Blood Law (13 page)

It
was the kind of sex he’d had with Falon last night. Profound because it had a
reason. Ceremonial almost. Under normal circumstances, he would have hit and
run. But there was nothing, he was realizing, normal about the girl who
occupied his bed. Salene sensed it as well. Why else would he want a woman who
was not of his kind? But what was it about her?

Rafael
took a turn wide and opened the throttle. Fury tore through him, then
compassion. Because Falon had to know what he intended. Did it scare her? Even
now, was she wondering when he would return and lead her to her death?

Gravel
took hold of the rear tire. He put his booted foot down on the asphalt, riding
out of the slide. He grinned despite the near-fatal accident.

He
lived for this shit.

As he
gunned the engine, he came around a hairpin turn. Instead of easing up on the
gas, he opened it up and took it crossed-up like a short track racer. As he
came around the corner, he slammed on the brakes. The headlights of a dozen
bikes blinded him.

“Fuck.”

He
sniffed the air. The stench was unmistakable. Vipers, a local biker gang of
human thugs. While the human Slayers were his nemesis, the Vipers were an
abscess that kept getting bigger, pussier, and more difficult to treat. They’d
been trying to muscle in on Rafael’s mountain for the last few years. Rafe
smiled in the harsh light. But the Vulkasins pushed them back each full moon.
He threw his head back and laughed. It was great sport watching them flee in
abject terror. Those big badass mofos. Rafael sobered. But like a cancer, they
came back, infecting deeper and deeper into Rafael’s territory. He knew the
Slayers powered them. And because of that he had been able to hike up his own
damage. On the cusp of the Blood Moon rising, Rafael took every opportunity he
could to eliminate one more Slayer. It was why he had been prowling the streets
of Sacramento.

“Sons
of bitches,” he cursed, then accelerated and charged them in a dangerous game
of chicken. Normally he’d stand and fight them off the old-fashioned way, but
right now he wanted speed. And the only person he would stop to fight was his
brother. And then he’d tear him apart.

Normally,
the Vipers backed down, but as Rafe sped toward them, he realized that wasn’t
going to happen tonight. They formed a tight gauntlet.

He
could drop the bike, shift, and get his speed fix on all fours, but he wasn’t
in the mood for running or messing up a perfectly good Harley.

He
grinned in the harsh light. So it was a fight they wanted? Then a fight he’d
give them.

Rafe
hit the rear brake and came to a skidding stop inches from Gordo, the
heavyweight leader of the Vipers, who were second only in ferocity to the
Vulkasin pack. The two groups had a long and bloody history. Pack Vulkasin
stayed in the black the good old-fashioned way—real estate and Wall Street—but
the Vipers made their living cooking and selling meth. Rafael had a big problem
with that. He’d had an even bigger problem when several of his pack got hooked
on the shit. And then his problem had become the Vipers’ problem.

Rafe
had single-handedly destroyed the lab.

And
that’s when the shit really hit the fan. The Vipers had doubled their efforts
to get drugs into Rafe’s pack, forming new labs faster than Rafe could find
them. Then the economy collapsed. That, coupled with the pack’s longing to
procreate, had weakened many. The pack had been forced to take on more
blue-collar type work. Protection runs and supply runs, so long as it wasn’t
contraband, he was good with it. They did what they had to, to keep the
compound running and the pack fed.

The
Slayers had tapped into the Viper gang, as well. Methed-out Slayers were twice
as deadly and unpredictable than those that were sober.

Rafael
certainly had his hands full.

He
needed to give the pack back their reason for being. And he had to defeat the
Slayers once and for all. To do that, all of the North American packs would
have to unite. But too many of them had allied themselves with Lucien, who
refused to look at the bigger picture: their survival as a race. United they
could have a chance; divided they were doomed.

In
seconds, he was surrounded by twelve bikers, each of whom he’d taken more than
a pound of flesh from over the years. He wasn’t worried about their numbers.
Tonight, he was more powerful. He not only had the ring, but his will to
survive was at its zenith.

Rafael
was easily a head taller than any of the Vipers, and that was saying a lot.
They were some big dudes. Even so, he stood his ground.

“Lupo,”
Gordo called, his face split in half with a grin. Although the Vipers didn’t
know for sure the power of the Vulkasins, they correctly suspected they were
Lycan.

Rafael
looked up at the waxing moon, then back to Gordo. “You picked a good night to
die.”

The
dirtbags surrounding him laughed. One shoved him from behind. Rafe didn’t
budge. His anger simmered. Not enough to force a shift, but if he wanted to, he
could hike it up a notch.

He
felt those behind him move together. He jumped and kicked back with his right
leg, knocking two down. As he turned, he cut Gordo off in mid-word with a
karate chop to the larynx. Gordo screamed and grabbed his throat. As he came
down, Rafe smashed his boot into the leathered biker’s face.

Eight
hundred years of persecution was unleashed. Rafael was so angry, so damn pissed
off at the last twenty-four years of his life that, one by one, he disabled the
Vipers. But he didn’t escape without injury.

Someone
stabbed him in the kidney from behind. The shock of the hit stopped him in
mid-punch. He grunted in pain and quickly recovered, his adrenaline kicking
into higher gear. He whipped around, grabbed the hand wielding the knife, and
bent it backward. As bones snapped, the Viper howled.

The
knife fell to the ground. Rafe grabbed it. The surrounding Vipers backed away.

Slowly,
Rafe tossed the large skinning knife in his hand. Then, grabbing it by the
point, he chucked it at the downed man, impaling his broken hand to the dirt
shoulder.

A gun
cocked behind him. He turned to a loud snarl erupting from the forest edge
behind him. Bloodcurdling screams rent the air just as Lucien, in all his wolf
glory, leapt out and proceeded to rip apart three of the Vipers. Stunned,
Rafael watched the last person he ever thought would have his back tear apart
his enemy.

Gordo
leveled his nickel-plated .357 at Lucien’s back. Rafael hesitated in his mind.
If Lucien died tonight, Falon would live. He did not hesitate in body. Lucien
was his bother. He leapt high into the air and kicked the gun from Gordo’s
hand, then punched his bloody face, this time smashing it to pieces. The Viper
leader hit the ground with the velocity of a three-hundred-pound brick and
didn’t move.

By
the time it was over, twelve Vipers were either moaning and groaning on the
mountain road or dead. Rafe looked over to his brother. Lucien was breathing as
hard as he was. He ignored the pain in his side and the seepage of blood down
his waist.

“I
didn’t ask for your help, and I didn’t need it,” Rafe said, angry at himself
for his weakness. He’d saved his brother’s life. Why?

Lucien
growled and looked at his bike as if to say, “Fuck you, it was my bike I was
protecting.”

It
occurred to Rafael that, even though he hadn’t needed Lucien’s help, his
brother had still given it. Even odder, while he doubted Lucien had saved his
life, he had saved Lucien’s. He looked up at the waxing moon then down to the
ring on his finger that softly glowed. What was the world coming to? The blood
feud raged but brothers united against a common enemy. That was it, Rafe
thought. Lucien finally got it. Blood was thicker than revenge. His heroic act
was nothing more than his need to protect his pack from the virulent biker
gang. Rafe wasn’t fooling himself though. Lucien would not stop until he
personally destroyed his only brother. And he would be prepared.

Rafael
looked at the bodies strewn across the road. There would be hell to pay. There
were lots more where those came from.

He
strode past Lucien and hopped on the bike, started it up, and without looking
back, continued his flight down the mountain.

The
cool air shredded his hair and stung his eyes. He didn’t care. The attack by
the Vipers was nothing, but his and Lucien’s actions bothered him on every
level. There was no way he could have known whether Gordo had a silver round in
the Magnum; if he had, Lucien would have certainly died. Otherwise, he’d have
been wounded, but he’d have survived. It took more than a regular round to kill
a Lycan. Rafe’s actions indicated not only was he willing to save his brother’s
life, but he was even willing to insure he wasn’t injured.

He
was a fool! He may have prevented the girl’s end had he just let nature take
its course.

It
was the Blood Law—survival of the fittest.

There
was no room in their world for weakness. Not weakness of character, weakness of
spirit or, he thought contemptuously, weakness of the heart. But Lucien was his
brother, his only blood family . . . his nemesis and the only person standing
in the way of the packs’ unity. How could he convince him to set his vengeance
aside for the greater good of the Lycan nation?

Rafe
set his jaw and made a quick U-turn. He headed back up the mountain to the
hidden road just down the way from the compound. To the Amorak. His mother’s
people. It was long past time that he got over his temper tantrum. It was time
to make peace and get answers.

Five
minutes later, the Amorak’s permanent campsite came into view. It was an
eclectic combination of small structures, large trailers, and rambling tents.
Quiet faces stared at him in surprise as he rode down the dirt road to the last
cabin at the very end. The Amorak camp was once a place of savory scents,
cheery laughter, and industrious energy. Now, sadness and apathy hung over the
encampment like a dark, moldy cloud.

He
was shocked at the condition of the people and the place. It reminded him of a
refugee camp. The death of his mother followed by the clash of her sons had
taken its toll. The fallout had been the systematic destruction of the Lycans
by the Slayers and the insidious drugs supplied by the Vipers. The Amorak, the
human spirit keepers of the wolves, had apparently suffered, too.

Guilt
washed over Rafe. He’d wrongly neglected these proud, giving people. He had
ignored their attempts to placate. Both his and Lucien’s pride had done this.
Reduced them to the shadows of their former selves. A prideful people who
respected the wolf above all other creatures, including themselves. With them,
the secrets of the Lycans were buried deep. With them, the Blood Law was
enforced.

With
the realization of what his pride had cost these people, Rafael felt as if he
had the weight of the entire Lycan race on his shoulders alone. And in many
ways he did.

From
that moment forward, Rafe would set his anger aside. He would do everything in
his power to mend the broken fences, and then together with the Amorak, he would
prepare for the rising.

He
stopped just outside of the dilapidated cabin. The remaining glass in the
windows was in shards; threadbare curtains fluttering in the late night breeze
caught against the sharp edges of the glass. Rafael lifted his nose and sniffed.
The familiar scent of mint and beeswax mingled with the surrounding pine in the
night air.

Sharia
lived.

As he
raised his hand to knock on the weather-beaten door, it opened. A small,
ancient woman wrapped in an old tattered shawl looked up at him. His heart
stopped. The cheery brown eyes he remembered from his youth were gone. In their
stead were hollowed dull brown spots, sunken into an emaciated skull. Hope was
gone. Her life force barely flickered.

“Sharia?”
he asked, his heart twisting inside his chest. She’d been his mother’s nurse,
as well as his and Lucien’s. She’d been the one person he’d been able to talk
to when he couldn’t go to his parents. After their death up to the split of the
packs, Sharia had been his and Lucien’s lifeline.

Guilt
washed over him in a second set of waves. He had abandoned her and her people
when they needed him most. He hadn’t realized it then, but he did now.

“Come
in, Rafael,” she softly said, her voice barely a rasp.

He
ducked under the threshold too small to accommodate his great height. The
interior was small but neat. An old bentwood rocker that she’d once used to
soothe him as a babe sat across from a battered straight-backed chair. A cot
took up the north wall and a small camp-style stove sat on top of a wooden
cupboard with a water hand pump. Behind a tattered screen, he saw the claw-foot
of an old porcelain tub.

“Sharia,
what’s happened?” But he knew.

“The
blood feud between blood brothers.” It wasn’t an accusation but a statement of
fact.

Rafael
inhaled sharply. To think it was one thing, to have it thrown in your face was
another.

“I
was young and angry when the council refused to believe me. It was a reason to
abandon you.” He took her old gnarled hands into his. “Can you forgive me?”