Blood Law (10 page)

Falon
looked down at her hands and smiled. She raised them and pointed them like
pistols at Vulkasin. She pulled the triggers. “Yeah, apparently I do. If you
don’t let me go, I’ll use them on you.”

His
eyes sparkled. “Don’t let me stop you.”

His
confidence took some of the wind out of her sails. She might be able to slow
him down, but she saw what he was capable of. Falon was many things, but she
wasn’t a fool. But that didn’t mean she was a doormat either.

“Who
are you? Where am I? What did you do to me?”

For
long moments he contemplated her, deciding just how much information he was
going to give her. Finally, he shrugged and uncrossed his arms. “I’m Rafael.
You’re in my house. And I saved your life. Twice.”

Falon
shook her head. “Before that. Last night, after—after you killed Conan.
You—you—”

He
smiled, the gesture nothing short of arrogant, and moved to the opposite side
of the bed to sit down on the edge. “Your body called to mine. I answered.”

“I
made no such call. You raped me!”

His
smile widened, softening the harsh edges of his face. Slowly, he shook his
head. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

Her
jaw dropped at his audacity. “What, exactly, did you take for consent? My dead
weight or my complete silence?”

Rafael
leaned across the big bed toward her, so close she could see the quick flare of
his nostrils and feel his warm breath on her cheek. “I am guilty of many
crimes, but rape is not one of them. I asked your permission, and you gave it.”

Falon
closed her eyes, but she couldn’t block the image of him taking her from behind
or the way their bodies had undulated wildly as he repeatedly thrust into her.
She had wanted him all right. But damn if she’d admit it. Her eyes flashed
open, and she shook her head, denying culpability. She’d said yes, but not in
reality! “I thought it was a dream. I never would have—”

He
pressed his lips to her cheek and kissed her. His warm lips trailed along the
curve of her face to her jaw. He dug his long fingers into her hair. Damn if
her body didn’t spark. “It was no dream,” he said against her throat, then
dragged his teeth along her jugular. “I wanted you; you wanted me.” Fingertips
brushed across her tight nipples. Falon gasped and felt a flood of warm
moisture between her thighs. Rafael groaned and grabbed her head in the palm of
his other hand. “Just like you want me now,” he said, his voice raspy with desire.

Falon
struggled, very uncomfortable with how her body reacted to his. It lit up like
a roman candle that would flare until he chose to extinguish it. It was wrong. She
was wrong for wanting him.

“Do
you want me to demonstrate more thoroughly?” he asked.

“Yes,”
she said before she realized the words had escaped her mouth.

He
grinned above her. “Now who is in denial?”

Falon
blinked. “I didn’t mean that. I’m hurt. Scared. Just like I was when you
brought me here. First, Conan—and then those beasts outside almost killed me—”

Abruptly,
he released her and moved to the edge of the bed and stood. “I took care of
that.”

Her
ardor cooled as abruptly as he had moved away from her. She seemed to have more
control of herself when he didn’t actually touch her. She filed that
realization in her memory banks.

He’d
taken care of it? How? And what was he referring to? The fact that she’d been
hurt? Had he healed her? Had he somehow given her the strength to jump that
high wall and run like a deer?

“If
that’s true, then take care of my leg!”

He
stalked toward the door and put his hand on the knob. “Until I know you won’t
pull a dumb stunt like you did this morning, you’ll have to deal with being
immobile.”

He
opened the door, and as he walked through the threshold, Falon screamed, “You
can’t keep me prisoner here!”

He
stopped and said over his shoulder, “Any time you want to venture outside those
gates and deal with Angor and his pack mates, feel free. But know there will
not be a another rescue.”

He
left her then.

RAFAEL
CURSED AS he strode into the great room. The girl was full of
contradictions—scared shitless one moment and showing alarming degrees of
courage the next. When she’d awoken, she’d acted just how he’d expected:
nervous and disoriented, afraid of his wolf even as she’d mustered the courage
to mouth off to him. Her answers to his questions were useless—if he believed
she was telling him the truth, which he didn’t.

He’d
underestimated her. The bathroom escape was clever. And ballsy. He’d heard the
shouts from outside of an intruder and known she had taken off. How she’d
gotten over that wall, he had no clue, but if some of his men had been guarding
the interior perimeters the way they should have, they would have seen her and
gotten to her before she could even try.

He’d
had no choice but to go after her himself. And when he’d found her, he’d
smelled his mark on her fifty feet away, as strong as it had been when he’d
taken her. That the Berserkers hadn’t respected it pissed him off, but his
anger wasn’t directed at the animals, only at his men and himself.

Fools!
He should never have underestimated her determination. He’d watched her take on
Salene, so how the hell could he have forgotten—she was no beta female, but an
alpha, and that was likely what had called to him in the first place, despite
the fact she was a human. Or was she? Her powers intrigued him. Though unusual
for a human, he knew it was possible. The keepers of the wolves were living
proof. Regardless of what she was, arousal buzzed through him at the memory of
her body’s acceptance of his.

He
wrestled with his raging hard-on, pissed off that he wanted her again. He
didn’t want to want her. He had done what he had to do. He’d marked her, but
only for the sake of the pack and the Blood Law. That was all he was going to
do. No further involvement. Not on any level, and that included sport fucking.
He would not do that to himself. She would be dead soon enough, and so he
forced himself to think of her as dead to him now.

It
didn’t temper his rage. All it did was make him imagine her dead, her body
broken and bleeding after Lucien was done with her. No longer warm but cold. No
longer spirited but faded. No longer . . . anything. No, it didn’t temper his
rage; instead, it made him uncomfortable. Guilty. Reluctant. And he could be
none of those things.

The
girl had to die so that his pack could survive.

He
stopped in the middle of the great room. Dozens of pairs of eyes stared at him.
Minus the elders who kept to themselves in the back of the compound, this was
his pack. His only family now. Forty-eight men and thirty-two women, all
between his age of thirty-four down to twenty-four. They’d been loyal to him,
staying despite the fact they couldn’t mark their mates until he did or
reproduce until he did. At least he’d finally given them the comfort of the
mark.

Like
a thick pheromone haze, the smell of sex permeated the hall just as it had his
bedchamber. Since he had marked the girl last night, his pack had been wildly
fucking. Not mating, that would not come until he and his chosen one became one
in mind, body, and spirit. She would have to mark him of her own volition for
their bond to be complete. He would not give the woman upstairs the chance.

Rafael
shook his head. That was not going to happen. Not with this woman. His pack had
become restless and impatient. Lycans were born to procreate. That his pack had
not produced one single child in fourteen years was placed squarely on his
shoulders. All these years, and still he could not stomach what was asked—no
demanded—of him. He had prolonged the inevitable. Now he’d made his mark, and
once he was free to mark another, he would pick a Lycan like himself, exchange
marks, and watch his pack thrive.

He
was as weary of the tension as his pack. He glanced around at their exhausted,
lust-glazed faces. It was a wonder they could stand, and the infusion of sex
must have addled their senses as much as it was addling his.

Because
although he’d ordered the Berserkers let loose to protect the compound against
anything that even remotely posed a threat, they should’ve maintained enough of
their senses to ensure the interior security of the compound and the girl Rafe
had ordered them to guard with their lives. Yet when she’d escaped, not even
Anton had loaded the high-powered tranq guns that could down Angor, the largest
of the Berserkers, and gone after the girl. Because of their inaction, she had
been hurt. It infuriated him. Yet he could not explain his protectiveness over
the girl. While he knew he had to do what he had to do, something snapped
inside of him when he saw her in Angor’s jaws. Rage and worry infused him. Had
the beast’s fangs broken her skin, he could not have saved her. He shook his
head. When had it become so complicated?

He
hadn’t made himself clear before, so he would now. “I’ll kill any one of you
who allow her out of this compound again,” he growled menacingly.

“Rafael,”
Anton said as he approached, his head bowed submissively. “At first we thought
she was an intruder. It wasn’t until she jumped the fence that I recognized
her.”

Rafael
snarled. “And you then did what?” He grabbed a halfdressed Lana, one of the
unattached females. One who had, on several occasions, eased his own sexual
tension. Anton’s scent was all over her. “Went back to fucking?”

“No.
I—”

“Rafael—”
Lana said, pressing her full naked breasts against his chest.

Rafael
looked down at Lana’s big brown eyes that gazed up at him with longing. Many of
the pack females had deserted them due to their yearning to take a mate and
reproduce. He was grateful to those who’d remained, even the pack whores like
Lana. But as her musky scent toyed with his raging libido, he thought of the
girl upstairs.

His
mouth firmed when he remembered the instant he’d seen her outside, surrounded
by the vicious beasts. For a split second, he’d wondered if he should leave her
to them to finish. That way, Lucien could do him no harm . . . But her
expression, while fearful, had been overridden with bravery, and as soon as
he’d seen her bare foot, bloodied, and broken, he’d known he would never let
that happen. Possessiveness had swarmed over him, just as it had last night
when he’d taken her. She was his. His mate. Even the Blood Law could not deny
him that.

Lana
slid her hand down his belly to his groin. “Rafael,” she softly said, “your
need to mate is strong.”

He
set his jaw. Yeah it was, but not with her. He looked over her shoulder to the
slowly sinking sun. He’d heard Lucien’s howl last night . . . he would come.
Soon. For it was only during two hours each day that they were both in human
form—the hour before dusk and then the hour before dawn. And the Blood Law
could only be avenged when both brothers were in human form.

Sure
enough, as soon as Rafe had the thought, a loud snarling preceded the low,
throaty roar of a Harley. The scent, so much like his own, was unmistakable.
Lucien was already here.

AS
RAFE MENTALLY and physically braced himself, Lucien strode into the great room
as if it were his. It had been, a long time ago. At least, it had been theirs.
Now Lucien was the outsider, and an unwelcome one at that. The only reason he’d
made it inside alive was because he came alone, could glamour the Berserkers,
and shared Rafael’s blood. It was a respect thing with the packs, but if any
one of those three factors had been absent, he’d have been eviscerated by the
Berserkers. If somehow he had miraculously made it past them, Rafe’s pack would
have descended on him like vultures on road kill and finished the job. Many of
them wouldn’t have wanted to. In fact, many would have grieved over Lucien’s
body. But they’d have done it, because while they’d once been loyal to both him
and Lucien, their greatest loyalty now was to Rafael only.

Fortified
by that knowledge, Rafael met Lucien toe to toe, flexing his muscles and baring
his teeth like the true alpha he was. “My dear brother, to what do I owe your
most unwelcome presence?”

Lucien
snorted, his message clear: Rafael knew damn well why Lucien was here.

True.
Every Lycan in the room knew why he was here. He was here for the girl, exactly
as Rafe had known he would be. He just hadn’t expected him to come quite so
soon.

As
Rafe watched, his pack gathered in close, their bodies at the ready. Though he
and Lucien were twins and remarkably similar, their looks were also glaringly
different. Lucien’s features were harsher, a dark counterpoint to Rafe’s light.
Thick black hair. Tawny eyes with dominant black striations. They shared the
same prominent cheekbones, aquiline nose, square jaw, and sadly, the same grim,
unsmiling mouth.

Lucien
walked around pissed off at the world. Rafe couldn’t begrudge him that. He
walked around with his share, too. Having most of your family eradicated by
Slayers, not to mention having your mother skinned alive in front of you, and
your father eviscerated while you were forced to watch, tended to do that to a
Lycan. But in Lucien’s mind, he had suffered more, and at the hands of his own
brother no less.