Blood Law

by Karin Tabke

  Was she psychotic? What had happened to her that she would feel so deeply for a man she barely knew and who did not value her life? She shook her head and sat back on the small piece of seat she was allowed, and released her hands to grasp the sides of the seat. As she did, the bike hit a pothole. In a dizzying tumble, she went flying backward.

  Falon screamed, instinctivly tucking into a fetal position to avoid injury. As she did, her fall turned into a slow motion movie reel. Out of body, she heard her screams, high and tinged with genuine fear. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see herself go splat and die. She knew no matter how tight she tucked, her entire body would turn into a bloody pulp as soon as she hit the road. Instead, as she flew toward the rushing asphalt, two strong arms caught her in midair, then pulled her close to his hard body, tucked and rolled at a maddening pace along the asphalt, taking the brunt of the impact.

  When they stopped rolling and came to a stop on the gravelly shoulder, Falon kept her eyes closed and her body tucked. Her heart beat so hard, her rib cage hurt. The sounds of the bikes as they idled met her ears. Wet slobbery tongues lapped at her limbs, accompanied by whines of inquiry.

  Long, possessive fingers brushed over every inch of her body, touching, pausing, then moving on. Hot spots on her knees, elbows, and her hip flared. Flat on her back, she opened her eyes and looked up to find Rafael’s deep turquoise-colored eyes above staring intently at her. He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. Falon shivered. It was a loving touch. Reverent. She opened her mouth to answer, but words got stuck in her throat. He wanted something from her. Something far more profound than her body. She could see it in his eyes. A deep yearning for something she could not give him: peace.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly.

  Taking mental inventory, she shook her head as sensations registered. Just scrapes, nothing broken, and a shimmering warmth along her skin that had nothing to do with injuries. She could have been bleeding out and she would not have noticed because of the way he was looking at her. The way he made her feel knocked her so far off balance she constantly felt as if she were in a free fall.

  “I’m okay. Are you hurt?” she asked, carefully sitting up. Her gaze raked him from his head to his boots. Not a scratch that she could see, and barely a tear on his leathers.

  “I’m fine.” He stood and instead of helping her up, he lifted her up into his arms and turned with her. “Anton!” he called.

  The man dismounted his bike and hurried toward them. Falon realized every eye of the pack of bikers was riveted on her. The men appeared restless. Had they worried about her, too? And how the hell had Rafael managed to save her and remain unscathed?

  A red glow pulsed behind his turquoise eyes when he looked down at her. His concern was gone. “What the hell were you thinking? We were going eighty-five miles an hour for hell’s sake! You could have killed yourself!” he raged at her.

  She twisted out of his grip, knowing that had he wanted to keep her in his arms, he would have. She was gaining strength every day, but it didn’t come close to his. Falon stepped back, almost tripping over her cast, but she held her ground. She pointed a finger at his chest and jabbed him. “What the hell do you care if I die right here, right now?”

  She looked at the four dozen men surrounding her. At the hunger etched deeply into their faces. A hunger and a weariness that held on to each one of them like a festering plague. It was palpable. Who were they, and what did they want from her?

  Rafael reached out a hand to her. “I care.”

  She slapped his hand away. “You care about yourself.”

  He opened his mouth to defend himself but thought better of it and closed it. He whistled two short whistles, and the big black beast that had almost taken her foot off trotted over to Rafael. He said something in a foreign language to the animal. It growled. As the growl ended, Falon’s blood froze in her veins.

  Though she had no idea what they meant, she had heard similar words before. From her mother. A ghost of a woman. The last recollection she had of her was when she was around five years old. There had been a deep sadness in her mother that transcended centuries of pain and suffering.

  “What did you say to him?” Falon demanded.

  Rafael glared down at her. “It’s none of your business.” She bristled. He was so bipolar! One minute all caring, now pissed and indifferent. And rude.

  Rafael looked over at Anton. “I’m taking your ride, see what JorDon can do with mine. You take his bike.”

  Anton nodded and dismounted his chopper. Rafael mounted it and looked to Falon. “Come. The girl is alive and within ten miles.”

  Falon’s eyes widened. “How do you know that?”

  He moved up and stood, giving her ample room to mount. “I just do. Now get on.”

  Falon did as she was told. Her heart fluttered anxiously. The girl was alive! Sweet Jesus, she had been right! And if she were right about the girl, then she was right about Smythe. She looked up at Rafael before she swung her left leg over the studded seat. “What about Smythe?”

  “We’ll take care of him after we secure the girl.”

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Rafael raised his hand in a stop position and pulled over just inside a large, dilapidated industrial park. Nary a light shone from the large, sagging buildings surrounding them. Shattered windows gaped like fanged ghosts at them. Stacks of broken pallets were strewn, some stacked lining sagging cyclone fences. Empty rusted drums lay in disarray as if they were dropped from the air and left where they landed. Large tumbleweeds hugged the fence twenty feet deep, their escape ending there. Old chemical scents lingered faintly in the air. The park looked much like what Rafael imagined the world would look like after Armageddon. Dark, desolate, lifeless. Not even a rat hid among the debris.

  Yet, despite the lifeless stillness of the area, Rafael could smell the stench of a Slayer and the pungent scent of a terrified child. Three hundred yards ahead.

  Rafe cut his engine and hopped off. “Stay here,” he commanded Falon. He watched her stiffen. If the situation wasn’t so dire, he’d smile. She was growing quite a backbone. Gone was the confused girl he rescued.

  He gave the kill sign to the rest of the pack. The engines hushed, and he had his men’s rapt attention. “Slayers ahead. Three hundred yards. I’m going to go get the lay of the land, I’ll be back shortly.” Rafe whistled for Angor, turned, and jogged north, deeper into the park.

  Twelve

  AS RAFE QUIETLY approached the warehouse, he motioned for the Berserker to watch his back. He did a quick scan for mounted cameras. None that were detectable. First mistake. Quickly he shifted into wolf form, then jumped nimbly to the roof and trotted over to a large round fan cover. He grasped the edge with his teeth and pulled it toward him, then looked down.

  The warehouse was small as warehouses went. Maybe thirty-five thousand square feet of footage, empty space except for a large shrouded platform in the middle. He salivated as the scents wafted up to him. It was surrounded by armed Slayers. His keen sense of smell picked up the scent of a child. He poked his head farther in. Where was she? Hidden beneath the shroud? Had to be. There was no other place in the warehouse she could be. He turned his attention back to the Slayers.

  Rafael’s pulse picked up speed.

  These were not your average run-of-the-mill Slayers; these were clan Corbet Slayers. Direct descendants of the first wolf Slayer, Peter. They were motivated by something more powerful than the black magic they had mastered. Clan Corbet was powered by their untold hatred of wolves and anything or anyone remotely related to them, including the Amorak. And who should be pacing anxiously atop the platform awaiting him? Edward. Second only in command to his brother, Balor, master of all Slayers. He had more than a Lycan versus Slayer score to settle with the bastard. It was personal. Edward had held his mother down while his oldest brother, Thomas, skinned her alive.

  Rafe’s blood quickened, his thirst for vengeance so strong he could taste it. Wha
t a coup. Through his complex network, Rafael learned only recently that Balor was back East, drumming up mercenaries for the rising, which left Edward in charge. If Rafe took out Edward tonight, it would send the entire Slayer community into a panic. They were very much like Lycans in that if their leaders were eliminated, the clans floundered. They needed strong leaders to survive.

  Clad in chain mail, the ancient war garb of his founding father, including two nasty looking broadswords, Edward strode back and forth along the platform as if he were king of the world.

  He wouldn’t be for long. Rafe smelled his anticipation. All of the Slayers were hyped and ready to kill. The chemical stench of meth oozed from their pores. Compliments of the Vipers. Their excitement and eagerness for battle was palpable. But so was his packs’. Rafe resisted the urge to tip his head back and howl. Oh, how sweet his victory would be tonight. He would not have another chance like this. Not before the rising.

  He smiled in the dark and backed away, dropped to the ground, and stealthily inspected the perimeter. His nose twitched as he approached the main entrance. He stepped to the door and sniffed. The fur on the back of his neck stood on end. C-4. He sniffed the entire perimeter of the building, locating the same scent at the smaller back doors. The higher windows, though, were clean. Quickly he shifted and dressed. He whistled softly for Angor, who had shadowed him. Together they trotted back to the pack.

  “It’s a trap,” Rafael softly said as he approached his men.

  Falon’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

  “Slayers. At least a dozen, methed out and waiting for us to storm the gates and rescue the girl.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  Rafael smiled. “Storm the gates and rescue the girl.”

  “But—”

  “Knowing what we’re up against will give us the edge.”

  “But what if they just open fire on you? How can you protect yourself against that?” Falon asked as a cloud of doom darkened her thoughts.

  Rafael threw his head back and laughed. “Are you worried about me?”

  Of course, she was worried about him! He had—the sex thing alone made her care. There were other more poignant reasons, reasons she ignored. Reasons that if she escaped, wouldn’t matter. Not if she were to survive. Falon snorted. “Hardly. If you die, I have a better chance of surviving.”

  Rafael turned serious. That was true. Truer than she knew.

  His gaze locked for a long, silent moment with Falon’s. He knew she was special, so special Salene wanted her. So special, Rafael, an alpha, had marked her, a human, before he knew her. So special she could jump high fences, read people’s minds, and sniff out a Slayer among a pack of Lycans. So special she could disarm an alpha as powerful as his brother with a glare. Sacrificing her for the sake of the Blood Law was not going to be easy. And it would be a sacrifice. Despite his hard heart, in just a few days, she had wormed her way under his skin.

  If he were the impetuous type, Rafe might sacrifice his life for hers. But his life was invaluable to the Lycan nation. Rafael knew if he died before the rising, so, too, would his people. His chest tightened painfully with the longing that would come when she was gone and the resentment of the law that failed them both as well as regret for what he could not stop, though he would sacrifice anything, save his people, to prevent her death. He forced the debilitating feelings aside. There was no room for weakness in his life.

  He raised his nose into the air and deeply inhaled the dark and dangerous scents swirling around him. Tonight would be a good beginning to the end. Twelve Slayers in one fell swoop? It would be like hitting a million dollar jackpot at Harrah’s. Salene and his flunky had been nice notches on his belt. The Eye of Fenrir was more than icing on the cake. The Eye of Fenrir had been like hitting a progressive lottery. He was set. The ring flared on his hand in agreement.

  Tonight it would aid him in getting his hands on that pissant, Edward. With Thomas’s disappearance more than two decades ago, and his presumed death, next on Rafe’s list was Balor. With Balor eliminated, the Slayers would run like cockroaches when you lifted the rock they hid under. Each one of them going in a different direction, making it easy for his pack to pick them off one by one, until finally they would be extinct.

  If he could do it all before the Blood Moon rising, all the better. Even if he couldn’t eliminate Balor or Edward before that fateful night, he would eliminate as many Slayers as he could get his sword into, thus weakening them from the flank and working his way in.

  Rafael snarled, anger at his brother’s continued solitude infuriating him more than usual. Over the years Lucien’s arrogance had mushroomed. He had no grasp of the reality of what they faced. Yes, Lucien did his fair share of hunting, but neither Rafe nor Sharia could get it through his arrogant brother’s head that united, they would have had a chance. Divided, they were doomed unless the gods chose to bestow a miracle on them.

  Now to complicate matters was Falon. How could he rail against Lucien for his refusal to unite the packs, if he, Rafael Vulkasin, ignored the laws written in his ancestors’ blood?

  And so it had come to pass. Pack Vulkasin regularly hunted, reducing the Slayer population one soul at a time, and never did his pack go to ground without a kill. The Slayers didn’t make it easy. They trained hard and regularly. They also had an advantage in battle. While Lycans were stronger, faster, and more agile, a Slayer could only be destroyed by decapitation, and only by a Lycan sword, whereas Lycans could be destroyed with a single silver bullet to the heart. The Slayers had turned cowardly over the years. Taking longdistance sniper shots or using AKs loaded with silver rounds. Lycans lived on high alert twenty-four/seven. The faintest scent of a Slayer put them on the offensive, and instead of being the hunted, they became the hunter. Tonight would be no different.

  “Rafael,” Falon said, tugging at his shirtsleeve, jarring him back to the present. He blinked, unable to remember what they were discussing. He looked down into her pleading eyes, and he remembered. He wanted to sink his fingers into her thick, silky hair and kiss her, to reassure her he would survive this night and, gods willing, the rising. But he didn’t, because while he may survive, she most likely would not. It ate at him. She held value to the Lycan nation, and she was innocent of his and Lucien’s battles. Why should she pay? Was there no way to convince the council to spare her life?

  Rafael swiped his hand across his chin. To even challenge the Blood Law was punishable by death. He had no say. He was bound to uphold it. And so he would. Rafe looked past Falon to his men, who moved restlessly about.

  “Prepare for battle!”

  Moments later, donned in bulletproof vests with triple-ply trauma plates over their hearts, they pushed their bikes to within one hundred yards of the warehouse.

  “Do you smell that?” Rafael asked Yuri, his third in command and Anton’s first cousin.

  The tall blond Vulkasin nodded. “C-4,” Yuri growled.

  Rafael nodded. “And a lot of it.”

  Yuri’s grim expression reflected exactly how Rafe was feeling. But it didn’t matter. Just like the explosives didn’t matter. They were here to get the girl, and get the girl they would. But first, they were going to make hash out of every Slayer in there.

  They’d show Edward and his men as much mercy as they showed Rafe’s mother. Rage swelled as his beast clawed for release.

  Memories washed over Rafe. Every year, on the anniversary of Rafe’s parents’ deaths, Balor managed to get his hands on either a Vulkasin or Mondragon. What he did to them was not fit for hell. Rafael’s rage and hatred festered in his belly like an abscess. His yearning for vengeance had mushroomed since the last full moon.

  Rafael fought the urge to throw his head back and howl. That night had been a bloody but fruitful raid. More than two dozen Slayers, among them Edward’s youngest son, Robert, had fallen beneath their swords. Rafael had taken great pleasure in cutting down Edward’s arrogant progeny. Robert had taunted R
afe for years about how his father held Rafe’s mother down while his uncle skinned her alive. But what cost the little bastard his life was when during the last raid, Robert wagged a shammy under Rafe’s nose. His mother’s scent still clung to it. His mother’s skin, Robert used it to shine his slick hot rod. Right before Edward’s horrified eyes, Rafe skinned his only son alive. Upon returning to the compound, Rafe ordered Stanza, the pack tanner, to retool his chopper seat with the Slayer’s skin. Now Robert’s skin felt his ass each time he mounted his bike.

  An eye for an eye.

  Blood Law.

  A growl rumbled in Yuri’s throat, almost as if he could read Rafe’s mind.

  Rafe studied his friend. Yuri reminded Rafe of a Viking. Tall, thick, and blond, he was quiet, respectful, highly intelligent. At his core, however, he was a bloodthirsty warrior. His need for vengeance against the Slayers was as strong as Rafael’s and Lucien’s. Yuri’s mother had been mutilated by Balor.

  Thinking of his friend’s grief, Rafe’s rage built. His body tightened. The color of blood clouded his vision. He clenched his fists, setting his jaw. His bones began to shift.

  No, damn it! Rafe fought to tamp down the beast within. He didn’t want to shift in front of Falon. One, because he didn’t want to scare her any more than she was. Two, he didn’t want to see the contempt in her eyes when he retook his human form.

  It bothered him that he even cared, but he could not deny he felt protective of her—and himself.

  He turned back to Yuri. “If it were me inside, waiting for the cavalry to come busting through the front doors, I’d have rigged the C-4 to blow when the doors opened. Anyone within thirty yards would catch the blast as they got bottlenecked trying to come through.”

  Yuri nodded. “Yet we can’t ride through the windows.”

  Rafael’s gaze rose to the high windows and ways to access them. They were only two stories tall. No problem for his Berserkers. “Send the Berserkers to the rear of the building. Instruct them to split in half. Between the windows. Tell them to make entry only after they hear the blasts we’re going to make from the front and rear entry points,” Rafe ordered.