Blood Vow (Blood Moon Rising) (2 page)

As Rafe saw it, by the Blood Law Falon was his again. But convincing Lucien of that would not be easy. It would be impossible. Would he kill his brother to possess the one thing they both loved above their own lives?

Rafe’s heart tightened again when he thought of the part of the family that had been lost to him all these years. He would give his right arm for the two families to reunite. But there could be only one alpha. Neither he nor his brother would step aside. But could he, despite all that had passed between them for so long allow the council to take his brother’s life? Mentally, Rafe set that reality aside. He had only one focus at the moment.

He raised his nose to the wind and said to his brother, “He takes her north.”

Lucien’s jaw tightened as he nodded and said what they both feared. “To the battleground.”

Despite Fenrir’s release from the ring he had been held captive in for the last three hundred years, it warmed on Rafe’s hand as if the wolf still resided within it. Skeptically Rafe raised it and regarded it with confusion.

“Why does it glow?” Lucien asked, stepping closer to eye the rich luminescence of the ruby. “The wolf is gone.”

It recognizes its own kind.

Lucien and Rafael started at the old crackling voice.

Gleeful laughter reverberated around them. Even the others heard it. Wide-eyed the men looked wildly about for the source of the noise. Anja grabbed Rafe’s arm, moving closer for protection.

“Gilda!” Rafael called, recognizing the druid witch’s voice. When Rafe commanded the wolf from the ring to save Falon from the fatal wounds Master Slayer Balor Corbet had inflicted on her, Fenrir had destroyed the witch rather than honor their centuries-old bargain. Twin souls each century in return for the immortality and power Gilda had bestowed upon Fenrir. Immortality he used to partner with the Slayers to kill wolves. He was a traitor among his own kind.

Had she returned for their twin souls? She had the power to take them. Her tiny hunched-back form manifested itself before them in wisps of scarlet fog. “He destroyed my physical body, but not my magic!” she shrilled triumphantly.

“Will Falon live?” Lucien demanded.

The old witch cackled but did not answer.

Rafe looked at Lucien who stepped closer to the specter. Thrusting his right fist toward her, he showed her the ring.

“What power does it hold?” Rafe demanded, staying on high alert. He didn’t trust the old bat any more than he trusted Fenrir.

Watch out for her, Rafe. She wanted our souls ten minutes ago,
Lucien warned.

Rafe mentally nodded.
Let’s see what she wants now.

Gilda’s energy sparked and crackled around them. “The Eye of Fenrir holds the same power it has always held.”

Rafe shook his head, confused. “Fenrir was the power in the ring.”

“Nay! ’Twas his prison. He is gone but the power remains.”

“What power? How do I call upon it? How do I use it?”

“Foolish Lycan, the power your Great Spirit Mother instilled to restrain that traitorous wolf all these years. The power she used to create man from wolves! The wolf has flown but the power remains!” Gilda cackled. Her fluctuating form dropped lower so that she faced Lucien and Rafe. “It is the key to unlocking the power of the three,” she mewled.

Frustrated, Rafe swiped his hand across his face. “Define the power of the three, Witch!”

“Three hearts of the two bloods must beat as one to defeat the black heart of Fenrir.”

“You speak in riddles,” Lucien snarled, stepping closer. “What must we do?”

“Destroy that accursed abomination!” Her voice turned cagey, bitter. Furious.

The hair on Rafael’s neck stood strait up. “How?”

“Take that girl from him. He understands the untapped power within her. He will exploit it for his own gain.”

“What if he kills her before we can save her?” Lucien asked, the pain of the question carved on his distraught face.

She cackled. “She is his
only
weakness. Your chosen one’s heart he must win to attain the greatness he covets.” Gilda cackled as her eyes settled on Rafe, then Lucien. “That wolf will not harm her.”

“Why is Falon the
only
one?”

“She is of the two bloods.”

Rafael knew that. Vulkasin and Mondragon blood were as much a part of Falon as of him and Lucien.

“What happens when Falon tells that piece of shit to go to hell? What will he do to her then?” Lucien asked.

“He will not harm her! It has been foretold by the gods that
she
is the one of the two bloods and the one pure of heart he searches for. His deformity is so severe and his heart so black only one such as she can balance it. To harm her would be to harm himself. He is greedy but not stupid.”

“How do I call upon the power of the ring?” Rafael quietly demanded.

“Simply call upon it.” She coughed roughly, fighting for breath. “But it is not enough to destroy that miscreant of a wolf.”

“By gods, Witch, spit it out!” Lucien growled, raising his fists to the specter. “What must we do to destroy Fenrir?”

“There is only one true death for Fenrir. The girl must cut his black heart out with the Cross of Caus.”

“What the hell is that?” Lucien demanded.

“’Tis the sword that drew first blood,” the old witch wheezed.

Rafe looked at Lucien
. I will not leave Falon at the hands of that beast. We go for her, then the sword.

“You must retrieve the girl. It will take the power of the three to unearth the Cross. Go now, before the door forever closes!” Gilda’s maniacal laughter rang through them with the force of a dozen church bells. “Then bring me Fenrir’s heart, and I will strip the Slayers of their magic forever!”

“How do I know you won’t destroy us when you have what you want?”

“Bring me that wolf’s black heart, and your debt will be paid. I give you my word.”

“Where is the sword?” Lucien shouted.

Gilda’s voice lowered to just above a whisper. “Where it all began.”

“Where
what
began?”

“The persecution.”

The red mist that was Gilda tightened into a funnel cloud rising above them, furiously rotating, the sparks of her anger raining down upon them.

“Fail and the Lycan nation fails with you!” she foretold.

The specter whirled around them before shooting skyward, then disappeared into the cloudless night.

Dumbfounded, Rafael stared into the black sky.

“The persecution began in the thirteenth century,” Lucien said.

Rafe looked at the quiet ring, then to his brother. “Longshanks gave this ring to Peter Corbet for his services.”

“Did he gift him with a sword as well?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did Corbet come from?”

“He was a Marcher Lord,” Anja said, stepping toward them.

“Marcher Lord?” Rafael asked. Why did that term sound familiar to him?

“The Marches border Wales and England,” she explained.

Lucien nodded. “Those forests were heavily populated with wolves. It was there the killings began.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Rafe said.

“I’m going with you,” Anja cried, digging her nails into Rafael’s forearm. He growled a warning. She refused to release him. “Please, Rafael. Don’t abandon me.” Her pleading crystal-colored eyes begged him. “I am your chosen one.”

He opened his mouth to tell her he was sorry that it was all a mistake. That in light of Lucien’s admission that Mara was a Slayer, he’d been justified in killing Lucien’s chosen one, and therefore was not bound to their marks. He still belonged to Falon and she him. But he didn’t say it. Instead, Rafe nodded, doing what he always did, the honorable thing. He allowed Anja to keep her dignity by going with them and, for purely selfish reasons, Rafael wasn’t going to turn away the extra help.

“Thank you, Rafa,” Anja said, leaning in to kiss him. Rafe subtly pulled away, resenting her use of Falon’s pet name for him.

“Maybe none of you will go anywhere,” a deep vitriolic voice said from above them.

Two

THE HACKLES ON Rafe’s neck rose as he looked up the stacks of containers surrounding them. Scores of silver-tipped arrows were aimed directly at them. Slayers, he silently cursed. They had approached with the stealth of coastal fog. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the insignia on their leather scabbards. These were not regular-issue Slayers.

The insignia was part raven, which delineated them as clan Corbet, the most powerful of all Slayer clans, but Rafe was not familiar with the additional griffon part of the insignia. His eyes narrowed to slits as he quickly assesed this new threat.

There was no mistaking them for anything but Corbet. The entire bloodline bore the same physical characteristics. Tall, blond, athletically built, and signature cobalt blue eyes. But unlike the Slayers he’d known, the ones that stank like shit, these had no odor. He glanced at Lucien.

Their black magic hides their stink,
Rafe said to his brother.

Lucien nodded imperceptibly.
By their long hair and archaic garments, I would guess they’re from the old country.

That explained it. The new-world Corbets clung to the original Slayer credo—“Kill Wolves”—the new millennia making their job easier. These Slayers, however, were still stuck in the middle ages. Their hair was long, some of it braided, and they were dressed in traditional warrior garb of yore, from the intricate chain mail all the way down to their leather-strapped boots. And unlike the new-world Corbets, these Slayers did not carry automatic weapons but clung to their ancestral weapons of broadsword and bow.

“Someone forgot to take out the trash,” Rafe sneered.

“Say a final prayer to your false gods, Lycan,” the largest and evident leader said from where he stood in front of the dozens of men behind him.

In tandem, neither showing fear, Lucien and Rafe stepped forward. “Who are you?” Lucien demanded.

“Your ride to hell.”

Shift!
Lucien and Rafe mentally shouted at the same time. They did, both managing to grab their swords in the grip of their wolven jaws. As Rafe hurled his, Lucien leapt and swept his in a roundhouse move, cutting the leader down at the knees before he could pluck his bowstring. The packs shifted behind them and the fight was on. Arrows rained down upon them, but unless one caught a wolf directly through the heart, the wound wouldn’t be fatal. A wounded wolf on adrenaline could do a lot of damage. Even to chain-mailed warriors.

Side by side, Rafe and Lucien, their vision blurred by their bloodlust to destory all things Corbet, tore a wide swath through the layers of their mortal enemy in a furious haze of violence, broken bones and torn flesh.

With a savagery born of the desperate will to survive, the wolves tore chunks out of the Slayers, littering the dock with blood and bodies. But for every Slayer torn apart, two more came at them. Like flies, they reproduced.

In the water!
Lucien commanded his pack.

They snarled in protest not wanting to retreat.

“All of you, now!” Rafael shouted. It was the only way to preserve what was left of the packs.

As the packs disappeared into the cold dark bay, Lucien and Rafael held back, continuing to fight, too far from the edge of the dock to jump without being sliced to pieces. Back to back, as they always had until the blood feud turned them against each other, Rafael and Lucien snarled and fought as a circle of Slayers tightened around them like a noose.

Deep laugher reverberated around them. Lucien had wounded the leader, yet he had managed to rise, as did many of his wounded soldiers. Only the decapitated soldiers lay turning to dust on the dock.

Like the vultures they were, the Slayers circled them.

“Who are you?” Lucien demanded.

“I am John Corvus,” the Slayer said, bowing from the waist.

Corvus?
Who the fuck is that?
Rafe cursed.

“From the maternal line of Peter Corbet,” Corvus offered. “We’ve kept a low profile, but been busy across the pond.”

The old-world Slayer stood straight and tall, his blue eyes glittering with malice and pointed his bloodstained sword at Rafe then Lucien. “Speaking of maternal lines, I had the recent pleasure of destroying what was left of yours.” He threw his head back and laughed. “There will be no rising for the Basque pack of Mondragons, and no rising for either of you.” He hopped down from the container as if Lucien’s blade had never touched him and strode arrogantly toward them. “Your journey in this life ends right here.
Right now
.”

The noose tightened.
Over him, to the container, then into the bay,
Rafe said.

I’m right beside you.

As they leapt, the Slayers jumped high into their path, but they were thrust backward by a gale-force wind that slammed between the age-old enemies flattening each to their own side. Rafe cursed and stood up, and as he did, he was forced back again.

“They are mine, Corvus!” a booming voice exploded from beyond the darkness.

Rafael’s skin skittered along his sinew and muscle. The last time he’d heard that voice he was ten years old. He would never forget it. It belonged to the one who’d slaughtered his parents. They had all thought him dead these last twenty-four years.

“Thomas Corbet.” Lucien sneered, grabbing his sword. “I have waited twenty-four years for this day.”

Rafe snarled beside his brother, grasping his double swords so tightly the bones in his hands cracked. He was not a scared ten-year-old this time but a seasoned warrior with long overdue revenge burning white-hot in his heart.

The eldest Corbet brother and only surviving one, landed beside Corvus, his blue eyes glittering in righteous hatred. He was as Rafe remembered him. Tall, powerfully built, and arrogant. His black aura radiated potent dark magic.

In response to Corbet’s necromantic power, the ring on Rafe’s hand warmed, startling him. The heat intensified.

Do you feel it, Lucien?
Rafe asked his brother.

I feel it.