Bloodright

by Karin Tabke

  Lucien turned with Falon in his arms. Her pulse had weakened and her heartbeat had slowed to a death knell. Her lifeblood covered his body. Never more furious than at that moment, Lucien looked down at the woman who had driven the wedge deeper between the packs. His brother’s chosen one. The woman Rafael loved and who loved him equally in return. Why had she been given a second chance when his own chosen one had not been given even one? His heart still ached over the loss.

  As would his brother’s for Falon. Because now she was Lucien’s. And though his vengeance burned white hot in his heart, there was the slightest sliver of it left untainted by the ugliness his world had become. That tiny piece of him cried out to Falon to love him as she loved his brother.

  He looked over his shoulder to his frantic twin. It took the combined effort of pack Vulkasin and those of pack Ruiz’s alpha and sergeant at arms to hold Rafael back. “Take your honor and your Blood Law and find another mate, Brother.” Lucien raised the dying Falon in his arms. “This one is mine.” Rafael’s eyes blazed bloodred, froth covered his mouth, and the muscles in his body strained so tightly against his skin it looked as if his body would split at the seams. “Come near her, Brother, and I will kill her after I kill you.”

  Rafael snarled and shifted. As he lunged at Lucien, a shot rang out. Rafael’s big body hit the floor with a heavy thud.

  Stunned, Lucien looked past his brother to Sharia, who stood with the handgun Falon had used on herself, pointed at Rafa’s now-human body. A profound sense of loss he could not explain filled Lucien’s heart.

  “My gods! What have you done!” Lucien railed at the old medicine woman stepping toward his brother’s still body.

  She raised furious brown eyes to him and levelly said, “Leave here before he shakes off the wound and kills you, or I will kill you myself.”

  Lucien stepped back, unsure how to interpret the emotions crashing inside him. So he did not try. “If he dies from the wound, you will answer to me.”

  “What do you care?” the old woman scoffed.

  “He is my brother! When his time comes, it will be by my hand alone!”

  With Falon hanging unconscious in his arms, Lucien strode bloody and naked from the Vulkasin compound building to his waiting motorcycle. His pack swarmed behind him. Talia, his cousin and Mondragon spirit healer, shoved her way through the bodies to Lucien, her big purple eyes wide with concern. She pressed her hand to Falon’s heart. “She does not have much time left, Lucien.”

  “I know.” He whirled away. Holding Falon to his chest, he mounted his chopper. Moments later, they roared out of the compound.

  Luca.

  Lucien ignored his brother’s desperate call.

  Luca, please, I beg you, if you have any love for me left in your heart, heal Falon.

  Rafael’s words tore at him. The devil that drove Lucien wanted Falon to die, to punish Rafael for what he had done to him. An eye for an eye; Rafael would finally live Lucien’s pain. But that barely perceptible part of the human that was left, stayed his revenge.

  Save her.

  Lucien ground his jaw, shutting off his mind to his brother’s pleas. The beast in him wanted to save Falon, because for selfish reasons, for noble reasons, for purely primal reasons, he wanted her for himself.

  Save her, Luca. She is powerful and strong. Save her and you save yourself.

  “What payment do you offer for her life?” he shouted to the wind.

  As Lucien made the demand, he steered his chopper to the shoulder of the road where he abruptly stopped. He growled and looked down at the pale face. The face that had pitted Lycan against Lycan. The face Rafael had fallen in love with. The face Lucien dreamed would one day be his to kill. The face that could end the Lycan nation as a people. Because there was no chance for the packs to reunite now. Not as long as one of the brothers lived. Or, if she died.

  Save her life and I swear on our mother’s heart, I will not come for her.

  But she will come for you.

  I will shun her.

  And she will know it is a ploy.

  I will make her think I love another.

  Then swear to take another mate before the next full moon.

  You will save her, then?

  I will save her. But that decision was made the minute she pulled the trigger.

  I swear it.

  That Rafael did not hesitate to give up the one thing he loved most in the world to save it was not lost on Lucien. He hated his brother for his honor. But despised himself more because he loved nothing enough to make any sacrifice.

  Then it will be done. Because honor was Rafael’s Achilles’ heel. Not only would he abide by the council’s decision, Rafael would keep his word and stay away from Falon. The cards could not have been dealt more favorably to Lucien had he handpicked them himself.

  As Lucien laid Falon’s still body down on the side of the road, her heart arrested. Quickly, Lucien bit his wrist until his blood flowed in a thick, steady stream and then pressed it to Falon’s pale lips. He pressed his other hand to the gunshot wound in her chest. Closing his eyes, he called upon the Great Spirit Mother to spare her life, just as she had spared his and Rafael’s lives all those years ago.

  Talia came up behind him and pressed her hands to his shoulders and began an ancient healing chant. Her hands infused him with a warm heat. It traveled from his shoulders to his arms to his hands, and into Falon’s body. His blood thrummed hot in his veins.

  Iridescent energy flickered along Lucien’s skin to Falon’s. Her heart lurched against his hand, and in a slow, unsteady cadence, it began to beat. Lucien’s own heart beat with it, urging hers into a steadier rhythm. Falon choked as his blood drenched her lips. He pressed his wrist more firmly to her lips.

  “Take it, Falon,” he commanded.

  She moaned.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Take more.”

  Her lips tightened around him, her tongue slid across the bite wounds, her lips pulled, sucking hard. A desire like no other thrummed through him, slamming into his defenses before filling every inch of him with a wild, possessive greed.

  Lucien closed his eyes, fighting the call of the wild. But once he wrangled the beast to submission, he heard it again. Stronger this time: the inarguable call of her blood to his.

  Like a lightning bolt striking a mountaintop, it struck Lucien that Falon was meant to be his. He believed strongly in fate, fate he directed, not fate directing him. He forced a tight smile and smoothed away a hank of blood-soaked hair from her cheek. She would be his now, and with her by his side, they would lead the nation against the Slayers and destroy each and every one of those murderous miscreants.

  Lucien lowered his lips to the bullet wound that still seeped blood and licked it, sealing it enough to buy him some time to get to his own compound in the flatlands.

  Falon’s body had stilled, but the strong beat of her heart told him she would live.

  He looked up to Talia, who stood by silently. “She’s strong enough to make it to the compound.”

  “I’ll go ahead and prepare your room.”

  Lucien nodded. Falon’s other wounds could wait. He pulled out the spare clothing he always carried from one of the saddlebags. He wrapped one of his shirts around Falon’s shoulders, and quickly dressed himself. Carefully he picked her up and mounted his chopper.

  Readjusting Falon’s limp body in his arms, Lucien gave the go-ahead signal to his pack, and they carefully continued down the steep mountain road to his own compound nestled in the flatlands at the base of Sierras.

  His mind swirled with what it would mean to finally have a mate, and how she would affect his future. Lucien glanced down at Falon’s pale face. His chest tightened. He would not love her. Could not. Not when she loved his brother. He trusted Rafael would not come for her, and he believed Rafael would do all in his power to convince Falon he loved another, but Falon’s heart would never beat for Lucien. She would never share her heart with him, but more than that, he would
not share what was left of his with her.

  He was incapable of loving.

  The day he watched his parents die the most heinous of deaths at the hands of Thomas Corbet and his brothers Balor and Edward had jackhammered away a chunk of Lucien’s heart. The day his chosen one died in his arms by the brother he loved as much as he loved himself, what little part of his heart was left disintegrated into dust. While his vengeance against Rafael had eaten at him for years, his true driving passion since he was ten years old was to destroy every drop of the Corbet bloodline. Destroy the blood, destroy the threat.

  The rising was two months away. His mother was Mondragon of the greatest European pack. They would follow him. But Rafael had the support of the Russian and northern packs.

  Lucien sneered. That loyalty would not last once they heard how the great golden alpha had softened because of a female, and one not even full Lycan.

  Falon stirred in his arms as if she knew he thought of her with disdain. Even if every pack on the planet served Lucien, Rafael held the trump card: the Eye of Fenrir. The ancient ruby ring that housed the powerful but traitorous wolf, Fenrir. The power the ring held was untold. The soul who possessed it, and understood the power within and how to wield that power, was untouchable.

  Throwing his head back, Lucien howled at the waning moon. “Oh, Rafael, had you not been blinded by your honor, you could have used the power of the ring to destroy me and have your woman. No one would dare challenge you!”

  But Rafael played by the honor code. Using the ring would have disrespected the council’s decision and in so doing disrespected the Blood Law. What did it get him? Nothing but a ring with the promise of power that would never be used and the loss of his chosen one.

  If Lucien possessed the ring there would be no doubt what he would do with it. He would exploit every facet of it. He would not wait for the rising. Single-handedly he would go on a rampage destroying every descendant of Peter “the Wolf” Corbet. There would be no place any of them could hide. None with the power to stop him, and once he had eradicated the world of that bloodline, he would go after the rest of them. One by one, they would die a slow, miserable death by his hand alone. And when the world was free of every last Slayer, he would call the packs together and they would unite and rebuild as one.

  What had Rafael done with the ring? Nothing proactive that Lucien could see. It was wasted on a man who was so blinded by his honor, he could not see that to survive, he must use the power now and strike before the rising.

  Lucien glanced down at Falon. Mauled and bloody as she was, her unusual beauty shown through. But there was more than that holding Lucien’s attention. Her mystical essence was strong. Magic swirled around her bright aura. He knew firsthand she had a temper. Knew she was a fighter, too. He inhaled her rich, musky scent. Carnally, she would be unpredictable and insatiable. She was a worthy mate. That he would not deny. He looked ahead at the dark ribbon of road. To be loved by this woman as she loved his brother would be as powerful in itself as the Eye of Fenrir.

  Even his own chosen one had not loved him the way Falon loved Rafael. Was he not worthy of such love? Snarling, Lucien dug his fingers into Falon’s waist. He was worthy! More than worthy. He was alpha! He deserved all that Rafael possessed, including being loved by his chosen one. But to receive love, one must give it, and Lucien had none to spare.

  His lips pulled back from his teeth. Yeah, she may never love him, but the silver lining was that he would have her. She would bear his children. And long after they triumphed over the rising, Rafael would roam aimlessly among the mountains craving the one true mate he could never have.

  Lucien leashed his anger before it took control of him. Even if he were to die an untimely death, once he took Falon and marked her as his, Rafael would never take her back. His honor would never allow it, much less his pride. Lucien scoffed. He got the pride thing. Had Falon lain with any other man than his brother, and if his revenge would not live on in his possession of Falon, even with all her powers combined, Lucien would have refused her as his chosen one.

  Lucien smiled. She had a few other assets that swayed him. His gaze swept her full breasts. She was a prize. And naive. She had unknowingly been lured last month into trading blood with him. Small though it was, it took only a drop from each of them for the exchange to manifest into the power to slip into her subconscious and not only speak to her but—touch her. He suspected Falon didn’t realize she possessed the same power. The sensations were real. All senses firing when the bloods recognized their counterpart. And for all that she had belonged to Rafael, she belonged to him now.

  His skin warmed as he remembered how, like a mist, he had gone into her dreams and intimately touched her. Heat sluiced through his veins straight to his dick. He could not remember ever feeling so sexual as when she responded to his touch in her dreams, and it had been just an illusion. She had been delectably innocent to his power over her then, now—his arm tightened around her waist drawing her closer to his chest. Once she healed, he would come to her in full flesh and bone. He would fuck her until she howled herself hoarse and every Lycan for three hundred miles would know what he was doing to her. It would drive Rafael mad.

  Keeping Falon alive had been a score on more than one count.

  FALON WRITHED IN pain on the damp sheets. Her body sizzled with fever. Feeling like lead, her limbs weighed her down. Every joint ached. Her swollen eyes pounded like wrecking balls against her eyelids.

  She had been slogging through crowds of aimless souls for days, weeks, months, fighting her way toward the sliver of light that beckoned in the distance, just beyond the souls who slogged as she toward the light. Each time she got close enough to feel the warmth of the light across her cheeks, thick fog sucked her back into the gray purgatory of nothingness. Far below her feet, the churning black abyss of hell waited for souls to fall into its hungry jaws.

  Strong hands caught her each time she slipped through the fog toward the violent vortex beneath her. If the whirlpool caught hold of her, it would suck her down, and even the strong hands that had repeatedly pulled her from it would not be able to save her. It had been what she wanted: that black numbness of death. But when faced with the reality of death, she fought to live.

  Rafa! Come for me!

  Each time she called out to him, her voice echoed back. Unanswered.

  A choked cry caught in her throat. Rafa, why do you ignore me?

  Her heart shuddered to a halt with grim realization. There was only one reason Rafa would not return her call. He was dead.

  I’m so sorry! she sobbed.

  Why had she sworn to abide by the council’s decision?

  Because the verdict could be only one of two. Either they would believe Rafael was justified to kill Lucien’s chosen one because she was a Slayer, and with that belief allow her to stay with Rafael, or they would not believe him and hand her over to Lucien to destroy. The word of the Blood Law was painfully clear: an eye for an eye.

  Had they given Lucien license to kill her, she would have killed him in self-defense and lived with the consequences. She would have hidden until the rising when she would reveal herself to stand beside Rafa and fight for their lives. With the dawn of a new world, new laws would be written. New laws that would make it possible for her to be with her true love.

  Never had she imagined that the council would allow her to live. A twist on an eye for an eye. Her living, breathing life for the one Rafael took from Lucien. Why didn’t they condemn her to death? She had the power to destroy Lucien when he took his revenge. Now, as much as she longed to be with Rafa, she could not, would not, kill Lucien in cold blood.

  Why was this happening? Who did she piss off? And how the hell was she supposed to get out of this mess?

  The fog began to clear as the same powerful hands that guided her through her perilous journey slid possessively along her arms, to her shoulders. Warm lips pressed against the pain in her chest. A thick tongue swathed a warm, moist trail ac
ross a sensitive nipple. Arching into the soothing cadence, Falon moaned.

  A deep growl reverberated from the sensuous lips pressed to her. Sensitive waves of desire shimmered across her chest, down her belly to settle in her womb. A keen sense of safety encompassed her like a warm fluffy blanket just out of the dryer. Thick emotion clogged her chest. “Rafa,” she whispered, “you came for me.”

  Deep laughter vibrated around her. “Not Rafa, love. Lucien, your alpha.”

  Falon’s eyes flew open. Lucien’s dark head hovered above her breast as his lips suckled her nipple, sending harsh flashes of fire to her loins. “No,” she cried. Not Lucien.

  He smiled against her nipple and tugged at it with his teeth. “Yesss,” he hissed. “In the flesh.”

  Falon swallowed hard. Trying to raise a hand against him was impossible. Her limbs would not respond to her command to move. The ache in her joints radiated to other parts of her body. Squeezing her eyes shut, Falon inhaled deeply, then exhaled. This was a dream. A nightmare. She would wake up next to Rafael. But instead of falling back into the safety of unconsciousness, her body responded to the sensuous pull of the man above her.

  It terrified her.

  Not his touch. No, his touch—she moaned and arched into his hand when he cupped her other breast—thrilled her. What terrified her was how much it thrilled her.

  He plucked her sensitive nipple with his fingers as he licked and suckled the other. “Lucien—” She gasped. Stop.

  “Falon,” he roughly responded. Make me.

  How could she make him stop when she could not raise a hand? And did she want to? She felt tipsy as if she had drunk too much wine. The sizzling wake of her blood as it raced to her womb felt like tiny hot champagne bubbles. Tempting and teasing her sensitive places.

  She climbed a slippery slope. By rights, she had sworn to go with Lucien as his chosen one, as well as all that went with that title. But—if she gave into the temptation of Lucien, if Rafael lived, he would turn his back on her for all time. That she could not bear. Ever.