Bloodright (40 page)

Slowly, Falon backed away from him, positioning herself between Rafe and Lucien.

Rafa,
Falon said, as she moved around the container, inching closer to her men,
tell your woman to grab your sword lying beside her and to take her best shot on Balor. Any distraction will help.

Just as Falon was close enough to Rafe to reach for him, Balor conjured a fireball and hurled it at her. Falon somersaulted out of its path, and turned in anticipation of another one but stopped all movement.

Incredulous, Corbet looked down at the sword tip protruding from his belly and bellowed in rage. Anja had managed to get up on her knees and, with Rafael’s sword, she had impaled the Slayer. For her deed, Balor snatched Anja by the throat and viciously hurled her across the small space. She hit the inner metal wall with a sickening thud. Falon cringed, feeling terrible for her and Rafe. But it gave her the distraction they needed.

Falon grabbed Rafe’s hand then Lucien’s, breaking the holding spell. The Eye of Fenrir glowed hot on Rafael’s hand.
Demand that it help us, Rafe, or we will die!
Falon cried.

Blood dripped from Balor’s mouth to the spreading crimson mass on his torso. He pulled the sword, tip first, from his belly. He grunted when the bloody hilt emerged. He sneered, turning his cold black eyes on them.

“My magic is as ancient as Fenrir but stronger. Mondragon, you will die here for your trespass on my family. Rafael for the same crime. But before I kill you, you will watch me skin your whore alive just like I did your parents.”

“You have it wrong, Balor,” Falon countered. “Rafael has but to call upon Fenrir for aide.”

Balor laughed. “If he understood the power of Fenrir, he would have called upon him long before now. That he hasn’t tells me he doesn’t know how!” His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I should let you live, Mondragon. It will give me great pleasure to watch your own kind destroy you for breaking the cardinal Blood Law.”

“No one here will bear witness to your trickery, Corbet,” Falon defended Lucien. She squeezed his hand.

Balor shook his head and looked at Rafael. “What of you, Vulkasin? Will you bear witness that your brother lay with a Slayer? Was about to mark her and set her above all Lycans?” Balor laughed when Rafe didn’t rise to the bait. “That he stole what was rightfully yours from right under your nose?!”

Rafael’s hand shook with rage. The tension in his body was so acute, Falon was sure he would snap in half. But despite the demons he wrestled with, he did not make a move toward Lucien.

“He
fucks
your
chosen one!” Balor railed. “She screams his name, not yours! And yet you do nothing but stand there. You are no alpha!” he spat. Balor looked over to Anja’s broken, bloody body, pointing to it. His voice lowered conspiratorially. “She bears your mark but not your heart. She is at death’s door and will no longer stand in the way of your honor. Call out the wolf, Fenrir! Demand that he destroy Lucien, and with your brother’s death, you and your slut can rule the entire Lycan nation!”

Falon squeezed Rafael’s hand. “Rafa, he seeks to destroy us all.”

But in the end, it was Rafe’s honor not his vengeance that swayed him. When Anja moaned softly, calling to Rafael, he went to her, breaking his contact with Falon.

Balor dove at Falon, snatching her up into his arms, breaking her connection with Lucien. She twisted out of his grip, shoving him hard against the metal wall, but he didn’t let go. He grabbed her by the hair and swung her around with such force she was horizontal to the floor. Lucien snarled, leaping up to grab her, but she crashed into him, the velocity of the hit slamming him against the wall. He slid down beside Anja.

Unable to stop Balor’s blinding assault, Falon screamed out for Lucien. In a blur, the Slayer grabbed one of Rafael’s swords from the floor and, with a quick jerk of his wrist, he grabbed Falon by a hank of her hair, pulled her head back against his chest, and slit her throat.

Twenty-four

ENRAGED, LUCIEN ROARED as he watched Balor slit his beloved’s throat. Rafael’s war cry behind him was deafening. Together they lunged at the Slayer. With Falon hanging from his hand by one arm, Balor slammed through the closed container doors. He launched himself high above them onto a huge hook, hanging from a two-story-tall crane.

“Come an inch closer and I’ll cut off her head,” Corbet threatened.

Lucien slowed his approach, though he stayed within striking distance. Rafael landed on the edge of a stacked container beside him.

I swear on our mother’s heart, I will kill him before he kills her,
Lucien swore to his brother.

Get in line.

With Rafe’s sword pressed to her neck, Balor hung Falon out over the Lycan packs, who were just coming out of some kind of spell. Groggily they looked to Lucien for direction. “Behold, you curs,” the Slayer shouted. Over two hundred eyes stared upward. “I hold not only the life of one alpha in my hand but the life of two!” He pulled Falon’s limp body against this chest and spread his hand across her belly. He laughed uproariously. “Her womb bears the fruit of an alpha! But which one?”

Balor glared at Rafael. “Is the life of your child worth the Eye of Fenrir?”

Lucien snarled low. That Corbet would even suggest Falon carried Rafael’s child was ludicrous. She belonged to him! Only his seed could strike home. Though emotions fought over each other in his heart, Lucien’s gaze had not wavered once from Falon’s dying body. Nothing mattered to him more than her life.

Rafael raised his left hand to the heavens; the stone flared red-hot in the night. “I command you, Fenrir, to save the life of my chosen one! I command you now!”

“Rafe, no!” Lucien cried. In his grief, Rafe hadn’t thought through his command.

But it was too late.

Lucien watched as all eyes locked on Falon, waiting to see that vital spark of her life force restored. But the howling winds that suddenly kicked up did not return Falon to either brother.

Instead, Fenrir did what Rafe had commanded.

“Rafe?” Anja softly called, stumbling in a daze from the container.

Horrified, Rafe turned away from his unintended one and back to the woman he loved.

Lucien howled at the waxing moon. Falon’s heartbeat slowed to a stutter.

“Name your price, Balor. I will give you anything for her life,” Lucien pleaded.

“I want the ring.”

“I do not possess it!” But even if he did, the ring in the hands of Corbet, or any Slayer, was certain death for the entire Lycan nation. It was not negotiable. “I will make the trade,” Rafael said, stepping forward holding the ring in his hand. “But only with your oath that you will never slay another Lycan or pay someone to do it for you.”

Are you mad?! Rafe? Hand over the ring and we all die!

I only bait him with it.

Lucien felt no relief; he could not when Falon was on the edge of death and he was powerless to help her. The combined packs, all two hundred of them, were still groggy like drunken puppies and no help. Balor’s spells were strong; it was why the arrogant bastard had showed up alone. Falon’s heart stuttered again. But after a long-drawn-out minute, when it did not beat again, Lucien’s beast reared its vicious head. He charged the Slayer, knocking him backward, the velocity loosening his grip on Falon. Lucien swung round and caught her in his arms. Rafael leapt up, and with both booted feet he kicked Balor so hard, the Slayer flew backward. He hit his head on a steel beam so hard, he could hear the sharp crack of his skull before he bounced off and fell onto a container. If Corbet wasn’t dead from the impact, Lucien would finish him off. Gently, Lucien landed on the dock and lay Falon down on the ground. He worked frantically to save her. He pressed his fingers into the severed vein to plug the blood flow. Rafe dropped beside him and pressed his fingers alongside his brother’s. The packs pressed close to witness or aide the brothers who desperately tried to save this most special Lycan’s life.

“Corbet’s magic impedes our healing skills,” Rafe said furiously. “I don’t know how to break the spell.”

“She needs blood.” At the same moment, the brothers bit their arms, then forced their blood into Falon’s mouth. Each took turns rubbing her throat, helping it down. When her lips darkened to blue, Rafael shook his head.

“You stay here, damn it!”

Desperately Lucien put his ear to her chest, listening, begging for the slightest hint of a heartbeat. But there was none.

“I will not let you die!” he shouted, starting chest compressions with his free hand. Her skin cooled beneath his warm skin. “Angel,” he cried. “Please, baby, stay with me.
Stay with me!
”

Frantic, Lucien looked to the one person he had always looked to for answers since he was a boy. The person he trusted above all others. But when he looked across Falon to his brother for help, and saw that Rafe’s rage, horror, and despair mirrored in his own, Lucien broke down.

“This isn’t happening!” Rafael shouted to the gods. “It’s not her time! She’s too strong! Too brave!” Deep, anguished sobs clogged his chest. “Too special…” His voice trailed off, as his tears fell onto her pale cheek.

“She’s not gone, Rafa. She’s getting back at us for our fighting,” Lucien said, trying hard to believe it. But when Rafe raised his red, watery eyes to his, in their hearts, the brothers knew she was truly lost to them this time.

Gut-wrenching grief coupled with a profound sense of loss—not only of what he would never experience again, but the impact of Falon’s death on the entire nation—shook Lucien to his foundation.

Rafael stood and roared curses at the gods. When they refused to answer, he raised his fists toward the fickle heavens. “Restore her life, and I will selflessly serve you!”

The gods ignored his plea.

“Deny my love her life, I will deny you my homage.”

Realization struck them all that the gods were not going to come to Falon’s aide that day. “You forsake me when I need you most? So be it! I don’t need you. I possess the ring, and he who possesses it possesses all of the power!”

Rafael held his hand up to the midnight sky and commanded Fenrir, “Save Falon! Restore her life and I will set you free!”

Flames flared from the ring in answer.

Rafe dropped to his knees beside Falon, anxious for her to draw her next breath. But when she did not, Rafe cursed the wolf.

“Restore her life, and I will release you! I swear it on my own life!”

The ring spewed flames again. And still, Falon’s heart did not beat.

“Release him first so that he can save her!” Lucien shouted across Falon’s lifeless body. “Release him now before it’s too late!”

Rafael raised his hand to the heavens again. “I release you, Fenrir!” he shouted, setting the terrible but mighty beast free after three hundred long years locked in the ring.

Winds kicked up across the cold bay, swirling around them with the force of a mini tornado. The clouds darkened as the ring burned furiously into Rafael’s finger. It glowed, white, crimson, and onyx. Sparks shot high into the night air. A sudden explosion shattered it off Rafael’s hand. When the dock cleared, Lucien nearly gagged at the horrific sight before them.

Dear gods. What had they done?

It, Fenrir, was twice the size of Angor. Most of his bulbous, deformed body smooth, shiny red skin with tufts of black wiry hair sticking out. His muzzle was too big for his small head, his fangs crooked and yellow, his beady eyes, bloodred.

He snarled, daring any one of them to voice the disgust their faces conveyed at the sight of him. Fenrir leapt straight up to where Balor had fallen and snatched the groggy Slayer by the scruff of his neck, then dropped back to the crowded dock. They parted for him.

Snarling low, breathing heavy, his drool soaking Corbet, Fenrir dragged the now fully conscious Slayer toward where Falon lay. “Fenrir!” Balor cajoled the wolf as he tried to stand. “At last you are free! I am your humble servant!”

The wolf snapped the last surviving male Corbet’s neck in half, then sunk his fangs deep into it drawing blood. When he’d had his fill, Fenrir dropped the Slayer’s body to the ground, then moved to Lucien, who held Falon in a death grip.

Fenrir snarled, indicating that Lucien should lay her down. “Do it,” Rafael said. “We have nothing to lose.”

Reluctantly, Lucien lay Falon down on the cold dock. Fenrir snarled him back several feet, then opened his jaws and copious amounts of Corbet’s blood spilled onto Falon’s neck and chest seeping into her wound.

Lucien watched, horrified, unable to stop it. He would get them all killed if he even looked as if he were interfering, but more than that, if this was how that damn wolf was going to save Falon, he would not stand in his way. He glanced at Rafe, who stood as tense and anxious as Lucien.

The instant the wolf licked the blood-soaked wound on Falon’s neck, her heart beat. With each lick the wound healed, and her heart grew stronger. When her beautiful blue eyes fluttered open, Lucien could scarce draw a breath he was so overwhelmed with joy. He felt at that perfect second in time as if the woes of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. Dizzy with joy, he bumped into Rafe, as he moved toward Falon. Rafe moved step for step with him, as intent on getting to Falon as Lucien was.

But it was not to be for either of them. Falon screamed in horrified shock as she realized what was touching her. Fenrir snarled and stood up on his haunches and shifted into a giant, deformed half-man, half-wolf hybrid.

“Holy mother of all the gods!” Lucien hissed.

For one so large and grotesque, Fenrir gently picked up Falon in his arms and carefully raised her to the heavens. “I have found the one, Gilda!” he called to the mysterious druid witch of lore. His excited voice was deep with an odd old-world accent. “The one true of heart and of both bloods!”

“No!” Lucien said, striding toward the creature. “She is Mondragon,
my
chosen one. She bears my child!”

Fenrir threw his head back and laughed as lightning flashed around them. In the calm that followed an old crone of a woman appeared. Long gray hair framed a deeply lined but wise face. She was dressed in a dark woolen gown of old. The weathered leather belt hanging low on her thick waist hung heavy with leather pouches and assorted bones and teeth. Lucien looked to Rafe. Most of them, he recognized as wolf teeth and jaws.