by Paula Black
‘Tá brón orm. Maith dom é, mo ghrá.’ He begged her forgiveness and confessed his love in the same breath, the mother tongue faltering on his lips. ‘I love you, Ashling DeMorgan. Never forget, never doubt.’ They were words he never imagined he could say again. All capacity to love withered with his son’s violent death, buried with those tiny bones in the rocky ground. And now, a delicate thing reborn, cut bittersweet pain into his heart. Reluctant fingers slipped from her hand to reach into the back pocket of his jeans ...
Bite to be bitten.
In the midst of the chaos, the revelation shook her harder than the orgasm barrelling over her. It all made sense and slammed into place.
She would do anything to keep him, to stay by his side. Even if it caused him to hate her. Stomach clenching with a brutal thrust, Ash fought to retain sense enough to time her strike. It was their only chance, of her surviving, of him surviving, of stopping the plan he no doubt had in place that could kill them all.
Ash trusted him with her life, less so with his own.
‘Connal ...’ The words were tested on the back of her tongue, given strength by tear-heavy sincerity and emotion. If they didn’t make it, she needed him to know. ‘I love you, my beast. Never, ever forget. Never doubt.’ When she felt the coil twist in her gut and rush fire up the curve of her spine, she yanked viciously on his dreads, dragging his head to the side, and gave over to an instinct to mark that had been humming in her since that first time in the woods.
Her teeth cut into his skin and the high hit him in a chemical rush, a flash fire coursing through his veins, turning the key that unleashed a hurricane. The cuffs fell to the floor, forgotten. Biting her was as instinctive as breathing, a roaring, biological imperative that crashed through him, vanquishing all human reason, mastering his body with its animal potency. His vision bled to crimson, eyes rolled back in his head, lips distorted in a snarl and, like a pit bull with a rag, he fell on her throat, locked his canines deep inside her and came with explosive, mind-blowing force, rent apart on a rack of blissful agony. His bite was tenacious, teeth buried deep in her tender flesh while his cock pulsed in the satin vice of her body, his release surging in hot, rhythmic shudders. So deep inside her, in so many ways, as though their souls had been wired up together and were shorting out on the erotic overload.
Nothing could ever have prepared her for the reaction. His or her own. For as Connal’s teeth sliced razor points through her skin, she bit down, tearing at the flesh of his throat with blunt hunger and sealing them into the vast scream of a rapid-fire, ravenous frenzy of carnal exaltation. Blood hit her tongue and it was the coppery tang laced with a sweetness that shot her through with the taste of his climax. Raw, animal musk and wild sugar sped through her taste buds and swarmed her blood with his, a jerking, slamming attack that took her systems faster than any orgasm. It was ecstasy to the nth degree. Stronger, harder hitting and addictive, she craved more of him, tongue swiping, coaxing a little more of his life to pulse onto her tongue as her curves ground out the rhythm of their thundering climax. Synchronised, they were falling together through a milky way vortex coloured with all the hues of the universe. It sparkled as she was woven through the silver red flames of Connal’s soul. Her beast was beautiful and in that moment, she felt inked into his every facet. As he was emblazoned across her cells, making up her DNA with his name.
She understood the Thralls in the club so much better now. This craving, it felt carnal and necessary. If she didn’t get more, she’d die more than the little death currently wired up to her nerves and sparking her out. He was her drug, her light as darkness swept over her vision and she cried out. A lancing pain charged through the flames of bliss to lodge a fist in her throat, taking breath that she gasped for and stealing his light from her ...
Ash went limp in his arms. Logy from the pleasure sloshing languid in his veins, Connal drew back, releasing his hold on her throat. At first, he thought it a trick of the light, the muted blue and black decor playing with his sex-buzzed brain. But no. The colour was draining from her skin, replaced by a reticulate network of black veins that crept up over her skin like poisonous vines, shrouding her in the black lace of what he knew meant certain death.
‘Nononono!! Oh God, Ash, what have I done?’
Panic rode in hard on the crest of his euphoria, obliterating the high and contorting it to a stranglehold of terror. Those soft lips he had kissed not minutes before took on the dark blue cast of hypoxia.
She was so unnaturally still, cradled in his arms. ‘Breathe, a ghrá,’ he pleaded, voice cracking with the dread that was throttling the life from his own heart.
An eternity he waited, but her chest did not rise. Her heartbeat faltered, receding from his trembling fingertips. In desperation, he did what he'd seen others do when they bargained with death. He brushed the raven curls from her face and sealed his lips on hers, attempting to breathe life back into her lungs. His eyes stung with unshed tears and his hands shook, cursed prayers sent up to the Morrígan, pleading, demanding that she do for her granddaughter what she had once done for him.
Perhaps the Ancients listened. Perhaps it was a simple biological transfer of mystical air, but when he dragged his mouth from hers, the black in her veins was retreating like a tide, fading out, suffusing her cheeks with pink for a few precious moments before the darkness again washed in. His heart leapt, fastening on to the tiny spark of hope. Again, he kissed his air into her lungs, and again she was granted a fleeting reprieve from the encroaching spiderweb of death. It seemed whatever magic let him live free of the red fog, a beast amongst men, was in his breath and he could gift it to her, however briefly. He clung to that hope like a lifeline. However temporary, it just might be enough to keep her alive long enough to get her where he knew she needed to go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Drive faster,’ he growled.
‘If I drive any faster, we’ll be wrapped around a lamp post.’ Liath cranked her head round to where Connal was crowded into the back seat with Ash across his lap. He was shirtless and Liath still had pillow creases on her face from when he’d roused her from her chemical sleep. The rush to the car had been a confused panic. ‘What’s the matter with her? Is she poisoned? Fuck, it’s Rave, isn’t it? An overdose? Shouldn’t we be taking her to the hospital to get her stomach pumped or something? She’s not looking too good, Conn.’ Liath was the one raving, high on nervous tension, hands crushing the wheel in a white-knuckled death grip, shooting off thoughts like a verbal machine gun.
Connal's glare cut her off mid fire. ‘We need to get her to Form. Now.’ His head dropped once more to seal Ash’s blue lips in the grim, rhythmic exchange of life-giving air that had marked the minutes since he’d bitten her. ‘Stay with me, Little Red,’ he murmured.
The car veered sharply left and Liath’s ranting kicked off again. ‘We’re going to Form? Ok, but it’s not midnight yet. That bastard was very specific. They will still make the exchange, right? Even if ... Fuck!!’ She slammed on the breaks and narrowly avoided rear-ending a taxi driver who’d pulled up at the kerb to take a fare. She blew out a ragged breath.
‘Get your shit together Liath,’ he commanded. ‘Josh needs you. I need you. If we don’t get Ash to Form really, really soon, we’re going to lose her,’ and the boy, he thought. ‘They can help her there.’
‘I fucking knew it!’ Liath spat. ‘I should have gone to the police. Those drug-pushing scumbags have an antidote, don’t they? I swear to fuck, I’m going in there and taking my son back and I’m going to castrate that son of a bitch Doyle with my bare hands.’
Connal didn’t bother correcting Liath’s skewed interpretation of the shitstorm they were caught up in. He couldn’t afford the time to explain. For all intents and purposes, the bite was a drug, one that was killing Ash, and the Thegn did have access to the only life support environment that could keep her alive.
Perhaps he should have had a crisis of conscience about what he was about to do. But
this was the bare truth of how it was, when you were down to the wire, bargaining with the Grim Reaper for the life of the one you loved, for the one thing that breathed life into your own existence. You would do anything. You would gladly walk through the fires of hell, break every promise you made when the cost had been merely hypothetical. You would offer up your life for theirs, because the thought of going on without them was unthinkable.
His lips trembled on hers as he watched the life ebb and flow through the black network of veins in her skin. ‘Just a little longer, a ghrá,’ he whispered. ‘Almost there.’
There in that back seat, performing mouth to mouth on his dying future, the ghosts of Connal’s past hung off him like Jacob Marley’s chains. Loss, vengeance, regret. Centuries breathing, yet no life at all. Until her. Better to die than walk that path again. And he knew, with a quiet conviction, that would be the price. To save her life, he was going to have to carry her through the valley of death on a one-way ticket. He was selfish enough to want her to live, and to refuse to live without her. If she were conscious, she would be martyring herself for the sake of a kid she barely knew. That only reinforced his conviction. Every kiss of his mouth to hers tasted of goodbye. She was wolf blood, and whatever MacTire was, he understood survival. He would keep her alive, come what may. Connal had to believe that, or he couldn't go through with it.
The car came to an understated stop. Connal lifted defocused eyes and ascertained they were in the same alley where he’d fought Brandr and Fite. Fate had been playing with him all along, and now she was calling in the chips.
The Thegn muscle guarding the fire exit took one look at Ash and stood aside to let Connal pass. They knew all too well the black and blue stigmata of death.
‘Doyle!’ Connal bellowed as he pounded up the corridor. Ash’s legs dangled limp over his arm and Liath was tripping over herself to keep up. ‘Doyle!!’ He roared.
'In here,' came the measured reply.
It was the same office, the one with the brass nameplate and the hulking mahogany partner's desk where he had bound that girl in her panties, a million years ago, it seemed now.
'Josh!' Liath exclaimed, pushing in past Connal.
'Hiya mum.' The boy was sitting behind the desk, swamped by the oversized leather chair, playing with a bundle of straws. ‘Look! Mr. Doyle showed me how to make straw animals.’ A twisted mess of plastic tubing was held up proudly and Liath smiled weakly at her boy, catching the grotesque happiness on Doyle’s face. A smile she’d once found charming turned her stomach to a churn of bile, his leery, slick confidence odious to her every sense. He moved and she flinched, expectant of some harm to her son, but he only resettled on the edge of the desk with that damn smile.
Doyle ignored the irritating maternal presence in the room. He was laser-focused on the limp body in Connal’s arms. ‘Damn,’ he muttered. ‘She’s actually the real deal.’ He slid his ass off the desk and made a move to touch Ash’s black-veined face.
‘You don’t fucking touch her,’ Connal snarled, curling her body protectively into his chest.
Doyle backed up to the edge of the desk, a cocked brow and shrewd eyes taking in the significance of Connal's possessive gesture and the way his mouth lingered on hers as he fed her oxygen. ‘Fuck me. What did you do? Bite her?’ He laughed derisively.
Connal’s eyes were like stone, pinning Doyle with a withering glare. ‘She’s dying.’
That laugh. Jesus, it rocked Liath’s stomach like she was on a Tilt-A-Whirl and her hand snapped up on some primal reflex, disgust driving the straight aim of her gun. She racked the slide on the semi-automatic like a pro and trained the muzzle right on Doyle’s smug smile, more than happy to shoot it off his face. Two pairs of eyes flicked to take in her slight trembling stance.
‘You need to get your bitch here on a leash, Savage.’ The nervous tic popping at the angle of Doyle’s jaw betrayed him.
Connal recognised the firearm as one of his own. He’d been so distracted by Ash’s critical state, he hadn’t noticed her take it. His voice was level, the kind you might use to talk someone’s finger off the big red button. ‘You don’t want to do that Liath.’ Because to spill wolfblood on the sacred ground of the seal would unleash Armageddon on the whole of humanity.
A sheen of sweat had broken on Doyle’s upper lip when he spoke. ‘Yes Liath, don’t do something we’ll all regret.’ His condescending tone really wasn’t helping the situation.
Liath shot him a glare full of venom but her words were for Connal. ‘Why not? Sick, murdering, drug-pushing bastards.’ Her finger twitched and the gun shook a little. ‘Someone who would abduct a child deserves to die.’ Her son was watching her with wide eyes but when she beckoned, one hand freed to hold out to him, he scurried with a fistful of straws and latched to her side.
‘Not here, not in front of the boy.’ Connal’s words were serenely calm. ‘He doesn’t need to see that, Liath.’
Yet, she still couldn’t bring herself to lower her arm. Sharp words tore in Doyle’s direction. ‘I swear to God, if you or any of your minion scum come near me or my family again, I will make your vow of celibacy more than just a life choice.’ The muzzle dipped, aiming low. ‘It will be out of your hands.’ One arm tightened around Josh. ‘And if that isn’t enough, I have evidence of what this club is really about, that could put you away for a very, very long time ...’
‘You won’t last the night,’ Doyle muttered through the sneer that twisted his lips.
‘You’re going to let them go, Doyle,’ Connal levelled his ultimatum. ‘I may be an outcast, but I am still pureblood. I will have your Thegn oath that you will not harm a hair on their heads.’
‘Why the fuck would I swear fealty to you, Vargrliker?’ He spat.
‘Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you myself, right here and now. MacTire doesn’t get the girl and it’s endgame for us all.’
‘You’re bluffing.’ His jaw kicked up defiantly.
‘Am I? What have I got to lose? Once I take her to MacTire, I’m as good as dead already.’
A flicker of confusion drew Doyle’s brows low. There was no comprehension, no idea of the emotion behind the sacrifice. He couldn’t see anything but stupidity and madness in the decision and his face was lined with the puzzle, eyes narrowed on Connal as though he was a bag of cats away from crazy.
‘I go with her, or she doesn’t go.’
Connal swept a stray curl from Ash’s face to make the life breathing connection once more. Doyle scrubbed a hand under his collar, the intimacy making him uncomfortable. The tenderness of the Savage’s lips on hers was totally at odds with his powerful body, a frame built for killing, not healing. The idiot was in love with her. ‘You’re insane.’
Connal lifted his eyes to the male and they were bright with the truth. ‘No. She won’t make it without me. I will have your oath, Thegn, on your knees and bleeding, or I will have your head.’
It had to be the weirdest day ever, and Liath was pinch-raw from the times she’d checked she wasn’t caught in some nightmare, her boy alive and in her arms in the middle of this war of words and threats. She crouched, a smaller target curved around Josh, the gun forgotten when he’d asked to be picked up and she couldn’t deny him that. Not like she needed it now anyway, the two men were talking oaths, calm but for the tension that crackled in the air around them. Calm but for the knife that slipped from Doyle’s pocket into his hand. Her warning cut off at the source on a strangled cry, her palm covering Josh’s eyes as the blade aimed not for Connal, but for Doyle’s own chest, the slim, lithe muscle exposed when the tip sliced deep and spilled a trickle of blood over the intricate tattoo branding his skin. From harming others to self harming in the blink of an eye, Liath was dizzy, sick at the sight of the red on his pale skin. Her vision was blurred with the adrenaline, but she could have sworn Doyle leaned in, head bowed as though to kiss Connal’s nipple rings before he stumbled back, harshly cast away by her snarling friend. She was so far beyond confus
ion, even her own name wasn’t making sense as she watched the exchange through the white-noise of shock fuzzing her brain. Why did she always have to get involved with the freaks?
Doyle’s knees bent like rusty hinges and he gritted out the words as though they were pulled teeth. ‘On the blood of the Thegn, you have my oath.’
So much power, her friend had. She’d never noticed it before, but now, with the man who’d taken her son, Connal was a commanding force driving him to kneel without even raising a finger. His threatening control shocked her. Could this storm in front of her really be the same quiet male who had once carried her child around on his massive shoulders? He scared her, but this was the man who had helped her escape her ex.
His voice pulled her into the room again. ‘He can’t touch you now. Why don’t you take Josh home?’ Connal smiled at the kid before turning his eyes on Liath with his unspoken goodbye. ‘I’m sorry I got you into this mess, my friend. Thank you, for everything. And take my advice this time. Find yourself a new job. The punters at Form are a pack of animals.’
He didn’t say it but she felt it. Connal didn’t think he would be coming back from wherever he was going. Always protecting others when he pretended not to care. He’d won her friendship and affection, time and again, and where he couldn’t express, she could. Not eloquent, she was never really that, but her hand curved on the muscle of his arm and she leaned a little, a brief embrace of touch letting him know ... just letting him know. She smiled, eyes watery, throat choked. ‘I will, Conn, I promise. Thank you, for everything,’ Liath stepped back, repeating his words, and turned, fingers smudging a drop of wet from her cheek. ‘Please, take care.’ Useless perhaps. ‘I really hope Ash will be ok.’ Her neighbour had been good for him, it seemed. ‘See you soon, yeah?’ Those were the hardest and she was glad her back was turned, tears tracking the steps that would take her home.
