“You have no damn right to be here,” I whispered through clenched teeth.
“I have no right? You’re willing to let the world burn just so you can get revenge? I understand your pain; I know you deserve to hurt them as they have hurt you. That is where it ends. You are not willing to watch innocent people die; I know this because I know you. You are mine; you will always be mine. If you die a thousand deaths, you will always return to me, Erie. To me! You are mine, I brought you back!” he shouted as his wings unfurled. “You may not feel me in human form, but you know me in this one. You feel me, woman. I know you do. You’re my world, you’ve been my world since you stole my fucking heart and made me feel what true love was even if it was hell and chaos, but you chose me. We are running out of time, and I can’t let this continue. I wish I could give you all the time in the world, but I can’t.”
“Out of time for what? To knock me up?” I screamed as I ripped the backpack off and dumped it out in front of him. I reached down, picking up test after test as I threw them at him. “You asshole!” I cried as I punched him in the jaw and then watched him slowly turn to look down at the pile of positive pregnancy tests that littered the ground. I moved to throw another punch, but he grabbed my arms, pulling me into his body as his wings wrapped around me. His forehead pressed against mine as he exhaled slowly.
“My Erie,” he uttered as he held me cradled in his embrace. “You will be okay, I vow it to you. I will protect you. Nothing can change this. I know you feel me, as I feel you. You are my home, my wife.”
“It won’t be okay. Nothing will ever be okay! They deserve to pay for what they did. I can’t do this,” I said as I pushed away from him and stepped back. “I’m not ready to do this with you. You want me to play house, be a mother, but I don’t know how to! I didn’t even have one, how am I supposed to know how to be one? I am evil; I know I am. I crave blood and flesh, and the way it sounds when it is severed from a body. I’ve murdered thousands of people, innocent people. I don’t deserve to give life when all I have ever known was how to take it away! I am not doing this!” I screamed as I hugged my stomach.
“Erie, you’ve already done this before, and you were beautiful as you carried my child. You just don’t remember it. They took you from me, just as they took our son who grew in your womb.”
“Are you insane? I have never had a child, never!”
“Erie, you have lived before. You have conquered worlds before you were ever born into this one. You are over a thousand years old. You’re the Queen to my King, the granddaughter of the Dagda from which you were reborn. Only those of his line can be brought back with the dark power, just as that is the only thing that can take their life from this world. You are one-third of the Mórrígan. You are Éire, the mother of Ireland, the one who gave it life and became their patroness. You are my wife and the granddaughter of the Great Kings of Ireland. Our child will be a Prince of our people. The Templars originated from the people you ruled over, the Tuatha Dé Danann. On your death, we left Ireland to escape the creatures of the sea who we thought had helped murder you. We became nothing more than myths that they whispered about to their children, and their children’s children, so that we were forgotten. I kept you safe until you came back to me, but I was under oath to the Gods to protect those who needed to be protected, or they would never allow you to come back to me. You and me, we defended the realm together. We always have since you claimed me. We protected it together after you defeated me in battle and claimed me as your King. You told me that we would fight together, to whatever comes, and whatever end we meet, we do it together.”
“You good?” I asked as I stared at him in disbelief. “Did you bump your fucking head on the way in here? I am only one hundred years old.” I stared at him as my mouth opened and closed, unable to even process what he said. “If I am what you say I am, then how come everyone thinks I am evil, or better yet, why do I crave destruction?”
“Because you are one-third of the Mórrígan, and you crave war and death, just as Mórrígan here does. Ask her, Erie. Ask her if she feels you as strongly as I do. Rise, Mórrígan, and welcome your sister back from the grave,” he growled.
I turned, staring at the Goddess who rose and tilted her head. “You didn’t; tell me you didn’t do this! The Gods would riot and rain down hell on us if you brought back War!”
“You thought I would allow her to slumber until the others decided she could rise? She’s slept for over a thousand years as a newborn babe, gathering her power to her. She was promised, and therefore, cannot be taken. Now welcome your sister back before I take your fucking life,” he hissed barely above a whisper.
I watched as the Goddesses moved, one slipping beside Synthia as the other one moved to stand before me. Her eyes watched me, her hand lifted, and I recoiled as I moved closer to Callaghan, who wrapped his arms around me, placing his clawed hands over my womb.
“She will destroy us all,” she whispered. “You understand that, right? Can you feel her mind, her emotions? You of all people know that of the three, she craved blood, chaos, death, and fucking war! You shouldn’t have brought her back yet!” she hissed before she vanished.
“She sounds lovely,” I uttered as I turned, staring up at him. “Am I being punked? Because you lost me at a thousand years. I am turning one hundred this year, and you’re not invited to my party.”
“I know exactly how old you are because I carried you with me and built a fucking castle around you to defend you. Erie, you were born before this world was overcrowded with mortals, but you’re not what she says you are. You are mine, and everything else doesn’t matter. We need to get going; you set a few fires that are close to my compound.”
“You mean your dad’s compound? No, I don’t think so. I won’t be anywhere he is.”
“Erie, I never planned to keep you locked in the compound. I only stayed there because you needed to see the people, to know they needed to be saved. You think you’re the only one who planned ahead?”
“Fine, but don’t think I intend to stay there. I will not be your prisoner. Plus, I don’t like you, and I have people to kill, shit to blow up, and a world to destroy. I’m a very, very busy girl these days.”
He snorted and whispered against my ear softly, “Tell Synthia and Zahruk that you will be okay. They worry about your mind breaking, and we all know that Goddesses do not break so easily.” He pushed me forward, and I turned, eyeing him as my jaw ticked.
I stared at the pair who watched me with unease as they’d learned what I was, and what I would become. I chewed my lip nervously as my gaze turned, holding Lucian’s with familiarity before I dropped it and swung my eyes back to Zahruk. He’d promised to defend me with his life, and had proven he was willing. Synthia had told me she would fight for me, and so she had tried.
“I’m okay; he won’t hurt me. He needs me alive to help him.”
“Say the word, and you won’t have to go,” Zahruk said.
“This is my fight, not yours. I feel him, you know? It’s like we’re connected on a deeper level, which I can’t explain. I promise that he won’t hurt me, because if he does, I will get free again and murder his ass, like usual. Maybe you can come visit sometime. I don’t think he plans to keep me locked up for the entire time, right?” I asked, turning back to Callaghan.
“That depends on you, wild one. You might enjoy what I have in mind for you.”
“I doubt that,” I uttered as I looked back at the Fae, knowing that if I didn’t go, they would fight and that not all of them would survive. That wasn’t something I could live with. No, I hadn’t thought that any child could withstand living through me dying, but yet one had. It wasn’t in my plans, and it had definitely thrown a wrench into what was coming.
Chapter 36
I walked through the empty hallways of Callaghan’s extensive home. He’d built it deep into the mountain at the edge of Spokane, hidden
deep within a valley. It was a compound big enough to relocate the entire Templar people who, even now, were too close to the chaos that was unfolding in downtown.
I paused as I looked at a portrait of an enchantingly beautiful woman. Long flame-colored hair blew in the wind as she looked out over a cliff into the ocean. I felt Callaghan behind me and slowly turned to face him.
“What happens now?” I asked carefully.
“Now I destroy that pretty cunt of yours and make you beg me to come. Smelling your arousal and watching you saunter away beyond my reach isn’t something I will allow to go unpunished. Knowing you were around men who are sexual creatures as that sweet pussy wanted and craved to be fucked, it made the beast a little unhinged. He wants to punish you.”
“And you?” I asked, feeling my insides heating at his words.
“I want to watch you fuck him,” he smirked as he stared at my lips. “You smell excited, woman,” he uttered as he backed me up next to the picture and his eyes slid up to it. “I have to admit, watching your cunt stretch around us is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Watching you demand more, begging to be destroyed by us, you’re a wanton little thing, aren’t you, Erie? I can smell that pussy weeping with the need to be fucked already,” he whispered as he pinched my chin, lifting my mouth to his.
He didn’t kiss me; his lips hovered above mine as he watched me. I didn’t know what I craved more right now, my Knight or my beast, who took me to new limits I’d never dreamed of reaching. I inched forward, but he pulled away. He smirked, and I narrowed my gaze on his.
“You kissed another man,” he growled as he lowered his mouth to my ear. “I’m going to remind you of what and who I am as I stretch that tight cunt as far as I can. You will never allow another man to touch what is mine. I have loved you since the sun first spread over this earth, and while I have taken whores to my bed, and even a wife in this form, I have never loved another woman. Come, we crave you. You get this one pass because I assure you, I crave no other woman, nor have I touched another since you were reborn into this form.”
“You scare me with your intensity,” I uttered.
“Good, it should. You are my home,” he growled as he threaded his fingers through mine and pulled me behind him. “One day, it will come back to you. You’ve only been awake for a short time.”
“You are insane; you know that, right?” I asked as I followed him until he stopped in front of an arched doorway and pulled it open.
Inside the room was the world’s largest bed, done in midnight blue and cream blankets. The walls were painted in murals of rolling green hills and water that spread out onto the ceiling. I let my gaze fall to the swing that hung down from four ceiling posts with lengths of chain attached to them. I walked to the swing, pushing it as I turned around, staring him down as he watched me.
“What is this?” I asked as I tried to ignore the burning lust that saturated the depths of his gaze.
“That is where you will be chained as I torture that sweet flesh. It’s a swing, one that you’ll be bound to as we show you why it’s not a good idea to kiss other men knowing that we felt it. You knew, and yet you did it anyway. Your shock treatment didn’t take away our ability to feel your pleasure when you’re close to us. So when that sweet cunt wept for him, you knew we felt it clenching with the need to be filled.”
“I kissed him,” I admitted as I turned back, pushing the swing as it moved. “I needed to compare you with someone else. It’s not like I’ve had a lot of experience with other men, so I needed to know what I felt, and what others could feel like.”
“And?” he asked against my neck as his lips sent a shiver racing through me.
“And I wanted you still,” I whispered as he ripped the spaghetti straps of the shirt I wore, exposing my breasts. “Jealous?” I asked and then felt the power that emanated from him while his hands cupped my breasts as he kissed my neck softly.
“He couldn’t soothe that dirty little ache inside of you, ever. You were created to be stretched, to be fucked by me. He wouldn’t have even made it to stripping you on that wall before I would have taken his head. I watched you with him. I watched your pupils dilate with his, and then you stepped away, saving his life. We won’t share you; three is already a crowd. Wait until he allows us both to fuck you together. You’ll like it, my dirty girl. That ass is mine, though, we agreed. You’re not ready for him there, yet. You still think you’re mortal, bound by the limitations you set for yourself. We’re going to wreck them so that you know exactly what you can do with us. Would you like that, sweet Erie? To be so fucking full that you don’t know how to exist without us being buried in your tight holes?” he uttered, pushing the jeans I wore down my hips, kissing my spine as he did it.
“I need you,” I whispered thickly as his hands drifted along my hips, slowly letting the pads of his fingers skim over my flesh. I felt his nose pushing against my ass as he kissed one cheek before he rose, helping me step out of the jeans.
“I know you do,” he chuckled as his fingers explored the wetness of my body that begged to be filled. “Such a messy girl, so wet and ready to be fucked,” he growled huskily while he turned me around, lifting me as he sat me onto the swing. I hissed as it started to move, my body adjusting to being off-kilter as he pushed me down onto the long leather back that allowed me to lay on it. His hands trailed over my legs as he pushed them into separate hoops that sat on one side. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to wait for you to be mentally ready to be fucked by us? I had to watch you from afar, hating that you had no idea what or who I was. I thought you were being fucked and it drove me insane, and yet I wanted you to experience life, and to want to be with me on your own,” he said. He slowly walked around, staring at my naked body as he grabbed my hands, slipping my wrists through leather cuffs before he attached each one to a separate chain that was connected to the swing. When he finished, he stood back, gazing at me before he pulled on another chain that stretched me out spread eagle, exposing everything to his heated depths. “Helpless looks good on you,” he rumbled heatedly.
“I’m never helpless, Mason,” I whispered as his knuckles trailed over my flesh and he started moving away from me.
“Ask the questions that are burning in that beautiful mind of yours, my Erie,” he uttered.
“I only have three,” I replied huskily.
“Ask them, I will answer them honestly.”
“What was it like to be loved by me?” I whispered.
“Beautiful, beautiful, and utter chaos. You chose us, both of us. You gave your love freely, but you came with a cost neither of us was prepared to pay. You didn’t just love; you went to war to get it. You took everything, and what you gave back was so much more.”
“What did it feel like to be with me?”
“Home, it felt like home. Your love knew no bounds, no boundaries. You were something no man or creature could reach for, could grasp. Yet you reached for us, but your love was brutal, deadly.”
“What did it feel like when you lost me; when I died?” I uttered.
“I wanted to destroy the world and join you in death. I wanted to rain down a hell so utterly destructive that no one or any creature could ever rise from it again. It was as if someone had reached into my chest and ripped you from me. The monster inside of me slaughtered everyone who had your blood on their hands. You left a hole that could never be filled when you died. That was the first time; the second time, it was different, it was needed so that you could be brought back to us.”
Tears filled my eyes as I stared at the ceiling, more questions forming in response to his answers. “If I meant so much to you, how could you let them do what they did?”
“Druids by nature, are powerful beings. You needed them to teach you how to wield your magic. You needed to know that your taste for blood was natural and that it is part of who you were before this life. I cou
ldn’t teach you that and chance you destroying our people, Erie. You once made me promise to protect them, even from you. So I kept that promise, even though it tore you apart. You are war, death, and the darkest and brightest mix of the Mórrígan. Your sister may use and wield the name, but you hold the people. When Danu abandoned the people of Ireland and created the Fae, you took her place. You’re their Queen; you always were and always will be. You just have to remember us and find your way back to us.”
“And if I can’t?” I asked.
“Then we will all readjust and teach you our ways. There is only one Queen who they will honor and follow, and that is you. The Knights, they need this child to be born, because no Knight of the Order has been conceived; only Tuatha Dé Danann halflings are being born. Our child will be both. You’re the Tuatha; I’m the Knight. You’re the promised druid of Dagda’s blood who will ignite the flame to burn out the curse. You will prevent the halflings from continuing to die from this curse.”
“I’m already pregnant, Mason. I don’t know how or why it survived my death, but it did. I didn’t know,” I said as I continued to stare at the ceiling, uncertain why I confided in him now.
“I know, I can smell him on you now.” He loomed over me, staring down in his beast form. “It’s time for me to destroy that pussy, as I promised to do, wife. If you cherish your friend, you will never allow his lips to touch what is mine ever again. I don’t think his head works as Lust’s did.”
“Do you plan to actually talk me to death, or can we get to the good part?” I asked, letting him see the fire burning inside of my eyes.
His fingers pushed into my sex as my spine arched, and a moan exploded from my lips. “Oh, my naughty little wife, you’re not coming anytime soon. It will be fun to watch you squirm for me, though.”
Chapter 37
If She's Wicked Page 29