Becoming Red (The Becoming Novels)

by Black, Paula

  Ash crested, surfed lazily on the streams of energy flowing between them, sexual and carnal, they sparked. Pulsed with heat, languid, muscles liquid and bones nonexistent. She didn’t think she could move, but her hands wandered, they soothed down the spasming twitches that rocked his hips through the surges of his climax, triggered off small quakes in her centre that wrapped him tight within her and stroked him in gentle flexes of silken pleasure. Collapsed into his chest, the rapid run of his heartbeat drummed her cheek with a morse code of frantic exhilaration and she lay, listening to it, counting the beats as it slowed and set hers to a synchronised harmonious tempo.

  Something had changed.

  There was no denying it. This was so different to their rabid coupling in the forest. And it wasn’t just that he was holding her tenderly now, his fingers braiding the curls that fell to the small of her back. It was that she couldn’t find a shred of ice inside her in that moment. He filled her so completely with his fire, there was no room for the cold, and she was well and truly molten. Nuzzling her cheek over the ring of metal through his nipple, Ash prayed it was a permanent thaw, let her emotions well at the surface and left only one of them nameless.

  She couldn’t touch that yet, so she touched him, fused her mouth to his in soft strokes, feathered tenderness to the bow of his lips, swallowed his groans and fed him her purrs.

  The lost little girl decided she liked getting lost in him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  They'd collapsed at some point, and Ash roused groggily to pitch darkness in the position they'd fallen. Legs splayed, hands curled under the pillow, blanketed in the crush of Connal’s warrior form, happily flattened out beneath the protective sprawl of still twitching muscle. It hadn't been once, it hadn't even been twice, it had been an endless surging oblivion of ecstasy that bowled them over with deep, driving thrusts and heavy-pounding grinds that kissed her insides and forced them into shudders of orgasmic energy. Over and over, a violent tempo beat out between their erotically bound forms until her spine turned to jello and their muscles melted to puddles of ultimate satiation and all they could do was breathe the other in. Male musk and feminine sweetness so feral in the air. She lay a while, listening to their hearts drum the colossal force of an unspoken emotion into a now scream silent room. Voice hoarse, body limp despite the sleep that had dragged her under its spell, Ash turned her face from its mash into the pillow to find Connal’s skin, craving the sleepy contact and nuzzling into whatever was closest. His wrist, thick, strong, met the brush of her lips as she flexed her fingers through his, intertwining them in a dream of movement. ‘Mmm ...’ The softest sound of pleasure but it was enough to rouse him, powerful muscle riding along her spine and she arched, testing limbs in a subtle stretch. Not much movement in her blissed high, riots of bruises and nips colouring her skin a perfect ache.

  His jaw fell into the crook of her shoulder, a sleepy rumbled growl of bliss vibrating over her nerves. Ash smiled. She loved it when he growled. Loved how she’d discovered the beautiful snarl he made when her lips feathered along the shaft of his cock and sealed over the tip with ever increasing suction, feeding her his length in thick inches as his hips swung free and her beast lost control. He’d fought for it with hands in her hair and feral purrs that let her know she shouldn’t stop. As if she would. She’d found something more delicious than caramel, and that was Connal, coming apart for her as her knees bruised from the floor and she clawed his thighs, taking every stroke deeper.

  Ash shifted under him, tongue running along her lips, tasting him still as her hips wound drowsily, caught in fragments of memories, erotic dreams come to life in his bed. His punishment for her tonguing assault had been to haul her up by her hair and drop to his knees. Positions exchanged, the power she’d had had fled at the first rough kiss to her sodden folds, sex scenting the air as he speared deep and let his mouth command her. She hadn’t stayed standing long ...

  After that they’d melted into one another, tender, passionate and growling into brutal possession when the waves of ecstasy burned them beyond the brink of slow and loving. His hands had seared away slow, gentle, until she was as animal as he was, violently demanding more with nails and teeth as he scored her skin and punished her body with relentless, pounding ecstasy. Half awake, it seemed a dream to her ... but every twinge of an ache in her muscles, every bloom of pain flowering beneath her skin with the promise of bruises confirmed the reality that left her languid and unwilling to move, marked wickedly, loved thoroughly, embraced in the bind of her male.

  Fuck yes, but the night had been wild and ravenous, driving their bodies to push ever harder, beyond the break-point of physical exhaustion. She felt him wake before her eyes met his, steel glazed with yet unsated lust, his lips brushing tender kisses to the teeth marks that never breached the surface of her skin.

  ‘You’re awake ...’ Connal’s husked timbre tickled her ear, his heart beating between her shoulder blades a few skips more before a simple shift of weight turned Ash beneath him, flipped to her back, easy as a pillow. Laughter hummed quietly at the sight of his face hovering over hers, metallic eyes deep-penetrating, dreads spilling to her skin. She read the intention in the flicker of fire, embers in his gaze and her hips lifted on a purr of invitation. His ankles hooked with hers, dragging her legs wide as a flexing surge of his ass drove the thick girth of his cock home once more, deep, so deep, until their hip bones were locked, a growl rising from his throat as his teeth claimed her lower lip. They were lost again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The sleepy weight of her body was a sprawl against skin-heated sheets, a lazy drape of limbs lost in a tangle of sex-puddled pleasure. Ash tested her fingers, flexed them as a yawn took over her entire being in an arching stretch, feline and drowsy. Her toes curled against the muscled column of what she assumed was a thigh, blinking slowly, a crack of lashes showing the hazy dark of the ripped, outline of the male she couldn’t get enough of. Even now, with pulses thrumming in places she didn’t even know she had a heartbeat and aches she didn’t know could exist, Ash wanted him. Her hand danced up the contours of his abs, sliding slowly to cover the steady beat of his heart, settled after racing so hard, hers matched its gentle thrum, a symphony of relaxation drifting through the dream world of their union. She didn’t want anything to break through the cloud of bliss blanketing them in contentment, but words stroked from her throat on a sex-husked voice as she met the slumberous heat in Connal’s gaze. ‘Mmmm -’Ash stretched again, unable to resist gliding as much of her sensitised skin as she could against his, vining around him ‘-are we going to have to hide down here forever?’ Her lashes batted playfully, lips inched into a cheeky, seductive smile only slightly turned to shy by the blush rising in her cheeks. ‘Because I wouldn’t mind.’

  Connal lay prostrate on the rumpled sheets. This woman consumed him, every thought, every inch of his body. Her scent was in his skin and on every breath he drew. Languid eyes tracked the stroke of his fingertips as he mapped the gentle contour of her bare shoulder, tracing the intricate knotwork of ink in her skin. The night had made him intimately familiar with every dip and hollow, every curve and parting of her body, but now, it was the intertwined pattern of Celtic ravens that held his fascination. Surely no coincidence, and yet she could not know the significance of the triskelion symbol to his people. Perhaps Anann had a hand it it ... The thread of his thought was broken by the sultry tone of her voice and he lifted his eyes from the symbol to meet the brilliant jewelled blue of her own. The corners of his mouth tugged into a lazy, answering smile. ‘It’s not full moon any more, Little Red. The Bogeymen have all gone, for now.’ His head craned up off the pillow to claim her mouth with a rough stubbled brand, words murmured to soft lips. ‘Nothing to keep you here but me.’

  ‘You’re a damn good reason, Big Bad.’ Ash ran her foot down his calf, face nuzzled to his chest. Her words came muffled on the next breath. ‘They’re gone? Did you kill them all?’

  ‘No.�
�� Connal shook his head, eyes diverted back to where his fingertips had paused their exploration of her ink. ‘They went home. You might say they have a curfew.’

  ‘The moon?’ She nodded, cheek rubbing his skin, shoulder rolling into his touch, nudging for it. ‘What, I’m not important enough to break curfew?’

  ‘Not when the punishment turns you to dust.’ He curled his hand to run his knuckles down the side of her cheek and saw the fear his words stirred in her eyes. ‘You are everything to them, Ash, the lynchpin to their survival, but there is no survival if they stay above ground once the red fog wanes. Without it, they’re doomed, a thousand years of existence revisited upon them in a matter of hours.’ Running the pad of his callused thumb along her jaw, he exhaled. ‘Their prison beneath the black lake sustains their immortality. They must return there, or die in agony.’

  ‘A land of eternal youth, provided you never set foot back on the earth. It’s like the legend of Tír na nÓg.’

  ‘At the heart of all myths lies a grain of truth, Harvard girl.’

  After all, the horror-movie type myths that had sprung to life before her eyes in the last twenty-four hours, Ash figured she could stretch a little further to buy into mythical lands of canine immortals and life-giving fog. And on that note ... Her teeth worried at her lower lip, brow furrowed. ‘So, once the fog comes back, it’s open season on Ashling and Connal?’

  Connal’s silence, and the grim set of his jaw, confirmed her worst suspicions. ‘Until then, you’ll be safe-ish. The house is protected, they can’t touch you there, but they do have their people above ground, like your friend, the doctor.’ The word ‘friend’ came out with more venom than he intended. The sleazy medic got his hackles up, rubbing his instincts to violent desires.

  ‘Oh, safe ... ish ...’ She scowled at him, hand swatting his shoulder. ‘Way to reassure, Big Bad.’ But it did reassure, to an extent. The wolves couldn’t get in, weren’t even on the earth until the full moon spun back around. And Connal could take a bunch of human minions, right? ‘The doctor, Madden. He’s really one of them? He knows where I live, where we are. Is he like the girls, bitten?’ ‘Cause she was having a hard time shutting out disturbing images of the doc rubbing up on the men in the club.

  ‘No, not bitten.’ His gaze fell unbidden to the pulsing hollow of her throat, memories of his teeth grazing her skin popping vividly to life, carnal urges pulling at the tight-fisted rein of his discipline. ‘Madden’s kind are infinitely more dangerous than the human Thralls.’ He cleared the gravel from his throat. ‘The bitten, the Thralls, they’re just mindless slaves to their own desires. Sex, violence, deep-rooted traits brought to the fore and amplified by the eitr. Many are driven to insanity. The doctor is one of the Thegn, servants of the Fomorians. They are a sect of celibates. They share blood with the wolves, but they can’t take animal form. Think homicidal, sociopathic monks and you’ll be on the right track.’

  ‘I think anyone would be a little homicidal if they had to be celibate,’ she smiled, heat in her eyes as her thigh shifted against his hip. Not something she could possibly imagine with him around. ‘He’s going to be gunning for us then. He’s not the only one, is he? Will the house protect us from him, or isn’t he wolf enough?’ Many questions, but only a few bubbled out, tainted with faint hysteria. The main one involved running, lots and lots of running. To the US, back home, it was so big, they’d never find her, them.

  She should never have come to Dublin, never followed the breadcrumb trail that led to the witch’s gingerbread house of terror. ‘We can run, Connal. He can’t find us if we’re not here. I know places.’ She’d backpacked and moved around enough to know where to go. We cannot die went unsaid and blared loud across the forefront of her mind.

  ‘Tell me this, did Madden manage to take blood from you?’ Her neat brows met in a deep fissure of worry and she nodded her head curtly, recalling the doctor's slick manner. Plámás, the Irish had a word for it. It was a sickening realisation. He’d worked one over on her.

  ‘Yes,’ she stammered.

  Then we’re screwed. He didn’t verbalise it, but the words hung in the air like flashing neon. Connal was way out of his depth here. Ash wasn’t the first young woman with promising genetic markers that the wolves had targeted. Granted, she was the first he’d taken to his bed, the first to discover the truth of what he was and the only one he gave a flying fuck about saving from their brutal mating rituals. But Connal had only ever been the glorified delivery boy. Anann DeMorgan had always been there to protect the girls, to educate them and offer them the choice. Without the old crone, there were no choices.

  ‘Running away is not an option.’ Connal’s tone turned darkly sober. Hinging himself up from the pillows, his fingers curled into the flesh of her shoulder. ‘The Thegn are everywhere, Ash. They have infiltrated all walks of society. Now that they know of your existence, they will hunt you down, wherever you go in the world, you will not be safe. They can track you, through your blood,' she shook her head, refusing to absorb the dire truth of their situation, ‘and if you go, I can’t follow. I can’t protect you if you leave.’

  No!!! Ash refused to see that as the only option, to stay and fight and die or be abused by monster wolves, to watch Connal get torn to shreds. She couldn’t survive that again, she couldn’t watch that again and come out of it with any semblance of sanity. ‘Come with me, please ...’ Her throat caught and stuttered as she swallowed a sob, desperation a clawing, living thing in her veins as her fingers curled into his shoulder. ‘We go together, we’ll survive. I won’t go without you. I ... can’t.’ One, she probably wouldn’t make it far. She was no match against anything more than human. Two, there was no way that parting from him wouldn’t be akin to tearing out some vital inside part of her. ‘We could run. If we tried.’

  Connal’s head dropped back in frustration. ‘It’s not possible, Ash. I can’t leave Irish soil, and you wouldn’t make it past immigration control. The Thegn will be watching every flight and port out of the state. It’s what they’ll expect. The DeMorgan house is the safest place you can be right now. Stay here, and I’ll give you what protection I can.’

  Panic took her on its back and it was racing with her. She clung to it, too scared to let go and fall into hysterics. Her life had become a rollercoaster. From hating the giant wolf creatures that had killed her mother to having some sort of four letter emotion towards one who she called ‘saviour’. From only half believing their existence, to being neck-deep in their world and flailing, screaming around the twists and turns that splattered her with blood and rode her until she was sore.

  ‘I’m trapped.’ She was tight in her own skin, locked in one position because, hell, if she couldn't leave the country with him, she had to stay. There would be no leaving him to them. There would be no leaving. Ash exhaled and she curled into the support of Connal’s body, legs getting tangled up, arms reaching to wrap, taking the comfort he offered.

  Connal watched her resolve unravel before his eyes, tears of frustration brimming over her lids. He was powerless, trying to hold her together with just the strength she sought in his arms and knowing in the marrow of his being that it wasn't enough. He murmured what comfort he had into the silken fall of her hair. ‘Your grandmother is, was, a very powerful woman. Countless girls in your situation, she has spirited away from this nightmare. DeMorgan knew you were coming, Ash. She’s not here now, but the house is. I don't believe she would just abandon you to them. Surely somewhere in her Diogenes’ hoard, she’s left some clue, some way out of this godforsaken shitstorm. We could go to see her ...’

  A gentle nod hidden in the coil of his dreads. Ash was fighting her hardest to crawl under his skin and hide there until this myth-shaped cloud over her head left them alone, but reality kept worming through. Connal wouldn’t let her go without a fight, she had to believe that, and she had to trust that he knew her grandmother better than she did, had to trust that the older DeMorgan had left her some piece of the scar
y ass puzzle so she could get the hell out of Jumanji. ‘We should look.’ And hopefully this time, ‘WE’ referred to human-ish hands aiding her instead of a whining mutt butting his head into her touch every time she reached for another stack of jumbled papers. She’d spaced and he’d been out all night. ‘Setanta ...’

  She was already tripping from Connal’s embrace, getting her legs under her and tumbling off the duvet on terrified limbs. Alone, he’d been out alone. Bare-assed didn’t register through the haze of curses as she dipped to rifle through scattered clothes, getting as far as the bathroom before she realised the sodden pile of material beside the copper tub could no longer be used as a dress. Ash backtracked, a scowl stamped on her face.

  Clothes were becoming important.

  She needed to feel a little more human and a lot less like trapped prey, and where naked was erotic sprawled across his sheets, it was vulnerable outside of his bed.

  Panties!!! Ash pounced on the unharmed underwear, dragged them up her thighs and snatched the shirt closest. Hardly kevlar, but it smelled of Connal and it fit. It would do. She needed to get out.

  She was gone from his bed before he had time to drag her back. Connal snagged a pair of worn denims off the floor, stuffed long limbs into the legs and jerked them up over his bare ass. As he yanked at the zipper, he watched her through the doorway, pulling his shirt over her head. He liked how the oversized tee clung to her curves and skimmed her thighs. It gave her a certain vulnerability that appealed to the male in him. ‘The mutt’s not in the house?’

  ‘No, he ran off before the vault door shut down here and he can’t get in upstairs.’ She spared a glance over her shoulder that was more an urge for him to haul ass and open the door than to check him out ... but she could give a few seconds over to purring appreciation. The sight of him let her breathe, even as the panic swelled up her throat and her feet carried her to the metal barrier.