Bloodright (6 page)

“No! He loves
me
!”
He will fight for me!

Rafael!
Lucien bitterly called to his brother.
Tell her!

Falon stilled.
Rafa?

Falon,
Rafael’s deep voice reverberated in her mind,
the Blood Law has been avenged, it cannot be undone.

I would not have agreed had I known!

There was no choice, it is our law. For your life, I swore to release you, Falon. You belong to Lucien now.

You should have let me die!

I could not live if you had died.

Rafa! Don’t leave me.

Good-bye, Falon.

Lucien cupped the back of her head in his big palm and sneered, “Do you want me to prove to you right now who you belong to?”

Anger flared through her despair. “You would not dare!”

“I would dare the devil if it meant proving to you I keep what is mine!”

Falon licked her dry lips. “Forcing me will prove nothing.”

“It will prove that despite your feelings for my brother, your body recognizes me as your mate.” He lowered his lips to hers. “And that is enough for me.”

“It isn’t for me,” she said breathlessly, turning her face so that he could not kiss her.

He threw his head back and laughed at her. Then released her and stepped away. “Where is the fiery she-wolf who fought me tooth and nail?”

“She is with her true mate.”

Lucien snarled and grabbed her to him again. “
I
am your true mate!” He shook her. “You chose me when you agreed to abide by the council’s decision.”

“You will never have my heart or my soul!”

“I can live without your heart and your soul. I don’t have to love you to fuck you.” He ran a hand down her back to her bottom and dug his fingers into her skin. “But your body I will have. And you will freely give it to me.”

“Or else you will bully it from me!”

He laughed softly and whispered against her ear. “The only thing I will bully from you, angel face, is that denial of yours that keeps getting in the way.”

“Don’t call me that!”

He licked the shell of her ear. “I’m going to fuck you before I leave this room.” Shivers shimmered down her back straight to her nipples. “And you’re going to come for me.”

Terrified that she would if she did not do something drastic, Falon closed her eyes and as she had the first time he threatened her at his brother’s compound the previous month, she gathered what strength she had now and mentally thrust him from her with enough power that he flew across the room and crashed into the armoire.

He was up in the blink of her eyes and lunged at her. She thrust her hands toward him again, but he kept coming. His eyes glittered furiously as he grabbed her hands, crushing her fingers.

Falon screamed in pain. He lifted her and tossed her onto the bed. He followed, covering her with his big body. Molten gold, his eyes blazed furiously. She had pushed him too far. He snarled and shoved her thighs apart with his knee, digging his fingers into her hair as his hips pressed her thighs into the mattress. His wide cock head pressed against the tender flesh of her inner thigh.

“Say you accept me,” Lucien said roughly.

“I will never accept you!”

His lips dropped to a hard nipple and sucked. Falon screamed, masking the cry of pleasure that swept through her. Dear God, why did her body yearn for his when her heart cried out for another?

“Say, it.” Shaking her head, afraid her body would force her to admit what it wanted, Falon scratched his arms, his shoulders. She dug her nails into his back. He snarled again. But instead of returning the favor, his lips took hers in a brutal kiss. Falon flailed. She shook her head trying to unlock her lips from his, but his big hands kept her head steady. Her only weapon was her nails. She shredded his back to bloody ribbons. His blood scent wafted around them. His kiss deepened, forcing a response from her.

Falon’s head swam with sensory overload. Fear and fury swept with the force of a category five tornado within her.

The wide head of his cock pressed against her slick lips. Tearing her lips from his, Falon gasped for air. He clasped her head tighter and kissed her again. Her head reeled with conflicting emotions. His kiss deepened. His tongue slid in and around her mouth in a languorous swirl, coaxing her to taste him.

She bit his tongue. He growled but did not release her as she expected. The warm coppery taste of his blood flooded her senses. Like a shot of adrenaline, as if she needed it, bloodlust infused her. Her lips stopped fighting; her bloody hands clasped his head. She pulled him tighter to her, licking his wound, savoring the taste of him, drawing more of his blood into her. It infused her with power. She opened her eyes to his penetrating gold ones staring at her. “I accept you,” she moaned and bit him again as a ravenous hunger for him overtook her.

“Falon,” he said roughly, pulling away from her.

“This is what you want, is it not?” she demanded. What had taken hold of her made the very bed she lay upon shake, but more than that, it ate away at her resolve. The only emotion she felt for Lucien Mondragon was lust. Lust she could not shake. Her attraction to him confused her. Terrified her. How could it be when her heart belonged to a man who, even now, sought another?

Was she destined to love one man but lust for his brother?

She looked the cunning dark brother in the eye. Yeah, Lucien was an alpha to be reckoned with. He was powerful. He had a way of making a woman forget things. If his blood did not race through her veins, maybe she could ignore him as she so desperately wanted to. But that was not the case.

“You give yourself to me freely?”

Yes, she’d give herself to him. God help her, but she would honor the Blood Law as well as Rafael’s sacrifice for her life. Falon threw his words back in his face. “I don’t have to love you to fuck you.”

His full lips tightened into a grim smile, but he nodded. “That is good enough for me.” He pushed her back onto the bed, covering her body with his. He was beyond warm. His skin burned hers on contact. “Though love does not bind us, make no mistake, Falon, you are my true mate now. My seed will take root inside your womb, and once it does, even if my brother comes crawling back to you on his hands and knees, you will remain mine.”

Hot tears stung her eyes. How could Rafael release her?

“Because his duty lies with his pack first,” Lucien answered.

Falon gasped. How had he—

“You died in my arms, Falon. To restore your life, I gave you my blood to replace what you had lost. There are no secrets between us.”

Was there more to his desire for her than revenge? Would it make a difference? She needed to know. She searched his deep golden eyes for the truth. “Why me?”

“Because you were my brother’s.”

Lucien’s honesty cut like a knife. She respected him for the truth, but the truth that she was simply a means of revenge gave her no hope for any reasonable future with him. Why did that hurt more than his words?

Lucien lowered his lips to hers. “And because you are beautiful and strong.” He kissed her. Falon closed her eyes, trying to hold back the tears. She didn’t want his last words to mean something to her. But in the tumult that was her world, they did.

Even if they were lies.

Lucien broke the kiss to look hard at Falon. “I will never lie to you, Falon, even if you will not like the truth.”

Falon stretched out against Lucien’s long body, liking the hard warmth of him, despite her dislike of him. “Here is my truth, Lucien: You may be able to force my body to desire yours, but you will never be able to force my heart to love you. Because every time I give myself to you, I’m doing it for Rafael and the promise he made to save my life.”

She slid her hands down his back and pressed his ass to her hips. “Now show me just how much of an alpha you really are.”

Lucien snarled and grasped her hands. His fingers entwined with hers as he raised her arms over her head. The heat of his breath singed her cheeks. His teeth scraped along her jugular, the wide head of his cock pressed arrogantly against the inside of her thigh. “You want truth?” he demanded.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Here is your truth,” he breathed and slid into her. Falon screamed, the feral sound as terrifying as it was mournful. In that inscrutable instant, her body no longer belonged to her. It belonged not only to Lucien, but by accepting Lucien into her, she let go of pack Vulkasin and accepted Mondragon. Shame that she had succumbed to Lucien and disrespected her true love was overridden only by a longing so deep for the man inside of her, she could not deny its existence.

In the distance, the long, sorrowful howl of a lone wolf filled the night. “Rafa.” Falon sobbed.

“Say his name again, and I will cut your tongue out of your mouth,” Lucien growled as his hips slammed into hers. The violence of his action took her by surprise. His hatred and jealousy was monumental in its depth. Falon cried out as he pushed deeper into her. His body filled her, and hers, God help her, accepted his violence with a violence of its own.

It was manic, fierce, macabre, and in a way she refused to admit, the most earth-shattering experience of her life. Lucien’s golden eyes glowed in satisfaction when she squeezed her fingers around his. He threw his head back and roared with triumph when her body, traitor that it was, unraveled.

Falon bit her bottom lip to keep from crying out as the orgasm blindsided her. She would never give Lucien that satisfaction.

“You belong to me now, Falon,” he said roughly. His body tightened. His fingers dug into hers. He sank his teeth into her neck as he came in a torrential frenzy. Falon’s body answered. Her vaginal walls fisted around his cock and milked him dry. Sobs tore from her chest, knowing, now that he had taken her and marked her, despite Rafa’s promise to his brother, he would never take her back.

“You bear my mark and now my seed, Falon,” Lucien said against her breast. He rose and looked down at her, his laconic golden eyes mesmerizing in their intensity. “I will kill any man who so much as looks at you with desire.” He pushed his hips against hers. His thick cock swelled possessively inside of her. And God help her, her muscles just as possessively embraced him. He nipped at her bottom lip and held it between his teeth. “If you look at another man, I will make you regret the day you were born.”

Falon shoved his body from hers and rolled off the bed and turned on him. Never in her life had she met such an arrogant man. “You are the biggest asshole on earth! How dare you threaten me like that?” She moved to the edge of the bed and shoved him. “Do not dare follow through on your words or mark
my
words. I will walk away from you, your pack, the rising, and every other damn thing remotely related to you!” She shoved him again. “Do you understand
me
?”

His lips twisted into a wry smile. “Do you threaten your alpha?”

“Oh, fuck you, Lucien, and the high horse you rode in on.” She leaned into him and poked him in the chest. “It’s the twenty-first goddamn century. Get with the program.”

“I am alpha; you will abide by my rules!”

“‘I am alpha,’”
she mocked, shaking her head. “Well, guess what, almighty alpha, so am I! Oh, and guess what else? I have powers you don’t, so go to hell!”

He reached out to grab her. She smacked his hands away. It was all she could do not to laugh at his shocked expression. Lucien Mondragon had met his match. “Touch me again, and I’ll shred you.”

Lucien stared at her for a long, drawn-out minute before he stood and began to dress. As he zipped up his jeans, he shook his head and raked his long fingers through his hair. “I made my mark. Until you are willing to return it, we will have no more intimate contact.” He shrugged on his shirt and began to slowly button it. “Not even a kiss.”

“We’ll both see hell before that happens.”

Lucien’s eyes glowed as a smug smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “We’ll see.” He pulled on his leather boots, then strode from the room, leaving the door wide open in his wake. Falon slammed it shut and flung herself against it. Crossing her arms over her chest, she narrowed her eyes.

“Lucien Mondragon, I’m going to make your life so miserable, you’ll wish you had let me die.”

Two

LUCIEN STRODE DOWN the steep metal stairway from his rooms on the third floor of the large warehouse that served as the pack’s lair, down to the ground floor and into the large common room. Anger eroded his triumph. She had accepted his mark but it meant nothing when she longed for his brother!

Damn, Rafael! Damn it all to hell! Since he could remember, Rafael had been the golden son. Firstborn, Rafael was the heir apparent, the one their father groomed for alpha. The fair-haired son their mother found no fault with. While Lucien never had trouble finding a warm body at night, Rafael was the one surrounded by females. Lycan and human.

Rafael always got what he wanted. Most of it handed to him. It was why Lucien could not,
would
not accept Rafael’s slaying of his chosen one. She had been his. She had loved
him
! And Rafael destroyed her for that transgression. The golden son would pay as long as Lucien drew breath.

What better revenge than to take the one thing his brother loved above all others?

Lucien laughed bitterly. But revenge was a double-edged sword. While he could force Falon into his bed, he could not force Rafael from her heart.

As much as he did not want to admit that he wanted the woman upstairs for himself more than as a means for revenge, he would not deny it. From the first time he touched her in his brother’s bedroom on that fateful day last month, his desire for her had become as addictive as his thirst for vengeance against the man who possessed her. Falon’s blood flowed in his veins. Like cocaine, the feeling was euphoric; he wanted more. Needed more. Would
have
more. He would have it all.

“I don’t like to be kept waiting,” Sledge, the new Viper leader, said.