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Foolish Macha.
“No need to undress me further, your majesty.”
Dagda released her and moved backward, putting several paces between them. Badb held back a smile. He was wary of her. Good.
“Shall we speak on dry land?” she asked.
She stepped around him and approached the shore. The water drained off her, the ends of her soaked hair creating a steady stream behind her. Dagda followed at a distance. When they both left the pond, his eyes flicked over her body before directing his gaze out over the lake.
And like that, Badb had made him the vulnerable one.
There was a connection. Even having taken over Morrigan’s body, Badb sensed it. The oncemate bond between them was strong.
That bonding would be so sweet to crush when she eventually destroyed him.
“Badb, I presume?” Dagda asked.
Her chin raised. “You presume correctly. What do you wish to discuss with me?”
“Need you ask?” He glared at her, and she saw the hardness in his form. Not a determined, ready for battle hardness. A brittle, wild hardness ready to lash out at anything that might catch him off guard.
“The question is, what do you want?” he asked.
“The same thing you do, my king. To return our dear queen to her position of power within the Otherworld.”
Dagda narrowed his eyes. “You seek to remain in the place where you may be brought into subjugation?”
Badb raised her hand, taking in her perfectly manicured fingers. “This current incarnation of the great Morrigan is no more than an inexperienced child.” She examined Dagda. How she longed to dig her delicately painted nails into his flesh, to shred it under her touch, to snap his bones, to taste his blood on her tongue. Then she’d release the griffin faerie guardian and end him for good.
It was torture to hold back the urges within her, but Dagda wasn’t the only one she wanted to kill. No, there were so many lives to be taken. She needed to wait to get into the perfect position. Besides, there were other ways of striking a blow, if not as satisfying, just as efficiently. “I believe she has made it very clear that she wants nothing to do with you.”
His clenched jaw twitched, and Badb smiled.
“Let me speak with her,” Dagda growled.
“And you. It is too bad for you that you have fallen. Second hand knowledge from so long ago puts both you and Morrigan at a disadvantage. I bet you thought we were gone for good.”
He took an unsteady step toward her. “She will defeat you. You shall bend to her will.”
Badb raised her chin. “And what do we all do with each other until then?”
He stood there, every muscle in his body tensed. “If you do not behave, there shall be consequences.”
She laughed. “Oh, but that would look very bad. How will usurping her authority appear to her adoring subjects, I wonder? Not to mention, you may only make Morrigan hate you more.”
Silence settled between them. Finally Dagda spoke, his voice quiet. “I will do what I must.”
“You may speak with your dear Morrigan,” Badb said. “But know I have little patience and I spare no mercy in pursuit of my desires.”
Badb shut her eyes and released control, joining Macha in their shared prison.
Chapter 6
Wetnessdrippedfrommybody, and the heaviness of my soaking hair weighed on my shoulders. I gripped my elbows, shivering as I took in the pond behind me, panic building in my throat. A breeze stung my back and goosebumps coursed over bare skin.
What the hell had just happened to me? I had been bound somewhere deep and dark, with no control. I’d been a prisoner inside my own body.
King Dagda lingered at the water’s edge, his shirt, jacket, and jeans flung onto the branches of a tree, watching me. Water dripped from his boxers and over his muscled legs.
