Blood Law (21 page)

Was
she psychotic? What had happened to her that she would feel so deeply for a man
she barely knew and who did not value her life? She shook her head and sat back
on the small piece of seat she was allowed, and released her hands to grasp the
sides of the seat. As she did, the bike hit a pothole. In a dizzying tumble,
she went flying backward.

Falon
screamed, instinctivly tucking into a fetal position to avoid injury. As she
did, her fall turned into a slow motion movie reel. Out of body, she heard her
screams, high and tinged with genuine fear. She closed her eyes, not wanting to
see herself go splat and die. She knew no matter how tight she tucked, her
entire body would turn into a bloody pulp as soon as she hit the road. Instead,
as she flew toward the rushing asphalt, two strong arms caught her in midair,
then pulled her close to his hard body, tucked and rolled at a maddening pace
along the asphalt, taking the brunt of the impact.

When
they stopped rolling and came to a stop on the gravelly shoulder, Falon kept
her eyes closed and her body tucked. Her heart beat so hard, her rib cage hurt.
The sounds of the bikes as they idled met her ears. Wet slobbery tongues lapped
at her limbs, accompanied by whines of inquiry.

Long,
possessive fingers brushed over every inch of her body, touching, pausing, then
moving on. Hot spots on her knees, elbows, and her hip flared. Flat on her
back, she opened her eyes and looked up to find Rafael’s deep turquoise-colored
eyes above staring intently at her. He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.
Falon shivered. It was a loving touch. Reverent. She opened her mouth to answer,
but words got stuck in her throat. He wanted something from her. Something far
more profound than her body. She could see it in his eyes. A deep yearning for
something she could not give him: peace.

“Are
you hurt?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly.

Taking
mental inventory, she shook her head as sensations registered. Just scrapes,
nothing broken, and a shimmering warmth along her skin that had nothing to do
with injuries. She could have been bleeding out and she would not have noticed
because of the way he was looking at her. The way he made her feel knocked her
so far off balance she constantly felt as if she were in a free fall.

“I’m
okay. Are you hurt?” she asked, carefully sitting up. Her gaze raked him from
his head to his boots. Not a scratch that she could see, and barely a tear on
his leathers.

“I’m
fine.” He stood and instead of helping her up, he lifted her up into his arms
and turned with her. “Anton!” he called.

The
man dismounted his bike and hurried toward them. Falon realized every eye of the
pack of bikers was riveted on her. The men appeared restless. Had they worried
about her, too? And how the hell had Rafael managed to save her and remain
unscathed?

A red
glow pulsed behind his turquoise eyes when he looked down at her. His concern
was gone. “What the hell were you thinking? We were going eighty-five miles an
hour for hell’s sake! You could have killed yourself!” he raged at her.

She
twisted out of his grip, knowing that had he wanted to keep her in his arms, he
would have. She was gaining strength every day, but it didn’t come close to
his. Falon stepped back, almost tripping over her cast, but she held her
ground. She pointed a finger at his chest and jabbed him. “What the hell do you
care if I die right here, right now?”

She
looked at the four dozen men surrounding her. At the hunger etched deeply into
their faces. A hunger and a weariness that held on to each one of them like a
festering plague. It was palpable. Who were they, and what did they want from
her?

Rafael
reached out a hand to her. “I care.”

She
slapped his hand away. “You care about yourself.”

He
opened his mouth to defend himself but thought better of it and closed it. He
whistled two short whistles, and the big black beast that had almost taken her
foot off trotted over to Rafael. He said something in a foreign language to the
animal. It growled. As the growl ended, Falon’s blood froze in her veins.

Though
she had no idea what they meant, she had heard similar words before. From her
mother. A ghost of a woman. The last recollection she had of her was when she
was around five years old. There had been a deep sadness in her mother that
transcended centuries of pain and suffering.

“What
did you say to him?” Falon demanded.

Rafael
glared down at her. “It’s none of your business.” She bristled. He was so
bipolar! One minute all caring, now pissed and indifferent. And rude.

Rafael
looked over at Anton. “I’m taking your ride, see what JorDon can do with mine.
You take his bike.”

Anton
nodded and dismounted his chopper. Rafael mounted it and looked to Falon.
“Come. The girl is alive and within ten miles.”

Falon’s
eyes widened. “How do you know that?”

He
moved up and stood, giving her ample room to mount. “I just do. Now get on.”

Falon
did as she was told. Her heart fluttered anxiously. The girl was alive! Sweet
Jesus, she had been right! And if she were right about the girl, then she was
right about Smythe. She looked up at Rafael before she swung her left leg over
the studded seat. “What about Smythe?”

“We’ll
take care of him after we secure the girl.”

TEN
MINUTES LATER, Rafael raised his hand in a stop position and pulled over just
inside a large, dilapidated industrial park. Nary a light shone from the large,
sagging buildings surrounding them. Shattered windows gaped like fanged ghosts
at them. Stacks of broken pallets were strewn, some stacked lining sagging
cyclone fences. Empty rusted drums lay in disarray as if they were dropped from
the air and left where they landed. Large tumbleweeds hugged the fence twenty
feet deep, their escape ending there. Old chemical scents lingered faintly in
the air. The park looked much like what Rafael imagined the world would look
like after Armageddon. Dark, desolate, lifeless. Not even a rat hid among the
debris.

Yet,
despite the lifeless stillness of the area, Rafael could smell the stench of a
Slayer and the pungent scent of a terrified child. Three hundred yards ahead.

Rafe
cut his engine and hopped off. “Stay here,” he commanded Falon. He watched her
stiffen. If the situation wasn’t so dire, he’d smile. She was growing quite a
backbone. Gone was the confused girl he rescued.

He
gave the kill sign to the rest of the pack. The engines hushed, and he had his
men’s rapt attention. “Slayers ahead. Three hundred yards. I’m going to go get
the lay of the land, I’ll be back shortly.” Rafe whistled for Angor, turned,
and jogged north, deeper into the park.

AS
RAFE QUIETLY approached the warehouse, he motioned for the Berserker to watch
his back. He did a quick scan for mounted cameras. None that were detectable.
First mistake. Quickly he shifted into wolf form, then jumped nimbly to the
roof and trotted over to a large round fan cover. He grasped the edge with his
teeth and pulled it toward him, then looked down.

The
warehouse was small as warehouses went. Maybe thirty-five thousand square feet
of footage, empty space except for a large shrouded platform in the middle. He
salivated as the scents wafted up to him. It was surrounded by armed Slayers.
His keen sense of smell picked up the scent of a child. He poked his head
farther in. Where was she? Hidden beneath the shroud? Had to be. There was no
other place in the warehouse she could be. He turned his attention back to the
Slayers.

Rafael’s
pulse picked up speed.

These
were not your average run-of-the-mill Slayers; these were clan Corbet Slayers.
Direct descendants of the first wolf Slayer, Peter. They were motivated by
something more powerful than the black magic they had mastered. Clan Corbet was
powered by their untold hatred of wolves and anything or anyone remotely
related to them, including the Amorak. And who should be pacing anxiously atop
the platform awaiting him? Edward. Second only in command to his brother,
Balor, master of all Slayers. He had more than a Lycan versus Slayer score to
settle with the bastard. It was personal. Edward had held his mother down while
his oldest brother, Thomas, skinned her alive.

Rafe’s
blood quickened, his thirst for vengeance so strong he could taste it. What a
coup. Through his complex network, Rafael learned only recently that Balor was
back East, drumming up mercenaries for the rising, which left Edward in charge.
If Rafe took out Edward tonight, it would send the entire Slayer community into
a panic. They were very much like Lycans in that if their leaders were
eliminated, the clans floundered. They needed strong leaders to survive.

Clad
in chain mail, the ancient war garb of his founding father, including two nasty
looking broadswords, Edward strode back and forth along the platform as if he
were king of the world.

He
wouldn’t be for long. Rafe smelled his anticipation. All of the Slayers were
hyped and ready to kill. The chemical stench of meth oozed from their pores.
Compliments of the Vipers. Their excitement and eagerness for battle was
palpable. But so was his packs’. Rafe resisted the urge to tip his head back
and howl. Oh, how sweet his victory would be tonight. He would not have another
chance like this. Not before the rising.

He
smiled in the dark and backed away, dropped to the ground, and stealthily
inspected the perimeter. His nose twitched as he approached the main entrance.
He stepped to the door and sniffed. The fur on the back of his neck stood on
end. C-4. He sniffed the entire perimeter of the building, locating the same
scent at the smaller back doors. The higher windows, though, were clean.
Quickly he shifted and dressed. He whistled softly for Angor, who had shadowed
him. Together they trotted back to the pack.

“It’s
a trap,” Rafael softly said as he approached his men.

Falon’s
head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

“Slayers.
At least a dozen, methed out and waiting for us to storm the gates and rescue
the girl.”

“What
are you going to do?” she asked.

Rafael
smiled. “Storm the gates and rescue the girl.”

“But—”

“Knowing
what we’re up against will give us the edge.”

“But
what if they just open fire on you? How can you protect yourself against that?”
Falon asked as a cloud of doom darkened her thoughts.

Rafael
threw his head back and laughed. “Are you worried about me?”

Of
course, she was worried about him! He had—the sex thing alone made her care.
There were other more poignant reasons, reasons she ignored. Reasons that if
she escaped, wouldn’t matter. Not if she were to survive. Falon snorted.
“Hardly. If you die, I have a better chance of surviving.”

Rafael
turned serious. That was true. Truer than she knew.

His
gaze locked for a long, silent moment with Falon’s. He knew she was special, so
special Salene wanted her. So special, Rafael, an alpha, had marked her, a human,
before he knew her. So special she could jump high fences, read people’s minds,
and sniff out a Slayer among a pack of Lycans. So special she could disarm an
alpha as powerful as his brother with a glare. Sacrificing her for the sake of
the Blood Law was not going to be easy. And it would be a sacrifice. Despite
his hard heart, in just a few days, she had wormed her way under his skin.

If he
were the impetuous type, Rafe might sacrifice his life for hers. But his life
was invaluable to the Lycan nation. Rafael knew if he died before the rising,
so, too, would his people. His chest tightened painfully with the longing that
would come when she was gone and the resentment of the law that failed them
both as well as regret for what he could not stop, though he would sacrifice
anything, save his people, to prevent her death. He forced the debilitating
feelings aside. There was no room for weakness in his life.

He
raised his nose into the air and deeply inhaled the dark and dangerous scents
swirling around him. Tonight would be a good beginning to the end. Twelve
Slayers in one fell swoop? It would be like hitting a million dollar jackpot at
Harrah’s. Salene and his flunky had been nice notches on his belt. The Eye of
Fenrir was more than icing on the cake. The Eye of Fenrir had been like hitting
a progressive lottery. He was set. The ring flared on his hand in agreement.

Tonight
it would aid him in getting his hands on that pissant, Edward. With Thomas’s
disappearance more than two decades ago, and his presumed death, next on Rafe’s
list was Balor. With Balor eliminated, the Slayers would run like cockroaches
when you lifted the rock they hid under. Each one of them going in a different
direction, making it easy for his pack to pick them off one by one, until finally
they would be extinct.

If he
could do it all before the Blood Moon rising, all the better. Even if he
couldn’t eliminate Balor or Edward before that fateful night, he would
eliminate as many Slayers as he could get his sword into, thus weakening them
from the flank and working his way in.

Rafael
snarled, anger at his brother’s continued solitude infuriating him more than
usual. Over the years Lucien’s arrogance had mushroomed. He had no grasp of the
reality of what they faced. Yes, Lucien did his fair share of hunting, but
neither Rafe nor Sharia could get it through his arrogant brother’s head that
united, they would have had a chance. Divided, they were doomed unless the gods
chose to bestow a miracle on them.