of the black-winged shadows that guarded their prison.

  Madden considered the throne's claimed provenance to be so much propagandist bullshit. He had seen what a Ravener could do to a man. The retreat had been chaos and the passage of time had eroded the true history. Not that MacTire was the type to dispel a myth that bigged up his own prowess. And not a soul in this hellhole had the balls to challenge the veracity of the King's legendary battle skills. To do so, they would have to go through his Skuldalid, the inner circle of viciously loyal guards, testosterone enhanced giants, blood sworn to protect their King's life with their own. The word meant family, and Madden supposed it was the closest thing MacTire had had to kin this past millennium. His mate, Madden’s sister Aoife, and her newborn son, had been amongst the first to fall to the Savage.

  Madden stood as the Skuldalid took their seats at the rough hewn, circular table. The Chamber, lit by the shadow-flickering flames of torches mounted in sconces on the walls, functioned as the strategic nerve centre of MacTire's iron rule over Fomor. Brandr, heavy browed, dark and bearded, with the muscle bulk of a pro wrestler, sat at MacTire's right hand. Bare-chested, having hastily commando’d a pair of pants, he was all male. Nothing pretty about him, face rough and masculine, a scowling, growling beast whose wolf showed through with every rapid fire mood change. He was dangerous, unpredictable and more likely to leap to violence than breathe. Leaning boldly back in his seat, his splayed stance mirrored that of the King, eyes dark as bitter espresso, commanding the room to order.

  Rún planted down beside him, a fall of blood red hair concealing much of his face, eyes downcast and warily watchful, a wolf hidden in the forest, unseen and all seeing. He shifted restlessly and then fell into utter stillness. Broad, but more lithely muscled than Brandr, he would be handsome, beautiful even to females, he drew them easily enough, except for one thing, kept hidden from all. Madden could just make out the jagged scars revealed by the neck of his tunic.

  Two seats remained conspicuously empty. Crys had lost his head to the Morrígan's slayer more than a decade ago and in the aftermath, Knutr, Crys’ félag, his brother in arms, had lost his mind and was shackled somewhere in the dungeons beneath the caves for his own safety and that of his kind.

  The remaining two seats were taken up by Tyr, lean and sinewy with muscle. Madden was shocked to see the male as anything other than his wolf as he inclined his head to the King and took his place beside his blood brother, Fite. The two males exchanged the mark of félagi, each pounding a fist to the other's heart. Madden felt his lip curl and had to straighten it into some semblance of a poker face, strained in lines of green envy as his gaze tracked the greeting, the fists landing solidly over the snarling knotwork depiction of their wolf, its front paws reared over their hearts, mirror images of power and status.

  It sickened him, roiling in his gut like bad sushi. He couldn’t look at those marks, on any of them, without it sticking in his craw.

  Faced with the claustrophobic proximity of their massive bulk, all battle-honed brawn and snarled posturing, it was a stark reminder that beneath their human exteriors, there lurked animal minds and instincts. The Fomori were a wild and savage race. Binding themselves to human souls had not lessened their bestial natures, merely clothed them in a disguise that allowed them to walk amongst men, to master them and to use their females as an outlet for the inevitable sexual tension that built up in an all-male, hostile environment. It was to MacTire's credit that he had controlled his people this long that they hadn't simply annihilated each other. Conflict ran in their veins, violence was their oxygen. The King had been shrewd enough to harness their aggression into the monthly hand to hand combats: Contests that determined who won the right to ride the full moon tides to the surface.

  MacTire flicked at a speck of dust on the arm of his throne and settled impatient eyes on Madden. The weight of the King's attention on him pulled his spine rigid. 'Well, speak Thegn. My warriors have women to fuck and blood to spill. What news from the Overworld?'

  Madden swallowed back his resentment, running his tongue behind his lower lip as he measured up the best way to tell what he knew.

  'I'm going to hazard a guess and say you are a wolf down after last night's hunt?'

  'Hors.' It was Tyr who spoke.

  'Excuse me?' Madden was beginning to think he needed to add Tourette's to the long list of antisocial behaviours that defined the Vargs.

  'Hors. Arrogant blond bastard? Did the victory lap after the Contest.' The rest of the Skuldalid nodded in recollection. One or two sneered openly. 'He's M.I.A.'

  Madden merely nodded his acknowledgement and continued.

  'A young woman showed up in my emergency room, freshly clawed, saying she got caught up in the middle of a dogfight on the street.'
<
br />   Brandr's growl cut through the confines of the enclosed space. 'So you're saying DeMorgan's Slayer took out Hors. Son of a mangy bitch!'

  'If Hors broke Haven Law, and was hunting outside of Form, I say that made him fair game.' Tyr, dirty blonde, boyish, almost angelic features that belied a shrewd intelligence. On a dark night, he almost passed as civilised.

  'He knew the risks. He couldn't handle himself in a fight. He deserved to die.' Fite would say that. He could more than handle himself and was underestimated by many. Silver haired with hazel green eyes, he looked the gentlemen, distinguished and elegant. All clean cut lines of muscle and a moustache that bordered on porn-star styled, he was vicious. The snake you never saw coming until it had you dead on the floor from a single strike.

  'Fuck Haven Law!' Brandr interjected on a growl. 'It is the law only of our enemy. If we allow DeMorgan to pick us off, one by one, we are extinct, just as sure as if she'd finished the job when she murdered our womenfolk.'

  'What difference? We are as good as dead already, entombed in this hell on earth.'

  'Speak for yourself, man. For as long as we stand in battle, we are immortal. Alive to bite and screw as many human women as we please. Forever.' Brandr’s smirk as he bragged of the screwing wasn’t lost on Madden.

  'Sterile females, too weak to bear our pups. Do you forget our numbers are finite? The fact remains that every loss brings us a step closer to total extermination.'

  The combat of words was by now in full flow, fists pounding the table, teeth bared, volleying counterattacks spitting back and forth until Madden could scarcely tell the voices apart. MacTire stayed silent above the din, his glacial stare focused solely on Madden throughout the dispute. When he spoke, the deep resonance of his voice immediately silenced the rest of the room.