Becoming Bad (The Becoming Novels) by Jess Raven, Paula Black

because you are mine.’
    ‘I told you already, you don’t own me.’ Ash strained to break free of his touch, convincing herself it was defiance warming her and not the way he played her nerves. ‘What do you mean tethered by blood?’
    ‘I mean your blood is inside me. We share a physical link, Ashling. I am attuned to your desire, as you are to mine.’
    Oh yeah, she could feel his desire.
    Something flickered across her thoughts: Doc Rob, at the hospital, taking samples for ‘research.’ Connal asked if they’d taken her blood, told her they could track her through it. ‘Wait up a second here. Are you saying you drank my blood?’
Bad enough I’m trapped in an undergound hole with a pack of sex-crazed werewolves, but now I have to deal with vampires too?
    ‘Mmmmm ...’ He growled, running his nose behind her ear, inhaling the scent of her hair, but the asshole didn’t answer her question. He didn’t have to, because the words he did speak resonated a memory that threw her right back to the forest floor where she’d first heard them in her head. ‘I can feel you, Ashling DeMorgan. You are inside me. You are mine.’
    Clarity was a shaft of light through clouds of confusion. The spontaneous orgasmic combustion, the temptress she had become, goading Connal into fucking her that very first time. ‘Oh my God … It was you! In the forest. What have you done to me? Do you think you can turn me into one of your zombie sex-bots, like you did with her?’
    On cue, the girl came again … Loudly.
    ‘She is nothing compared with you, Ashling. The tie exists because you are wolf. Already your mind is bonding with the pack. You can’t deny you feel their thoughts.’
    She was fighting to deny it, but it was all horribly true. She couldn’t even look away.
    ‘And we did not make the pathetic female
thrall
. She has your precious Connal to thank for that.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’ Her brow creased. His hands moved over the tension in her body, raising shivers.
    ‘Your lover was the one who bit her, and left her bound and gagging over a desk in our club. We took care of her.’
    Disbelief rattled through her like a chill wind. ‘You’re lying. Connal wouldn’t ...’
    ‘The
thrall
will bear witness. Should I have her brought to you?’
    ‘No!’ She didn’t want the female near her. Clearly the woman would lie for him.
    ‘What did you really know of him, Ashling? Other than what he chose to reveal.’ Each word was accompanied by a caress, his thumbs following the underside of her breasts. Her heart kicked in her chest. ‘You believed yourself in love with him, but what you experienced were false emotions, stolen sensations from the blood link that you and I shared.’
    It couldn’t be true, she knew her own mind, her emotions weren’t something that could be fabricated … and yet, something Connal had said rose to the surface of her memories, drawn up by the twinge of doubt. ‘
Just you and me, naked and broken … no full-moon fever ... no supernatural mojo
…’ Is that what he’d meant? That everything before that had been the product of some wolf voodoo? But … ‘Why should a blood-tie with you affect how I feel about him?’
    He turned her in the circle of his powerful arms until she was face to face with the wolf branded into his chest. The exact replica of Connal’s, seeing it again, on another man’s skin, engulfed any lingering desire in a wash of sadness. Her lashes were wet when she blinked, throat knotted. If she ignored his face, she could almost imagine it was Connal. He even had the nipple rings.
    Bundling her small hand in his, Mac rested the flat of her palm to his beating heart. ‘Connal and I were brothers once,
félagi.
Bonded until death. He turned against me, and against us all, Ashling. He was a traitor to his own people. You must see, I had no choice. He knew it too. He brought you here, in the end, to me. I believe it’s what he wanted.’
    ‘It is?’ Her voice was