by Raven, Jess
Ash’s answering growl reverberated off the walls, drawing the attention of every head in the room. 'You hurt him,’ she said, ‘and I'll tear your throat out before you can reload.’
Fite’s aim immediately swiveled back onto Ash, whose claws and fangs were bared in a blatant threat.
‘Likewise,’ Connal said, edging across the dusty floor, getting himself nearer to her.
None of the others were armed, but they inched closer, tentatively closing the circle. Once they were in striking distance of either Ash or himself, they were both gonners. The best he could do was get in front of her, take the shot, and hope to hell she stood a fighting chance against the pack. Female wolves had a power advantage. If he could just take that damn crossbow out of the equation ...
‘Drop your weapon, Warrior.’
That booming bass authority had Fite’s wolves standing to attention like MacTire had rammed a poker up each one of their asses.
Fite’s silver head twisted back in the direction of the door, but the bolt’s aim never deviated from Ash.
The King had the muzzle of a handgun pressed to Tyr’s temple, while another huge, straggly-haired male with crazy eyes had the boy clamped in a bearhug that left his feet dangling in mid-air.
‘This is not how we settle our differences,’ MacTire declared, ‘engage like a Fomorian, Fite, or forfeit your boy.’
‘How the hell did you two escape?’ Fite growled at the King, exasperated.
MacTire’s face split in a hard smile. ‘Knutr here has skills, apart from the singing.’
The loco male tightened his chokehold on Tyr and matched the King’s hyena grin.
‘If you'd taken the time to search me before you shackled me,’ MacTire said, ‘you'd have found the keys to the cells in my pants.’
‘The contents of your pants frighten them, Sire,’ Knutr’s maniacal laughter bounced off the walls.
‘Let Tyr go,’ Fite ground out his request.
‘Drop your weapon,’ MacTire said, ‘and I shall drop mine. We fight with honour, as wolves. Not with these tools of weak, mortal men.’
There was a tense pause, and then Fite dropped, soundless, into a crouch, laying the crossbow on the floor. He rose again and kicked the bow. It glided across the dusty boards with an odd grace.
MacTire lowered the gun and, mirroring Fite’s manoeuvre, sent it spinning into a corner.
Knutr released his grip, dropping Tyr to his feet. The boy growled and postured, straightening his clothes, shoulders squaring up in a show of aggression. Connal measured the space between the wall of wolves and the only way out. You couldn’t sneak a cat through that gap, never mind Ash. His canines pulsed, tasting the fight in the air.
MacTire and Fite faced each other. The giant of blond, packed muscle versus the lithe, snaking athleticism of the silver-haired male. It was the King who parlayed.
‘There can be only one Alpha,’ he said. ‘Determined in combat. Submission or death. You know the rules. You all know the rules. I suggest you choose wisely.’ MacTire’s intimidating black gaze scrolled across the room, stopping pointedly to meet the eyes of each wolf in turn. ‘Sexton?’ he asked. ‘Our fathers were firm friends.’
The wolf with the shaggy brown hair glared over at Ash before dropping his eyes to the ground.
‘And you, Arnor? You too would betray your King?’
Arnor shifted from foot to foot, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
'And you Ragi?'
Connal had to admire the King's first-hand knowledge of his men's names, but as, one by one, they deserted him, MacTire's credibility was headed down the tubes.
‘Fuck this.’ It was Brandr who broke ranks. ‘Fite,’ he said, ‘I signed up to slaughter the abomination, not this. Not treason.'
Connal daggered a look at Brandr, then cast a sidelong glance at Ash, judging the depth of the insult. She looked steady. Breathe in air, breathe out those homicidal tendencies, he thought. Brandr was technically on their side. For now.
'We are skuldalid,' Brandr continued, 'loyal to the King.' The hairy brute stepped over an invisible line to MacTire's side. That his félag, the red-haired Rún, followed, was no great surprise. No more than Tyr taking his place alongside Fite.
'It shall be six-a-side then?' The King swung the blond lash of his hair across broad shoulders. 'A fair fight indeed.'
'Ashling won't be fighting,' Connal snarled, making a barrier of his body in front of her. Still, he couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye.
MacTire rounded on Connal with a knowing smile. 'We Fomorians respect our women, Savage. And that includes their right to combat. You may find Ashling's ability formidable. I, for one, want you at my side.' The look he gave Ash over Connal's shoulder was sickening.
'I'm in,' Ash said.
Her voice, Connal knew. But his Little Red was no fighter. Was she? Fierce. The doctor's description pinged around his skull. What she’d said in the Temple about taking care of herself, those claws ... Ash really was wolf, and it killed him that his enemy knew it better than he.
‘I’ll be ok, Big ...’ Ash cleared her throat to cover her slip, ‘Connal. I can handle myself, and I can handle them.’ She tipped her chin at the walls of tension backing up Fite, making sure her face was steady when Connal looked over his shoulder at her. Meeting his eyes disturbed the beat of her heart. God, he looked so broken. And it went beyond the sadistic haircut. What had they done to her Big Bad? He was so close, she wanted to touch him, to reach right out and wrap herself around him. She settled for stepping up to his side so that the wolves could see her.
As the aggression in the room dialled up, the promise of violence cranked Ash’s bones. The beast inside her was gaining confidence with each additional pack member. Connal, Mac, Brandr, Rún, Knutr. Preferring these odds, she was struggling to keep hold of the leash. Her vision had stalled on predatory crimson, her claws refused to retract and she could no longer hide her fangs behind her lips. She was talking herself down even as she stretched her senses, letting her wolf size-up the room’s occupants.
Tyr caught her eye and she felt a push of fur under her skull.
She snarled as he impressed his thoughts upon her.
You’re mine, he growled. I owe you. Flesh for flesh.
He wanted to take her on, fair enough. She had hurt him, and much as she regretted it, sorry wouldn’t cut it. He was a warrior. The honour was in the fight, and if she was brutally honest, she was itching to make the boy submit. Again.
Inclining her head at Tyr, Ash broke the stare and cut a look to Mac, who was watching her, head cocked. Her lips curved at him in a smile that relayed her thanks and the softest hint of affection.
Silence had weight in the attic. It laid on them, both sides prowling a live-wire fence of primal energy. The Contests had nothing on the charge in this room. Ash heard the snap before she felt it. Behind Fite, a wolf was body-popping, a haze falling around him as his joints began to splinter.
Hell broke loose in an explosion of fur and teeth.
The shift roared through her, fast on the heels of the other wolves. Humanity took a backseat, was strapped in for the ride as she bust out and was met head on by Tyr’s large golden wolf. Ash locked in and lashed at him. His shoulder took the brunt as he twisted from the rake of her claws. Tyr howled and an answering cry rose up from the flanking wolves. They weren’t the only ones who’d cut loose.
To her right, Connal, massive and white, was laying into an opponent. To her left was Fite, his lean, silver beast engaging MacTire, whose wolf was huge, thickly-furred and black ... Pain slammed into her flank and tore a yelp from her throat, spinning her to face a grey wolf with its claws tipped in her blood. Ash roared and opened her jaws wide, muscles bunching as she settled her weight into her haunches. She never landed her blow. Tyr tackled her from the side and she crashed to the attic wall. As she fought to draw breath, she saw the grey wolf occupied with dodging Brandr’s razor talons. Then Tyr was on her again, gouging her sh
oulders, his muzzle snapping inches from hers. Ash scrabbled beneath him, her back legs daggering nails into the soft flesh of his underbelly. He reared back and she attacked, striking a slash to his face.
Fighting tooth and nail was an apt description.
Everywhere she looked, blood flowed and fur matted, whimpers echoed around; the wolves were lethal, throat-tearing machines. She hurt, really hurt, yet this animal body was built for fighting and revelled in it. Even as she wished for it to end, the primitive part of her was baying for more.
And it got more. A fresh wave of howls had all heads whipping to the attic door, where wolf after wolf was spilling over the threshold in a growling stampede that sent the odds wildly out of favour. Tyr rounded on her, lip curled off pointed fangs. He was joined by another that lowered its ears and canted its head when she snarled, but didn’t back off. Instead, it circled like a mosquito, darting in to nip her flank, and dashing out of reach. Shaking off the bites, she backed up. She was vulnerable at the throat, belly and wings. He’d already struck something sensitive; blood poured freely from the arch of her right wing, deadening it. Tyr went for her neck. Ash deflected by tucking herself in and falling flat to the ground. She launched herself at the nearest furred body and her mosquito-wolf crumpled with a yelp. Ash silenced it by severing throat from neck in a single bite. The blood on her tongue was lust in her veins.
Her snapping growls kept Tyr off her back, and when she dodged his next lunge, the momentum sent him barreling into Connal’s flank. Connal’s white wolf rounded on her prey, but Ash tagged him out of the ring with a butt of her head to his furred shoulder. Tyr was still hers.
Battles raged around them. Mac had Fite’s silver wolf attached to his rump, its teeth embedded in the muscle and ripping the flesh beneath. Concern took her concentration from Tyr long enough for him to get a clamp on the scruff of her neck. His paws beat out punches, slashing at her chest. Her defense was to surge them forwards. She clawed down his ribs, piercing his soft belly. His whimper hurt her but she bore down, shifting his weight beneath her, the bulk of her beast pinning him as she yanked her scruff from his grasp.
Freed from his jaws, Ash snapped her own around his throat. Tyr went limp and her growl thrummed satisfaction into the air.
Enough! Ash projected the word, hard and fast, to every corner of the room.
Crimson eyes turned to her, their bodies frozen in acts of violence. Mac had Fite in a throat-lock, Connal had one giant paw resting on the stump of a neck, Brandr and Rún were elbow deep in dead and wounded, Knutr chuffed from somewhere behind her. Her pack was alive and she had a bargaining tool. Fite’s reinforcements slumped or leaned on one another, brought to heel by her demand. They were listening.
Stop this now Fite, or I finish him, she said.
Beneath Mac, the silver wolf imploded. Skin replaced fur, and Fite lay with his human throat bared, red eyes and perma-claws the only part of his beast remaining.
His posture was submissive. His words were not.
‘The she-wolf returns to Fomor over my dead body, my Lord.’
Mac’s rumble curled his lip off wicked canines, the great beast growling a threat to Fite’s pulse before the animal was caged back inside the man. Securing Fite’s shoulders to the floor with his knees, Mac’s hands encircled the other male’s throat and he leaned close. ‘Unfortunately that can be arranged, Fite. You are my skuldalid, my family, but I will not abandon one of my own to the Morrígan's curse. We are mongrels all, crossbreeds born of a need to survive. Ashling DeMorgan is no different in that. She will not be imprisoned or put to death because we fear the unknown.’ The direction of numerous stares was not lost on Ash; her wings itched under the attention. ‘Some lessons are well learned,’ MacTire continued, and his eyes rose to meet Connal’s briefly before pinning Fite in the power of his conviction. ‘Do not make me choose, for it will be her.’
'That won't be necessary,' Connal said, and every head turned to stare at him. Even the dead ones seemed rapt.
CHOICES
Some time, amidst the chaos, Connal had shifted back to human form and Ash allowed herself to take her first good look at him when he spoke. He was a shock to her system, and that was before she let herself mourn his hair. All his gorgeous dreads had been hacked off, leaving a jagged mess of short hair and bloodied scalp. Between the run-in with a sadistic barber and the dog-fight, Ash was expecting the rugged landscape of his body to bear some marks. But looking him over? There were more than she could explain. Bruises and scratches marred his skin, layered under the fresh lacerations. Blotches of purple were raised along his shoulders. She swallowed hard when her gaze tracked down. The nipple rings were really gone. What the hell had happened to him? She would have asked, but her wolf’s muzzle didn’t allow for speech and she couldn’t imagine him appreciating her being in his head.
The choice was taken from her anyway, as Mac changed position on Fite so he could look at Connal. ‘Speak,’ he commanded gruffly.
Yes, please, God, speak. Explain.
He didn’t look at her, but when he answered, Connal was just as taciturn, his voice just as deep. ‘This is for Ashling to decide.’
Her ears pricked at her name on his lips, pleasure a soft pull in her chest. She was too busy trying to will Connal’s eyes to hers that she didn’t realise Rún and Brandr had come to relieve her of Tyr. She relinquished her domination to the two males, backing off and standing uncertainly at the side. Mac was still on Fite, poised to finish him if he made a move towards her, but his eyes were on her: dark as sin and warm as coal.
Faced with the inevitable post-shift nakedness, Ash didn’t know what to do. Fur and fangs were a lot more intimidating than bare-assed female. The males in the room, barring maybe one, didn’t want to jump her. They wanted to kill her.
To Hell with it, she thought.
They already thought her an abomination, seeing her naked couldn’t be much worse. Taking a deep breath, Ash tucked her wings in tighter and braced for the change. It was an implosion, the primal energy collapsing in and humanity bursting out. Fur receded and she rose from all fours with only the slightest wobble.
A growl lashed through the air. ‘Jesus. Will you cover yourself?’ She started at Connal’s outburst, curling into herself as he attacked a tapestry off the wall and launched it blindly in her direction. The heavy fabric thwacked against her body and she had the mind to snatch it before it fell, but mortification was rapidly raising a head-to-toe flush of wounded embarrassment. Connal didn’t say another word, no one spoke, and yet he burned her with his judgement. He couldn’t bear to look at her.
She was an abomination to him too.
God, she was really starting to hate that word. She secured the cloth around her, risking a glance under her lashes. Most of the wolves had their eyes averted, a few were watching her in their peripheral. She forced her spine straighter and wore the tapestry like armour, daring Connal to think his worst. Faced with the perfection of him, Ash was struggling to find words and finding it even harder to keep her gaze from his and above waist level. She settled for frowning at his chest.
Knutr broke the silence when it threatened to suffocate them. ‘You think she wants your cock swinging in her face, Savage?’ he said. ‘Put these on.’
She hadn’t noticed Knutr shifting. Somebody had the forethought to bring a bag of clothes and her uncle mimicked Connal’s treatment of her, hurling dark denim at his head. Ash shot him a grateful smile and he winked, lips spread in crazed amusement.
Glad someone is having fun, she thought.
Connal’s growls ratcheted up a notch as he aimed dagger glares at Knutr and dragged the jeans up his thighs. They stuck to him like they’d been painted on, his legs thick with muscle and testing the denim’s seams. Obviously, the jeans were for someone with less bulk. Ash was not enjoying his discomfort. Nope. Not even a little bit. When the zipper strained to a close, she rounded on him, chin tipped up. They had a conversation to continue.
�
�Well,’ she said, ‘what do you have to say to me?’
‘You have a choice, Ash,' Connal said. 'You don’t have to go back.’ He still wouldn’t meet her frown, but he took a step forwards. His hands were out, like he was stopping himself from reaching for her and couldn’t bring himself to completely pull back. ‘If you don’t want to, that is.’ His eyes strayed to MacTire, drawn back to her when she pointedly shifted her weight.
She was trapped in the middle of confusion and hope, not quite daring to believe him. Her fingers toyed nervously with a curl. 'I don't,' she whispered.
He shook his head, light, absent the dreads. 'You don't?'
'I mean ... no, I want to stay. Here.' With you. She couldn't say it but there was a catch in her throat that said it all. Her soul was latching onto his words. She didn’t have to go back. She could be with him, or at least in the same city as him, maybe see him sometimes. Ash wasn’t deluding herself that this meant they could start back up where they’d left off.
'I ...' Connal was tongue-tied as he took another step forward. He tugged the silver ring from his little finger and taking her hand in his own, it slipped onto her ring finger with the fit of long familiarity. Such a fluid move, it took a second for her brain to catch up and realise why the ring fit perfectly. When it did, her knees shook as the silver reconnected with her heartstrings. Her mother. She had the last part of her mother back and Connal had given it to her.
‘I ...’ Oh great, tongue-tied is contagious, she thought. Flustered, questions bounded on the tip of Ash’s tongue. How did he get it? Why was he giving it to her? To name a few. If he had been on one knee, it would have made more sense. ‘Ummm ...’ Bad thought direction, Ash. Say something. She withdrew her hand, allowing her fingers to drag along his and thumbing the silver band. She was breathless. ‘My mother’s ring. Where did you find it?’
Connal took a deep breath and when he hazarded a glance at her, she pinned it. She would not let him look away this time. Muscles tensed across his shoulders, bracing. ‘I took it from your room. I’m sorry. I needed something meaningful to you.’