Bloodright (39 page)

Falon’s nerves tingled along her spine as they drove north. Downshifting, Lucien took the exit ramp and turned west. The streets were quiet and dark. Ominously so.

As they approached the designated gate, Lucien flashed his headlights. A single flash of light acknowledged him, and the gates rumbled open. As they drove through, several uniformed policemen stood on either side of them and waved them toward the numbered rows of containers.

“It’s too easy,” Falon said. “I think we should turn around, Lucien.”

He reached over and squeezed her damp hands. “No sign or scent of a Slayer. We’re good.”

As they pulled up to the designated container, Falon’s skin chilled. This wasn’t right. Something was terribly wrong.

“Lu—” Falon was about to tell him of her foreboding again but she stopped herself. She didn’t want to freak him out when he was confident all was as it should be. Absently, she stroked the amulet her mother had given her and prayed to a higher power that she was wrong.

She jumped in her seat when the air brakes hissed when Lucien put the truck in park. The second trailer pulled up alongside them. Joachim gave Lucien the thumbs-up from the cab.

Lucien hopped out, followed by Rafe and Anja. Falon sat quietly in the cab, her eyes searching the darkness for any sign of danger. It was there, she could feel it, dark and menacing, but she could not put her finger on any one thing to explain her trepidation.

The passenger door opened. “C’mon, Falon,” Lucien said, extending his hand. “I want you to see these before we load them.”

Not wanting to but having no alternative, Falon took his hand and hopped down into his arms. He pulled her tightly against him and kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”

She trembled at his words. “I love you, too,” she whispered and hugged him tighter to her.

“Calm down, angel,” Lucien soothed. “You’re starting to make me jumpy.”

Before Falon could beg him to leave, Joachim handed Lucien a large pair of bolt cutters. He returned to the container, and in one snap, the lock fell to the ground with a dull thud. Lucien grinned and looked at her, then at Rafe and Anja.

“Come see.” He pulled the heavy container doors back and stepped into the dark hull. He pulled a flashlight he had taken from the truck from his back pocket and turned it on. And there, at the end of the large container, were stacks of large wooden crates.

Falon scanned the abyss and hurried in behind Lucien. She turned to make sure Rafe was close by. She caught Anja’s nervous glance. It wasn’t just Falon; Anja felt it, too.

As they approached the crates Lucien yelled over his shoulder to Joachim, “I need a crowbar.”

They were answered with the loud boom of the doors slamming shut behind them. And then the light went out.

Twenty-three

DEEP MANIACAL LAUGHER reverberated around them. Terrified, Falon reached for Lucien in the darkness. It took her keen wolf vision just a few seconds to adjust to her blacked-out surroundings. As Lucien’s fingers wrapped around hers, they backed toward Rafe and Anja. Together they might stand a chance against what lurked there in the darkness.

“Balor Corbet!” Lucien shouted. “Show yourself, you spineless coward!”

More laughter mocked them. “Is the life of your beloved whore worth the Eye of Fenrir, Mondragon?”

“I do not possess the ring.”

Falon moved closer to Rafe, and with her free hand she grasped his with the ring. It surged with heat against her skin, the red glow lighting up the room. Falon caught her breath when she looked up. There, perched atop the highest crate, sat a man dressed like he had just stepped out of the thirteenth century, one who looked remarkably similar to his brother, Edward. The Corbet brand was strong.

Rafael’s fingers closed tightly around Falon’s hand. Connected to both brothers, their power thrummed through them with the intensity of an electrical current.

Balor threw his head back and laughed. “Ah, yes, the fabled power of the three.” He stood and pointed a condemning finger at Lucien. “Your power is useless against my magic.”

“Come try us on for size,” Falon challenged. With her mind, she lifted one of Rafael’s swords from his back, and with a sharp flick of her head she flung it at the Slayer. Like a lightning bolt it flashed past them, stabbing him in the shoulder.

He laughed. “Impressive, but hardly superior to my power.” Balor pulled the sword from his shoulder and hurled it back. With a sickening thud, it struck Anja in the chest.

Her scream combined with Rafe’s roar of anger reverberated inside the container. Air hissed from Anja’s punctured lung, her muffled sobs heartbreaking to hear. Gently, Rafe laid her down and pressed his hand to the wound to stem the blood flow. Not waiting for an invitation, Falon struck again, and this time it hit Balor closer to home. Furiously, he hurled it back, hitting Anja again, this time impaling her thigh to the plywood container floor.

Lucien snarled and moved toward the Slayer but Falon held him back.

“Go ahead; let the slayer of my daughter come forward to pay the price for her life.”

“She deserved to die, just as you deserve to die, Corbet.” Lucien sneered.

Balor laughed demonically. “My Mara was a beauty. She deserved more than what you gave her.”

Falon’s head snapped back at Balor’s words. “Mara was your daughter?”

Balor’s cold eyes glittered in the darkness. “She was my eldest. My most cunning. The future of clan Corbet! Mondragon killed her!” he shrieked.

Falon shouldn’t have been shocked hearing that Mara had indeed been a Slayer, but a Corbet?

How had Rafe seen what Lucien could not? How—? And then it dawned on her as all of the pieces fell into place. “She used black magic to beguile him, just as the Slayers used magic to change the Vipers into those dogs!”

“She would have bred Slayers into the pack and through them destroyed the entire line!” Corbet chortled.

“She would have, had not Rafael seen through her guise and killed her,” Falon said. She looked down at the hemorrhaging Anja. Corbet’s magic impeded Rafe’s healing powers. The lovely Lycan was bleeding out.

Realizing any efforts were a lost cause, Rafe stood and faced Corbet, genuine grief etched on his face as his gaze kept flickering to Anja. “You’ve got your facts wrong, Corbet. Lucien didn’t kill Mara. I did. I tore that whore’s heart out of her chest. I watched her bleed out. I would do it again if she were alive,” he spat.

Balor laughed uproariously, as if he knew a secret that would destroy them all.

“You crow what you cannot claim, Vulkasin. She survived your pathetic attempt to kill her!”

When Rafael opened his mouth to argue, Lucien stepped forward. “And there has been no greater satisfaction in my life, Corbet,” Lucien said as he sneered, “than the night I cut that treacherous bitch’s head off!”

Falon gasped. “Lucien?”

He gazed at her then nodded to Rafe before turning back to Corbet. He laughed caustically. “The only thing that will top her death is yours.”

“She survived my attack?” Rafael asked in disbelief, looking at Balor, then to his brother.

Lucien nodded.

“That’s not possible; she was bleeding out, she—Why didn’t you tell me?” Rafe demanded, taking an adversarial step toward Lucien.

The same shock that reverberated through Rafe now rocked through Falon. Mara had been alive and—She gasped, horrified at the repercussions of Lucien’s deceit. He’d lied to have her! But at what price?

“All along you have known the truth?” Falon echoed Rafael’s demand. The gravity of his secret stupefied her. He had lied to her! Lied, when he swore he never would. He lied to them all! And because of it, not only had they each suffered immeasurable pain, but the entire nation would now suffer.

Lucien turned contrite eyes on her. “I didn’t know she was alive. All this time I believed as we all did, that Rafe killed her that night. It wasn’t until that day I was caught in the Slayer net that I learned the truth.” He begged her with his eyes to stand true beside him, but no matter what he said now, she could not forgive him this ultimate betrayal. “She came to me that night, Falon, while I was chained and caged. I was shocked, disbelieving that it was her, that she was alive. But it
was
her. And at first I believed her lies. She told me she had been held captive by the Slayers all these years, and that she had snuck away from them when she learned I was being held captive. She promised to help me escape, that she wanted to return to Mondragon with me as my chosen one.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “But I didn’t want her. When she sensed it, even her magic couldn’t hide what she truly was when I refused her. I saw her as Rafe saw her the night he thought he killed her. I did what I should have done all those years ago. She died a true death.”

Enraged, Rafael took another step closer to his brother. “Yet you kept the truth to yourself and allowed me to mark—” His gaze dropped to the mortally wounded Anja.

Despite her shock, and Rafael’s rage, Falon maneuvered herself between the brothers. They had completely lost focus on Balor and if they killed each other now, they were screwed. They owed their packs more than that.

“By Blood Law you should have confessed what you had done!” Rafe shouted. “You have no right to Falon!”

Rafael reached out to grab her, but Lucien snatched her to him. His grip was hard and unrelenting. He would never let her go.

“I tried to, Rafe. My intention was to tell you both that night. But Ian attacked before I could. Then Falon was at death’s door.” Lucien shook his head, holding her tighter against his chest. “I tried to right the wrong by releasing Falon. I gave her the choice to stay with me or return to you.”

“But you knew I could not return to Rafael when he’d given his oath to Anja!” Falon broke free of Lucien’s grip and whirled around to face them both—and was hit with the inescapable truth that she loved these men. Both of them. Equally.

Despite the pain and suffering Lucien’s lies had created, she could not bear to see him so heartbroken. She could never bear to see him face a death sentence for laying with a Slayer. Ironically, even now, she could not bear even the thought of losing him that way, so part of her was glad for his deception.

Yet the other part of her…

She looked Lucien deep in the eyes. “You didn’t tell me Mara was a Slayer,” Falon said quietly. “You didn’t tell me there was no Blood Law to be avenged. I thought, by choosing you, I was doing right by all of us.”

Lucien’s golden eyes flared angrily, and then dimmed. “Would your choice have been different, Falon, had you known the truth? Because I, who fear so little, feared that the most. What little honor I possessed, I gave up to keep you. Was I right to fear your choice?” He reached out to her. “Would you have left me?”

Falon bit her lip until she drew blood. She was torn straight down the middle. There was no way she could answer that question. If she answered that her choice would have been the same then, she would destroy Rafe. If she answered differently, she would destroy Lucien.

She looked at Rafe. Anja’s blood glistened on his neck and hands. She turned to Lucien and saw the same blood on his hands. It was Anja’s blood, though he had not touched her. If he had told the truth, she would not be lying at death’s door.

Yet despite reasons beyond the lies, the truths, and everything in between, there was only one answer that was the honest answer. “I would have chosen you both.” There. She’d finally said it.

Anja gasped from where she lay dying on the floor. Dark clouds of anger gathered forcefully on Lucien’s and Rafe’s faces. It was not the answer either wanted or expected. But at least it was the truth. And with it, despite the perilous position she was currently in, she felt a profound sense of relief.

“How sweet,” Balor said snidely, rising in the air above them. “The Lycan whore would have had her cake and eat it, too.” He flung his hands downward, one at Lucien the other at Rafael, snaring them with invisible ropes, immobilizing them. Balor smiled malevolently and floated down toward the floor. Hand extended to Falon, he said, “Take it, and come with me now or they both die here tonight.”

Fixing her glare on Balor’s onyx eyes, Falon’s mind reeled with scenarios as she probed into the Slayers’ aura to gauge his power. Without the power of the three, she was on her own. While her power was strong, building daily, she knew Balor was not only physically stronger but emotionally he had the warmth of a shark, and that was his greatest weapon of all. She touched her father’s amulet.
Give me clarity, Father, give me your strength. Show me the way.

It warmed in her hand, sending vibrations through her body. Holding the amulet in her left hand, Falon extended her right to Balor.

She was going to backdoor him by shocking him with half-truths. As he took her hand, wrapping his long, cool fingers around her, Falon said simply, “Did you know that your brother Thomas loved my mother?”

Balor hissed in shock. It was preposterous what she suggested, but she had heard the partial truth from her own mother’s lips. Why not embellish for the sake of their lives?

“Did you know that he took her north with him?”

Balor was predictable. He could no longer stand to touch her. He moved to fling her hand from his, but Falon tightened her grip. “Did you know that together they raised the Eye of Fenrir?” Pulling him toward her, her grip tightened painfully. “Did you know he shared his secrets with her, just as she shared them with me?”

His eyes widened in disbelief. Falon yanked him hard toward her, and just as he would have crashed into her, she flung him to the ground. When he hit with a resounding thud, Falon leapt up into the air just as he had done, and found herself floating above his stunned body.

“You see, Corbet?” she taunted spreading her arms wide. “I can do what you can do, only better.” She slammed her open palms toward him; the force of the energy shoved him halfway across the container toward Anja, who moaned painfully beside the stunned Slayer. Balor’s onyx eyes narrowed as he gathered himself up. His deadly black aura flared ominously in the stuffy container.