by Tabke, Karin
For hours Falon sat quiet in the little camp with the she-wolf for company. Every thought returned to her broken heart and her yearning to know where her alphas were, what they were doing. She missed them. She missed Talia, her pack. Even, Falon thought shockingly, her mother. They were her people; did none of them see that?
The sun sank far on the western horizon. The sound of the sea wafted across the valley, eerie and soothing at once.
The wind shifted, and coming up from the east, Lycan scents swirled around her and—her heart thundered. Strong and powerful the two scents she would never forget swirled in the air around her. Rafa’s and Luca’s.
She stood, and hurried closer to the edge of her little camp. Had they come for her? She watched as a hunting party cleared the ridge. Rafe and Lucien at point, Joachim, Anton, and several others following close behind. They were in full-fighting wolf, and on the trail of the caribou herd that grazed there that morning.
Fascinated, though her heart ached to join them, she watched as Lucien caught sight of a big buck two hundred yards straight ahead. He and Rafael split and the pack formed a gauntlet.
In perfect symmetry, born of power and cunning, Rafe and Lucien took down the huge male. His bleating reduced to a gurgle as the two alphas viciously killed him.
As the rest of the pack came around they shifted and expertly and efficiently cut up the carcass, stored it in their backpacks and headed back to camp.
Not realizing it, Falon had moved down to the ridge where her father had made his last stand. The wind shifted and she knew the second Rafael and Lucien caught her scent. Their bodies tightened, their nostrils flared, and they could not help but look her way.
Falon stood straight and proud as the wind whipped her hair around her body. She would not be ashamed of who she was. She was a combination of two bloods and, for better or for worse, she was who she was. A powerful, ferocious, and loving alpha.
For the first time in more than a week, anger sparked in her belly. She was not to blame for who she was! She had no choice in the matter. And yet she was punished for the blood that gave her life? The life two great alphas had thought enough of to save on several occasions? Was she truly less because of who her father was, or was she made less because of an age-old feud that had nothing to do with her?
Righteous indignation grabbed ahold of her. She had just as much right to life as any being! Good Lord, she was proof that the two bloods could blend and create something beautiful not ugly as each of the two parts were. And Lycan were ugly. They hated as the Slayers hated, they killed as the Slayers killed, justifiably so, but they still hated, still killed. Would they really change if the nation survived the rising? Would they all of a sudden, with Slayers gone, live happily ever after?
She doubted it. Lycan had their own issues just like any other culture. If they were to prosper, they would need her. If she was to thrive, she needed them.
Defiantly, she held their stares refusing to look away. Never again. She was who she was, and she was proud.
Cowards!
The pack caught up to their alphas, and followed their stare. She felt the tumultuous emotion roll through them. It rolled through her, too. There was yearning, fear, and regret, but beneath it, hope flared in each one of them. But not in their two stubborn, vengeful alphas. Those two had closed their hearts and their minds to her.
Cowards, she said again.
Falon nodded ever so slightly, and her heart leapt when Joachim and Anton nodded back. The movement was barely perceptible to her, and unseen by Rafael and Lucien who stood in front of them. Then the rest of the pack moved on, leaving the twin brothers standing alone, frozen in their stubborn refusal to once again do what was right out of pride.
The she-wolf she called Petra stood vigilantly beside her, her constant companion. Falon turned, leaving Rafael and Lucien staring after her. She had made up her mind. In the morning she would bathe in the creek below, dress, and with her father’s sword strapped to her back and with Petra at her side, return to her people. If their alphas would not take her back, she would fight for a place among the pack, stand with them come the rising, and fight for their lives.
She smiled smugly, picturing cutting herself with the Cross and spreading her blood on the battleground. She would raise her arms to the gods and demand they raise the ghost walkers. Her heart pounded. At least she would be able to return to her stubborn beloved alphas what her father so viciously took from them. Maybe then, they would not look at her with such hatred.
Thirty-one
RAFAEL SAT MOROSELY staring at the bonfire, a warm beer in his hand, and his heart at his feet. He had lost his best friend, his lover, his life mate, and the one person who could make him forget the horrors he had endured. That person had turned out to be not just the daughter of his greatest enemy, but a direct descendant of the first Slayer, Peter Corbet. The one who had started it all!
He stood and hurled his beer into the fire. Those around him started but didn’t dare ask what was wrong. They knew. The entire nation knew! He couldn’t even deny that his chosen one, the woman who may this very moment carry his child, was a Corbet!
He rammed his fingers through his hair, and began pacing. Since he’d learned the ugly truth he had not stepped foot in the tent he’d shared with Falon. He’d had all of her belongings removed and burned. He couldn’t stand the scent of her. His chest tightened. Smelling her, seeing her things, brought back too many memories.
Swallowing hard, he looked for something to throw again or, even better, something to tear apart and annihilate just as his heart had been annihilated. He grabbed the bench he had been sitting on and smashed it over his knee. He roared furiously as he hurled the pieces into the darkness.
How had he been so blind? How had he not seen her for what she was? A fucking Slayer!
Raising his fists to the heavens he roared his frustration, heartbreak, and fury. “Is this some kind of test?” he yelled. “Because if it is, fuck you Singarti! Fuck you!”
The beast within him snarled and snapped, clawing for release. Never, not once, had Rafael lost control, but tonight, after seeing Falon standing there on the ridge, looking so proud and defiant? He was not sure he could contain the beast. His impulse had been to rush to her and take her in his arms. A lifetime of hatred for her father stayed him even though he smelled her sorrow and felt her pain, clinging to her like a shroud despite her proud demeanor. God, he didn’t want her to feel this pain. He knew it was not her fault, her father. She was an innocent, but she was still a Corbet.
“Argh!” he screamed, dropping to his knees. The pain in his heart was unbearable. He could not breathe when his very breath, the woman he loved, had been snatched from him by fate.
He was incomplete without her. She was his heart. His soul. Without either he was not whole. And the gaping hole in his heart would not stop bleeding.
He wanted her. In his bed and in his life. Even now.
But he knew each time he would look at her eyes, he would see her father and all that he had destroyed. His parents, most of all.
Slowly, Rafael rose. There was only one thing he could do. What he should have done the instant he learned the truth. Giving up, he released the beast.
* * *
LUCIEN WATCHED HIS brother from across the camp. Rafe’s agony mirrored his own. Lucien’s life mission had been to destroy the entire Corbet bloodline. To fulfill his vendetta meant destroying Falon. How could he destroy the one thing he loved above all others? The one thing he would still, even knowing what she was, sacrifice his own life for?
How could he embrace a child of his knowing the vilest of Slayer blood flowed through his veins? How could he be sure the child would not turn out like his grandsire? How could he be sure that Falon would not one day turn those onyx eyes on him? He could not be sure of any of those things. All he was sure of was how he
hurt. How the pain had not eased with the passage of time, but intensified.
His gut shuddered at the thought of Falon turning on him but, if he were honest with himself, he knew Falon would never hurt him, not on purpose. Much of the anger that Rafael still wrestled with had left Lucien. He realized it when he saw her. His anger was at fate, and that had driven him this last week. Not anger at Falon. Fate switching up the game just before the final inning pissed him off.
What he felt from the instant he learned the truth about Falon was such a profound sense of loss his heart and brain at first would not accept the information. They had compartmentalized it, knowing it would be impossible to cope with.
The day he’d watched powerless as his parents were massacred, he’d experienced fear so soul shattering it paralyzed him. He hadn’t left his bed for months, hadn’t spoken a word for a year. He could not process what he had witnessed. It was the same with learning Falon’s truth.
But when he saw her standing on that bluff so rigid and proud, his walls crumbled. This time, his will to survive triumphed over his anguish. He refused to accept that Falon was lost to him forever.
How could he? She was alive! His baby lived in her belly! He had learned from his years separated from Rafael that love can and does conquer all. If you are brave enough to put your heart on the line. Falon had taught him that lesson well. He could not, would not live without her if he had a choice.
He told her not long ago that there was nothing he would not do for her. And he’d meant it. She was his and he was hers, and as much as he despised Thomas Corbet with every fiber of his being, he loved Falon more.
Lucien shucked his clothes and stuffed them into his backpack then slid his sword across his shoulder. He shifted, his mission to bring his chosen one home, where she belonged. With her family.
* * *
FALON WOKE WITH a start. Petra growled beside her. Grabbing her sword, Falon stood, ready to face her attacker. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. Was it Fenrir? Or a rogue pack?
When her eyes focused, she gasped. Standing twenty feet from her was Rafael’s golden wolf. He snarled viciously and took a step toward her. Her skin shivered when she realized the beast was loose and that he had come for one thing: to end this, permanently.
Falon dropped the sword and then extended her hand. “I will not raise a hand against you, Rafa,” she whispered.
He snarled, shaking his great golden head. Taking several steps closer, he snarled louder, his head low, his ears pinned back.
Petra growled beside her, and Falon was touched that the wolf would stand beside her in the presence of such a great and powerful alpha.
“Speak to me, Rafa, before you destroy me.”
He shook his great head.
“After all that we shared? You cannot find it in your heart to speak to me man to woman before you kill me?” Her voice hitched in her throat. “Do you despise me so much?” The tears she could not control. They flowed down her cheeks in streams.
Rafa’s beast snarled so loudly she jumped back a step. To her great relief, he shifted and stood before her, her glorious golden alpha.
“Rafa,” she breathed, reaching out to him. But he stood rigid, and unwavering.
“What do you have to say?” His voice was barely controlled fury. His fists shook at his sides.
“Why are you angry at me?”
He grit his jaw.
When he refused to answer, she continued, “I’m not to blame. And after having this time to think, I don’t feel ashamed. I am who I am, proof that the two bloods can create something good.”
His eyes glittered like molten gold.
“I am proof that hatred isn’t inbred. It’s learned.” She took a step toward him. “You, Rafa, taught me to hate Slayers. For you I killed them. For you I bought into the whole terrible tragedy. But—” She took another step toward him. “It could have gone the other way.” It took every ounce of self-control she had not to touch him. Oh, how she wanted to soothe the angry lines on his face, kiss his stern lips, take him in her arms and promise him all was right in their world if only he would set aside his hatred for her father.
“My father, the Master Slayer, loved my mother, a Lycan healer. I was born of that love. The child in England, my sister, was also born of that love.” She was glad to see the spark of surprise in his golden eyes. “Thomas abandoned me and my mother when I was younger because he could not control the demons inside of him that had been pounded into him from the day he was born. But there was a man inside who wanted to live like you, and I want to live. Freely, with no hatred, no bigotry, no dutiful assassinations. Not constantly looking over our shoulders. And for a while he did. For twenty-four years Thomas Corbet let the world think he was dead. But duty called him back to his roots, and he surfaced and he did what he was bred to do, kill Lycan.”
She pressed her open palm against his chest and felt the lurch of his heart against it. “I want to freely live with you and Luca like my father wanted to live with my mother. Free of hatred, bigotry, and bias. It’s possible if you will look past your hatred, Rafa. It can happen if you open your heart back up to me.”
She moved in closer so that only inches separated them. “I love you for who you are, not because of the blood that runs through your veins. Please afford me the same courtesy.”
“Every time I look at your eyes, I see your father. Every time I think of the child in your belly, I see him with blond hair and onyx eyes!” Rafael said tightly. “But worst of all, every time I look at your hands, I see the blood of my parents staining them.” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “I can’t forget what he did! I cannot forgive him. Ever!”
“I’m not asking you to forgive him, Rafael! I’m asking that you don’t blame me!”
“I—”
“It’s not fair! The sins of the father are not for the child to bear!” She grabbed his shoulders, and shook him. “Don’t you see that? I am my own person. He had no hand in my life! Except providing one single sperm to my mother’s egg. Are you going to throw away a lifetime of happiness because of something neither one of us had control of? Are you so selfish?” She shook him hard like he had her. “Is your hatred and pride going to prevent you from happiness, Rafe? Because it is you who is making this choice not me, not the packs, not even the damn council!”
He stood unmoving, defiant. The spark of hope that had flared died. “Is your hatred for my father greater than your love for me?”
He swallowed and for the first time, she saw doubt in his eyes. “I don’t know,” he whispered hoarsely. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, Rafa, let it go. Just set it down and walk away from it. Please. If you don’t it will eat you alive, and that I cannot bear to watch.
“There is one wrong of my father’s I vow to you I will set right, Rafa,” she said softly, touching his hand. “The night of the rising, I will spill as much of my blood on the battleground as it takes and demand the gods raise the ghost walkers. In that perhaps when you think of me you will not think of what my father took from you.”
His hand trembled. Falon moved in closer to him and, because he would not, she wrapped his arm around her waist. Holding his arm there, she slid her free arm around him hugging him to her. “I would give my life so that your heavy heart was lightened even a little bit. I love you that much.”
His arm tightened slightly around her. His heart beat wildly against her cheek, pressed to his chest. “I don’t know if my heart can handle any more, Falon,” he whispered against her hair. “I have suffered enough for ten lifetimes.”
She pulled back and looked up into his eyes. “I know you have. Lucien, too. Both of you amaze me because you are so brave. It’s one of the things I love about you most. And while I can’t promise you a rose garden, Rafa, I can promise you no matter what this crazy fucked up world throws at us, w
ith each other we have a much better chance of catching it, then getting hit by it.”
Clasping his face in her hands, she rose up on her toes and kissed him. His arms tightened around her. “I give you my vow, I will never betray you, stop loving you or fighting for you. I will give it to you in blood. I will give it to you in tears. I will give you everything, but please promise me you will not abandon me like my father and mother did. I need you, Rafael Vulkasin, I need you much more than you need me.”
He pressed his forehead to hers and exhaled.
It was a start. She smiled, and nearly fell over from emotion overload.
“Thank you.” She didn’t kiss him or stroke him, or suggest they get intimate. Rafael still had to emotionally process what just happened but while he did—
“Where is Luca? I need to see him.”
“I’m right here, angel face.”
Thirty-two
FALON SMILED AND nearly fainted with relief at Lucien’s voice and his telling endearment. He had come back for her.
He caught her up in his arms, his eyes serious. “I told you there was nothing I would not do for you, and that included not holding you responsible for your father’s deeds.”
“Oh, Luca, thank you!” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the love in her heart. She kissed his chin, his cheeks, his nose, his neck.
Happiness filled her so fully that tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t stop smiling through the tears and then, when Rafael touched her shoulder and whispered, “I’m sorry,” she lost all control, and crumbled into a pile of emotional mush.
Lucien caught her up in his arms. “We’re going home, baby.”
When they came down to the bottom of the hill, Falon had collected herself enough to slide out of Lucien’s arms. She shifted and, with the wind in her face and her alphas flanking her, she ran happily around them, nipping playfully. Lucien licked her face, while Rafael, still struggling with his emotions, kept his distance. Falon pounced on him, licking his face, encouraging him to let completely go. When he finally did, he raised his head to the moon and howled triumphantly. Lucien joined in and then so did she. Their howls reverberated off the hills across the valley to the sea. They were together again. The power of three.
