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I glanced around, wondering if her sisters were lurking anywhere, but bless the gods she appeared to be by herself. Badb was one thing. I didn’t also need the burden of dealing with the rest of the Morrigan.
Seemingly satisfied that she had our attention, she began to flap her wings wildly. I choked up on the tire iron, though I wasn’t going to use it to lay the smackdown on a goddess. I’d be better off just killing myself.
As she flapped her wings, her figure expanded, growing taller and wider. The wings transformed into a long cloak of feathers with a high collar framing her now-human face. She wore a crown of bird bones with a crow skull resting at the center of her forehead. Her skin was pale and similar in shade to an opal, shifting from rose to blue hues depending on the light. Her hair was a shade of red I’d never seen on a human, deep garnet, like a ruby, and glowing with inner flame.
She was something to behold, terrible and beautiful and simmering with quiet menace. Her two sisters, Macha and Nemain, were equally fierce, but not as common to see. At least not stateside. Together they were harbingers of war. Badb also foreshadowed carnage and grisly death.
So you can imagine how stoked I was to see her when I knew Manea was biting at our heels.
“Rain Chaser.” Her voice reminded me of dry leaves skittering through a graveyard. It was chilling and somehow managed to convey the inevitability of death in every syllable.
I bet she was a hoot at parties.
“Badb of the Morrigan. Your presence honors us.” I bowed my head in a sign of respect. Next to me, Cade gave a curt nod but let my greeting speak for us both, like he didn’t trust what he might say if he opened his mouth.
Badb waved a hand, dismissing the formalities. “You’re causing quite a stir, Tallulah. The winds are atwitter with your name.”
I wasn’t sure I needed the wind or anyone else spreading my name among the gods. It was hard to fly below the radar if everyone knew who you were. Especially when you had a penchant for breaking the rules more often than not.
“That’s nice,” I said.
“Mmm.” Her lips formed a thin line, and she looked us over. “I’ve come to offer a few friendly words of advice, if I may.”
Like we could stop her.
She moved towards us like light dancing across water, graceful but spooky in how disconnected it was from human motion.
I backed up instinctively and ended up with my butt pressed against the open trunk of the Dodge. The smart thing to do would be to put the tire iron down, but it made me feel better having it in my hands, even if I knew I wasn’t going to use it.
Badb was close enough now to see all the fine details of her face. Her eyes were coal black with no iris, just solid black circles in the middle of the whites. It was creepy the way they reflected whoever she was looking at, as if they were mirrors made of ink or oil. Everything about her was meant to entice, intrigue, and repulse. This form put people off their guard, made them uneasy.
It was working incredibly well, because my skin was crawling, but I also wanted to stroke the feathers of her cape.
Her gown beneath the feathers was made of smoke. Not merely resembling it, actual shifting layers of deep-gray smoke. Behind her insects were skittering across the highway, trying to get out of the orbit of her presence. All the previous chattering of birds in the trees had died away, and even the wind was gone.
All was silent.
Badb and Manea were pretty on par as far as scariness went, but Badb had the upper hand at the moment, in that she was standing right in front of me.
She touched my cheek, and I recoiled. Her skin was warmer than I expected, but I still didn’t want her hands on me. No good could possibly come of having her here.
“You’re a beautiful girl. Isn’t she beautiful, Luckless One?” Her dark eyes darted to Cade, reminding him he had not escaped her notice.
“She is,” he replied quietly.
“What a pair you two make, mmm.” She cocked her head much as her bird form had. So much of her resembled the crow still, the sharp mannerisms and jerky gestures. It was more than a little creepy. “It’s a shame you’re otherwise bound to your lieges. I would love to have my time with either of you.” She smiled thoughtfully, and it didn’t make me feel any warmer. “Or both of you.”
Yeah, a threesome with the goddess of carnage and painful death was so not on my bucket list.
“You flatter us with your attention, Badb.” Cade at least remembered what he was supposed to say. “But you said yourself, we are bound to others. Ardra does not share.”
“She is sharing you with Seth.” Badb feigned a pout and pulled a strand of my hair loose from its messy bun. She wound it around her finger, and the black strands looked extra dark against her glimmering opal skin.
I cleared my throat and turned my head so the hair fell out of her grip. “You came to tell us something.”
“Did I? Oh yes, I suppose I did.”
Fuck me, talking to a goddess was like asking a toddler to read an advanced physics dissertation. Seth might be cold, but at least he was good at getting to the point.
