Becoming Red (The Becoming Novels)

by Paula Black

  ‘What did the fucker do to you?’ It was an angry whisper into her hair as warm arms came under hers, cradling her out of the car, half carrying, half walking her to the door as she pushed at him in annoyance and tried not to need him to lean on.

  ‘No one did anything to me, except you. If I’d known doctors carried their care over into my life when I don’t want it, I never would have gone to the emergency room. Let me go!’ His arms loosened reluctantly, hands splayed to catch her if she fell. Ash fumbled her key into the lock, grateful the small, jangling bundle hadn’t been lost in the middle of the forest, and shoved the door open, the doc’s body crowding her inside, his hands braced on the doorframe as though he was trying to enter headfirst. She was too tired to protest. If he hadn’t killed her in the woods, her exhausted brain figured he wasn’t going to kill her. Not tonight at least.

  ‘You shouldn’t be alone.’

  Ah, so that was why he was sticking around. Protecting her honour. Which had been thoroughly fucked out on the leafy carpet of Dublin’s mountains. She chuckled a little, tossing her keys into the bowl and stretching out a kink in her spine. Her yawn was so wide it made him look blurry, his concern fuzzing as she blinked.

  ‘Come with me. I can tell you most of what you want to know, and I have friends that can tell you more.’

  ‘You have to tell me about him now? Will it be any worse tomorrow?’ As far as she knew, the damage had already been done, he’d taken her and she wasn’t as sure as she had been that it had been all her idea. She sighed, toeing off her boots and kicking them into a corner, flattening to the wall as a bounding growl of long limbs and snarling teeth shot out to ward off any advance into her home the doctor might have made. Ash snickered softly, hooked her fingers into the mutts collar and tugged him off guard duty. But she didn’t invite the doc in. ‘You were a little slow there, weren’t you, pup?’ He backed off, leaning against her thigh and eyeing Madden with a steady threat in his brown gaze. She cast amused eyes up to the doc, wide eyed and pale, tensed as though he were about to bolt and run for his life. ‘This is Setty ... Setanta ... ’ Ash stroked the giant hound’s head lovingly. ‘I named him for the great defender of Ireland. Couldn’t leave the poor guy with a name like Mutt.’ Her grin was a little cheeky and a whole lot laughing. ‘Fitting, huh? Are you ok?’

  ‘For a second, I thought ...’ He’d thought one of the beasts had already found her, that MacTire had sent his people to come and claim her. He wanted the acknowledgement for that alone. At her raised eyebrow and silent question, he shook his head. ‘He knows where you live? Do you really think you’re safe?’ He paused and her brows dropped, teeth chewing at her lower lip. ‘Knowledge is power, and I think you need to be armed. There are a few of us, I believe we could greatly help with your research. If you let us.’

  Ash frowned. Yes, he knew where she lived and Connal popped up whenever and wherever he pleased from her experience and would likely continue to do so. If he really wasn’t safe ... If Connal could make her feel and do ... that ... But ... had Madden just said what she thought he said? ‘How do the others know about them?’ One on one was a little weird, but if there were more people ... one of them had to know something she could use.

  ‘Please. I know a place we can talk. It’s public, safe. There’s a club, Form, I’m a member, and we’ll have privacy enough to converse and I will tell you everything.’ His grin would, under any other circumstance, have had her pretty good and warm, dazzling as it was. He was gorgeous, but her body wanted someone else and his handsome charm was an elephant tromping over all her sex happies. ‘Plus, someone needs to show a pretty girl like you the nightlife. Sans feral dogs.’

  Despite the war between exhaustion and arousal raging inside her, Ash exhaled and nodded. Her curiosity over the man who had taken her body was slowly morphing into unease and this new thread of information was dangling in front of her like a shiny carrot. If he knew half of what he thought he knew, maybe, just maybe, he knew something about who killed her mother. What killed her mother. That insidious need for truth spread within her, clawing dirty fingers through the remnants of her lust.

  ‘Now?’ Her nose crinkled, everything in her aching, half for her bed, the other half for him. Maybe she shouldn’t be alone right now. She’d probably do something stupid like hunt Connal down and beg him to take her again. ‘At least let me shower and change.’ She was pretty sure she looked like she’d just been ravaged. When he only nodded, she waved him towards his car, and left him to his own devices. The man thought to tell her what to do, he could stuff it. Setty stalked her unwanted guest, pacing in front of the door, growling softly as she bounded up the stairs and locked herself into her bedroom with its ensuite.

  Right, Ashling, shower, clothes, out. Don’t even look at the bed. You know if you lay down, you’ll never get back up and we won’t get what Doc knows. Her logical, functioning brain prodded at her as she peeled her sweats from her thighs and unzipped her jacket, spilling fabric to the floor.

  Quicker, quicker. We’re running on sex fumes and curiosity. Neither will fuel us for long. She shed her tank in a wriggle, twisted the shower’s tap to scalding and stepped in, sliding along the tile until her ass hit the floor and she could pull her knees to her chest. It felt so wrong, a betrayal, to be washing his scent from her skin with another man waiting on her downstairs. Her body still throbbed, background feelings that lingered and pulsed with every thought of Connal, slowly tainted with the suspicions that Madden may have been right. That her reactions weren’t natural, but influenced. Ash shook violently. She couldn’t think of the ‘R’ word that rhymed with grape, couldn’t set her mind solely on that idea. It didn’t fuse well with how she felt. How could she be aroused if he’d really done that to her? Limply, Ash drew the washcloth towards her, slipped it between her thighs, scrubbed gently. She could still feel him there, a presence within her. His fingerprints branded her flesh as she stroked the sodden fabric cloth over her skin, her hips coloured in blue florets of bruises, thin scratches and streaks of dirt camouflaging his marks. The backs of her thighs felt slapped raw, tender and hot, his scent rising up with the wildness of the forest as steam shrouded her in heat and the water pounded threads of mud in a swirl down the plughole. Ravaged. Thoroughly and completely fucked. In more ways than the obvious.

  What if the doc was telling the truth, really?

  All her careful calm, her happy bliss, her sex-is-on-fire smoking hot lust, shrivelled into a cold worthy of her ice maiden.

  What if he had some weird serial killer diseases?

  She scrubbed harder, watching through drenched lashes as her skin pinkened to a bright red.

  What if ... Oh God ... What if she was pregnant with a psycho baby?

  Ash couldn’t remember for the life of her if he’d worn protection and she was pretty sure hers had run out.

  The shits in her head streamed out from between her lips, hunched into a protective ball and jumping over her skin with the beat of the hot water. She could feel herself slowly unravelling at her tightly stitched seams. He’d thawed just a little of her and now she was leaking, dripping out her emotional insides as he re-stuffed her with worry and fear and the consequences of a very bad decision.

  It’s done, DeMorgan!! Grab the pieces before they sluice down the drain and patch yourself back up. Knowledge is power. And you need your head to gather all the shit the doc knows. She mentally shrugged into her ice maiden suit, turned the flow of water until it dropped sadly to the tiles and cuddled herself into a towel. We should rename you Sally, Ashling. Falling apart.

  Time meant nothing as she planted her forearm on the wall and breathed, ignoring the feel of her skin, freshly raw, stinging like she’d attacked it with a scouring pad. It could have been hours or mere minutes that allowed her the breaths, the clarity, the cold trickling refreeze of her emotions, to gather herself and pour confusion and fear into something suitable for a club.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  We m
ake a pretty robot, DeMorgan. Suddenly all hard edges despite the curves she’d hidden under a black and red paisley dress. Setty exploded into barking a second before steady knocks rained against the front door.

  ‘I’M COMING!!! Do not rush me, Asshole.’ Muttering curses, Ash jerked the last zipper up on her knee-high boots, tossed the towel to her bed and ran her fingers through drying curls. She’d do. Never really club material, Ash wasn’t in the least bit excited, nor did she know how a bar could be quieter than a Starbucks or a park bench for a conversation, but anything to keep her from being alone right now would be a bonus on this info drop she was ready to pick up. Tramping down the stairs, Ash didn’t even take a second to wipe the annoyance off her face before she swiped the door open, petted Setty as he lapped at her fingers and barged Madden out of the way so she could secure the door.

  ‘You ... look lovely, Miss DeMorgan.’ You look better. Clear eyes, steady breathing, normal colour ... hmmm ... Madden frowned even as his relief swept him up and spat him back out.

  ‘You might as well call me Ash, Doc. I think we’re a little past formality.’ Brushing him out of the way, she was halfway down the path to his car before she realised he already had the engine running. He’d known, the bastard had known she’d come with him.

  The very model of conscientious security, Madden engaged his seatbelt and waited for Ash to follow suit, buying him time to react if she made any sudden move. Reaching up, the pristine cuffs of his formal shirt exposed solid gold links. He adjusted the rear-view mirror discreetly, until it captured her image. He had no concern for what was behind him, didn’t need visual confirmation of what he could already feel. The heavy weight of that observation had settled across his shoulders like a lead cape on the drive down from the mountains. Instincts firing on all cylinders, he knew with bone-deep certainty that they were being watched. He just couldn’t be certain whose eyes were staring out at him from the darkness. Regardless, there would be no fucking up this time. He angled the reflection to her lap, where her fingers fidgeted nervously with the knotted silver band on the middle finger of her right hand. The door locks engaged with a terminal clunk. He turned to offer her a smile that he hoped conveyed reassurance. ‘Just a precaution, Ash.’ Testing the sound of her name in his mouth, he hoped the sheen of sweat that broke across his upper lip was disguised by the dim interior lighting. ‘The club isn’t far, but we pass through some rough neighbourhoods, and this car tends to draw attention.’ The engine revved to life and they fell into an uncomfortable silence. His eyes darted to the glove compartment containing the loaded syringes. No fuck ups. Not this time. He was delivering the goods and then MacTire would have no choice but to release him from his vows.

  Ash was decidedly creeped as he pulled away from her house, a current in the air that raised the hairs on the back of her neck and had her clutching her bag a little tighter than usual. Cop shows said you were safer in the back seat and as she clipped her belt in and listened with heavy dread to the locks clicking down, she prayed to the gods that they were right. The doc had been nothing but gentlemanly, a little overzealous in his care of her, but gentlemanly nonetheless. Yet something wouldn’t let her shake the uneasiness that followed her like a cloud, running its fingers through her self-preservation until she wondered if she should be doubting everything and everyone in this damn city. Connal was hardly a good example of trustworthy and safe, and with every second she spent in the doctor’s presence, Ash couldn’t throw the feeling that he wasn’t either.

  She fidgeted. Played with the fastening of her bag, spun her mother’s silver band around her finger, tugged at the hem of her dress so it covered a little more thigh as she caught his gaze in the mirror and promptly skipped it back to the outside. There would be no looking at him. He looked too nice, less crazy kidnapper and more model. But he felt ... wrong.

  The city swept by in a glimmer of reflections, looking better than it had when she’d first been driven through its dark streets, not wet with rain, but heavy with shadows that ran from the headlights and fled to hide from the glow of a glaring full moon. Ash couldn’t help but feel a little judged under the silver light. There would be no mustering up of conversation, she let the awkwardness grow into an almost corporeal being, an airbag within the car pressing in on them both, wall filler creeping into every available silence and going rock hard with tension. She breathed slow, keeping quiet, refusing to allow the tension to take up space in her lungs and breed panic into her mind. It wouldn’t do for her to freak out without cause. The man was quite probably qualified to have her sectioned.

  When the engine halted its purring and the locks flicked up in her peripheral, the valve was released on their awkwardness and air rushed to dispel the tension, crisp and cool driving in through her opening door and embracing her in a breeze.

  ‘Thanks,’ Ash managed to mutter to the valet as he shut her door behind her and stood off to the side, the doctor handing over the keys and a crisp colourful note before he took to her side with a peacock flourish and an offered hand. It was a facade, feathers to hide the true intention, but she forced her hand into his and let him guide her. Wouldn’t do to get lost in a strange place and the building in front of her was only slightly less strange than the inside of her head. The place everyone seemed to be talking about, the place the posters on the walls couldn’t advertise half well enough, loomed up in front of her in a sleek rise of red and black. FORM was emblazoned in a squiggly knotwork sign that had no beginning and no end, hovering in a pool of inky black and cast in a red glow from a graphic blood moon. When the red rope on a smaller side door was lifted for them, Ash stepped through, entranced by the vivid scarlets, the darker crimsons that slashed claw-marked accents through the otherwise pitch-black decor. It was both a cave and a giant, open space, too closed in and far too vast, playing on her spatial awareness and giving her no choice but to clutch at the doctor’s hand to avoid walking into something or tripping over one of the many grinding bodies dry humping on the dance floor. She nearly flattened into a couple trying to dance-fuck into the marble of a column, saved when Madden pulled her arm, steering her to the relative seated safety of a barstool. She blamed the Red. Normally her friend, it was bombarding her, drawing too many of her senses off balance in a disorienting reel of blood-coloured splashes.

  ‘It does that to some people,’ his voice calmed at her ear, the squeak of the stool beside her unusually loud as he slid onto it, ‘just breathe through it, your eyes will settle.’ It was a drug to her, plain and simple, and she was pretty sure she’d just been on the edge of overdosing on it. This place could not be good. Ash offered him a weak smile in thanks and steeled herself for the onslaught of red as she lifted her lashes and let her gaze roam the club, filled to brimming with too much skin and not enough clothing. Young and dressed to ensnare, grinding around like it was perfectly legal to have public sex on a packed dance floor.

  Madden lifted a finger to the young man behind the bar and Ash took to watching individual people more closely as he wandered over to them. It wasn’t unlike clubs back home, the way the men dressed, except for an unusual number wearing sunglasses. Another trend that hadn’t made it over the water yet, that let people wear shades indoors and think they were cool. Pretentious pricks. Hiding their eyes ‘cause they’re too mysterious and important to dwell with the lower, non-shade wearing life-forms. A scoff made its way up her throat and she trapped it in a cough, swallowing down the edge of hysterical laughter that bubbled up. She was losing it. She’d come here with a -for all intents and purposes- stranger to meet more strangers who may or may not have information on another stranger, who she’d slept with. And she claimed she wasn’t insane. If she survived this, she certainly couldn’t say she was completely right in the head.

  ‘Ash?’ Her head came up and she locked onto his dark brown eyes with a soft raised brow. ‘May I get you a drink?’ The doctor was looking at her strangely and she got the faint impression he’d been saying her name for a while.
The bartender was stock still, his eyes wide and pinned to her face, nostrils flared, every muscle tensed so hard she wondered if he’d shatter if she poked him.

  His attention made her trip over her words. ‘Um, uh, yeah, please, Coke, in a bottle. Glass with ice and a shot of lime cordial. Please.’ And she watched every second as the light green liquid was poured into a shot glass and set in front of her. Ash spoke a soft thank you to the man who still regarded her like she was sporting two heads, tipped the lime cordial over the ice and unscrewed the cap off the Coke to mix it into delicious sweetness. It was routine, her home away from home in a few simple ingredients and she stirred it with the little red and black candy cane twizzler as Madden watched her from the corner of his eye.

  ‘Tell me.’ The words escaped her, wanting to break the silence between them. And the music was pounding louder than ever. His gaze skittered with coffee-brown wariness to regard her full-on, chewing over her words as though he could find an out. ‘No, Doc, you brought me here to tell me. So talk ...’ Ash pressed and she could feel him withdrawing even before he pushed off the barstool and started away from her.

  ‘I’ll get us somewhere quieter.’ And she lost him in the crowds that surged with a new, throbbing dance beat.

  ‘Yeah. Right.’ A tiny part of her hoped he didn’t come back.

  ‘You know the stick isn’t really a candy cane, right?’

  The soft, feminine voice drew her from her intent spying on the back of Madden’s head. She had the feeling he was watching her, even if she couldn’t see his eyes, his body leaning into the burly security guard’s.