Becoming Bad (The Becoming Novels) Read Free Page A

drank deep and were silent.
    ‘Besides,’ Brandr cracked a smile, ‘we Fomorians are hunters to the core, not farmers. And if I am not mistaken, the prey has just arrived.’
    Hot on the heels of the cattle came the other live commodity regularly trafficked through the black conduits.
Thrall
girls, and the occasional male for those whose preferences ran to cock. As with the livestock, it was a one-way ticket; Humans could never know of their existence.
    Once bitten though, they came more than willingly ... and they
came
too
...over and over, in shuddering ecstasy. The
eitr
in a wolf’s saliva was potently addictive to humans, like sexual heroin. The naked girls filtered through the crowd now, exuding their special brand of blatant sexuality, craving their next fix of teeth in flesh. As they moved they were picked off, possessive arms circling waists, bare buttocks slapped, breasts fondled. They were dragged into laps, thighs hitched to straddle hips, laid out across the tables like food. As the night progressed, the great hall would be transformed into a stadium of fucking, with the vargs as gladiators, taking down their prey in a wet, slapping orgy of rutting flesh.
    Delicate female hands snaked over MacTire’s shoulders to toy with the piercings in his chest. A low growl bubbled up from his throat.
    ‘Will you fuck me, my Lord?’ The
thrall
’s lips pressed to the blond scruff of his jaw, her hair spilling across his neck as she crushed her breasts to his back. She tugged on his metal, a symbol of the King’s royal blood, and one he had ripped from his own blód-brother’s flesh out on the sands ...
    ‘Find another,’ he said gruffly, detaching the
thrall
from his back. She wasted no time, sliding into Brandr’s waiting lap. MacTire pushed away from the table and strode from the hall with purpose. There was only one female who hardened his cock this night, and she was waiting for him in his bedchamber.
     

    ‘Goddamn.’ Madden fired the stones against the rock face and they pinballed around the small cave where he was holed-up. Marooned in this freezing hellscape of blood and brimstone, and you think he could start a fire? No joy. He kicked at the painstakingly gathered pile of driftwood tinder and drew the silky robe tighter about his shivering body, but without its sash, the damn thing just flapped open again. No doubt, the great hulk of macho boy-scout slumped in the corner could have whipped up a blaze with a click of his arrogant fingers, were he alive. Madden had given up checking his vitals days ago. He doubted the big bastard was ever going to come round, and if he did, the doctor was going to have to pray that his knot-tying excelled his, lets-face-it, non-existent fire-starting skills.
    How he’d even dragged that mammoth body across the sand before the harpies got to them was a minor bloody miracle. He was deranged, should have just taken his punishment like a good runt and grovelled his way back into the King’s favour. The Lord and Master loved nothing more than a good ass-kissing.
    MacTire's blurted confession about Aoife had rendered Madden temporarily insane. Just as sure as they’d eviscerated Connal Savage, the King’s claim had ripped everything Madden thought he’d known of his world inside out and dumped it on its head.
    A dark shadow passed across the entrance to their cave and Madden huddled into himself. There was no sun to mark the days and nights in this subterranean pit, only the diurnal plummet in temperature that piled an extra helping of misery on his already pitiful state. The Raveners seemed to like it. As the chill descended, the gargoyles stirred to life, stretching their immense wingspans across the blood-red sky. They knew he was in here, had smelled him out the first night. They were simply biding their time, playing cat and mouse with the infinite patience only an immortal could fathom.
    Yep, he should have swallowed his damn pride. Not like his precious dignity was