Bloodright (27 page)

Wildly, her body bucked and twisted against his lethal lips. With agonizing slowness, his thick finger sluiced in and out of her in a sensual cadence. He was driving her mad. Pushing her to the edge. And just as she was about to take flight, he withdrew from her.

“Lucien!” she cried, sitting up and grabbing his shoulders. The smoldering heat in his eyes answered hers. “Don’t stop!”

He growled, his wild, feral scent as intoxicating as his touch. His body shook with passionate rage. His dark fallen-angel face, tightened in sexual tension, stared at her with such intense need, she was afraid of disappointing him. She never wanted to hurt this man.

“I love you,” she breathed.

His eyes flared, showing her a glimpse into his battered soul. Rising above her, cupping her head in his big hands, he brought her lips to his. “We are one,” he said roughly, then filled her with his velvet-sheathed steel.

She hung suspended in that one perfect moment of poignant awareness, caught up in a perfect storm of sensation, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to express in words what she felt.

So, she showed him.

Fourteen

FALON’S BODY WAS wild, erotic, giving. Lucien’s head and heart spun out of control. Selflessly she gave herself to him. Selfishly he took all that she offered, and then demanded more. She was everything to him. The sun, the moon, the stars, and beyond. Her low, throaty cries of pleasure each time he sunk into her inspired him to go deeper.

Her silky smooth skin sweltered beneath his touch. Her tight sheath possessively fisted him. Her heartbeat mirrored the chaotic rhythm of his. He wanted deeper into her, so deep he touched her soul as she had touched his.

“Luca,” she reverently gasped, as if she were paying homage to him. In truth, it was he who worshipped her. Her hands slid up his arms before they locked around his neck, pulling his heart to hers.

“Falon,” he said hoarsely just as his lips captured hers in a deep, spiraling kiss. He loved kissing her. Her lips were lush, soft, and always receptive to his. His tongue caressed hers in the same slow cadence his hips rocked into hers. Her body trembled violently beneath his. He swept the tears from her cheeks with his fingertips.

“No tears, angel face,” he shushed against her lips. But he understood the overwhelming onslaught of emotion. He felt it himself. It terrified him. But he was in too deep to retreat now. Falon was his. She had accepted his mother’s ring. Sworn her love and loyalty to him. His beast snarled possessively. Falon’s answered. He felt it, there, just beneath the surface, lurking just as his was.

Electricity thrummed through her body, straight to his cock. He was close. Falon’s body trembled. Her liquid muscles quivered like live conduits around him. He groaned as his balls tightened. She arched into him. “Luca,” she cried, emotion clogging her throat. “I can’t—do this—” She gasped. “It’s too much.”

He swirled his hips into hers, reveling in the way her body responded as if he worked her from a remote control. She choked back another sob, her head thrashing back and forth.

“You can,” he encouraged her. “You are the bravest person I know.” He kissed her, silencing her sobs.

Her body met his with equal fervor. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she dug her nails into his shoulders and held on for dear life. He was on the verge of total destruction when he felt the first waves of her orgasm tear through her and into him. He threw his head back, baring his teeth, waiting, until—she arched into him again as a feral cry ripped from her lips and she bit him. The pain and pleasure of her bite shimmered into his blood with blinding intensity. He let go and, as his body released into her, he sunk his teeth into her vital vein. Her low primal growls of pained pleasure matched his own. Completely connected, they crashed against each other in a euphoric explosion of love and lust.

Long moments later, still connected, Lucien held Falon’s convulsing body in his arms. She had not stopped crying since they came so violently together. Her tears stymied him. These weren’t tears of joy; they were desperate, sad tears.

He held her tightly to him, smoothing her damp hair back from her face, kissing her tears away, softly crooning to her as he would a baby. It only seemed to upset her more. He was unequipped in this area. But even if he were versed in what went on in a woman’s head, he was afraid to go there. Afraid she had changed her mind and was now feeling sorry for the killing blow she was about to land him.

He sneered at himself. He was a great alpha. He had slain hundreds of Slayers, yet he feared Falon’s tears.

He exhaled and gently began to pull away from her.

“No!” she cried, grabbing his shoulders.

“Did I hurt you?”

She cried harder, shaking her head, rubbing her face into the crook of his neck. He closed his eyes and pulled her into his arms.

“Did I say something wrong?”

She shook her head.

Lucien slowly exhaled, silently counted to ten, then said, “Throw me a bone here, woman.”

“You’ll be mad.”

“We just made the most incredible love, and you’re crying your eyes out. Either way, I’m not feeling so hot.”

She sniffed back her tears, wiping her nose on his biceps.

“Thank you for that,” he said grimly.

She started crying again.

“Falon! I was kidding. Blow your nose all over me if you want. Just for the love of Singarti, tell me why you’re crying.” His tone lowered to gentle. “Please, baby, tell me what’s upsetting you.”

She nodded and sniffed back the new tears. “I’m afraid.”

“Not of the big bad wolf. You have him eating out of your hand.”

She managed a ghost of a smile. “Lucien, the Slayers, they are so hell-bent on destroying us. I can’t stop thinking of what will happen if we can’t defeat them. My heart has been irreparably broken as it is, I could not bear losing you, too. And now that my mother is here, what if she abandons me again? I love Mondragon and Vulkasin. I just can’t bear to lose anyone else. I don’t know what to do.”

Guilt assailed him. How much of her pain was he responsible for? Most of it. It made him feel like shit. He would move heaven to undo the heartache she had suffered because of him. Had he known about Mara before the council meeting, he would have walked away, never forcing Rafe’s hand. Falon loved him. He loved her. Did that not count for something? Did it matter that Mara was a Slayer? Lucien told himself it didn’t. What was done was done. To go back would cause more pain and heartache. He would let it lie.

But as far as the rising? He smiled. “There is only one thing we can do.”

Her moist blue eyes looked trustingly up at him. It broke his heart to see such trust in them. He didn’t deserve it. “What is that?”

“Win.”

“Lucien, it will take all of us coming together to fight as one.”

“And so we shall.”

Her heart thumped against his chest. “Will you stand beside your brother?”

Lucien’s temper flared. It always came back to Rafe with her!

He could not help the jealousy that sprang up every time Falon mentioned his name. Brother or not, he knew she loved him, and that her heart had been “irreparably damaged” from losing him.

God, how he hated that Rafe stood between them. He would give his right arm to possess the power to erase Rafe from her heart, but not even Rafe’s death would keep his brother’s shadow from their bed.

Still, he’d been a fool to think he couldn’t love Falon so long as she loved his brother. Little had he known the depths his emotions would go for her. Or her for him. She loved him. He felt it in everything she did. She loved him completely, and unless he wanted to throw away the best thing that had ever happened to him, be the fool he was damn good at being, he would accept her feelings for his brother, and accept that she loved him, too.

It was enough. More than enough. He had her physical heart, and he owned her soul.

“I will do whatever is necessary to live to see the rising of the sun the day after the Blood Moon rising.”

“I hope I do not have to remind you of your vow.”

Lucien’s resolve solidified. “I told you earlier, your words are sinking in. I’m trying hard to move forward but that part of me will take time. I know what must be done. I will see it done.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I won’t let you down.”

“I believe you.”

“Good. Now go wash your face and get dressed. Mondragon demands their alpha show herself.”

“I want to see them, too, but I hope they understand I must speak to my mother first.”

“Of course they will. They were excited though cautious when she revealed herself. When she saved your life, her stock went way up. She is as wise a healer as Sharia, and an asset to any pack. For your sake, I hope she stays. But if you find you don’t want her here, I will demand she leave.”

“That’s good to know because I have a lot of questions only she can answer. Plus I’ve had some crazy dreams, I know they have something to do with the rising. I hope she can tell me what it all means.”

The hair on his arms spiked. “What kind of dreams?”

Falon ran her fingers through her damp, mussed hair, twirling a strand around her index finger and thumb. Her arched brows butted together in consternation. “Of aimless gray souls following me.” She raised her beautiful blue eyes to him. “I even see them in real life. The night I met Rafe they were everywhere, begging me for something. They scare me.”

Lucien stilled. Could it be she spoke of the ghost walkers? Those Lycan souls who had not crossed over?

He rubbed his hands up and down her cold arms. “Do they speak to you?”

“No, well, not really, they just kind of exude sad energy. But I know they want something from me. Not the dark energy that scares them away, but from me specifically.”

“How many are there?”

“Hundreds. Maybe a thousand.” She looked at him. “Do you know what they are?”

He nodded. “Humans have urban legends, Lycan have them, too. In this case, what you are describing are mythical ghost walkers.”

He felt the hair rise on Falon’s arms. “Mythical as in not real?”

“No one really knows. Supposedly they’re harmless as they are, but the myth says they can be restored to life by the blood that slew them.”

“Who are they?”

“Lycan slain by the Corbet bloodline.”

Falon gasped.

Lucien shook his head. “It’s a myth, Falon. There is no way to raise the dead. If there were, my parents would be standing beside me right this minute.”

Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “Luca,” she said softly, and rising up on her knees, she slipped a hand around his neck. “I wish I had known them.” She brushed her lips gently across his.

“They would have welcomed you with open arms.” Lucien grasped her chin with his hand and pulled away just enough to look her in the eye. “My greatest regret was not fighting past Rafe to protect my mother that day.”

“Had you made it out there, Lucien, you would have died with your parents.”

“At least I would have died trying. I live with that guilt every day.”

“Set it down, Luca. It’s what your mother and father wanted.” She brushed her fingertips across his lips. “It is what I would want of our sons if that situation ever presented itself.”

Emotion kicked him in the gut. “Ours sons?” He nipped at her finger. “I will protect them with my life.”

“As will I. As did your parents.”

With her words and his realization, a little more of Lucien’s guilt and anger washed away. “You’re going to turn me into a girl with all of your love talk.”

Falon laughed. “I seriously doubt that. You are a deeply emotional man, Lucien. Your anger has been the smoke screen for how deeply you truly feel, how much you truly love. It makes you stronger in my eyes. Not weaker.”

He growled low, liking her praise, and moved off the bed. “Get dressed. Mondragon awaits.”

FALON SLOWLY DRESSED. Lucien watched with hungry eyes as she decided on a black cotton dress that laced up the front. As she was tying the laces into a bow, Lucien cleared his throat. She looked up at him and smiled. He handed her a pair of doeskin knee-high moccasins. They were beaded around the sewn edges with two feathers, one gold and one black, hanging from a beaded-leather strap at the back of the top seam.

“They’re gorgeous.”

Lucien grinned as she took them. “I thought you might like them.”

Falon hurried and slipped them on. They fit perfectly. “Where did you get them?”

“Mondragon has many talents. They are a combined effort of many, all made with you in mind.”

Falon shook her head, looped her arms around his neck, and kissed him long and hard. He had not dressed and his dragon was not above getting another workout. Falon stroked him. He hissed in a breath pulling away from her. She laughed and moved to a safe place in the bathroom. “I’m going to freshen up while you put that bad boy away.”

Within minutes, Falon and Lucien made their way downstairs. Halfway down, Falon felt the excited happiness of the pack. Men’s voices discussing the merits of one weapon over another, women chattering away about babies and recipes. Joachim’s deep laughter filtered up to Falon. “Joachim is better?” she asked Lucien.

“Talia is an amazing healer. But just as amazing is the fact that Hector has fashioned him a most unique prosthetic. Wait until you see it.”

As they descended the last few steps, Mondragon cheered loudly as Falon made her first appearance in three days. Those pesky tears threatened to spill again. Damn, her emotions were off-the-chart crazy. The full moon was not for another two weeks. But she wondered, despite the emotional upheaval, if her period was coming. She had noticed earlier the essence of her scent was stronger. Her breasts were more sensitive than usual and felt heavier. When Lucien touched them, she didn’t know whether to demand he suck them or leave them alone. It hurt so good when he touched them. Maybe it was just a Lycan thing. Or maybe since she had put on a few pounds, her body was coming around.

Falon shivered in realization. If her cycle was beginning to recover from her unintentional starvation diet, then she would be able to conceive… She looked up at Lucien’s smiling face. He grinned happily down at her. Her heart ached with emotion. Lucien would make a good father. She knew it intuitively. He had lit up when she talked of their sons. But how odd it felt to think of Lucien as the father of her child when she had known with a certainty Rafael would be the one to sire all of her children.