Free Blood Vow by Karin Tabke Page A

answered. “But it made me realize that they are real, not a legend.”
    Exhaling, Falon squeezed Lucien’s reassuring hands, and let go. She rubbed her head, the sudden ache behind her eyes pounding like an anvil in her forehead. “They spoke to me again, when Fenrir was running with me. They said something about spilling the two bloods where Lycan were born.”
    “That would be the northern battleground,” Rafe said.
    “Which two bloods?” Lucien asked.
    Falon swallowed. Was it her blood specifically? Or would any old Slayer and Lycan blood do?
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Could it be you, Falon? You possess both bloods,” Lucien speculated.
    The heat blanched from her cheeks.
    “Mondragon and Vulkasin,” he elaborated.
    She nearly passed out with relief. Under no circumstance could she find a way to tell these two men that she loved so desperately that the man who viciously killed their parents was her father. She wanted to deny it to herself. Knowing that Thomas Corbet and her mother had sex and
loved
each other? Dear God, how could Layla lay with him?
Love
him? After what he did? And Corbet? A man like him was not capable of love. Her mother had to hide her from him! He would have kidnapped her or killed her.
    “Earth to Falon,” Lucien said softly, lightly shaking her.
    She blinked and mentally shook herself. “I—was just shocked to hear about Corbet. Oh, my God. What if he goes after my mother again?” The vision that Fenrir cast of her mother, alone, in the woods flared in her memory banks. Did she know that Falon knew? Is that why she was running away again?
    And at that moment Falon hoped she never came back. How could she face her mother? How could she even look at herself in the mirror knowing what she knew now?
    She exhaled loudly. And, dear Lord, how fair was it not to tell Lucien and Rafe?
    Falon started as the front door slowly opened.
    Anja.
    “I’ll get my bath now,” Falon said as she slipped from the room grateful for the interruption.

Eight
    “YOU COULD HAVE told me you were backtracking, Rafael,” Anja complained sourly as she entered the kitchen. Immediately, her crystal-colored eyes scanned the room. Raising her nose, she sniffed. “She’s here,” she stated unhappily.
    “You should be grateful we got her away from Fenrir. Without Falon, we stand no chance of surviving the rising,” Rafael chastised.
    Anja imperiously waved her hand as if shooing away a fly. “You give her too much credit, Rafael.”
    “You don’t give her enough,” Lucien said from behind her.
    Anja turned and smiled at him. “Maybe.”
    Rafe took the leather pack with their belongings from her and tossed it onto the granite countertop. “I want you to return to your pack.”
    Anja whipped around to face Rafe. “Vulkasin is my pack, and as their alpha’s chosen one I go where he goes.”
    Rafe swiped his hand across his face and looked past her to his brother, who stood staring at something that had captured his interest on the ceiling.
    I could use a little help here, Lucien,
Rafe said.
    Lucien’s gaze lazily dropped from the ceiling to his brother.
And make it easier for you to make a case for Falon? No, Brother, you can count me out on that one.
    Anja cannot travel with us!
    Why not?
    Aside from the fact I don’t want her near Falon, she will slow us down.
    Lucien nodded.
True.
    “You’re talking about me aren’t you?” Anja accused.
    Rafe nodded, and explained, “Where we’re going, you can’t go, Anja. The three of us can travel much faster if we don’t have to continually wait for you.”
    “Oh, bullshit, Rafe!” she exclaimed. “It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with
her
! You two want that selfish bitch just like you had her in the pond!”
    When Rafael neither claimed nor denied her accusation, she insisted, “I saw it, Rafe! I saw how you and your brother made love to her at the same time! And, Rafael, I watched you watch your brother and her after.”
    Rafe