Bloodright (4 page)

He lowered his lips to just above her mons and whispered, “When I take you, Falon—and mark my words, I will—you will want as badly as me.”

Falon swallowed hard, pressing her bottom firmly into the mattress, away from Lucien’s decadent lips. “Never!” She would never willingly lay with anyone, except Rafa.

Releasing her foot none too gently, he rolled her over onto her belly. Trailing a finger along the curve of her back, she flinched. “You have a nasty bite here. My apologies if I was the culprit.” Falon opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell when his tongue slid along the deep bite. She squeezed her eyes shut and moaned, pressing her hips into the mattress. God, that felt good. “Never say never, Falon.”

When she tried to squirm away from him, her pain-laden limbs barely moved. His grip tightened. Each time she fought him, her energy ebbed a little more. Her eyelids felt like concrete slabs on her face. Like a drug, lethargy stole through her. “Stop fighting me.”

“Only when you stop breathing,” she mumbled as she gave up to blissful unconsciousness.

Lucien’s laughter was the last thing she heard before her ravaged body succumbed to the trauma inflicted upon it.

SHE DREAMED OF Rafael, of running wild and free with him as wolves deep into the Sierra timberline, not once looking back, only forward to their future together. Her chest constricted in realized heartache when Rafael ran ahead of her to be met by a beautiful, snowy white she-wolf. “She is Lycan, Falon,” Rafa gently explained as he took his place beside her. “My true mate, and the future of Vulkasin.”

“No, Rafa!
I
am your true mate!”

He looked sadly at her, as if she were something to be pitied. “You belong to Lucien now.”

“No!” she screamed when he turned from her and with his mate at his side, leapt into the swirling mist. “No! Rafa!” She leapt after him but fell through the mist down the mountainside. She screamed, clawing at the rocky edge not wanting to die but not wanting to live without Rafa.

“Rafa!”

“He is gone to you, Falon,” a soft soothing voice said beside her.

It was vaguely familiar.

“You cannot hide in your dreams. Open your eyes and face your reality,” the voice commanded.

Falon shook her head. She had no heart to live in a reality that did not include Rafa.

Fingers dug into her tender shoulders and shook her. Falon flinched, her wounds still tender, and flung the hands from her. She sat up, opening her eyes. Where was she? Who was the woman? Blinking rapidly, Falon shook the cobwebs from her head and looked at the woman staring at her.

Her ugly reality came flooding back to her. The council hearing, their unbelievable verdict, her life sentence with Lucien. As his chosen one!

And the woman standing so close. Talia! Rafael’s cousin and healer. She had been kidnapped by Lucien and forced to stay in his compound just as Falon was being forced! Would Talia become her ally or her foe? Wide-eyed, Falon looked around the room and absorbed her surroundings.

If she didn’t instinctively know where she was, she would know by the heavy dark furniture and the rich earthy scent swirling around her like a possessive cloak. She was chin deep in Lucien’s lair. The room was larger than the one she shared with Rafa. Deep blood colors mixed with the earth tones of the rich textured fabrics. Brocade, satin, smooth linen. Despite the richness of the adornments, the room was distinctly male. Distinctly sensual. Distinctly—dangerous.

A gnarled black oak armoire and dresser unit that took up an entire wall faced the bed next to the door. Two distressed pale leather chairs sat opposite each other with a table made of the same leather between them. On the wall above the grouping was a wicked ebony-handled sword, the metal polished to a high shine. It appeared well used. On the other side of the room, a large gnarled wood desk dominated with several computers and neat stacks of paper piled atop. Above the desk on the wall a large red, black, and gold painting of a fire-breathing dragon with a wolf head. Lucien bore the same dragon tattoo on his chest, back, and abdomen.

Instead of lamps, groupings of thick beeswax candles with rivulets of wax running down them and pooling onto the nightstands flanking the huge four-poster bed she lay upon appeared to be the only source of light with the exception of one window in the corner adjacent to the bed. The computers were the only modern amenity. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was locked in a Gothic castle.

Falon looked directly at Talia’s stormy face. The Lycan healer was pretty. No, more than pretty. Talia’s earthy sensuality punctuated by large, vibrant violet-colored eyes was no less than stunning. Rafael spoke of his cousin often and with love.

“I will not stay here as Lucien’s slave.”

Talia snorted and moved from the edge of the bed. She was petite to Falon’s statuesque. The sultry Lycan tossed her long, sable-colored hair over her shoulders and said, “I didn’t peg you for a drama queen, Falon,” Talia said.

Falon stiffened.

“If you renege on your sworn oath to abide by the council’s verdict, that you accept Lucien as your true mate and he you, you will create such chaos among the packs they will not survive the rising.”

“Don’t try to lay that on me! What if I weren’t here? What if I had never met Rafael?”

“Fate intended you to meet Rafael. You were meant to break this insufferable sixteen-year stalemate!” Talia moved closer. “You have powers no Lycan possesses. You are at the middle of something that is bigger than all of us. Bigger than your wants and desires. Bigger than your heart, your life,
and
your soul!”

Falon shook her head. She was not the key to anything!

“It doesn’t matter whether you understand or not. I don’t know that
I
understand what our future holds. What I do know in my heart is what matters now: you must exchange marks with Lucien. Become his true mate in every sense. United, the two of you will have more power than ten packs! And we need all the power we can muster for the rising.”

“My destiny is not with Lucien.”

“Your destiny is to listen to your calling, Falon.”

“My calling and my heart belong to Rafael.”

Talia contemplated Falon’s answer, then said, “Our hearts have the capacity to love many.”

How could she love another when her heart was so filled with love for Rafael? How could anyone love Lucien? He was dark, moody, and unpredictable. He was her beloved’s sworn enemy! It would kill Rafa if she loved Lucien. She would never hurt him that way.

Vigorously, Falon shook her head. “I could never love Lucien.” Falon leapt from the bed but caught the thick poster, as her world tilted right then left. She slowly shook the clouds from her head, still feeling as if she were going to faint. Looking down at her naked body, her vision blurred, then focused. Her eyes widened in shock. There was no trace of even the slightest wound. Her skin was as smooth and unblemished as a baby’s.
All
of her skin! Her mons was shaved smooth, no vestige of the downy shield that used to be there. Heat rose in her cheeks. She was going to kill Lucien!

The heat intensified in her cheeks as her gaze locked with Talia’s. The Lycan smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “Lucien likes his women unfettered.”

“How dare he touch me! How dare he—” Falon’s knees wobbled. Her blood loss would take time to regenerate, but her temper was as volatile as ever. She scooted back onto the bed before she fell to the floor.

Talia shrugged. “The sooner you accept Lucien as lord and master over everything you see here, the sooner you will find peace.”

“I will never accept him! I cannot!” Rafael would never forgive her. “If he touches me, I will kill him.”

Talia tsked, shaking her head. “To kill an alpha is punishable by death.”

“They’d have to catch me first.”

“Lucien is many things, some of which I strongly disapprove of, but he is alpha. His word is law. That he accepted you as his true mate was not a decision he made lightly. In accepting you, he forfeited his right to pick the mate of his choice. Instead of sullen, you should feel honored.”

“Honored? How can I feel honored when the man I have unwillingly been given to does not know the meaning of the word
honor
?”

“There is honor in the simple fact he is alpha.”

“Lucien has taken his title through force and coercion. He will never be half the alpha Rafael is. He is a joke among the Lycan nation.”

Talia’s eyes flashed angrily. She stepped to the edge of the bed and leaned into Falon. Chin to chin she spoke slowly but concisely. “Do not
ever
say such things about Lucien. Until you have walked a mile in his shoes, keep your judgments to yourself.”

“He has brainwashed you. You are obviously a victim of his coercion tactics.”

“I have been free to leave here from the moment I arrived.”

Falon’s brows wrinkled in confusion. It was common knowledge Lucien had kidnapped Talia and forced her to stay here. “But—”

“It’s true,” Talia reiterated.

“Then why have you allowed Rafa to think you were being forced to stay here?”

“He never asked, he, as the rest of the Lycan nation, assumed the worst of Lucien.”

“Yet you did nothing to school them?”

“Lucien forbade it. He stands by his actions. He does not require anyone to champion his cause.”

“If Lucien was such a noble alpha, he would have long ago made peace with his brother.”

“Peace between the brothers can only come when there is peace with their true mate.”

“But I am
Rafa’s
true mate! We
are
at peace!” Or at least they were.

“You belong to Lucien now.”

“I am not his true mate!”

“You are because you both accepted the council’s judgment. Be glad your life was spared.”

“Lucien would have preferred they signed my death warrant.”

“He would not have done it.”

“The hell he wouldn’t have! He despises his brother. He despises me.” Falon swallowed and wondered had she known what her other options were when she agreed to abide by the council’s verdict if she would have agreed or run. She rubbed her throbbing temples. How could she have agreed to such a ridiculous verdict?

“If he despised you, when your heart stopped beating after you shot yourself, he would have laid you down on the road and walked away.” Talia’s voice lowered dangerously. “Make no mistake;
Lucien
saved your life because
he
chose to. The Blood Law had no hand in it, not even fate. It was Lucien’s decision alone to make—be grateful for your second chance.”

Falon shook her head, refusing to believe Lucien saved her at all, much less for noble reasons. “Lucien’s hatred for his brother overrides his hatred for me. I live, Lucien rubs the fact that I am here in Rafael’s nose. I die, Lucien’s revenge dies with me.”

“You are wrong about Lucien.”

“There will never be love lost between us.”

“Only you can change that.”

“My heart aside, Talia, I would never betray Rafa by loving his brother.”

“Would you betray the pack by refusing your chosen one?”

“Mondragon is not my pack! Lucien is not my chosen one!” Falon denied knowing as she said the words they were a lie.

“Both are now! Whether or not you understood the options the council had to work with,
you agreed to accept their decision
. The Blood Moon is on the rise. The packs converge. The battle for our existence will be fought in less than two months’ time. Accept that you are here. Accept that this is not about you but about the survival of a nation. Have you no honor? Does your word mean nothing? Would you disrespect Rafael’s honor by refusing the council’s decision?” Talia leaned in close. “If you refuse to accept Lucien as a mate, he will lose face not only with Mondragon but with the other alphas. Become a laughingstock. We must all unite! It is imperative he be at his strongest, most deadly now in the shadow of the rising. And Falon, you can give that to him by accepting him and by marking him.” Talia stood. “If you refuse, Mondragon will tear you apart and seek a more worthy alpha. And what, pray tell, Falon, do you think your beloved Rafa would do then?”

Falon swallowed hard and shook her head. But she knew the answer.

“He would destroy all of them and in so doing sign his death warrant.” And the honor Rafael lived and died by would die with him. She could not do that to him. Not for her own pride, not for anything.

Talia grabbed her by the shoulders and shook Falon so hard her teeth rattled. “You are a selfish, stupid woman if you do not realize that the survival of the Lycan nation is bigger than your longing for another. A thousand lives are dependent on the packs uniting. It is the only way we can defeat the Slayers. Without Mondragon and Vulkasin to lead the nation, there will be no Lycan nation left to fight for.”

“I did not ask for any of this!”

“You may not have asked for it, but when you marked Rafael, you accepted all that went with him. Including accepting the code of honor he lives by.”

Falon shook her head, not wanting to hear the truth. “I cannot accept Lucien as my mate.”

“There is a difference between cannot and will not. Either way, you are a fool, Falon. A fool who cannot see past her own human weakness.”

Falon opened her mouth to school the little Lycan on just how dastardly her alpha really was but instead clamped her mouth shut. There would be no good in making an enemy out of Talia.

“Where is your almighty alpha now? Licking his wounds in a hole somewhere as he plots more ways to destroy his brother?”

Talia smiled tolerantly and stepped back. “I am a healer; I took care of Lucien.”

“I would have given you the moon to let him die.” Falon slipped from the bed, carefully standing on the floor before she took another step. “I need clothes.”

“Lucien has given strict orders you are to walk among the pack as you were born.”

“Lucien can go to hell! I’m not his sex slave, and I’ll be damned if he’s going to humiliate me by refusing me clothing.”

Talia stood for a long, contemplative moment before she said, “I don’t agree with his tactics…”