Chapter 6

THE MORRíGAN

She woke screaming.

The sound sends shivers down my spine, sets my fur on edge. I want to snap and threaten her nightmares away, but I know that's not how it works. The ghosts of our past are harder to dispel than that.

She is cold to the touch, cold still than my wolf's nose, and I do not understand how any human can run so cold without doing themselves some permanent damage.

But Ciara is damaged.

That man damaged her, I know it, and he haunts her in places that I cannot follow, for the dreamworld was never a realm of mine.

Her hands run across my fur, and then she gets up, pushes me away and leaves the bedroom. I want to follow, to know what it is that she is doing, to know what it is that she needs, but I don't. I lie atop her bed, impotently waiting her return.

For the first time since the Veil fell, I ponder shifting into my humanshape.

It's only been a few months since magic started leaking back into the mortal world, bringing the downfall of the Veil with it. None of us Gods know why it happened, just as we don't know why it came into being in the first place, separating us out. Keeping us trapped in the other.

Most of the immortals I know have gone straight back to the mortals. Cliodhna and Aoibheall opened a sex club in the middle of a human town—for Gods' sake—and seem quite set upon experiencing every sensual pleasure they were denied for millennia in the span of a year.

But I didn't.

It wasn't company that I missed, but the woods, the wildlands, the animals.

I spent months switching between crow and raven, flying over the hills of éire, until the trees of Glanteenassig appeared below me. Only then did I shift into my wolfshape and run with the earth of éire beneath my paws.

But a wolf cannot hug. A wolf cannot wipe away tears.

Ciara invited a wolf into her cottage, she did not invite a Goddess—or at least, not intentionally. And to shift now might destroy all trust she has in me.

I wonder if I made a mistake, if I should have come to her in my humanshape, if I should have allowed her to reveal to me that which I now know.

Ciara stands in the doorway, a glass of water in her hand, and she gulps it down. Her eyes are dull and she smells of fear and pain.

"Oh Red," she says. "I'm sorry I woke you."

I want to tell her that it is nothing, that if she needs to scream, she should let loose and scream her pain to all the heavens.

But I cannot speak.

This time, when she lies back down, I nestle in as close as I can without resting my legs upon her again, and after a pause, she leans forward and rests her head against my coat.

Her sleep is still fitful, but at least she gets some.

I, however, sleep not a wink. I am wide awake and surprised to find myself filled with the kind of all-encompassing rage that I have not felt since I first walked this earth.

Immortal anger rushes through my veins, fills my very soul, and I know that if I chose to, I could call upon Taranis and have him strike down this Robert in an instant. But it would be no good. Ciara would not know, would always be looking over her shoulder and wondering if it was safe. If she was safe.

I cannot have that.

Ciara needs to have peace.

And so, I plan. I plot and I plan because he will return, and when he does, I will destroy him, and my Ciara will know that she is safe.