Blood Law Read online

  “Let go of me!” She kicked with her good leg against the ironhard thigh of her captor. He readjusted her weight in his arm and turned toward Conan. Just as they turned, a blazing force of energy slashed across her waist up to the bottom swell of her breast. Falon screamed in anguish. The initial pain from the attack had been bad enough, but instantaneously the wound burned as if someone had poured a bottle of alcohol into it. She hissed and writhed, unable to find a way to deal with the ungodly burn. She was going to die.

  “You push me too far, Slayer.” The man holding her tightened his grip, and with a mighty hurl he let his blade fly. In the white-hot haze of her pain, Falon heard the sickening thunk of steel penetrating flesh and bone, the harsh scream of a man in agony, then the slow hiss of air as it escaped his lungs.

  Unable not to, she turned. The steel blade had impaled Conan straight through the heart, passing through him and into the concrete as easily as if he were butter.

  “He won’t be pissing me off again,” Vulkasin said in a deadly whisper.

  Fear and unholy agony pushed Falon’s heart into overdrive, the force of its beating jamming her throat. She couldn’t swallow, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. She prayed for sweet, blissful death.

  Vulkasin turned a scorching grin on her. Then, thankfully, the world went dark.

  RAFAEL SIGNALED FOR his men to mount up. Harleys revved around him. His sergeant at arms, Anton, inclined his head toward the crumpled body hanging in Rafe’s arms.

  “What do you want me to do with her?” Anton asked.

  Rafael looked down at the ashen face. The girl—woman, he amended, as he felt the lush weight of her breasts against his arm—weighed much less than half his two hundred and forty pounds. Her height was a good hand and a half less than his own six foot three. Except for her breasts, she was nothing but a bag of skin and bones. Her state of health didn’t concern him, however. That she’d seen and heard too much, did.

  He looked around and noted no other strange faces around him. Had his men not been circled around the corner grocery scaring those off who might have rubbernecked the fray, he would have had to do some serious cleanup. As it was, there was merely this sole slip of a woman to deal with.

  For a moment, he studied her, remembering the fire and courage she’d shown as she’d fought the Slayer and tried to flee them both. A grudging admiration swept through him, and he hesitated. But only for a second. She could only bring trouble. He didn’t need the attention, and he sure as hell didn’t want it.

  He turned, nodded, and made to hand her over to Anton. Her eyes flickered open, and deep murky pools of what he thought might be blue eyes beneath all of her suffering stopped him. Once again, he hesitated, but as Anton grabbed her arms, her ripped sweatshirt fell open, exposing full, creamy breasts. Blood shot to his cock. Rafe growled but released her to his sergeant at arms.

  His desire sealed her fate. He wanted no woman clouding his resolve. No woman for his brother to use against him.

  As he looked down at her, Anton licked his lips.

  “Make her end painless,” Rafe softly said.

  Anton nodded, but his eyes sparked in undisguised lust.

  “No, Anton. Leave her some dignity.”

  Anton scowled but again nodded. As he turned toward an adjacent alley, Rafael strode to Salene, pulled his sword from his chest, and deftly decapitated him. Seconds later he watched the Slayer turn to dust. He wiped the sword blade across his right thigh, cleaning any vestige of the Slayer from it. As he sheathed it with its twin behind his back, he caught the twinkle of something under the sputtering streetlight.

  He reached down and picked up a chunky gold ring from the gray dust that was once Viktor Salene. It warmed in his hand. Awestruck by its simple beauty and the fact that it was of a howling wolf similar to the wolf emblazoned on the back of his black leather duster, Rafael held it up to the dim light.

  The ruby eye blazed. A harsh wave of frigid air moved through Rafael as he realized what he held in his hand. The Eye of Fenrir. The savage wolf of doom. A traitor to his own kind. The talisman of the wolf Slayers. Enemy of the Lycan nation. Rafe’s eyes narrowed. The ring, lore told, held the captured spirit of Fenrir. Fenrir had been lured into the ring by Singarti, the great spirit woman of the Inuit, during the great battle of the North more than three centuries ago. And there, buried deep in the frozen tundra, it was supposed to stay, keeping the spirit within frozen for all eternity. It possessed great power and if in the wrong hands could unleash Fenrir to his terrible physical form. However, if kept secured, the ring bearer had the potential to wield greater power. Rafael smiled. Was this a sign? His smile faded. Or a precursor to their doom?

  How did Viktor get his hands on it? No word had leaked that it had been unearthed.

  Did Balor, master of the Slayers, know of Viktor’s possession of it? Rafe doubted it. The ring was too powerful, doubly so with the coming of the Blood Moon. Balor would never stand for anyone other than himself to possess it. Was that why Salene had gone off on his own?

  Rafael folded his fingers around the ring. Heat lasered painfully into his hand. He clutched it tighter, unwilling to give in to the savagery of Fenrir. He was alpha, leader of the great Vulkasin pack. Only death by a Slayer could take his power. Many had died trying over the last three decades of his life, and many more would meet the same fate. Heat flared in his hand, as if to say he was a fool to think he could survive the coming of the final battle, a modern-day Ragnarok. He smiled grimly and opened his hands. The ruby eye dimmed. He slid it onto the third finger of his right hand. “You have been delivered to me for a reason, Fenrir. But rest assured, you will not be the death of my pack.”

  He looked over his shoulder to see that Anton had faded into the black jaws of the alley. As more questions swirled in his mind, an uneasiness overcame Rafael. What did Viktor, a rogue wolf Slayer with an inflated ego, want with a homeless girl? He had been close to marking her, something the Slayers did only when the person being marked held value to the clan. Though Viktor was known as a mercenary rogue, one who did not limit his kills to Rafael’s people, he had blood ties to the direct descendants of the original Slayers. If the girl held value to a Slayer, she would hold value to Rafael.

  “Anton!” Rafael strode toward the alley just as his sergeant at arms emerged empty-handed. “The girl?”

  Anton’s dark brows crowded together, forming a thick mono-brow across his deep-set pale eyes. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I took care of her as you commanded.”

  Rafael sprinted past his man in a blur. He did not need his keen sense of smell to locate her because his eyes immediately adjusted to the darkness. He found her lying in a crumpled heap next to an overflowing Dumpster, buried beneath several stacks of cardboard. He swooped upon the lifeless form.

  Shoving the debris aside, Rafe grabbed her to him, grateful that Anton had not snapped her neck. His powers were not so great that he could fuse bone and nerves. Not yet anyway. Thankfully, Anton had only smothered her. Rafael sank to his knees and carefully pulled her into the cradle of his arms. Pushing her head back and her jet black hair from her ashen cheeks, he opened her cooling lips, pressed his own warm lips to hers, and gently blew.

  Four

  AS THEY HEADED out of the city, Rafael could not fight the feeling that the human draped across his gas tank was going to create an uproar with his pack. They were no more accepting of humans than he. While he did business with humans because he needed their money, Rafael was staunchly opposed to any human for any reason breaching his tightly controlled world. He went to them; they were not permitted to come to him.

  He could barely stand the stench of humans. Prejudice, hate, and greed clung to them like stink on shit. Were it not for humans, his race would not be dying out, and they would still thrive in Europe.

  There was little solace in the fact that if his kind were not able to take human form and walk among them as equals, Rafael would not have been born. And while that may be t
rue, it was the human ancestors of the original wolf Slayers who were as hell-bent on eradicating his kind as the day Peter Corbet accepted the charter to eradicate wolves from the British Isles by his king, Edward I.

  Since the violent split of the pack fourteen years ago, the necessity for humans to survive had increased tenfold. Rafael resented it. He resented his brother more for making it so. By refusing to see that Rafael had saved him from a death sentence for lying with a Slayer, Lucien insisted Rafael had intentionally slain his chosen one, then hammered home a deep wedge between what had been a healthy, thriving pack. Once, pack Vulkasin was the undisputed alpha pack among all the packs in the world, leader in commerce, military, and in government. But his brother ruined it all in one furious act of selfishness. And now, Rafe needed humans to support his pack.

  Rafael sighed, weary of his brother’s continued acts of vengeance. The time was at hand. Rafael knew what he had been in denial about for years. For the greater good of his pack and the Lycan nation at large, he must eliminate his brother. He cringed as he always did when the realization hit him. He loved his brother, Great Spirit Mother, help him, but he did. And there were times like now when he despised him. So much at stake, so much to lose, so much pain and suffering, for what? Lucien’s refusal to see that he was duped by a woman? A Slayer?

  Rafael set his jaw. He had no choice. And therein lay the rub. The Blood Law. Murder of an alpha was punishable by death. Then who would lead the nation against the Slayers?

  But it had to be done. There would finally be peace the nation desperately needed, and once united, they would defeat the Slayers once and for all.

  Rafael set thoughts of his brother aside and focused on getting home. His almost nightly hunts over the past three months had proven fruitful. His Slayer count had gone up exponentially. He smiled in the night wind. He would take the next week to regroup, strategize, and rearm. Then strike when Lycans were their most powerful, during the full moon.

  Now, miles north of California’s capital, high atop a mountain, two dozen blacked-out choppers rumbled into the pack compound. As the thick iron gates closed with swift precision behind them, Rafe sneered. His brother’s scent, though faint, wafted through the air. It wasn’t the first time his brother had skulked close when Rafael was hunting.

  As he drove past several outbuildings then around to the clubhouse—the main compound building—Rafael glanced up at the shrouded moon. It was well past midnight. He didn’t have much time if the girl was to survive.

  He looked down at her in his arms. She had not stirred once on the long ride home; she didn’t stir now but remained half draped across the gas tank and half sitting against his chest. With her added weight, maneuvering the bike had been a tricky feat, especially through the twisting Sierra road that led to the compound. But he was strong, and his strength didn’t waver. He couldn’t say the same for her. As he came to an abrupt stop, the girl’s body slid from his grip, causing him to curse. He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her back across his blood-soaked leathers.

  He stared down at her, resisting the urge to push her hair away from her face. The ruby eye on the ring glowed, its heat stinging his flesh just as it had done whenever he’d looked down at her on the ride home.

  If only Talia, his pack’s healer, was here. Not only would he know that the girl’s life was in good hands, but Talia had a way of getting into human minds. There was much she could tell Rafe about the woman the Slayer had wanted enough to mark.

  But Talia wasn’t here. Instead, she was being held captive by his brother. Which meant Rafael would have to care for the woman, and that meant taking unnecessary risks.

  Rafael cursed. “Damn you, Lucien!” And damn himself for falling for Lucien’s schemes. It was his fault Talia was locked away in the dragon’s lair.

  Recognizing how his thoughts had spiraled, Rafe mentally shook himself. He didn’t have time for this, and neither did the woman. Grabbing her up to him, he toed the kickstand out from under the bike, cut the engine, and stood, bringing the injured woman with him.

  “Anton,” Rafael called over his shoulder. “Release the Berserkers.”

  “Are you mad?” Anton screeched.

  Rafael sighed. In another place and time, he might have laughed his ass off at his sergeant at arms’ squealing. Or, more likely, he’d have cut him down so low for questioning his authority that Anton would’ve been fodder for the omegas of the pack. But Anton was not his concern at the moment. Saving the girl in his arms was, and so was sealing the compound from all threats, especially that of the Slayers, who would know of Viktor’s death by now and likely come charging in with a vengeance.

  Rafael growled low. “Do as I said.” He kicked open the front door to the clubhouse. His eyes instantly adjusted to the darkness, yet he didn’t need a light to navigate the large room. Even if his night vision hadn’t been so sharp, he could navigate the entire compound blindfolded.

  “Alert the pack,” he called to Anton, who had not moved since he’d dismounted his bike. “Stay within the compound walls until dusk tomorrow.”

  Anton called out to Nazz and JorDon, his right and left arms, informing them of Rafael’s command. Incredulous voices drifted to Rafael.

  It was rare that the Berserkers were released outside of the compound walls, and even then, it happened only when Rafe was there to supervise. There was nothing living or dead that could survive even a scratch from one of them. Their fangs were hollow and filled with such toxic venom that even a drop of it into a bloodstream would render the victim paralyzed. What the Berserker did after that was what nightmares were made of. Rafe was the only creature that could command a Berserker. As he was alpha, the mutant wolves had to obey him or die.

  A jolt of fire sparked on his finger, and he looked down at the ruby eye of the ring. Fenrir could learn a trick or two from his Berserkers. They came to heel at his first whistle. They owed him their lives. They obeyed. So, one day, would Fenrir.

  “Rafael?” Anton called from the doorway. “You must give them their command. Otherwise, they’ll run loose through the woods and destroy every living thing!”

  Rafael halted in midstep and readjusted the slippery body in his arms. He put his fingers to his lips and, in several short, earsplitting whistles, he called to the Berserkers. He was immediately rewarded with loud snarling barks from the other side of the compound.

  “Open the gate to the outside. They will obey. I’m going to my rooms. Do not disturb me unless you have no recourse.”

  Anton nodded. Once the Berserkers were released to patrol the outside perimeter, Anton and the rest of the pack would see to the security of their own homes within the high concertina wired steel block walls. Since the day after his parents’ deaths, the walls had held against several Slayer attacks as well as a few from the Vipers, a Slayer-backed gang of bikers, but Rafael knew he would have to reinforce every inch of the compound with the coming of the Blood Moon. The quickening had begun. But their survival rested on surviving the rising.

  Over the last two decades, the Slayers had systematically reduced Lycan numbers to fewer than a thousand worldwide. Add to that the division of the Vulkasin pack, and there were fewer to protect the bloodline. He and his brother were the last alphas of the pack. Until he marked his chosen one—the alpha female who matched him in courage, heart, and strength—the line could not continue.

  The irony twisted within him. Of course, once he found his destined mate, she would be offered up to Lucien as the payment for Rafael’s deed. It was why he had refused to choose and mark his mate. How could he knowingly sacrifice her? He couldn’t. Yet, if he did not, his line would die.

  Rage at his brother intensified. Would that Lucien admit his woman was Slayer, there would be no sacrifice. But if Lucien did admit it, the Blood Law would demand his life as payment.

  It was an impossible situation, one that would only be remedied by death.

  Rafael kicked open the door that led to the more private rooms in the c
ommunal building. Then, after striding across a wide expanse of hardwood floor to a steep stairway and down a short hall, he kicked open the thick oak door into his own quarters. He moved through the main room and into his bedroom.

  He grimaced when the subtle scent of lemony spice wafted around his nostrils. Lana. She was always leaving her scent on his bedpost in hopes of driving him mad with lust. She refused to accept that he took from her only what his body needed, never his heart.

  Never his heart.

  Rafe fought back a bitter laugh. As alpha, he had his pick of any female in his pack, even the paired ones. Not wanting to create harsh feelings among his pack males, Rafael stayed away from their females. He would rather be a lone wolf than share his mate, even with the alpha, so how could he expect his pack to? He made a point of taking only the unattached pack females to his bed. Their scents appealed to him for only a brief time before he set them aside. Yet they all vied for his affection, even knowing that in the end, it would mean their deaths to love him. He could not bring himself to mark a Lycan, only to see her sacrificed. His decision not to pull the trigger, so to speak, had become an increasing problem. For his pack to survive, he had to take and mark a mate.

  So lately, he had taken to fucking human females. Unless marked, a human could not conceive with his seed, and he was immune from human disease. But the best part of sex with a human was that he never had to see her again. No longing looks, no whines for attention, no backbiting. He’d taken more and more to cruising the cities for human sex to quench his ever growing primal fire. But even so, lately, his moods had darkened. He spent most days running through the forests until he had no strength to run another step and his nights hunting Slayers. He had a hunger for something else. Something with meaning, something out there, something . . . taboo.

  It was a double-edged sword he wielded. There was no debating the three-century-old covenant. Though many council meetings had convened to sidestep or find a loophole, the laws were written in Lycan blood after the great war of the North and could not be challenged.