“Oh, good.” It would suck for the poor bastard to survive all this, only to die from the Bite. Twenty percent of Direkind didn’t survive their first transformation -- their magic escaped their control and incinerated them. Not that the first shift was a party even for the lucky eighty percent. Helena grimaced, remembering her own.
By the time the Mother sat back on her heels with a sigh of satisfaction, Conal was healed and whole. Even the blood was gone, leaving no sign whatsoever of the horrific torture he’d suffered, beyond those gore-splattered jeans. He was otherwise naked, elegant chiseled torso bare, with long legs, ridiculously broad shoulders and powerful arms -- the kind of body designed for combat and seduction.
He stirred with a groan of relief as his lids fluttered and lifted. His face was as ridiculously beautiful as his body. Thick dark brows drew attention to those arresting violet eyes and the kind of sculpted, aggressively masculine features you usually saw only on busts of Roman generals. Long dark hair spilled around his head, revealing ears that swept into elegant points. Changelings so obviously Sidhe usually employed some magical tatt to keep a human disguise going even while they were asleep or unconscious. Probably that sigil on his left pectoral, judging by the magic it radiated. Being a werewolf, Helena saw him as he was. It was a damn nice view…
Her libido picked that moment to wake up and start rumbling, her nipples tightening, heat gathering in her pussy. Oh, shut up. He’s not going to be interested in me. He’s seen my inner Big Bad Wolf.
Healed or not, it took Conal a minute to start tracking. He blinked up at them in confusion, before he sucked in a gasp and jolted into a sitting position, looking wildly around.
“All is well,” Maeve told him, catching a bare shoulder to gently urge him back down before he could leap away. “Those who hurt you are dead, thanks to my wolf.”
“Actually, he got some of them himself,” Helena said. She’d seen him swinging that great sword like Arthur in a snit. “Good job with Liam, by the way.”
When she’d first glimpsed him with the shotgun, her first thought was Oh, shit. Helena was the only one who could handle Liam without risking a self-inflicted bullet. Apparently, the death god had behaved himself -- for once. Unlike the werewolves. Grimacing, Helena glanced around at the chaos and blood splatter that reminded her too much of her own crime scene. Her stomach lurched, and she quickly returned her attention to Conal.
He was looking around at the carnage with a shell-shocked expression and probably having a horrific flashback of his own. Impulsively, she laid a hand on his shoulder. Conal jerked, staring at her before he visibly forced himself to relax and give her a smile. “Sorry. I’m a little jumpy.”
She smiled back, making it as kind as she could. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve had a hell of a day.” But at least you’re not going to turn furry. Being a monster was nobody’s idea of fun.
Chapter Two
“Gods and demons, Helena,” Maeve said, rising to her feet with Essus perched on her shoulder like the world’s most ferocious parrot. She surveyed the chaos with distaste. “Between you two and the werewolves, this place looks like London after the Blitz.”
“Oops.” Helena gave Conal a crooked smile. “Sorry about that.”
“I can’t really complain.” He managed to force his own mouth into a return curve. His nervous system still reverberated with jolts of phantom pain, like a tuning fork trapped inside Big Ben. He hoped it didn’t show. “Breathing makes up for a lot.”
An hour ago, he’d sat at the table in the sunny breakfast nook, answering email about the Brussels media company he was negotiating to buy. Essus had occupied the padded perch at his elbow, a piece of fish gripped in his talons as they shared an early supper. Conal had felt the first gate open and looked around to discover hell had come for an afternoon call.
Now the great room did indeed look as if it had been hit by a bombing run. Furry bodies lay among the broken remains of the two couches, a coffee table and three armchairs. Rodin’s marble bust of Conal’s father lay shattered, along with the wall-length flat screen. The wooden floor was deeply scarred by claw marks, and blood spattered the room like the aftermath of one of the Saw flicks.
Conal’s gaze fell on the kitchen chair still lying on its side, surrounded by broken, bloody chains. For a moment, he was bound and helpless, watching the werewolf lean in to bite a chunk out of his right pec, as slowly, as sensuously, as a woman kissing a lover… Siobhan had mocked him throughout the torture by video chat. “You earned this, you bastard. You betrayed me. And you’re going to die screaming. I’m going to give you a death that will haunt Mother for centuries.”
What is it with her and Maeve, anyway? The bitch was thousands of years old, not sixteen.
Essus snorted in their magical link. Immortality just gives some people more time to go insane. And Siobhan was never that stable to begin with.
Maeve glanced at him and winced, making him wonder what showed on his face. “Those jeans are disgusting. You need clothes,” she told him, and flicked her fingers. Magic swirled, and he looked down to see black slacks, loafers and a black silk shirt.
The goddess glanced around. “Might as well clean up this mess while I’m at it.” She began strolling around the room, gesturing spells at corpses and puddles of blood, which instantly vanished in swirls of sparks. The Rodin reassembled itself as broken furniture glowed white-hot, then reappeared, leather couches and armchairs whole, the flat screen back on the wall. The kitchen chair vanished. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw it in the breakfast nook, back at the once-cracked table that was now whole again.
Not that it mattered. He was going to have to replace the nook furniture anyway. He’d never be able to sit in that chair without remembering how it felt to have bites taken out of him like a piece of cake.
Conal set his teeth and forced the memory down into the depths of his brain with all the rest of the trauma. Damn it, this isn’t the first time Siobhan’s fucked with me. Though it was in the top two of the worst.
Wings fluttered, and a familiar weight settled on his shoulder. He managed not to flinch. Oh, my boy, Essus thought, pain and guilt reverberating in the link. I’m so sorry I failed you.
“Bullshit.” Conal said aloud, stroking a finger over his friend’s feathered head. “You ripped into those fuckers like they were field mice. If I hadn’t been so scared for you, I’d have laughed my ass off watching them dodge your claws and yip.”
“You did save his life,” Helena agreed, giving the eagle a smile. “If you hadn’t reached Maeve in the Mageverse…” She flicked a glance at Conal, and her mouth clicked shut.
“She’s right, my eagle,” Maeve said. “You served me well this day.”
“Which reminds me…” Conal turned to Helena. “I haven’t thanked you for saving my ass.” His gaze dropped to the holster around her narrow waist. “You and your friend ‘with the particular set of skills.’”
“Yeah, that’s definitely one way to describe him.” She laughed, her dark eyes sparkling. Something about the throaty sound made his battered soul relax into uncomplicated yearning.