Blood Law (12 page)

His
pack had recognized the strength in their alpha female and were now willing to
give Rafe what he needed: space and time.

Breaths
heaving out of him, Lucien roared again and managed to drag the men holding him
forward. His eyes flashed red, betraying his rage. As was to be expected, the
instant Lucien’s fury bypassed a certain threshold, his body went to all fours,
then from smooth skinned to furry black beast. Both he and his brother had
learned long ago how to shift quickly and easily, nothing like the horror
movies the kids loved to agonize over.

His
men backed away, all satisfied. Lucien would not avenge his lost love as a
wolf.

Rafael
clutched the girl tighter to his chest. Lucien’s great glossy black wolf
rivaled Rafael’s tawny version in every way but did not eclipse it. In human or
wolf form, they were different but equal in every way in terms of strength.
Rafael’s only edge was his patience over Lucien’s hair-trigger temper. It was
the reason they were still alive, because if they truly fought to the death, it
would mean both of theirs.

Looking
down at his brother, Rafe said, “We’ll resume this man to man at dawn.”

Lucien
snarled at Rafael’s back as he strode back up to the bedroom.

His
mind swirled in a million different directions. What had she done to Lucien?
How had she injured him as no other could? Did she possess the same dark magic
as the Slayers? And damn it, why had he prolonged the inevitable? An urge to go
to the ancient Amorak, his mother’s people, for answers pulled at him.

He
rarely visited them. It had been years, maybe a decade? When they refused to
believe Rafe’s claim that Lucien’s mate was a Slayer, he’d stormed away in
anger, never to return.

In
many ways he had cut off his nose to spite his face. The Amorak were wise
people, the caretakers of the Lycan since that day three hundred years ago when
they were created. Perhaps with them, he could find answers about the woman who
was driving an even deeper wedge between the brothers who were sworn blood
enemies.

Entering
his bedroom, Rafael gently set the girl down on the bed. As he studied her, an
amazing thing happened. The anger, rage, and doubt whirling inside him calmed.
Thoughts of his brother, his pack, and the Blood Law left him. He worried
naught about the pack’s fate or even his own. His entire being focused on this
girl and how she had the power to call to him.

His
hands moved to undress her, but then hesitated. He fought his greatest fear,
the one that still managed to linger within him. His fear of love. Of being so
bound to anyone, let alone someone destined to die, that he would scream and
fall to his knees, and beg like his father had, only to be kicked away.

He
did not want to see her milky smooth skin or her full breasts or the soft
tangle of curls at the junction of her thighs. If he did, he would touch her.
Then take her. His cock thickened at the thought of having her again. She’d
been so tight and sweet, he could have made love to her all night long. But
given how she’d reacted to him this morning, she would have had a heart attack
if she’d awoken to find herself linked in a very physical way to his wolf.

He
smiled despite himself.

If
only she knew what he could do to that sweet pussy of hers with his wolf
tongue. His dick twinged and lengthened. Yeah, he could make her howl so loud
every Lycan for three hundred miles would know what he was doing to her.

As he
stared at her, admiration threatened to turn into something more. Something
softer. No, he thought. This was purely physical. It was about fucking, nothing
else, and he’d prove it right now. Deliberately, he pushed her hair away and
ripped open her top. His hands itched to touch her smooth skin. His lips to
taste her.

The
ring on his finger warmed. In agreement, his dick swelled thicker. The
correlation cooled his desire immediately.

Rafael
closed her shirt and stepped back, digging his fingers through his hair.

The
ring. The damn ring. He was no one’s servant. He was an alpha who chose when to
act, when to fuck. As his mind refused to accept what his body and the ring
demanded, he set his jaw. “No. Not again.” He was done. He would not use her
for simple sexual gratification when he knew he’d be turning her over to his
brother in the morning. She deserved at least that small respect from him. He
closed his eyes and slowly exhaled.

The
girl moaned softly, and his eyes popped open. Her small hand reached out for
his. As if he were a voyeur watching someone else through a window, he watched
his big hand take hers and their fingers entwine. Her body arched. Through the
thin fabric of her shirt, he watched her nipples tighten. Her soft, full lips
parted, and her breath accelerated. Rafael pulled away, but her grip was tight.
Her eyes softly batted open. The deep blue of them called to him. “Take me
again,” she softly pleaded.

He
shook his head and took a step away. “No,” he whispered.

The
ring flamed his skin. He hissed in a breath. She raised herself, and with her
free hand, she smoothed her fingers into his hair. Imperceptibly, she rose
higher, and her soft lips took his. His dick flared, yet he did not give in to
her. He could not. Would not.

Suspicion
clouded his desire. What end did she hope to achieve by seducing him? Did she
think he would change his mind? Did she know he could not? That he had no say
in the Blood Law?

He
refused to go there. He didn’t want to feel anything more for her than he did.

But
the little bitch was not taking no for an answer. As if guided by some other
force, she pulled him to her chest, then pressed him to the sheets and covered
him with her body. As she rolled over with him, she tore at her shirt. Rafe
swallowed when her smooth, milky breasts popped free and brushed boldly against
his chest. Though her pants were hampered by her cast, she managed to get
herself naked. When her essence filtered to his nose, Rafael steeled himself.

“One
more night, Rafael,” she said softly.

He
pushed away from her and rolled off the bed.

“You
can’t run from what you must do, Rafael. At least be man enough to give me a
farewell fuck.”

He
snarled and turned back toward her. “Your crudeness is unbecoming.”

She
threw her head back and laughed. The laugh of a woman in complete control. “And
turning me over to your brother is becoming?”

“I
cannot change the Blood Law.”

She
moved back against the pillows. She shook her head and pushed back her thick
hair. His mark was plain to see on her neck. She smiled seductively. Her blue
eyes burned cobalt in their intensity. She slowly shook her head again. Her
dark hair swirled down her shoulders to her waist. Her tits peeked out from
between the thick strands.

She
was stunning. He could not help the direction of his gaze as it followed the
firm dip of her belly to her slightly flared hips. Slowly she spread her
thighs. “You can change your mind and take me.” Coyly, she opened her thighs
wider. He looked down at her soft, dewy pussy and imagined being buried deep.
He stepped closer to the edge of the bed.

Blood
pounded to his dick. She rose on all fours and crawled to him. With her teeth,
she pulled down the zipper of his jeans. He didn’t stop her. She kissed him
deeply, pushing his jeans down with the palms of her hands.

His
cock sprang free, hot, thick, and wanting. Warm air swirled around his hips.
She slipped her hands around to his ass and squeezed him. He moaned and pressed
against her softness. She felt so damn good. Baby-soft skin. And she smelled
good, too. Like the forest just after it rained.

Her
lips traced down his neck, and her fingers tore open his shirt, sending buttons
flying across the bed, hitting the wood floor in a series of pings. She suckled
his nipples. She nipped at his belly and licked a wet trail through the downy
hair that led her directly to what made him so different from her. He was
rock-hard, his desire so heightened he could not see clearly.

He
dug his fingers into her hair and arched toward her. He felt the hot blasts of
her breath against the head of his cock. Jesus.

“What
is your name?” he hoarsely demanded. His sudden need to know it was almost as
strong as his need for her body.

“Falon,”
she breathed as her luscious lips clamped down on him and she sucked his come
right out of his balls.

“Ah,
Falon,” he cried out as he bucked against her, his fingers digging into her
hair pressing her harder against his groin. Falon. She took all of him,
completely down her throat. Her fingers caressed his balls. She mouth fucked his
cock until there wasn’t a drop of come left inside of him.

He
collapsed next to her, his body wrung dry. His sexual satiation was
short-lived. The image of his brother slowly strangling Falon as she fought for
each breath stirred a violent reaction.

Before
he let that happen, he would kill her himself, swiftly taking her life to save
her from the slow, torturous death Lucien surely had planned. Then he’d kill
his brother.

He
opened his eyes and turned his head toward her. She lay beside him fully
clothed, as was he. Moreover, her eyes were closed, her breaths even, as if
she’d never regained consciousness.

He
leapt to the floor. What the hell? The ring scorched his finger, mocking him.

He
had a raging hard-on. He looked closer at the girl. She was still unconscious.
What just happened? The ring flared again. Had he hallucinated the entire
episode? His dick throbbed, unquenched. He shook his head and moved away from
her.

Had
the vision been his subconscious’s way of warning him to stay way? To hand her
over to Lucien without further hesitation? Because she held a sexual power over
him that would be his and his pack’s downfall?

It
had to be that.

She
wanted nothing to do with him, much less sex. And that blow job? That was art.
Art born of years of experience. She’d been a virgin twenty-four hours ago. He
knew she was not experienced in the art of fellatio and that conjuring it in
his mind was probably as unlikely as her being able to do the real thing. So
what the hell had happened?

It
had to be a warning. Because he would not believe that he, Rafael Vulkasin,
alpha of pack Vulkasin, who was renowned for his slow-burn temperament and
unshakable will, was at the sexual beck and call of a girl who would die at
dawn and a damn ring that had a mind of its own.

Or could
it be that Lucien had a hand in the vision?

“Impossible!”
he roared. He strode into the bathroom, yanked the wooden towel rack off the
wall, and violently slammed it into the window jamb and locked the window by
impaling it shut. It would take a jackhammer to open it now.

He
strode back into the bedroom and looked down at the slumbering beauty. It
didn’t matter really.

He
was now resolved. She’d be dead in less than twelve hours.

RAFAEL
PICKED HIS way through the gauntlet of naked, undulating bodies in the great
room. It looked like a Roman orgy, but that was hardly a surprise. By dawn the
next morning they would be paired. But unable to procreate.

Fury
forced him to the front doors. There would be plenty of fucking for his pack,
but no child would be born anytime soon. The girl would soon be dead, and with
her, any hope of his pack’s ability to breed until he found and marked a
suitable mate again.

The
urge to flee, to get away and clear his head, gripped Rafael. He shoved open
the two heavy metal-studded oak doors and inhaled the clean night air. As he
did, he saw his brother’s black custom chopper.

He
stopped at the edge of the rough plank porch. A long, deep howl echoed through
the forest, coming from the direction where he had found Falon earlier that
day. Had Lucien followed her scent?

The
ring flared on his hand. He grabbed the damn thing and tried to wrestle it off
his finger. It only mocked him by flaring hotter. Feeling the need to run
himself, Rafael hopped on his brother’s chopper and headed out. He opened the
throttle when he cleared the compound gates and gave the horses their heads.
Cool air tore through his hair, but even so, the ride through the mountains
didn’t clear his mind.

Not
tonight. Tonight his head was full of emotions—rage mostly—and he was damn
horny. He could not remember ever feeling so out of sorts, so on edge. So off
balance. His world was unfurling, and he didn’t like it.

His
pack normally worked as a well-greased unit. Now they were screwing like dogs
in his living room with no thoughts about protecting the compound. He could no
more command their libidos to turn off than he could keep the sun from rising
each morning. It had been too long for them. They’d had sex, yes—they were
Lycan, after all, and would howl at the moon twenty-four/seven if they
couldn’t—but not as they were now.

Now
they were having sex not just for release but for the future of the pack. To
decide who would be paired and who would not.