Blood Law

by Karin Tabke

  “She will corrupt you before then.”

  Lucien didn’t respond, and once more Rafael glanced at the female as a snide smile tilted her full red lips. Her eyes darkened to onyx and lasered in on Rafael. The tendons on her neck stood out as she arched into Lucien. Her head held high, her black eyes unwaveringly locked onto his. Terrible realization sprouted to life in Rafael’s belly.

  She was not just an outsider to his pack.

  She was the enemy.

  She was Slayer.

  And if Lucien marked her, his seed would bear fruit. It would mean not just the weakening of their pack; it would mean its utter destruction.

  As if reading his thoughts and mocking them, the female rubbed her slick cunt against Lucien, making small mewling sounds. Her sinister scent clamped down around Rafael’s head, tightening around his chest, making it impossible to draw a breath. His anger flashed red, and the beast within him snarled, clawing for release.

  Striding toward them, Rafael grasped his brother’s shoulder. “Dark magic oozes from her scent, Lucien! Can’t you smell it? She is Slayer! Kill her now, or she will be the death of us all!”

  Totally consumed by her, Lucien shrugged off his touch. Shaking his head, he looked down at the undulating body connected to his own. Adoration shone in his tawny eyes. He traced a finger along the curve of her back then looked up at Rafael. “You are wrong, Brother. Yes, I smell her magic, but it will only strengthen the pack. Our children will rule for the next millennia!”

  Lucien shoved him, sending Rafael stumbling back against the wall. As Rafael righted himself, Lucien pumped wildly into the Slayer, sweat slickening his body as once more he and his consort shuddered through another impending climax. Lucien threw his head back and snarled, “She is mine!” Teeth bared, he lowered them to the pulsating jugular of the woman beneath him, to mark her as his life mate, his chosen one, forever forming a blood bond that could only be broken by death.

  “You defy the Blood Law!” Rafael shouted, lunging upon them. And for doing so, Lucien would pay with his life!

  Even if it were not written that no Lycan shall lie with a Slayer, Rafael would never allow his brother to blend the blood of a Lycan and Slayer. It was sacrilegious treason.

  Just as his brother’s teeth sank into the tender flesh of the girl, Rafael’s beast roared furiously and sank his fangs into her chest. She screamed, a bone-chilling, agonizing sound of misery and furious defeat. Her body contorted and convulsed; blood spurted from her punctured heart in a high arch across their faces as her life force dwindled. Her screams turned to low gurgles before trailing off to silence.

  “No!” Lucien roared, the sound of his voice filled with despair. Frantically he pressed his fingers into her gaping chest, trying to stem the streaming blood from her heart. “What have you done?” he demanded, his voice choked in harsh sobs. Her black eyes glassed over in hardness as her lifeblood ebbed from her body. “No,” Lucien cried, this time barely audible. He pulled her limp body to his chest, clutching her tightly as if his strength could restore her life. Then slowly, hypnotically, he began to rock her, murmuring soft words of comfort against her cheek.

  Rafael stood firm, resolved, knowing that despite his brother’s terrible pain, he did what had to be done. He had saved his brother’s life as well as the lives of his pack.

  After several long minutes, Lucien abruptly stopped. Gently he laid her down on the bloody sheets. He smoothed her blood-soaked hair from her lifeless eyes then gently shut her lids. Her blood smeared across his body, slowly his brother rose on the bed, his eyes glowing red.

  “Rafael!” Lucien raged. “You will pay with your life!”

  “I saved yours, Brother! She was Slayer!”

  Lucien shifted into a huge black wolf, his glossy pelt shining beneath the morning sunlight.

  And so it had come down to the survival of the fittest.

  PAIN TORE THROUGH Talia’s heart. “Rafael! Lucien!” she screamed, jumping from her bed. An urgency so strong it nearly toppled her with its power propelled her from her rooms at the far end of the compound to Lucien’s quarters. As she rushed into his room, she screamed, slid in a pool of warm blood, and landed spinning on her knees. The woman Lucien had meant to mark lay dead on his bed, steam rising from her eviscerated chest.

  In the corner, amid the shambles of splintered furniture and broken glass, lay Rafael, his tawny fur matted with blood, his turquoise colored eyes glazed as death took him. Next to him lay the black furry body of Lucien, his golden eyes dulling as his lifeblood streamed from his chest.

  “Noooooo!” she cried, “Noooooo!” On hands and knees, she scurried across the slippery hardwood to them. Kneeling between the brothers, Talia pressed a bloody hand to each of their hearts, stemming the blood flow. “Please,” she whispered to the gods. “Please, spare them.” The panic that had initially seized her evaporated as a deafening calmness settled within her. Slowly, reverently, she began to chant, summoning all of her power and calling upon the Great Spirit Mother, Singarti, the mother of all healers, the mother of all Talia’s grandmothers, to preserve the Lycans she’d created three hundred years ago.

  Energy crackled and snapped around her head in a myriad of metallic colors. Wide-eyed, she stared as they began to form into a vision of a noble woman dressed in white-fringed leather robes, with eagle feathers woven into her long, flowing black hair, two great wolves, one black, one golden, lying obediently at her feet.

  Raising a slender hand, her ocean blue eyes glowing fiercely, Singarti whispered, “As you ask, so it will be done. The brothers will live, but only as one. Day and night. Light and dark. Mated and mateless. For all eternity, only one hour shall separate them. Until the Blood Law is avenged.”

  AND SO THE years passed . . .

  Present day

  THE HARD THRUM of the V-twin vibrated between his thighs, up to his hips, then along his spine. His corded muscles bunched in tension as he focused on the dark thread of highway ahead. He was wound tight, every sense on high alert, ready to uncoil, to strike at the slightest provocation.

  The cool spring air tore through Lucien Mondragon’s long black hair. He didn’t wear a helmet; he didn’t care about the law. Not man’s law anyway. There was only one law he respected, and that was the Blood Law of revenge.

  Throwing his head back, Lucien howled at the rising moon. It was dusk, and the Blood Moon called to him. It was time. The quickening had begun. In three months, the lunar eclipse would occur, and with it, he would stand as undisputed leader of the northern packs with more power than any alpha before him. More power than one leader had a right to posses, but the power he was due. And with it, he would destroy every living descendant of Peter Corbet, the original wolf Slayer. But he had another just as important slaying to do first.

  Lucien opened the throttle wide, and the chopper lunged beneath his thighs, like an ardent lover arching into his deep thrusts. Only Lucien had no lover. No mate. No mistress.

  Rafael Vulkasin had made sure Lucien would never have more than one-night stands with pack whores.

  Snarling, Lucien pictured his nemesis’s blood running in thick rivulets from his torn-out throat. The vision swam in macabre glory before him. He could almost taste the coppery thickness of Rafael’s blood on his tongue.

  It would be Lucien’s pleasure to end that betraying bastard’s life. And he would do it slowly. Lucien would savor each one of Rafael’s gasps for air, each plea for his life, each pulse of his heart as his lifegiving blood ebbed from him.

  But first, Lucien would force Rafe to watch as he slowly, methodically, strangled Rafael’s mate. She’d beg for her life, too. But she would die.

  He grinned in the darkening light and snarled again.

  An eye for an eye.

  It was the way of the pack.

  He would see it done.

  One

  FOR FALON CORBET, being special sucked. A lot.

  Because in today’s world, her rages, which were coming more fre
quently, and the dead people that seemed to follow her even into her dreams were not en vogue. There were other things, too, things she pretended weren’t there. Things that got her into trouble.

  It was why she was constantly between jobs, always broke and never spending more than a month anywhere. It was also why she lived in a closet-sized room on the fifth floor of a flophouse in the dregs of Sacramento.

  And most of all, it was why she was hungry all of the time and why her most viable dinner option was yet another one of those nasty prepackaged sandwiches. The ones with soggy yellow bread and a limp pickle.

  She hated them so much that the thought of choking another one down was enough to consider the pros and cons of living. For the third time that day, she contemplated ending it all. She felt as if her life held no purpose. Survival had become increasingly difficult. No one would miss her . . .

  Yet.

  There was that niggling thought in the very back of her mind that told her she was destined for more. That she had a very specific purpose for living. That if she took her life, many more would be lost. So she persevered.

  And since beggars couldn’t be choosers, Falon decided to make a dinner run to Del’s market.

  Quietly, she slipped into the hallway outside her room, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Cringing when the rotting wooden floor creaked beneath her stealthy step, she glanced quickly behind her, afraid she’d see her slumlord, the ever watchful Mr. Sabo. If he caught sight of her, he would corner her then press her hard about her late rent. Then, even as she tried to put him off, he’d bluster inches from her face, his spittle spraying her cheeks and nose as he told her how, if he let her slide on her already past due rent, he’d have to let everyone slide, and he wasn’t in the goddamn business of enabling losers to continue to be losers.

  Did Sabo actually think she was happy with how her life had turned out? Of course, he never bothered to ask. Then again, it wasn’t like she was Chatty Cathy either. But whenever Sabo compared her to a loser, something deep and terrible inside of Falon wanted to hurt him. Such feelings terrified her. She was not always prone to violence, but sometimes . . . she couldn’t control it.

  Holding her breath, Falon flattened her slender limbs against the murky hallway, down the five flights of stairs, and then inched her way into the dingy gray vestibule. She nearly collapsed in relief. The old codger was nowhere in sight. For someone who hadn’t eaten since peanut butter toast and a banana more than twenty-four hours ago, she darted out the front door with Olympic sprinter speed.

  She raised her face to the crisp evening breeze and inhaled. Spring had sprung in Sacramento, but there was more than the fragrant scent of blossoms in the air. The stench of decaying flesh, though barely perceptible, hung like a fog bank along the streets most nights.

  Recently, her senses had honed. Unusually so. Just another anomaly that was Falon Corbet.

  With each passing day, it seemed the stench around her grew heavier, more prominent. Tonight it combined with a dark energy that was so palpable Falon hesitated in her step and seriously considered returning to her room. The vitality of it felt like an electrical storm in her body, her veins live conduits. Her breath came hard, fast, and warm. She could feel it curl around her each time she exhaled. But as aware as she was of the dark forces that seemed to follow her no matter where she went, she was even more aware of the auras around her. Not the bright colorful ones of those who embraced life in happy accord. It was the dark, malevolent ones, like dirty dredge oil that slithered along corners or along the street gutters, careful to stay undetected, from who or what she wasn’t sure.

  Most days she didn’t pay them much mind, like the cockroaches under the trash cans, they were just a part of the world as she knew it. Squeezing her eyes shut, Falon mentally pushed back, blocking the wild, chaotic swirls of emotion that pierced her brain. Normally, if she concentrated hard enough and long enough, she could push it all away. But some nights when she opened her eyes, she saw the haunted souls who walked the streets, like holocaust victims, their deep, dark, sunken eyes begging in silent agony for glorious release.

  She couldn’t help them. She didn’t know how to, and even if she did, the darker, more powerful auras that swirled around them would prevent it. Intuitively, she knew that.

  Hastily crossing the street, Falon glanced up at the waxing pink moon shrouded in dark, wispy clouds. She tried to make light of the sinister sight, thinking the only thing missing from the eerie vision was the lone howl of a wolf. Instead, shivers slithered across her back like giant cold worms, and she felt the hint of something else in the air. Something dark and powerful. Primal. Something that would irrevocably change the course of her life.

  Something she wanted no part of.

  Using every ounce of her concentration, Falon closed her mind to every flick and flare of energy around her. It cost her. More of her precious energy drained in her efforts to keep her mind closed to things that did not concern her.

  She was not at her strongest, having eaten only enough to feed a bird more than a day ago.

  Head lowered, Falon trudged down the sidewalk, crossed the oddly quiet street at the first corner, then stopped just outside the metal and glass door of Del’s grocery. She raised a hand to push the door open, then hesitated. Guilt gripped her.

  Unable to stand the tragedy of the souls who haunted the many soup kitchens in town, or endure the recrimination at the local churches, she’d become the lowest of the lows—a petty thief. Yet, if she got over that sad fact and went in, she’d eat again, and if she ate, she’d live another day. Hunger pains jabbed at her belly in a harsh, grinding staccato. They were becoming unbearable. Despite her aversion to them, when she pictured a soggy sandwich wrapped in cellophane, her mouth actually began to salivate.

  “Jesus,” she hissed, staring at her trembling hand. She’d eat a damn brick she was so hungry.

  She almost regretted her blasphemy. Despite her guilt, she knew God would want her to eat. Wouldn’t he? Yes. After all, he’d guided her here before. Closing her eyes, like a repeating movie reel, she played her artful pilfering out in her head. She knew exactly how many steps it took to get from where she stood to the refrigerated food section in the back. Once there, she’d smoothly duck behind the towering paper towel display, out of sight of the big round mirrors mounted in the ceiling, and slip a sandwich down her bulky sweatshirt. And then, eyes cast to the floor, she’d walk past Mr. Delico, through the front door, without any fear she’d be stopped.

  She opened her eyes, blinking away the hot sting of tears.

  Yes, she’d stolen from Mr. D before. Tonight, though, something significant was going to be different. Tonight, she’d walk out of the store without leaving her usual quarter. Tonight, she didn’t even have that. Which meant she’d have to pay with something more . . . special—in a currency only she knew existed. Maybe warn Mr. D when she sensed trouble heading his way. She’d done it before. The first time she told him he might want to close early, he hadn’t listened. He’d been robbed and pistol-whipped three hours later. After that, he never questioned her. After that, he let her walk out with dinner, her cost, a quarter.

  With a weary sigh, Falon pushed open the front door to Del’s and stopped short. Pressure swirled about her, pushing against her in a tentative, probing way as if trying to get into her head. The hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. It didn’t take a PhD to know something was different in Delico’s grocery.

  Son of a bitch.

  She knew she should have stayed in her room!

  Tentatively, Falon cast a slow glance around the small grocery, looking for the jovial face of the owner. He was nowhere in sight.

  The pressure mushroomed, followed by an unexpected jab of pain in her belly. Falon grunted as if she’d been mule-kicked in the gut. Another hard punch racked her. Hot tears welled in her eyes. Grabbing her midsection, she slowly turned to face the counter.

  The thin, blond man behind the regist
er bore no resemblance to the chubby olive-skinned Italian shopkeeper. She stepped toward him, gasping when another hard jab of pain twisted her innards. This pain wasn’t from hunger. This was different.

  A warning.

  Taking a shallow breath, Falon slowly faced the blond man and demanded, “Where is Mr. Delico?”

  The guy merely swept his gaze over her from head to toe, then nodded with a slow, satisfied gesture that surprised her as much as his lopsided leer. He must have X-ray vision. Her depleted curves were hiding beneath a baggy black sweatshirt and two-sizes-too-large desert cammies and combat boots. Her black hair, a shield to her soul, hung like a sheet halfway across her face and down to her ass.

  When he continued to leer, Falon turned and walked stiffly toward the back refrigerators. Subtly, she glanced up at the round mirrors mounted in the back corners of the store. Through a slit in the wave of her hair, she watched his dark eyes follow her. Then his eyes shifted to his left and his mouth moved slightly, as if he was talking to someone behind the counter.

  She’d bet the rent she didn’t have that the person he was speaking to wasn’t Mr. D. So where was he? Trussed up like a holiday pig in the storeroom?

  “Damn it,” she muttered softly.

  Slowly, she turned. As she did, she tossed the long waves of her hair off her face. She straightened to her full height of five foot eight and looked pointedly over the stacked aisles to the blond man behind the counter.

  “Walk out of here now,” she said softly, “and I promise not to hurt you.”

  The blond’s thin lips turned up into a smile then widened, showing badly stained teeth. As he stepped to the side, another man rose from behind the counter. As he appeared, his deadly aura blasted her entire being with hot, searing pain. The force of it knocked her backward into the thick glass refrigerator doors.

  “Shit!” she woofed as her back shattered the glass and the velocity of the hit pushed her into the unit.

  She really hated being special.

  Two