Bloodright (29 page)

“For all my talk, I cannot say I would be able to handle it if Mara suddenly materialized.”

His golden eyes glittered with moisture. “The difference is, I never gave her all of my heart. She was not my other half. She was an infatuation at best. I know that now. I know it because I know what it is to love completely.” He exhaled. “Falon,” he said softly. “I thought I could handle this. I thought your love for me would be enough. I thought I could make love to you and ignore that you were thinking it was Rafael who touched you.”

“I have never thought of him while I was with you that way!”

“Maybe not now, but later, especially when you know he is forever lost to you once he marks the Ivanov girl.”

“I cannot predict the future, Lucien! Don’t force me into a corner! I don’t deserve this. And neither do you. It will tear us apart. And I don’t want that.” She grabbed his hands. “Luca, this is an impossible situation. But we are strong enough to see it through.”

She looked up to his raging eyes. He loved her. But that damned devil, his pride, was doing its best to tear them apart. He removed her hands from his and stepped away. “I don’t want you to hate me. I don’t want to destroy the best thing that has happened to me. I need to find a way to come to terms with my jealousy, Falon. Until I do, I think it would be better if we don’t share the same room.”

Her stomach pitched and heaved. “What are you saying?” she whispered, afraid of the answer.

“I need some time. I’ll sleep down here for a few nights.”

“Is that what you do? After everything we have been through, run away when you can’t have your way?”

“I gave you all of my heart!” he ground out. “Every piece of it, despite the fact that half of yours still belongs to my brother!”

While she understood his need for space and his hurt feelings, she was angry. This was not her fault. “I guess, Lucien, you should have thought of the repercussions of your actions before you took me from Rafael! Your failure to deal with this situation has nothing to do with me. I did not create it.
I
did not ask for it. I sure as hell would never have agreed to accept the council’s verdict had I known the end result!”

Lucien’s body jerked as if he had been gut punched. The color drained from his face.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Lucien. I meant—”

“I know exactly what you meant,” he snarled and stalked away.

Falon slumped against the wall as her world came crumbling down around her. She hadn’t meant she regretted being with Lucien. She wanted to be with him! With all her heart. Had not the events of the last month and a half played out as they had, she would never have known she was capable of such profound feelings for not one man but two. Lucien brought out the primal in her. He strengthened her. He infused her with passion. He made her better. Stronger. He was as much a part of her as Rafael. She would never trade her love for him away. And she knew in her heart, she could not live without Lucien.

But she could not tell him that. He had to discover that, lingering feelings for Rafe aside, he could not live without her. Only then could he return to her. Only then could they mend this chasm between them. Only then could they begin anew and hopefully build on that foundation. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. When had her life become so complicated? Why couldn’t they all just live happily ever after, together?

Until the rising had passed and the Lycan nation stood victorious, there was not going to be a happy ever after for anyone.

Falon pushed off the wall and slipped back into her mother’s room and sat down beside her sleeping form. Taking her hands into hers, she said softly, “Tell me what to do.”

Layla’s soft, even breath was her answer.

Falon spent the night in a large overstuffed chair beside her mother, drifting in and out of troubled sleep. Each time she woke, she resisted the urge to go to Lucien. She felt his turmoil. She felt his anguish. It mirrored her own. Desperately she wanted him to take her into his arms and promise her it was going to work out. But until he believed that, they could not be together.

Finally, as dawn’s fingers cast a gray shadow on the new day, she fell into a fitful slumber.

“Falon!” Talia’s worried voice woke her from a deep sleep. “Layla has gone!”

Falon’s eyes popped open to find her mother’s bed empty. “Where did she go?”

Talia shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Falon stood and sniffed the air. Her mother’s scent was still fresh. “I must find her.”

She moved past Talia, who caught her hand. The petite healer’s gaze was sincere but at the same time, Falon felt her compassion. “Falon, for twenty-four years she has stayed away. She returned to save her child. That she left without saying good-bye means she does not want to be found.”

“But I need her!” Falon cried, moving past Talia. She needed answers. She would track Layla down to get them, too. Falon hurried from the room and grabbed an empty satchel from the kitchen, then ran to the back of the compound. As she opened the back doors, Angor’s deep red eyes met hers. He growled a welcome. She rubbed the three-hundred-pound mutant wolf’s head.

“Come, my friend. We have work to do.” Quickly Falon undressed and stuffed her clothes and moccasins into the small bag, then shifted. She snatched the bag up in her jaws and turned toward her mother’s scent. With Angor at her back, they took off like lightning in an electrical storm.

LUCIEN STOOD AT the open doors at the front of the warehouse and watched Falon and Angor leap over the high fence and disappear into the morning mist. Every instinct told him to go after her and beg for forgiveness. But he hesitated. He wasn’t there yet.

Lucien snarled. Last night he had gone to Layla’s room with the intention of telling Falon the truth about Mara, of setting her free, but when faced with the cost of doing so, he could not bring himself to do it. He could not bear the thought of losing her. But what he’d done was worse. He’d questioned her loyalty, her love, and her integrity. He had pushed her away anyway. He scoffed at his pathetic attempt to be the one to walk away. If he walked away, then it could not be said she left him for Rafe. If he walked away, his secret would die with him. If he walked away, his life would not be in jeopardy for what he had done.

It didn’t matter how he spun it in his mind. He was a fool on every level. A weak, dishonorable fool. He was not worthy of a woman like Falon. Maybe he always knew it, and because his beast knew the truth, he found a way to push her away without telling the truth.

He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. He strode to the gates and peered out at the human world. His gut, his heart, his soul cried out for Falon. But his damn pride held him in lockdown. Falon had told him once it would eat him up and kill him. Right now death seemed the better bargain. Because he did not want to live if Falon was not standing beside him.

He exhaled a long breath. He despised his weakness. He was not fit to lead even a fly into battle.

Raising his head, he stared at the fading half-moon still lingering in the morning sky. In less than six weeks, the fight for their lives would commence. Lucien threw his head back and howled. It was time he kicked the sleeping dogs awake.

FALON FOUND HERSELF standing at the edge of the deserted Amorak camp. Clinging scents still swirled about the place. The Amorak had begun their journey north to the battleground of the first Blood Moon rising. It would be where the final battle would be fought. She shifted to human and pulled her clothes out of the satchel and dressed. Then she followed her mother’s scent to a small cabin at the end of the dirt road.

Cautiously, she pushed open the door and caught her breath. Her mother sat on a threadbare mattress, wrapped in an Indian blanket, her deep brown eyes peering intently at Falon. She smiled a ghost of a smile and patted the space beside her. “Come, daughter, and sit with me awhile.”

Falon left Angor to guard the door and slowly sat down beside the mysterious woman who had given birth to her. “Why did you leave without saying good-bye?” Falon softly asked.

“Because I wanted you to follow me.”

“All you had to do was ask.”

Layla smiled serenely. “I needed to know you would come of your own volition. I also needed you outside of Mondragon and Vulkasin.”

Though years and questions separated them, Falon felt an affinity for the woman who was her mother. Her blood flowed warm and vibrant in her veins. Layla had given her life not once but twice. And because she felt such a deep bond and trust, Falon let what was prominently on her mind gush out.

“Mama, I don’t know what to do! I love them both! But even though I’ve chosen to stay with Lucien because I truly want to, he’s driving me crazy with his jealousy because I will never stop loving Rafe.” She dropped her head into her open hands and groaned. “I feel like a soap opera diva, torn between two lovers.” She lifted her head and looked to her mother for council. “My heart is a shredded, tattered mess that doesn’t know what to do for Lucien.”

“Lucien must find his own way.”

Falon threw her hands up in frustration. “But what if he doesn’t? I
love
him.”

“I understand. But in the end,
buniq
, all three of you must follow your hearts.”

“How can we? It’s an impossible situation. I love two men! I can have only one even though they both love me. One lives and dies by his honor and is promised to another. He gave his word he would not interfere in exchange for my life.” She swiped her hand across her face in the same fashion Lucien did when he was frustrated. “The other’s pride will not allow him to see he spites his face by cutting off his nose.”

Layla’s smile widened. Oddly, Falon found great comfort in it. “Rafael and Lucien have always battled for supremacy,” Layla began. “They battled the day they were born. Rafael’s head emerged with Lucien’s arm wrapped around his throat as if trying to pull him back so that he could be first.”

Falon smiled despite the gravity of the topic. “It’s still that way.”

“The brothers share a deep love, Falon. It was torn apart by a treacherous woman, it can only be repaired by one with a true heart for them both.” Layla looked at Falon with deep affection. She touched her cheek. “By a woman who would die for them both.”

Falon swallowed hard. “I love them both. I would die for them both.”

“I know that, you know that, the entire world knows it. But—until the brothers can come to terms with what must be, then you, my love, will pay the price.”

Falon smiled at her mom. Layla was wise, she was beautiful, and she had missed her comforting warmth terribly. But caution held her heart at bay. “Why did you stay away so long?”

The light went out of Layla’s eyes. “I could not return. Not after—Corbet.”

“I’ve heard the terrible story of how Corbet and his brothers came in and destroyed Vulkasin. How so many died that day. But, Mama, those who survived would have understood. It was not your fault Corbet took you away from your family.”

Layla smiled a ghost of a smile. “Part of me did not want to return. Part of me still doesn’t.”

Shocked by her words, Falon asked, “Why not? I would think you would find comfort with your own kind.”

The pain on her mother’s beautiful face was tragic. She could not imagine living through the horror of that infamous day. “The memories of that day still haunt me. It was terrible what they did. I have never witnessed such cruelty. When I see or smell a Lycan that day comes back to me as vividly as the day I lived through it. I feel guilty for surviving when so many I loved did not.”

“It’s not your fault. You need to forgive yourself for surviving.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “It’s not possible.”

“Hey, you ended up with me,” Falon said, grinning, trying to lighten the grave mood.

Layla made a sound halfway between a choke and a sob. When Falon looked closer, she saw the well of tears in her mother’s eyes. She squeezed her hand.

Layla smiled through the tears. “You were my blessing, Falon. My gift.”

“Did you love my father?”

Her smile waned. “Very much.”

“Tell me about him. Is he still alive?”

“It seems like a lifetime ago when last I saw him. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.” Her eyes dimmed as she turned to Falon. “He was a troubled man, much like Lucien. His demons were not of his own making, but despite them, he tried to love me as he wanted to love me. But in the end, he could not let go of his past.”

“Did he love me?”

Layla smoothed Falon’s hair from her cheeks. “He loved you with all his heart. But he knew the darkness in him would harm you. To protect us both, he walked out of our lives.”

Falon grasped her mother’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. “Did—did Thomas Corbet hurt you?”

Layla squeezed her hand and pushed it away. “I can’t discuss him.”

Falon felt her mother’s pain as if she was the one who had been struck by it. “Did my father know about Corbet?”

Layla’s hands trembled. “Please, Falon, I can’t.”

Falon tamped down her frustration. She wanted to know everything about her father. If he was alive, she wanted to find him. Meet him, understand that part of herself that came from him. And she wanted to kill Corbet for all the imagined vileness she was sure he inflicted on her mother. But she would not push Layla. Not today. “If you ever want to talk about the Slayer, I will listen and make no judgments.”

“You’re a good daughter.”

For a long time, Falon sat quietly, trying to find a tactful way to ask her mother how they had become separated.

As if reading her thoughts, Layla explained, “Because of the Slayers, Falon, I had to hide you. I was afraid they would find you and harm you.”

“But Corbet is my last name.”

“I hid you in plain sight. When they searched for you, I knew they wouldn’t give the name Corbet a second thought. It worked.”

Falon’s temples began a slow dull throb. She closed her eyes, trying to steer the headache away, but every time she concentrated on her childhood memories, the pounding started up. “I remember the ring. The Eye of Fenrir on a man’s hand. Was it Thomas Corbet’s hand?” She opened her eyes to see Layla nod.