“Ouch.” I swat at the hand gripping my ear.
“I do so suggest you try to take a swing at me again.”
I do not swing again as I blink at The Morrigan. Uh oh.
“Oh, hello there.” I glance at Kieran who is also being held by the points of his ears by another… “Morrigan.”
“No, not The Morrigan.” Finnian steps into the fray, a minute too late if you ask me. “Macha. Her sister.”
“Mock-ah?” I repeat.
The Morrigan lookalike drops Kieran’s ear and nods at me. It’s uncanny. She looks exactly like the Morrigan. Both tall, ink-black hair. Both wearing crow feathers. Though where Morrigan’s eyes are silver, Macha’s are black. From the sclera to the iris.Black.
The Morrigan? I’d joke with, and maybe that’s a mistake I often make. But this goddess? Never.
The Morrigan often wears battle leathers. This woman wears a dress that drapes over her body like a living cobweb. And she’s slowly walking closer and closer to me.
She stands before me but a head shorter. And those pitch black eyes hold mine. They flicker only to Morrigan for a moment then back at me.
I swallow hard. This woman is wild in a way that darkness fears.
“Orion,” she says through pouty lips. “I owe you a life debt.”
A burning spears through my gut like a giant fish hook, yanking through me and back toward this goddess.
Who apparently owes me a life debt. “What?” I question, even though I can feel the burning strike at my wrist.
Her lips twitch. “Do you not remember saving me?”
“I…” Frowning, I roll back through my memories. “The settlements.” My eyes widen.
“You saved me from a great death.”
“I had no idea who I saved,” I muse aloud.
“You wouldn’t,” she says and her voice sounds like an echo of multiple voices. Goddesses are terrifying. “I had to heal. To wake. Then to take back my power long held dormant.”
What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?
“Come.” Morrigan breaks the strange trance her sister holds over me.
“Why are you two here?” Kieran questions while also taking a full step back when Macha looks at him.
I do not blame him.
“Because. We must get Ash.” The Morrigan says it so simply.
As though we haven’t tried. As though we haven’t spent every single day of the last month trying to do just that. And if it weren’t for the terrifying goddess staring at us I might just say all that.
But she freaks me out so I push past all of them before she smites me with her demon eyes, and plop down at the bar beside Whispen. At least he knows what we’ve been through.
“There, there, big guy.” The little blue hellion pats my head. “She doesn’t know you failed so many spectacular times.”
Now I know how Kieran feels.
“Pint.” I ignore the demon and speak to Donn. “Put me out of my misery.”
He just grunts and pours the beer.
