by Tabke, Karin
“I don’t need the council’s blessing to terminate our union. It’s over because it never was. Accept it.”
Smugly Anja held out the leather bag to them. “Whether you like it or not, I am still your chosen one, not your precious Falon.”
“Keep it,” Lucien said, indicating the bag Anja held. “Falon is close. Her scent stronger.” Even though Fenrir tried to mask it. He looked to Rafe. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
They shifted, it being understood that Anja would continue to follow in a beta position.
As they ate up the miles, worry gnawed at Lucien. Not for fear of his life at the hands of the council. It was for Falon he worried. He felt her turmoil, her desperation to be free of the demonic wolf. Her yearning for the safety of his arms
Falon, he called, I’m coming for you!
Hurry, Lucien!
Six
FALON STOOD SPEECHLESS. Horrified, yes, but more than that, terrified. She was a Corbet. Not just any Corbet, but the daughter of Thomas Corbet, the worst Corbet of all.
Her recent conversation with Lucien came back to haunt her.
“What if I was a blood Corbet?” she had asked.
“Though it would kill me to do so, I would kill you,” he answered.
And of course, she’d understood. Killing a Corbet was what every Lycan lived for. But for Lucien and Rafael, it was more than killing a natural predator. For them it was a personal vendetta.
And she was a blood Corbet.
And her mother knew! Why had she kept such a terrible secret from her?
But of course . . .
Her knees wobbled. Falon sank to the cold ground.
Layla had kept the secret buried deep because of the Blood Law.
Lying with a Slayer was strictly forbidden, the penalty immediate death. Her mother would have been executed. And Falon? At the very least, she would have been shunned. But more likely, knowing Lucien’s and Rafael’s bloodlust for anything Corbet, she would have been killed. And they’d kill her now if they knew the truth.
Dear God! It couldn’t be true! Not Thomas Corbet! Not the evilest of them all, the one who initiated the slaying of Lucien and Rafael’s parents. Her father?
She dropped her head into her hands, violently shaking her head denying Fenrir’s claim.
“No!” she choked.
But it all made sense to her now. The night Viktor Salene had tried to take her, he’d told her who she was. She’d refused to listen, writing him off as some random crazy guy who liked to dress up like Conan the Barbarian. Instead, she’d ended up in Rafael’s bed. Accepted his mark.
The signs of her parentage had always been there, but she’d refused to see them. Her innate power, her visions, remembering the ring on her father’s hand. Even her eye color and her build screamed Corbet.
“He fell in love with her,” Fenrir sneered as he moved closer. He settled his large body beside her. “When they came to resurrect the ring, I heard it in their voices.” He threw his head back and laughed. “I helped nature take its course. How could I not? I knew between them they would breathe life into my legacy.”
Falon glared at Fenrir. “What legacy?”
“My nation will be born when I find the one of two bloods, a female of equal power and pure of heart. I knew Layla would bear Thomas a daughter. I knew she would be beautiful, strong, and intelligent. I knew all I had to do was bide my time and she would be mine.” He smiled malevolently. “And so she is.”
The two bloods? Not Vulkasin and Mondragon as she thought, but Slayer and Lycan! Oh, no, please, make it a lie!
Falon’s heart crumbled into thousands of tiny pieces. How could she tell Rafa and Luca? How could she bear their contempt? They would be horrified, never want to touch her again. How could she ever look in the mirror again and like what she saw?
Fenrir moved closer to her, his musky scent cloying. Heat rose in Falon’s cheek. Not embarrassment, but anger. It continued to rise until she was so furious, her limbs shook. She turned on Fenrir, shoving him away from her. Standing as he gathered himself from the tree he had slammed into, Falon walked purposely toward him, her hands out, her hatred bubbling furiously to the surface. Her beast snarled and snapped for release.
“I will deny it!” she shrieked. “You cannot prove it. And you will not use it against me! I swear by all that is holy and unholy, you wretched excuse for a wolf, if you reveal this to anyone, I will rip your black heart out of your chest and feed it to the crows!”
“You cannot kill me.”
“I will call upon every soul you destroyed, Fenrir. I will lead an army of ghost walkers against you!”
His red eyes narrowed. “How do you know of them?”
“I have my own secrets, Fenrir.”
“If you knew the secret to resurrect them you would have by now.”
Was that fear in the mighty wolf’s voice? Falon laughed caustically. “I will call upon them when I need them most.” She moved closer to him. “Has that time come?”
“Bring me Corbet’s heart, and your secret will die with him.”
“He lives?” she gasped. Did her mother know?
Fenrir smiled the gesture obscene. “He is very much alive.”
Falon looked around as if Corbet were standing in the shadows. “Where is he?”
“His magic is strong and he hides himself from me.”
“Why?”
Fenrir shrugged his large deformed shoulders. “You would have to ask him that.”
“He is the last person on earth besides you, I would want to converse with.”
His red eyes flared. “Tread lightly, lovely, my patience only stretches so far.”
“Mine has already snapped.” Falon shifted as the beast took control of her for the first time in her life. Fenrir had met his match.
* * *
RUNNING SIDE BY side, Lucien called to Rafe, Her scent is stronger!
The cloying musky scent of the deformed wolf thickened the air around them. So is Fenrir’s, Rafael answered.
As they crashed into the western edge of the Northern Cascades, Lucien caught the scent of blood. Falon’s blood.
Shit! Rafael cursed. She’s down.
Falon! Rafe called to her.
Hurry, she called back.
They looked at each other. Her voice was anxious but strong. She sounded angry and upset. Who the fuck wouldn’t?
They stretched out, the swords rattling along their backs, their mouths agape, their long powerful bodies racing furiously for Falon.
They ate up the miles. As they came to a thickly forested peak, they abruptly stopped. Panting heavily from a jutting gray rock formation, they looked down into a shallow valley, sheltering a small clearing surrounded by towering western hemlock, Douglas fir, and red cedar. A light dusting of snow covered the rugged edges of the ghostly gray rock formations. And there, pacing along the edge of the glen was one fucking ugly beast of a wolf and standing defiantly in the center was the beautiful princess.
Lucien growled and shook his head as relief filled him. Falon never ceased to amaze him. She was safe and just as difficult as usual.
He shifted to human at the same time Rafe did.
“Poor Fenrir, if he only knew what he was getting himself into,” Rafe said, shaking his head.
“If we leave her with him long enough, he’ll beg us to take her back.” Lucien couldn’t wait to get her back into his arms.
Falon, Rafe called. Don’t look up, but we’re here, on the jutting rock to your seven o’ clock.
Stand back! He’s as strong as a Titan, she warned.
Why are you bleeding? Lucien demanded.
I attacked him and when he shook me off, I sliced my back on a rock. I’m fine.
Falon, we’re downwind of you, I need you to turn around and face us, then get him to move around and face you so his back is to us, Rafe instructed.
I can’t.
Of course you can! Just start talking to him and moving, he will follow, he said, frustrated.
I told him as long as he held me captive I wasn’t going to talk to him unless hell froze over.
Well it just froze over damn it! Lucien cursed.
Fine!
“She’s going to be the death of me,” Rafe muttered.
Whatever you do, angel face, don’t look up when we come in, Lucien cautioned.
I won’t. But be careful. He’s mean and royally pissed off at the moment.
So are we, Lucien said.
As humans they watched Falon maneuver Fenrir around. She stood up and got in his face, screaming and yelling at him, her hands flying in angry gestures. Fenrir stood silent, and took it.
Good girl, keep him focused completely on you.
Rafe looked to Lucien. “Let’s hope the poison metal works on immortal wolves, at least enough to slow him down.”
“If it doesn’t then it’s on to Plan B,” Lucien said.
Rafe looked at Fenrir’s deformed human back. Both blades deep between the shoulder blades should stop him long enough for them to hack off a few body parts, grab Falon, and then get the hell out of there.
“There is no Plan B,” Rafe said.
Grimly, Lucien smiled. “Then I guess we make Plan A work.”
Pulling at her hair like a banshee, Falon railed at Fenrir. “And if you think I’m going to spend my time running after your kids, you can forget it! I’m not doing it. I’m not cooking for you, either, or hunting for you! Why did ya have to pick me? Why not some nice sweet little she-wolf? I’m only half Lycan. And I hate shifting. It hurts and I’m always ruining clothes!”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips, fighting to hold her fear at bay. “Hey! Are you even listening to me? Is this how it’s going to be? I tell you how I feel and you ignore me? I swear you are so typical. You—”
It took everything Falon had not to watch in wonder as Rafael and Lucien, in their glorious wolf forms, their swords gripped in their powerful jaws, leapt from the jutting rock formation three hundred feet up and behind her. They shifted to human form in perfect symmetry just before they hurled those nasty poison swords into Fenrir’s back.
As the blades struck home, Fenrir screamed in agonizing pain. Lucien landed on Fenrir’s shoulders and shoved the blades so deep into his back the pointed tips erupted from his chest, blood spraying in a high arch across the trampled ground. Fenrir flung Lucien back so viciously he slammed into a tall evergreen, cracking the trunk in half. As Rafael came around to grab Falon, Fenrir backhanded him, sending him careening across the glen into another tree.
Fenrir’s red eyes blazed furiously. He looked down at his bleeding chest and roared as he pulled the blades through with a sickening sluicing sound, and flung them at Falon’s feet. He snarled and shifted, then bounded after Lucien. Lucien leapt from the tree with another sword in his hand. As Fenrir approached, Lucien flipped backward in a Matrix move, landing on Fenrir’s back as the beast overran his target. Lucien plunged the sword deep into the wolf’s shoulder. Fenrir roared, and shook him off, pulling the sword from the wound.
Falon grabbed the two swords at her feet. Fenrir howled triumphantly, flinging the sword back at Lucien. Lightning quick, Falon hurled the sword in her right hand intercepting Fenrir’s sword slicing it in half before it impaled Lucien. Bellowing his rage, Fenrir shifted then turned on her and like Godzilla crashing through Tokyo, he thundered toward her.
Rafe! she called.
Behind you.
As Falon turned, Rafael launched a hundred-foot evergreen spear at Fenrir. Falon ducked and watched as the timber impaled his belly, the velocity shoving the trunk branches halfway through Fenrir.
Falon tossed the other sword to her right hand, and calling upon all of her power, she leapt for Fenrir’s throat. He flung an arm out and grabbed her by the waist. As he raised his arm to fling her away from him, she stabbed the sword into his neck. His red eyes flared, furious.
“Why, when I would have given you the world?” he asked, frothy blood bubbling down the blade.
Falon pulled the sword out and stabbed it deep into his throat again. “Because I despise what you have done.”
Lucien grabbed the sword from Fenrir’s neck and hacked off the arm holding Falon. The beast screamed dropping to his knees. Rafe hacked off his right foot.
The delimbed monster floundered in the dirt.
Let’s get the hell out of here, Lucien shouted, pushing her away.
Finish it! she cried, grabbing the sword from him.
There is only one sword that can kill him and this isn’t it.
What do you mean?
When we’re safely away, I’ll explain.
Fenrir snarled, raising his slowly regenerating arm.
Shit, the three said in unison, backing up.
Wait! We possess the power of the three! Falon threw down her sword and grasped Lucien’s right hand and Rafael’s left hand. Immediate power pulsed through them. Chin raised, staring Fenrir straight in the eye, Falon raised their clasped hands in the air toward him. Brilliant red and gold sparks illuminated their auras. Each of their hearts stuttered, stumbled, and then restarted, beating as one. United with their combined powers.
Holding Fenrir’s glare, Falon dared him to come closer. “Accept defeat, Fenrir.”
“I am immortal!”
The ring on Rafael’s hand flared red hot, the heat thrummed through each of them fortifying their stance.
Fenrir snarled, shifting to his terrible wolf, his body intact.
Rafe raised his fist and pointed at Fenrir. “I command you to return to the ring!”
Falon gasped. Was it possible?
Oh, my God, she mouthed when Fenrir’s flanks began to shake like he had a case of the rickets. He dug his front paws into the earth churning it to mud as his body was invisibly pulled toward them.
“Now!” Rafael shouted.
Throwing his head back, Fenrir snarled, his hot breath raging around them, deafening in its roar. The beast’s eyes burned like fanned coals, his furious aura flared red and black. The cacophony of his rage singed Falon’s hair and skin. His body twisted, resisting the command.
The power of the three stood united as the firestorm raged around them. The heat became unbearable. Falon’s skin was burning. She could smell it.
Lucien wrapped his body around hers protectively, while at the same time shielding Rafe with his left arm and shoulder.
And then, the heat was gone.
When the air settled around them, Falon let out a long relived breath. They had survived the wrath of Fenrir.
“What just happened?” she asked.
“I’m going to guess we scared the shit out of that wolf,” Lucien said, unwrapping himself from around Falon.
Looking up to Lucien to thank him for protecting her, the words caught in her throat. “Luca, you’re burned!” The skin on his back and forearm was raw and bleeding.
Shaking off her concern, Lucien pointed after Fenrir who had run deep into the thick cover of forest.
“We may not have been able to force him back into the ring but we threatened him enough to make him run,” Rafe said.
Falon looked at Rafa who was unscathed. “How are you without burns?”
“Lucien’s arm, and what he didn’t cover, the ring did.” Rafe looked at Lucien. “You’re burned up pretty bad.”
“I’m okay. Let’s get out of here.”
“We’re not going after Fenrir?”
“No. We’re too evenly matched.” Lucien looked past her to where th
e wolf had disappeared. “The next time we come face-to-face with him, we’ll have the advantage.”
“The sword you spoke of?”
“Yes. And we have no time to waste. Let’s go.”
“Luca,” Falon said, reaching out to his raw shoulder. “Allow me to heal you before we go.”
He looked past her to his brother. “I’m fine.”
Falon smiled softly and said to Rafe, “Rafa, would you give us a few moments alone. Please.”
He opened his mouth to deny her, but instead he nodded and started for the bluff they had leapt from.
“Come over here,” she said, drawing Lucien carefully by the hand to an undisturbed patch of earth along the timberline.
He eyed her warily.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
Blinking like an owl, Lucien just stared at her.
“Lucien, what are you thinking?”
“That you’re going to run back to Rafe.”
Her heart pounded for this proud man. She touched his chin. “I love you.”
“But you will return to him.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation right now, Luca. When you are stronger.”
“I’m stronger now. Tell me.”
She looked past his shoulder to see Rafael standing on the bluff, almost one hundred yards from where they stood. His intense gaze locked and held hers.
“I have some things to sort out, but, please, Lucien, believe me when I say I want to be with you. Just give me some space right now.”
“You carry my child. I will not let you go.”
She looked into his flaring golden eyes. “If I wasn’t?”
“I still wouldn’t.”
She smiled. “Good.”
He let out a long breath, and winced as she raised his arm. “These are bad, Lucien.”
“I’ve lived through worse.”
“I’m sure you have, but with burns, infection is what will do you in.”
Facing him, she gently placed her hands on his forearms. Soothing warmth immediately radiated from her to his skin. He hissed. “I’m sorry, but the pain will ease soon.”