Blood Law

His
Desire Sealed Her Fate

“Accept
me,” a harsh, husky voice demanded above her.

Like
quicksilver, excitement thrummed through her veins. Her breath rushed from her
lungs. She would not deny him. In doing so, she would deny herself. She closed
her eyes as every part of her loosened. Finally, she would know how it felt.

In
answer, she undulated beneath his hardness as it pressed for entry.

He
put his lips to her ear. “Say the words: I accept you.”

She
gasped at the raw passion of his words, the tone possessive and commanding.

“Say
it!” he hissed. His body coiled above hers, like a serpent ready to strike.

“I-I
accept you,” she breathed.

The
Truth

In
medieval Europe, wolves were feared and looked upon as the scourge of the
earth. Many people lost their lives to wolf attacks. In 1281 Edward I, Longshanks,
king of England, commissioned the great hunter, Peter Corbet, to eliminate the
wolves in England. Peter, who would come to be known as Peter the Wolf,
accepted the charter with bloodthirsty gusto, and soon hundreds upon thousands
of wolves were slain. The devastation of wolves did not end with their demise
in England and Scotland. As the centuries passed and the wolves fled into other
parts of Europe, the hunt continued.

The
Lore

In
Peter’s time, there was a deformed wolf, Fenrir, an outcast born of an alpha
and his mate.

All
of the alphas, even Fenrir’s own sire, were so disgusted by Fenrir’s
deformities that they banished him from all the packs. Furious that his own
kind would shun him, Fenrir struck a deal with Gilda, the Druid witch of the
Marches. She would grant the outcast wolf alpha strength and immortality in
return for the slaying of twin wolves and the delivery of their souls every one
hundred years.

Fortified
and hungry for vengeance, Fenrir offered his services to Peter Corbet.

With
Fenrir’s help, Peter hunted the packs and slew them. Only the strongest
survived. Most fled north into Scotland, then into Norway and Russia. In Russia
the great pack, Vulkasin, was born. Another pack fled south into France and
across the Great Pyrenees where they settled and coexisted with the fierce
Basque people. There, the formidable Mondragon pack multiplied and thrived.

Before
Peter Corbet’s death, King Edward rewarded the great hunter for his
fearlessness with a gold ring fashioned in the image of a howling wolf. Set as
the eye, a rare, bloodred ruby. Peter dubbed the ring the Eye of Fenrir. And it
was passed down to the eldest Corbet son.

The
wolf hunts did not end with Peter’s death. With Fenrir’s guidance, Peter’s
progeny picked up where their sire left off, as did their descendants through
the ages, who would come to be known as Slayers.

The
centuries passed, the hunted wolves moved into the vast Siberian wasteland and
then across the great Bering Sea and into the New World. There the mystic Inuit
people who had great respect for the wolves befriended them. But the Slayers,
led by the vengeful Fenrir, followed.

On a
fateful night, one that coincided with the sun reflecting on the full lunar
eclipse and turning it bloodred, the Slayers, led by Fenrir, attacked the great
wolf packs—both the Mondragon in Europe and the Vulkasin in the New World. Both
packs fought valiantly. But Fenrir’s vengeance was too potent.

Seeing
that the great packs were on the verge of extinction, Singarti, the great
spirit guide of the Inuit, called to the gods for intervention. Lightning
struck the master Slayer known as the jager, killing him. Singarti took the Eye
of Fenrir from his hand and turned it on its namesake, forcing Fenrir’s spirit
into the ring. Singarti cast a sealing spell, trapping Fenrir within, then
buried the ring deep into the frozen tundra of the North.

Singarti
knew for the wolves to survive into the next millennia they must be able to
shift into human form. And so she raised her arms to the great gods once more
and asked that they have mercy on the wolves. The gods were benevolent that
day. The surviving wolves shifted into human form and were called Lycan, only to
take their natural wolf form for twenty-four hours during each full moon or
when provoked by great rage. Singarti further protected the Lycan with the gift
of her daughter, Sasha, to the great Vulkasin alpha, Arnou. With an infusion of
Inuit blood, the Lycan thrived.

This
infuriated Fenrir. Through the confines of the ring, he called upon the dark
gods and demanded they favor him with a chance to raise his Slayers against the
Lycan. And the gods scoffed but promised him this: when he found one who was
equal to him in power but pure of heart, the gods would release him from the
ring and grant him the chance to defeat the Lycan on the next rising of the
Blood Moon.

The
Slayers continued to hunt wolves and Lycan alike. The wolves continued to grow
fewer in numbers, but the Lycan thrived. With no help from the banished Fenrir,
the Slayers turned to black magic to aid them in their efforts to annihilate
all things Lycan.

Ten
generations passed. The Eye of Fenrir lay buried deep in the snowy tundra of
the North. With the second coming of the Blood Moon looming, the two great
packs, Mondragon and Vulkasin, united. Tamaska, pack Vulkasin’s alpha female,
conceived and bore twin males, Rafael and Lucien: one dark, the other light.
The births set off a year of countless other births, strengthening the
bloodline and guaranteeing yet another generation of Lycans.

Though
buried deep in the northern ice, Fenrir’s senses were so great that he was
aware of the twins’ birth. Furious and more desperate than ever to be freed, he
used all of his dark magic and called out to the jager, Thomas Corbet.

Thomas
heard the call and unearthed the Eye of Fenrir. Knowing the power the ring
possessed and what would happen if Fenrir was freed, Thomas kept the rising of
the ring to himself. But Thomas exploited the ring’s power. The Lycans who had
thrived were systematically hunted and slain at an alarming rate.

Tragedy
struck on the Vulkasin twins’ tenth birthday. Their parents were slain by
Thomas, his two brothers, and his marauders. Vulkasin’s powerful medicine
woman, Layla, was kidnapped by Thomas Corbet. Though it is forbidden for a
Slayer to lie with a Lycan, Thomas could not control the overwhelming desire he
experienced when he was in the presence of the soulful Lycan. Shamelessly, he
took Layla; she bore him a child, a girl she named Falon . . .

Fourteen
years ago . . .

FOR
LONG MINUTES, Rafael stood silent outside the two-story cinder-block walls that
shielded pack Vulkasin from the world. Thick rolls of concertina wire topped
the five-brick-thick concrete, and behind that, the hot currents of
high-voltage electric wire hummed. Although it was spring, a chill still
lingered from a rough winter, and gray smoke wafted in great arching swirls
from the chimneys inside the compound. Soon, the pack would rise, only to find
that something had changed.

After
being gone almost a year, Rafael Vulkasin was home.

But
his homecoming was not one to celebrate. It did not signify the completion of
Rafael’s spirit journey in the North, but rather the confrontation he’d been
long hoping to avoid.

Alpha
against alpha.

Brother
against brother.

Even
as he clenched his jaw, resolute in what was to come, Rafael set one of his two
duffel bags down on the ground, pressed a code into a keypad that opened with a
soft click, revealing another keypad, then pressed his right hand to the
biometric pad. Slowly the heavy metal gates clicked open. Grabbing his bag,
Rafael slid inside as the gates clanged shut behind him.

Gravel
crunched beneath his booted feet as he strode deeper into the compound and
paused to take in the two-story log cabin–style building. He hated this place
as much as he loved it. His chest tightened as memories stirred in his heart.
Memories of his mother’s warmth and comfort, of his father’s strength and
power, and of his brother’s unconditional love and loyalty. Memories of feeling
secure—of knowing as long as his parents were alive, he, his brother, and the
rest of the pack would be safe.

But
they weren’t alive—not anymore—and the pack had nearly died right along with
them.

Rage
snapped, hot and vengeful, in Rafael’s belly. The beast within him snarled,
gnawing at his gut, demanding release.

Retribution.

It
was what he and Lucien lived for. It was why they had jointly challenged their
cousin, Tallus, almost three years ago, for alpha rights. And while it was
often the cause of tension between them when they disagreed about how to
proceed, their goal had always been the same: hunt down Jager Thomas Corbet and
his two brothers, Balor and Edward, and destroy them. To avenge the
helplessness and despair he and Lucien had felt when they’d been forced to hide
while the three Corbet brothers skinned their mother alive as their father and
the rest of the pack helplessly watched.

Now
Lucien was endangering the success of that goal.

According
to Talia’s—his pack’s healer and spirit guide—dream visit, Lucien had brought
someone into the compound walls that threatened their revenge as well as their
pack’s strength—a human. A human his brother intended to claim as his mate.

As
Rafael’s lip curled with distaste, Anton, Rafael and Lucien’s
second-in-command, greeted him with a somber expression. The same somber
expression that never changed. Though he was only a year younger, Anton’s face
bore the stress lines of one who had witnessed unspeakable horror. As Rafael
and Lucien had watched as their parents were eviscerated, so, too, did Anton
witness the mutilation of his mother. Their bond went far deeper than their
heritage. Their suffering had solidified their friendship for life.

“It’s
been a long time,” Anton said, extending his arm but casting his eyes down in a
show of submissiveness. Rafael grasped Anton’s arm at the elbow then quickly
released it.

“Too
long by some accounts,” Rafael clipped, staring hard at Anton. “How fares the
pack?”

Anton’s
glance shifted momentarily up then sideways before he nodded and met Rafael’s
gaze. “There is unrest. Talk of mutiny. Some say your brother would sacrifice
us for his own pleasure. I don’t agree, but Lucien . . .” Anton shook his head.
“The human has a strong hold on him.”

“Where
is my brother and his—flavor of the week?”

Anton
hesitated, then jerked his head toward the south wing of the compound. “He
calls her elegida.”

Rafael
scowled. Usually his brother’s conquests didn’t last long enough for a name
exchange, but for him to go further and call her his chosen one? His scowl
deepened. What hold did this woman have on his brother? “What do you think of
her?”

Anton
shrugged. “She makes your brother happy, but . . .”

“But?”
Rafael questioned.

“But
there is something not right with that one. Even for a human.”

For a
moment, Rafael was tempted to share what he’d learned on his spirit
journey—that an enemy was closing in on the pack, one with the power to destroy
it completely. He didn’t think such a thing could be accomplished by a mere
human female, especially one that his brother thought was his chosen one, but
still . . . As he often did, Rafael chose to be cautious. Until he talked to
his brother, he wouldn’t reveal too much. Rafael dropped his duffels to the
plank wood floor. “Have the females prepare my quarters, and rouse the pack in
an hour. By then, the human will be gone.”

Rafael
turned and moved toward the south wing, halting in his tracks when Anton’s
voice followed him.

“Lucien
will not cast her out, Rafe. He loves her. He believes she is his chosen one.”

Not
turning around, Rafael said more to himself than to Anton, “Lucien has no
choice. I am taking control of the pack.” It had to be. If Lucien would
jeopardize the welfare of the pack for an unworthy life mate, he did not
deserve to lead it.

Without
another word, Rafael strode into the large, sprawling building he had left on
his eighteenth birthday. It was as he remembered it: dark, depressing, but
home. Lucien’s dominant scent pricked at his nostrils, but other scents mingled
with Lucien’s. The scent of a human female. The scent of sex. And something
darker . . .