Blood Law (18 page)

“Mr.
Vulkasin,” the man with the red aura said while extending his hand. He would be
a handsome man, Falon thought, if not for the deep stress lines etched in his
face. She knew they were recent. How could he not be distraught? His daughter
had been murdered. In an uncanny way, she felt a connection to this man.

Rafael
moved from behind Falon and, with a subtle wave of his hand, cleared the room
until only Rafael, Falon, Anton, and the two men remained.

Rafe
extended his hand. “Mr. Taylor, I’m afraid there—”

“My
daughter was murdered in cold blood,” he said, his voice shaky with emotion. “I
want the bastards who did it. The cops have their thumbs up their asses. Name
your price, and I’ll pay you up front. I want them found, and I want them
brought to me. Alive.”

Rafael
turned dark eyes to Falon. “If you will excuse us?”

No
way was she leaving. Falon was beyond intrigued. Not that the man’s daughter
was dead—she was very sad for him—but that he believed Rafael could hunt down
the killers. That didn’t sound like real estate deals to her.

Unfortunately,
her body chose that moment to betray her. She needed to pee, really bad, and
though she could really care less about dishonoring Rafael in front of anyone,
she knew she would embarrass him if she resisted his request. And despite everything—call
her crazy—she didn’t want to do that. It struck her, in all of its absurdity,
that she had feelings for the man. How and why, she had no clue. But God help
her, she did. But she still had to pee. Without a word, Falon turned and gimped
away.

As
she moved past them, her cast hit a raised plank on the hardwood floor, and she
went sprawling forward. Strong arms caught her. At contact, pain burst in sharp
explosions in her head. She cried out and covered her ringing ears. As she did,
her hand brushed against the man who’d broken her fall.

Bursts
of black and white spattered with crimson combined with the screams of a
tortured child, flashed like a horror movie in her head.

Dear
God, her breakfast roiled in her belly. Falon fought the urge to vomit. She
opened her eyes and locked stares with the hard black one above her. Evil
lurked behind his eyes. They sparked, and his hands tightened punishingly on
her body. She knew he’d guessed what she’d seen.

She
shoved away from him and rushed to Rafe. Only when she was safely by his side
did she address Mr. Taylor. “Your daughter is alive.”

WHAT
KIND OF cruel trick is this?” Taylor shouted as he shoved past Anton and the
man who’d stopped Falon from falling. He made the mistake to push past Rafael
to get to Falon. Rafael reacted lightning quick and brutal. With one arm around
Falon, he maneuvered her behind him and at the same time kept her pressed
against his back. With his other hand, he grabbed Taylor by the front of his
shirt and flung him across the room. The shocked man landed with a hard thud on
the hardwood floor.

“Holy,
hell,” Anton cursed, hurrying to him at the same time Taylor’s companion did.
Together they lifted him to standing.

Taylor’s
face faded to ash, the stress lines on his face deepening to gouges.

“You
come into my home asking for a favor and think this is the way to get it? By
threatening my woman?” Rafael roared.

“I’m
so—sorry. I wasn’t going to harm her. But she—she—” He raised a shaky finger to
point at Falon. “She taunts me with her cruelty—”

Falon
remained steadfast. “She’s alive. I don’t know how I know, but I do.”

“Sir,”
Taylor’s companion said as he brushed his rumpled clothing, “she’s lying.” He
turned his cold eyes on Falon and Rafael. “We have pictures, we heard the CD.
If she isn’t dead, after what we saw and heard . . . If God is merciful, she
is.”

Falon
squeezed Rafael’s hand then released it. When she stepped past him, Rafael
growled low, but instead of pushing her back, he kept stride with her as she
approached the two men.

“She’s
okay,” Falon said, looking at Taylor. “But she won’t be for long. There are
others who want her.”

Rafael
glanced down at Falon. “Be sure, Falon. What you’re saying—”

“I’m
sure,” she said fervently. She took Taylor’s hands into hers. While she did not
see the flash of pictures she had with his companion, she felt his desperation
and his desire to believe her. “I swear it. She’s alive.” She felt a spark of
hope flare in him.

“Who
has her? How do you know?” Taylor implored, squeezing her hands. Gently, she
withdrew them.

Falon
turned to look at his companion. She lifted an accusing finger at him. “Ask
him.”

Taylor’s
eyes widened. “Smythe—” he whispered.

Smythe
bared his teeth, glaring at Falon. For the first time she felt afraid. “Lying
bitch!”

Rafael
unleashed on the man. He backhanded him so hard he went airborne. As he came
down, his head hit the edge of a low wooden table with a sickening thud. Even
knowing what would happen, Falon hurried over to him. He didn’t move. She knelt
down and pressed her fingers to his neck. Rage. Pure black, unadulterated rage
roiled through him. Falon didn’t recoil. Instead, she focused, pushing the rage
back, allowing none of it to contaminate her. She touched the rising lump at his
right temple.

“What
have you done?” Taylor shrieked coming toward his man but hesitating as he
remembered what Rafael had done when he moved too fast toward Falon.

“Let
him die,” Rafael said, striding to Falon, ignoring Taylor, who was completely
overwrought. Rafael extended his hand to Falon.

Falon
looked pointedly up at him. “If he dies, we’ll never find the girl. He’s the
key.”

Rafael
swore. “I never said I would look for her in the first place.”

The
man beneath her fingers moaned. He was coming to. Falon removed her hands, sat
back on her heels, and looked up at Rafe. “You’ll allow an innocent girl to die
when you can prevent it?”

Rafael
leaned down and drew Falon up. “I am not the keeper of the world’s woes. I have
my own problems at the moment. There’s no time to waste chasing ghosts.” He
turned to Taylor. “I’m sorry, but I cannot help you.”

“Cannot
or will not?” Falon challenged, resisting his pull.

He
stopped and looked angrily down at her. Rafael Vulkasin was not accustomed to
defiance. He’d just have to get over it. Falon glanced at Taylor. His face had
caved. He’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes. She looked angrily up at
Rafael. How could he not help this man?

“You
have no idea what you are asking of me. There is more at stake than you know,”
Rafael hissed. “Accept my answer. It is law here.”

She
got that. He walked around here like the Lord Almighty.

And
maybe he was, but laws were meant to be broken. “A word with you, Rafael, in
private,” Falon softly said.

“There
is nothing to discuss.”

“After
everything you have subjected me to, it’s the least you can do.” Beseeching,
she looked at him. “Please.” She hated sounding like the damsel in distress,
but she needed to be heard. Her focus was on saving the girl, yes, but in doing
so, she would save herself. She needed to get out of the compound if she were
going to have any chance of escaping this madhouse.

“Jesus.”
He shook his head and strode angrily into what appeared to be his office,
closing the door soundly behind them. She didn’t spend time admiring it. She
whirled on him and said, “That man with Taylor, Smythe, he’s like Conan. Don’t
you see it?”

“Conan?”

“The jaeger
dude from the other night.”

She
watched him bristle. “Salene, the Slayer?”

Falon
waved her hands anxiously. “I don’t know what the hell that is, but that guy
out there has the same dark energy. Same black eyes when he’s pissed. He gives
me the creeps the same way Conan did. When he helped me up and I touched his
hands, I heard the girl’s screams, felt her terror. He’s responsible for the
girl’s disappearance. He can lead us to her.”

Rafael
looked out the window of his office to the others. “I can always sense a
Slayer. I do not sense that in him.” He looked pointedly at Falon. “His eyes
are blue, not black.”

“I
know what I saw,” she insisted. She was not imagining any of this. “Can he hide
it from you?”

Rafael’s
face hardened. Lucien had been fooled; the entire pack in his absence had been
fooled. “Sometimes with black magic, if they are powerful enough. But when they
are boastful, arrogant, or angry, I can see it in their eyes.”

“I
saw it!” Falon took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “What—what do these
Slayers slay?”

Rafael
looked down at her and smirked. “Vulkasins and anyone associated with them.”

Falon
gasped, stepping back. That explained the desperation surrounding her. “Why
Vulkasins? Conan called me a Slayer.”

Rafael
threw his head back and laughed despite the grim situation. “You? A Slayer?”
His laugh deepened.

Falon
flushed, angry that he was laughing at her.

He
sensed her hurt. “You misunderstand my amusement, Falon. You’re a brave girl,
but to be Slayer, you must possess knowledge of the black arts, and the
bloodlust to kill me and mine would have to be as much a part of your DNA as
your beautiful blue eyes.” He cocked his head and looked at her. “You are not
evil. Do you wish to kill me?” He grinned. “Don’t answer that.” His tone
lowered to serious when he asked, “Do you practice black magic?

Falon
swallowed hard. No, but it intrigued her beyond normal curiosity, and she had
once tried to conjure a spell. It hadn’t gone well . . . “No,” she croaked.
Panic grasped her by the throat, cutting off her breath. What if she was a
Slayer? Falon pushed the ridiculous thought out of her head. She was nothing
like Conan or Smythe. All of that said, at the moment, right now, she had a
real Slayer to deal with. “I’m telling you, he’s a so-called Slayer, and if
that’s true, here he is in the Vulkasins’ lair. Maybe that’s why he kidnapped
the girl, because he knew Taylor would come to you for help?”

Rafael’s
nostrils twitched. He looked out the window again then down to Falon. “You may
be on to something there, girl.” He nodded and said, “Let’s play this out.”

ONCE
AGAIN, FALON’S intuition impressed him. In his gut, Rafael knew she had tapped
into something. For a human, she had extraordinary insight and power. Salene
had sensed it, too; perhaps that was all there was to his wanting her. He
recognized the power and wanted her so that he could control it. That she could
identify a Slayer when he could not bothered him on the highest level. Not that
she could, but that Smythe’s magic was so powerful he was able to hide his
identity from a true alpha. With the rising impending, Slayers were positioning
themselves any which way they could. The closer the better. And each Lycan they
took out, especially an alpha, before the rising, was one less Lycan they had
to fight for supremacy. Taylor had come to the right man after all. Rafe would
look for the girl, and at the same time go hunting. The last thing Smythe would
see in this world was Rafe’s sword right before he cut his Slayer head off.

Rafe
looked down at Falon, standing so righteously beside him. She was a worthy
partner. His belly did a slow, weird roll. He felt a pull from her he had never
experienced with a woman before. It should have excited him. Instead, it did
the opposite. A deep sense of dread filled the void in him. He needed to focus
on saving his race, not think whimsical thoughts of a woman who could be dead
by the next sunrise. For now, he would indulge her but keep his hand close to
his vest. If Smythe were a Slayer, he would lead Rafael straight to his clan,
and then—he smiled inwardly—heads would roll.

Rafe
took Falon’s hand and led her back into the great room. Nervous energy snapped
around them. Rafe looked pointedly at Taylor’s companion, “What is your full
name, sir?”

He
bowed his head submissively. “Harold. Harold Smythe.” He stepped toward Rafael
and offered his hand. Rafael slowly shook it. He waited for a sign that he was
shaking hands with a Slayer but felt nothing but cool, clammy skin. He looked
directly into the man’s blue eyes, wanting indisputable confirmation that he
was what Falon said he was. Nothing. If it were anyone else than Falon who made
the claim, Rafe would tell Taylor to take a hike. His own instincts were sharp
and they told him to trust Falon’s. And so he did, but his cautious nature also
told him to be on guard.

“What
do you do for Mr. Taylor?”

“Harry
is my COO,” Taylor said, stepping toward them. “What he does is irrelevant,
Rafael. I trust him implicitly with my life and the life of my daughter. His
integrity is beyond reproach.” He grasped Rafael’s arm. “I—I fell for your
woman’s foolishness, but in my heart I know—” His expression twisted painfully
as he looked at Falon then back to Rafe. “At least give me the satisfaction of
seeing my daughter avenged. I will give you everything I own.”

Rafael’s
instincts had kicked in, and he now accepted that Falon sensed something he had
not. It bothered him that she had an awareness he didn’t, but at the same time,
he felt proud to be her mate. She was brave. Strong. Special. “I’ll look for
your daughter’s abductors,” Rafael said, uncomfortable with the degree of
relief that swept over Taylor’s face. “But when I bring your daughter to you,
alive, I will name my price. Do you agree to honor it?”