The Wolf's Surrender

CHAPTER 12



She awakened in the wee hours of the morning and lay staring at the ceiling. Strange dreams full of racing shadows and eerie light had plagued her in sleep. Not really nightmares, but definitely unsettling. Mia had finally surfaced, opening her eyes in the darkness full of an indescribable yearning. Rather than being sleepy, energy coursed through her, and she was more alert now than she had been all day.

She thought of running beneath the moon...and of Jenner.

Neither fixation was terribly productive, Mia thought with a glance at the little clock on the nightstand, which read 1:00 a.m. Her stomach rumbled pitifully, until finally, with a sigh, Mia slid from the bed and headed into the quiet house, clad in her thin cotton sleep shorts and a tank. There were no rules against late night snacks, she supposed. Cooler air swirled around her legs as she moved, a pleasant sensation that prickled across her nerve endings and made her think again of her dreams.

Mia paused in front of the wall of windows, looking out into the night. She watched the trees sway gently in the night breeze, and longing again suffused her. She wanted to be out there, in the woods. Forgetting about the snack, she wrapped her arms around her midsection and stared into the night, occasionally seeing small shadows dart between the trees. Night creatures.

Like she would be. Coming here had allowed things she thought she’d buried long ago to come rushing to the surface. The woods had always been her place, coaxing magic from her until it became as natural as breathing. She had vague memories of running through the trees, light like fireflies shimmering all around her. It wasn’t just blood that had a song. It was everything, the world, the night, the creatures.

It was no shock to her when her own reflection, glowing softly, appeared in the glass. Warmth coursed through her, pure and true. This is what she should have remembered, instead of years of cruel little barbs. Something, whether it was the woods or the wolf blood or a combination of everything that made up the Hollow, had made her magic begin to flow again from all the places she’d tried to hide it. It didn’t feel wrong and dark. It felt like it had when she was a child—like a part of her, and the most natural thing in the world.

Tentatively, then more confidently, she embraced it, and the woman in the glass glowed more brightly, a will-o’-the-wisp in the dark.

For all the stories about how frightening the Unseelie could be, Mia wondered how they really had been, whether they were extinct or simply gone from this world, like her grandmother. Ada had clung to the tattered threads of her family’s fae lineage like a talisman, priding herself on a few drops of Seelie blood, dreaming of the Summer Court.

Her father had been a half-blood Unseelie, handsome and dark. But pictures were all she had to remember him by. Him and the beautiful, fair-haired woman who had been her mother. She doubted they’d thought her an abomination.

Maybe it was time to stop thinking of herself as one.

A simple thought, but one that arrowed through her like lightning. The wolves here embraced what they were. Most weren’t the dark things of legend. And just because her blood could be used for evil didn’t mean she was, or that her people had been.

She’s no different than we are, Jenner had said. But would he feel the same if he saw her this way? Would any of them? Revealing herself would be a huge risk, Mia thought. But for the first time, she was seriously considering taking it. Especially because she knew instinctively that however much a werewolf she might become, the magic she already carried would always be with her.

Whichever pack she joined would have to accept that. Or...well, she’d just find her own way, like she always had. At least she’d be sane. She blew out a breath, frustrated by her own thoughts. There would be a time to deal with opening up about her abilities.

Now wasn’t it.

A flicker of something larger, very near to the window, caught Mia’s eye and drew her quickly out of her melancholy thoughts. She stepped closer, frowning, a glowing ghost in the glass. Had she seen a deer? she wondered. It could have been. The forest stilled while she scanned for the oddly shaped shadow through the window. Her vision sharpened as she looked. But the wonder of being able to see the trees as well as if it were daylight took a backseat to a growing sense of unease. The hair at the back of her neck prickled. She went perfectly still as something moved again beyond the glass, and this time she could see very well that it was no deer.

It was a wolf.

As she watched it, she became aware of a low rumbling noise vibrating somewhere nearby. Growling. Suddenly, she realized it was coming from her own throat. And rather than being a human sound, this was all animal.

Though it was soft, the large wolf just beyond the glass seemed to hear it. It picked up its head from where it had been sniffing the ground and turned toward her. For just an instant, their eyes met. Mia growled louder, an instinctive reaction, a warning. Bright yellow eyes flashed in the dark. Sharp white teeth were bared.

She knew those eyes. It would be hard to forget them.

They stood there facing each other for a moment that seemed to spin out, suspended. That she felt fear was no surprise. But this time, there was something stronger that did surprise her: anger. Mia curled her lip in response to the wolf that she knew was Jeff Gaines, furious that he’d managed to find her, that he’d come hunting for her here...that he wouldn’t just let her alone.

Heat raced over her skin, the way it had in the truck earlier when she’d let her anger at Jenner get the better of her. She felt the sharp pains begin, like thousands of knives pushing into her skin, but she accepted it. He needed to know he couldn’t take her without a fight. That she wouldn’t run this time. She hooked her fingers into claws, felt her nails lengthening, beginning to change.

Jeff’s voice pushed into her head, a violation, an intrusion.

Mia. I told you I’d come for you.

She drew in a series of shallow breaths as her heartbeat accelerated. Responding to him without moving her lips seemed as natural as breathing.

You can’t have me. I’ll kill you first.

His mouth opened and his tongue lolled out, mocking her.

You said you missed me. Come out, Mia. I can see what you are, even if they can’t. Come out and play with me. Let me love you. Let me bleed you.

I hate you. I hate you for this, she thought, with all the ferocity that was building inside of her. The pain intensified, threatening to bring her to her knees, but she kept her footing, kept her eyes locked with Jeff’s. Do you hear me? I hate you! You can’t have me!

The lolling tongue vanished. The voice she heard in her head now was full of a surprising amount of pain. No...don’t say things like that...I love you, don’t you see?

“I hate you!” She snarled it in a voice she barely recognized as her own. Power whipped out of her in a flash, light with a faintly violet cast that shot through the wolf that was Jeff. He stumbled backward as it passed through him, then turned and fled into the darkness past where her eyes could see. A mournful howl echoed in her ears, in her head.

She couldn’t let him go. She wanted to finish it.

Before she could think better of it—before she could think at all—Mia had flung open the doors to the back patio and rushed into the night, chasing after Jeff. She could still feel his presence, could smell a scent that was sweat and man, and wolf, and madness. Faster than she ever had, she ran into the woods, her feet barely touching the bed of pine needles, rocks and sticks beneath her.

You won’t escape me, she thought, the light that coursed through her changing to dark, red hot anger pulsing through her. I’ll find you...and when I do, you’ll be sorry for choosing me.

She could hear him, his rough breath panting not far ahead, his paws crunching through the underbrush. She’d hurt him, somehow, and she was gaining. Long, deadly claws hooked from her fingers. Her teeth were dagger sharp in her mouth, and it felt good, it felt right. Every nerve ending sizzled with awareness. The pain just beneath her skin faded to a pleasant burn. The change was close enough to touch. And if she could hunt him as a wolf, a wolf with the abilities she already had, he would never escape her...

She caught a fleeting glimpse of him through a break in the trees, picking up speed again. In anger, in despair, she screamed, another bolt of violet light flashing from her fingertips as she hurled it toward him. She heard his piteous cry as it hit his retreating backside, as her power burned into him.

Remember just what it is you’re hunting, you bastard, she thought, pushing it at him, hoping he could hear it in his mind as he ran.

Then she was alone, and the reality of what she’d been doing, the sheer foolishness of it, crashed down on Mia hard. She staggered as instinct fled and her wits returned. It was only then that she could sense other things moving about her in the woods. Darker, sinister things made only of shadow, waiting to see just how low her defenses were before they closed in.

A sharp bark drew her attention. Mia turned, barely staying on her feet, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a huge gray wolf with intense golden eyes rushing toward her. All she had to do was blink, however, and it was just Jenner, in a pair of jeans and nothing else. The worry written all over his face pushed back the cold that had come with her awareness of the Shadowkin watching.

“Mia!”

Then he was there, in front of her, catching her in his arms and pulling her into a rough embrace she’d been dreaming of since she’d met him.

“Damn it, Mia, what were you thinking? Are you all right? Jesus. Look at me!”

It wasn’t until that moment that she realized how much her little supernatural burst had taken out of her. She’d held the wolf at bay, this time by herself. But she’d also used it, along with a bit of other magic she hadn’t even known she was capable of.

Mia licked her lips. “Gone,” she managed to say, when Jenner pulled her away from him, looked her over, and then crushed her in his arms again. “It was Jeff. But he ran away. He ran away from me.” She smiled over it, despite everything. All those years of fear and doubt, and she’d controlled what she had. It had cost her, but she’d learned something valuable, too.

Jenner seemed a lot less excited about it.

“Let’s get you back home. It’s not safe out here.”

He plucked her off the ground as though she weighed no more than a feather, cradling her in his arms the way he had at their first meeting in the woods. Mia buried her head against his bare chest as he took off at a run, carrying her back to the house at a speed no human could have managed. His bare chest was warm, and held her so tightly it was almost impossible to move.

Yet it didn’t make her feel trapped. It made her feel safe.

Mia didn’t fight it, and let herself go limp. Her ear pressed against his chest, and she soothed herself with the steady rhythm of his heart. It was no shock to her now when her own heart sought to match that beat, slowing, calming her as it steadied from its frantic pounding. The wind rushed by them as he ran, and Mia closed her eyes, losing herself in it. It seemed only moments before the door was opening and they were back in Jenner’s house. Warm. Safe.

Alone with the only man she wanted.

Strangely, Jenner’s voice sounded much less steady than she expected when he finally spoke, his deep voice rumbling through his chest.

“What the hell were you thinking? You weren’t alone out there, not even after he ran. Damn it, Mia, couldn’t you sense them, even a little?”

“I could...after,” she murmured, then moistened lips that seemed to have gone as dry as the desert before continuing. “Sorry. I came out because I couldn’t sleep. Jeff was there, outside. In the dark. I thought I would be afraid, and I was, but I was...so angry. Just so incredibly angry.”

Jenner swore softly, and then was silent for a moment. Mia imagined he was calling out the cavalry. She was glad, though she expected Jeff was long gone by now. Somehow, she had gotten through to him. But she wasn’t fool enough to think it would last. The madness had been pouring off of him, smelling like sickness. Like death.

She felt Jenner carrying her to the couch, where he sat with her still curled in his lap. His arms stayed tightly around her, and she was glad of it. Right now, she didn’t want him to ever let her go.

“Why did he take off? Did he attack you?” Jenner asked.

“No. He just ran away,” she said.

“He’s a coward at heart,” Jenner replied flatly. “I’m not surprised.”

Mia began to shiver as the exhaustion of her body really took hold. “This whole thing is insane.”

Jenner grunted. “What’s insane is that the Silverback ever let him run free in the first place. Even if he’s good at making people feel sorry for him, which I guess he must be, there’s no excuse for setting something like him loose. Tomas should have known better.”

“Yes, well. I didn’t get the impression he likes having his decisions questioned. Or being told no.”

Jenner snorted. “Tomas is a snob. His pack is full of hereditary werewolf families who think they’re special because of their lineage. They don’t really have to deal with Shadowkin because they live in a normal human city, most of them in cookie-cutter McMansions, with no open forest in sight. I don’t know how they stand it. They don’t know how we stand it here. To each his own.”

Mia remembered the way Jenner had stormed out. She’d found him waiting for her outside, but he’d barely spoken before now. She hesitated to bring it back up, but it was either now or never.

“Jenner?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you really lose a mate to the Shadowkin?”

He was silent for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer, and guilt flooded her. She shouldn’t have asked. It was really none of her business. But she couldn’t seem to control her need to find out every little thing about him...even the painful, hidden parts.

Finally, though, he spoke. “I hadn’t asked Tess to be my mate yet. Not officially, and we hadn’t bonded that way. But it was coming. We were living together. She was...” He trailed off. “Vibrant. She had this lust for life that was just infectious. Wanted to know everything, experience everything. But she had a darker side. She could be very moody, dissatisfied with life in the Hollow, the limitations of pack life. She wanted out and couldn’t figure a way. I tried to keep her content and happy. We all did. But it wasn’t enough. She was easy prey for the Shadowkin. When she started to change, spending whole nights away, I knew something was very wrong. Still, I didn’t want to think it could be that. I thought it was another man, for a while.” His laugh was hollow. “No such luck.”

The pain in his voice sliced through Mia. How he could be too little for anyone was beyond her. But she could tell that Tess’s judgment still affected how he saw himself.

“Were you Lunari then?”

“Oh, hell no. I was still getting settled, and Bane was in the process of taking over from the last Alpha. I just wanted to mess with cars, settle down, have a passel of kids. You know. The good stuff. I’m pretty simple, Mia.”

She tipped her head back to look up at him. “Yes and no. But I like that about you.”

His faint smile tugged at every heartstring she had.

“When the attacks on the pack started, picking people off one by one, some part of me knew it was her. Wasn’t until she got one of the young ones, kid named Danny Sawyer who was just fourteen, that I knew I had to find out for sure. I’m the one who found her drinking one of the pack women dry. We saved the woman. But we couldn’t save Tess. She’d started to become one of them. They’d preyed on every weakness she had and turned her against us. Even me. She wanted to join them, to turn completely and slip into their world instead of staying in ours. With her parents. With me.”

Mia could see that even now it still caused him so much pain.

“So you were the one who ended it,” she said quietly.

“I...had to be. Even at the end, I hoped I could make the real Tess come back, but...she never did. And the things she had done...such awful things. Her parents couldn’t handle being here anymore after that. I’d been closer to her father than my own, but I was one of the things he needed to get away from. I understood. And he gave me the gift of the shop. But it was no consolation. They moved out West, joined up with a different pack. Nobody blamed them.”

“She’s why you became the Lunari,” Mia said.

“I hate those things in a way you can’t even imagine,” Jenner said, his voice going rough, dangerous. “Seeing someone you know completely drained of blood, and knowing one of those things is going to live even longer because of it, is one of the worst feelings a wolf can have. Preventing that keeps me going, I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” Mia said, and meant it. That was a terrible thing to have to go through. No wonder he was messed up about relationships. Who would want to open up again after that? But the strength it must have taken to be able to deal with Tess at the end left her a little in awe of him, too.

“Don’t be,” Jenner said. “It was a long time ago. Back then, I only saw what I wanted to see. I should have known what she was becoming. There’s too much goddamn dark magic in the world, Mia, believe me. All I want is to be a wolf, and to be left the hell alone by everything else.”

There was a sharp knock at the door, and Jenner gave her a quick squeeze before settling her on her own on the plush couch cushions. Mia could only hope he didn’t see how pale she’d gone in the dark.

“Hang on. That’ll be Meri.”

Jenner headed for the front door. From her vantage point, Mia couldn’t see who it was, but when she heard a female voice, she was glad that not everything among pack mates was silent and telepathic. But then, werewolves were still people too. Sometimes, she knew, you just wanted to see and hear someone to make sure they were okay.

She heard a quick exchange, and caught the gist. A hunting party had been dispatched immediately when Jenner had called for help, but no one thought they would find much now...though there was always hope.

The aftereffects of her first bout of animal instinct had worn off, it seemed. Sitting here alone made her feel very vulnerable and exposed. She pulled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, shrinking herself like a child might. It was a very nice surprise when Jenner not only headed right back to the couch, but also pulled her right back into his arms. It should have been awkward, at the very least. But Mia sagged gratefully against him. She still needed that extra bit of comfort. And Jenner, despite the gruff and slightly intimidating exterior, knew it and responded accordingly. His skin in the sensitive curve where broad shoulder meets neck was like hot silk when she rested her cheek against it. She wanted to nuzzle it, breathe in his scent. To enjoy what she could of him before she had to leave him behind, because there was no way she could keep all of herself from a man like this. He would hate what she was. Or at the very least, he would reject her because of it. He didn’t want magic beyond what the wolf already possessed.

Neither had she, for a long time. But tonight had begun to change her mind. She had defended herself with it, easily controlling the flow of power from her fingertips. She felt sure she could do it again. The new werewolf aspect of herself had seemed only to enhance her natural magic.

A strange thing. But not as unwelcome as she’d originally found it.

Lost in thought, Mia was startled when Jenner’s voice rumbled beside her ear once again.

“How are you doing?” he asked softly. “Feeling steadier now?”

Mia nodded. “A little,” she said. “I won’t pretend I didn’t freak myself out, but I’ll manage.”

“It’s not always freaky. But you seem determined to work up to this the hard way.”

When she pulled back to glower at him, Mia was surprised to find Jenner’s gold eyes glittering with humor. He was teasing her, and enjoying the reaction, from the look of him.

“This is quite a time to find your sense of humor,” she said flatly. His grin widened.

“Yeah, well, ask around. My sense of humor usually gets talked about with the word sick in front of it. Sorry.”

She smiled a little as she put her head back against his shoulder. “No you’re not.”

“No,” he agreed. “I’m not. But I really am teasing. Mostly. I’d imagine you woke up feeling like someone dumped a tanker of caffeine into your system.”

“I did,” she admitted, surprised. “Why is that?”

“It’s the pull of the moon,” Jenner said, and the words, spoken in that husky voice of his, gave Mia a shiver from head to toe that had nothing to do with cold.

“It’s like this for you, too?” Mia asked. “Every night?”

“No,” he replied. “Not every night, and you just learn to work around becoming a more nocturnal person in some ways. But this time of the month, when the moon’s nearly full, yeah, I have trouble settling down. You’d be amazed at the chores I’ve finished at 2:00 a.m. Just the nature of the beast.”

“I’m glad you weren’t asleep,” Mia said quietly.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Me, too.”

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes. Mia comforted herself listening to the steady beat of Jenner’s heart. Wanting him this way was madness. Pining over what could never be was futile. And yet here she was, curled up in his lap, torturing herself as he began, tentatively, to stroke her back.

He wasn’t just watching over her, he was actively taking care of her. And Mia knew Jenner only took particular care with the things that mattered to him.

Mia could only hope he didn’t come to regret that later...and that neither would she.