The Wolf's Surrender

CHAPTER 8



Mia rode shotgun in the pickup on the way to dinner, trying to study Jenner without looking like she was doing it. She was looking for some sign, some faint and barely detectable sign, that he realized he had a living, breathing human in the truck with him. Unfortunately, Jenner was inscrutable, driving with his eyes straight ahead, both hands on the wheel. He was as silent as a ghost.

He’d been that way all afternoon, and it was slowly driving Mia out of her mind.

He’d surprised her with the news that she’d be staying with him for the time being. Surprised and, truth be told, a little dismayed. She needed to be clear-headed about what was happening. Being around Jenner was not exactly conducive to that state of mind.

“Where are we going again?” she asked absently, more to break the oppressive and continuing silence than out of true curiosity. She didn’t really mind finding out when they got there, mainly because she was too hungry to be picky.

There was a barely intelligible grunt given as a response. At least he’d wanted to get out of the house, even though the decision had only been made after he’d stood in his nearly bare pantry for a good ten minutes trying to figure out an expedient way to feed her. Mia was glad that some things about single men seemed to be universal, and that the tendency to only have beer and junk food on hand was one of them. Hopefully, getting out in town would ease this unpleasant tightness in her chest.

Or at least, she could find more things to distract herself from it. With one more glance at Jenner’s stony profile, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of them, Mia sighed and turned her attention to another problem on what was shaping up to be a long list of them. Tomorrow, Sunday, she was going to have to start unraveling the threads of this mess, beginning with giving herself cover for staying here for at least the week. It didn’t seem like Jenner and his buddies would accept anything less, and she was still too short on knowledge about this werewolf thing to comfortably skip town. Unfortunately, it looked like her banked vacation days were going to take a serious hit.

The thought made her sick to her stomach, which gave her an idea.

“Stomach flu,” she muttered.

“What?” Jenner looked sharply at her.

She looked over at him, at the sudden concern stamped onto his bold, handsome features, with a sort of rueful amusement. Nothing like the mention of vomit-inducing germs to get a guy’s attention. Especially when the guy in question was taking you to dinner.

Those sparks her temper had been shooting off started to catch.

“Oh,” Mia said, careful to keep her tone impassive. “Are we speaking again? I was trying to figure out a plausible excuse for being out of work all this coming week. Because otherwise, I’m going to get fired.”

He turned his eyes back to the road, but not before she saw a hint of guilt in his expression. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she’d hoped. But at least her comment had broken through Jenner’s silent brooding. She wished she wanted to do more than snarl at him now that it had, but an afternoon of being made to feel like a perpetrator instead of a victim had taken its toll. And to make matters worse, Jenner didn’t appear to understand her frustration.

“We did talk about the job thing, Mia,” he said without looking at her, sounding as though he was lecturing a difficult child. “You’re not going to want to stay alone in the city after...all of this. And what do you mean, are we speaking again? I didn’t think we’d stopped.”

Mia slowly tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, inhaling deeply. The anger reared its head before she could talk herself out of it, before she could silence it. The speed with which her mood went from irritable to furious would have shocked her, if she’d been able to do more than cruise on the dark fire that flooded her system at Jenner’s words. Everything she’d been put through since last night, the betrayal, the violence, and then the havoc Jenner’s very existence seemed to play with her emotions, coalesced into a singular fury and directed itself at the nearest available target.

She struggled to get out the words in something less than a shout.

“What I mean,” she said, her voice quavering only slightly with the effort, “is that ever since you kissed me earlier and then took off, you’ve barely said two words to me. Since I didn’t throw myself at you, and since I’m assuming you helped decide to keep me at your house until this mess is worked out, it would be great if you could stop treating me like I’ve got the plague.”

There was a moment of silence that stretched out painfully. Finally, Jenner managed one word.

“Oh.”

That single word burned right through her. Especially because Jenner didn’t seem inclined to immediately add to it. It wasn’t like her to let her emotions get the better of her. But there was something more, something unfamiliar fanning her feelings like a prairie fire in a high wind.

“Oh?” Mia snapped. “That’s it? You kiss me senseless, take off, pretend it never happened, and when I call you on it all you can say is oh?”

Jenner slid a sidelong glance at her, a slight frown marring his brow.

“I’m trying to figure out what to say about it that isn’t going to make me sound like an ass. I didn’t realize it had pissed you off so badly.”

“You didn’t realize...”

Mia repeated those words in astonishment, trying to calm herself down a little. But...he hadn’t known? Did he think she just wouldn’t care? Her skin tingled, her pulse quickened. And still, the emotional tsunami inside her continued to build. All she could do was ride the building wave.

The world suddenly seemed too bright, every tiny detail standing out in sharp relief. Sensory input, far too much of it, crashed into her system. All she had to cling to was the anger. When she finally managed to reply to him, her teeth felt strange in her mouth. Sharp.

Somehow, she still had the strength to suppress the urge to bite. Barely.

“You don’t know what to say about it? How about either, Mia, I’m interested in you and would like to do that again sometime, or Mia, it was a big mistake and we should probably forget about it. There. Two ready-made options. Pick one. Just stop ignoring me as though I’ve done something wrong!”

Her voice had thickened and changed somehow, her words coming out in a roughened, growly version of her normal voice. Jenner gave her another look, and Mia noted that a lot of the color seemed to have left Jenner’s face.

“Mia, you’re going to want to take a few deep breaths. It’s okay.”

Now she did bare her teeth at him. “No! It’s not okay! Don’t you think I have enough to deal with without you playing with me? The kiss, the theatrics with Kenyon, pretending to be concerned...what, you figure you can string me along just enough so that I’ll let you take me to bed on behalf of the pack? I’m good enough for a quick screw, but too pathetic to get really interested in, right?”

Even as the words poured from her mouth, some still-sane part of her recoiled in horror from what she was saying, from the fact that she was giving voice to her deepest insecurities and darkest suspicions even though she knew they were probably unfounded and almost certainly unfair to both of them. But she felt like she was catching fire inside and out. All she had was fear and fury, and Mia was helpless in the face of them.

Through a reddish haze, she could see that Jenner looked appalled. “Mia, calm down, seriously, you’re going to—”

“Don’t tell me that!” Mia snarled. “I don’t even know you!” The heat beneath her skin had spread all over her body and was becoming unbearable. There was a terrible itching. Her canines lengthened to become dagger sharp, and she had a wild urge to snap at Jenner. She growled, straining against the seatbelt. Rational thought vanished, and for just an instant she forgot there was such a creature as Mia.

There was only beast.

Her head fell back as she fought back to some semblance of human thought, but her grasp was slipping already. She wanted to run, to claw...to howl. Her heart galloped in her chest. Jenner’s scent filled her senses, and she could hear another thundering rhythm, catching up to and then matching her own. It was his heart, Mia thought, stunned in the small part of her mind that hadn’t been consumed by this inner storm. She could hear his heart...how was that possible? The sound of it was a drumbeat in her head. And she wanted...she wanted...

Jenner’s voice was more urgent now, and full of concern she didn’t want to hear. The fury came from nowhere, was everywhere. How dare he be concerned about her? How dare he? If he cared, he would put his hands on her...take her...join with her...

Or you could just drink his blood, suggested a new, sinister voice that whispered through her mind. Open his throat, open all their throats, turn the forest red with wolf blood and open the doors to me, to us, open them wide...

“Mia—”

A sharp bolt of pain sliced right through the center of her, blinding white in its intensity. Mia threw her head back, her cry that of a wounded animal. She arched sharply in the seat, stiffening as though she had an electric current running through her body. Finally, the rational part of her mind managed to get a word in, strained though it was. For a moment, fear had the upper hand, allowing her to speak.

“Help...it hurts...” she gasped.

“Damn it. Hang on.”

She barely registered it when he pulled the truck over to the side of the road, slammed the shifter into Park, and then ripped off his seatbelt. Another wave of pain crashed through her, and she only dimly felt Jenner drag her into his arms.

At the contact, so intimate as Jenner wrapped himself around her, the storm within her fell instantly silent. It was the strangest thing: one second, she’d been a human hurricane. The next, she had gone limp and shaking against Jenner, her body slicked with cold sweat. Wrung out and wanting nothing more than the comfort of the warm buzz their physical connection created within her, Mia clung to him. Unthinking, Mia nuzzled into Jenner, wanting nothing more than to get as close as she could. She was shivering uncontrollably, her heart fluttering like a panicked bird inside her chest.

“Shhh,” Jenner soothed her, and she felt his hand rubbing gentle circles into her back. “Just breathe, Mia. Just breathe.”

“Trying,” she gasped out. Her teeth began to chatter as heat became bone-chilling cold. Her head was still full of the sound of her own thundering heart. But beneath it, she could still hear the sound of Jenner’s, slowing, calming. Mia focused on it, willing her own heartbeat to match it. The response was quick, both a surprise and a relief, as its frightened and erratic rhythm slowed and steadied. Then there was only one sound, one soothing drumbeat, neither heart distinguishable from the other. For the moment, the strangeness of it was secondary to Mia’s relief at being able to speak and think like normal again.

Then, it was just her, curled into the lap of an utterly inappropriate man. But the memory of that sinister voice, not Jeff’s but someone or something other in her mind, kept her there even when she knew she should let him go.

“Wh-what was that? What happened to me?” she asked.

His voice rumbled against her ear through his chest.

“I’d say you were pretty pissed at me.”

She would have laughed, but she didn’t seem to have any laughter in her. “I’ve g-got a t-t-temper, Jenner,” she said, shaking. “But not like that. Tell me the truth. What just happened?”

The soothing circles he was making on her back continued, lulling Mia. His voice was contemplative, without a hint of the fear that had all but consumed her. That helped, even if his words didn’t.

“Getting angry tends to wake up a person’s wolf side,” he said. “I should have warned you. If you’re not expecting it, and don’t know how to control it, you can throw yourself into a shapeshift without meaning to. If nothing else, now you probably understand a little why it’s so important to have the support of your pack when all of that instinct and power wells up, trying to get out.”

Then she did hear concern creep into his voice, and it went a long way toward healing whatever residual bad feelings were left over from her raging at him.

“You damn near just turned into a wolf in my truck. And if you had, I wouldn’t have been able to reach you. No one would. If you change, with no pack, even if it’s before the full moon, it’ll break you. That’s it.”

“Oh, God.”

“It’s not going to happen. Now that you know what’s at stake, I know you won’t let it. It’s all right.”

She didn’t really feel like it was. Not at all. But Jenner’s faith in her, however unwarranted it might be, soothed her.

“I’m so sorry,” Mia said. “I really was upset, but that was kind of...beyond.”

“You’re telling me. I’ve never made a woman so angry she turned into a wild animal.”

Mia shivered and kept her head tucked against Jenner’s chest, more out of mortification now even though Jenner had sounded slightly amused. The waves of cold that wracked her body were ebbing, replaced by nothing but a liquid warmth that seemed to flow like water from Jenner into her. It felt wonderful, even if nothing else about the situation did.

“There’s a first time for everything,” she said, and was slightly mollified to hear the deep rumble of Jenner’s laughter. “It hurt,” she said more softly. That was something she hadn’t understood. Hadn’t counted on. His voice softened.

“Only the first time. Your body hasn’t done it before. After that, it’s much, much better. Gets to be as natural as breathing. Trust me.”

Her anger seemed to have burned up in whatever her now-treacherous body had just tried to do to her. The shadows of her hurt, however, remained.

“I’d like to trust you,” she said. “But you’re not exactly making it easy.”

He was quiet for a time, continuing to rub her back. She knew she should stop him, but couldn’t quite make herself. With her immediate terror gone, she could feel the life pulsing in his veins, could already begin to hear the singular song that was Jenner’s in her mind. She wanted to spread her hands against his bare skin, to let the dark song of her blood mingle with his, the way she’d always imagined she might be able to with a man. Even her grandmother’s most dire warnings had never stopped her from dreaming of it. The magic would bind them, body and soul...and he would know what she was. Or at least, he would know she was much more than a newly minted werewolf.

It would probably send him running as far and fast as he could, Mia knew. So she kept her hands curled loosely into themselves.

Finally, Jenner said, “You can trust me, Mia. I won’t hurt you. And I didn’t say anything about what happened this morning because I guess I didn’t know what to say about it. Not that you’d know it, but I’m not normally one to take advantage like that.”

“You weren’t taking advantage,” she admitted. “I wanted it, too.”

She felt him tense against her, and knew she’d somehow said the wrong thing. It was amazing, how quickly all that lovely warmth could become a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She heard his sigh, and knew their moment was over.

“I think you’d better get situated again,” Jenner said, gently easing her away from him. “There are a couple of things I need to tell you, and this isn’t the best way to do it.”

Mia went, though every inch of her body seemed to protest at being taken away from him. She climbed back into the passenger side, buckled herself in, and took a quick look at where they were parked. Jenner had pulled to the side of the road in a pretty, residential neighborhood, where well-kept saltbox houses lined the streets. A pretty blonde woman jogged by the truck, giving it a curious look. When she saw Jenner, there was a bright smile of recognition, and she gave a wave as she passed them. Jenner raised a hand in greeting as well, and Mia wondered how much gossip they’d just managed to create. After all, no one here knew her. Yet, at least.

Mia took a deep breath, trying to prepare herself for what she knew would be an unpleasant discussion. “Okay,” she finally said. “What do you need to tell me?”

He frowned at the steering wheel, collecting his thoughts, she supposed. Her initial impression of Jenner, of a deep pool that was only calm on the surface, hadn’t left her. Mia couldn’t help but wonder about what went on beneath the quiet, watchful façade.

Finally, he spoke.

“No matter how you feel about this morning, I take responsibility for it. Because the fact is, I should know better. I’m not...there’s no possibility of anything happening between you and me. I’m sorry, Mia. I know I gave you the wrong idea. That’s on me.”

Mia watched him and tried not to be hurt, though the words twisted in her gut like a knife. It was for the best, she told herself. So much easier to protect her secrets when there was no one very interested in prying. Still, to be rejected the one time she’d allowed herself to let go, even a little, was a wound far deeper than she’d expected it might be.

“Okay. Fair enough. And I guess I appreciate your honestly,” Mia said carefully. “But, I mean, what is it? Was the kiss that bad?” She was a little afraid of the answer...but she wanted to know.

Jenner gave a short, sharp bark of laughter that had no humor in it at all. “No,” he said. “No, believe me, that is not the problem.” From the heat in the quick look he gave her, Mia was inclined to believe him. It made her feel slightly better, though she was as confused as ever.

“Then what? Girlfriend? Wife?” she guessed, barely choking out the last word. Jenner seemed to find the idea of it just as awful as she did, though she wasn’t actually sure that was a good thing overall.

“Uh, no. None of the above. And that’s the thing, Mia. I plan on keeping it that way. My position in the pack is powerful, and pretty damned dangerous. I hunt things that humans don’t know exist, things that would destroy everything my pack has built and then some. It’s not the kind of job that lends itself to a stable home life, so I like to keep things simple.” When he turned his head to look at her again, his golden eyes were guarded, inscrutable. “More than that, I’ve tried the relationship thing. I don’t want to get into it, because it’s long ago over and done. But you’ll have to trust me when I say I’m not cut out for that kind of thing. Some wolves never take a lifemate. I’ll be one of them.”

Mia saw the grim resolve stamped clearly on his handsome face, and felt a shiver of fear. She no longer wondered what a Lunari did. On some level, maybe she’d known all along. The connection between them was so strong, Mia couldn’t muster much surprise that there would be this sort of tie as well. It should have been a comfort, that fate had brought her to a man who hunted the things that would seek to harm her. But her gifts made her vulnerable, attractive to the darkness that lurked at the periphery of the human world. And Jeff’s bite had opened a crack through which those things had begun to whisper, somehow.

Jenner would understand about shadows after all. Just as he would understand that she was a perfect vehicle for them to destroy everything he cared about.

Mia would have shaken her fists at the heavens, if she’d thought it would do any good. As it was, all she could do was try to accept things as they were. Wretched and impossible, as usual. She sighed softly as she buckled herself back into her seat, watching Jenner put the truck back in gear and pull back onto the road. Connection or no, this wasn’t going to work. Jenner wasn’t interested—or not interested enough to cross the boundaries he’d set for himself long before she got here.

It was better to know, she told herself. It was almost always better to know.

Even if it didn’t feel that way right now.

“I’m going to assume this means you’re not going to be involved with my initiation,” Mia said, surprised to hear the words falling from her own lips. It wasn’t like her to be so blunt. But then, recent events had left her without a lot of room to dance around things. Everything right now was important.

As she’d expected, Jenner shook his head.

“It wouldn’t be a good idea. For either of us. Don’t worry, though,” he said gently. “It might be awkward, but the situation could be a lot worse. There’s a Silverback contingent that’s coming in to help us catch Gaines. You won’t lack for candidates, and trust me, any man you choose will be honored.”

The strangeness of Jenner trying to make her feel better about the situation was momentarily outweighed by her surprise.

“I thought I would be joining the Blackpaw.”

Jenner kept his eyes on the road. “Well. Since Gaines was a Silverback, they’d technically be responsible for you. But you were here when it happened, and nobody’s going to push it. It’s completely your decision.”

Very sensible. Inexplicably infuriating. Mia couldn’t think of anything to say to it, so she chose silent brooding instead. Her decision? That was a joke. She had fallen victim to one of the oldest rules in the book, best articulated by the Stones: “You can’t always get what you want.”

The solution, of course, was to stop wanting him. But that was unlikely to happen if she didn’t start thinking of him as a potential friend instead of a potential lover, and if she didn’t find some other werewolf to focus her attention on.

Mia watched, only half paying attention, as they turned onto the Hollow’s old-fashioned square. She let the prettiness of it distract her from wallowing, admiring the way even new buildings had been styled to match the old, wondering what sorts of fun little dustcatchers she might find to buy behind the gleaming windows of the little shops. Even in the truck with the windows up, she could pick up the mouthwatering scents drifting from the few mom-and-pop restaurants littering the square. She hadn’t been imagining how strong breakfast had smelled this morning, she realized. Her nose really was substantially more sensitive. Her stomach growled its agreement.

Idly, she wondered if werewolf females gained something akin to the Freshman Fifteen. God, she hoped not.

Jenner pulled into an open space in front of a squat brick expanse of the square. Directly in front of them was a scatter of wrought iron tables, and beyond those, a restaurant over which was mounted a brightly painted sign that read Jana’s Cupboard. Mia could see that the place was bustling.

“Here we are,” Jenner said. He reached to turn off the ignition, but his hand stilled just before he closed his fingers around the key. He looked at Mia, and she could see he was struggling with something he wanted to say to her. She waited, and finally, he got it out.

“Look. We haven’t exactly gotten off on the right foot, you and me.”

Oh, hell. He was going to apologize. If there had been any wind left in her sails, this would have taken care of it. She’d suspected it as soon as he’d caught her in his arms last night, and now, despite everything else, she knew: Nick Jenner had a heart. Probably a fairly big one. And now he was going to unwittingly torture her with this revelation, since that heart was forever off limits to her. That it was also off limits to everyone else was beside the point.

Desperate to keep him from revealing anything else endearing about himself, Mia put her hand in front of her, gesturing him to stop.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, hoping she sounded convincing. “We’re good. Consider this a fresh start. Truce over...” She sniffed the air, and her eyes nearly rolled back into her head with pleasure. “Homemade spaghetti. God.”

Jenner didn’t look entirely convinced. “You’re sure?”

No, she wasn’t sure. Not about her anger, but about her ability to control her reactions to him. A single day wasn’t enough time to develop much past lust. And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that Jenner could be far more important to her, was already far more important, than a simple object of desire. She had felt his heart pounding in her own veins, had heard his blood calling to hers.

Then take it, whispered that awful, seductive voice. Take his blood and join with us...

Inwardly, she recoiled. On the outside, she smiled as reassuringly as she could manage. “You stopped me from chewing up the upholstery in your truck. That alone earns you a do-over. Okay?”

He smiled back, but it quickly faded. His eyes were deadly serious. “I’m not good for much, and I’ll definitely piss you off again,” he said. “But you can trust me to protect you, Mia. If nothing else, I can give you my word on that. Gaines is dangerous, I won’t lie.”

Slowly, she nodded. “I know,” she said.

“And I’m even more dangerous.” She saw it then. He let her see it, the raw power, the hunger and instinct swirling in the depths of eyes that glowed like embers. But instead of feeling fear, the way she had when she’d seen what lurked inside of Jeff, Mia felt something completely unexpected: raw desire.

“You’re safe with me,” Jenner said, even as the blaze of his eyes faded to what passed for normal once again. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. But as he slipped out of the truck with the same animal grace he did even the most mundane things with, Mia was anything but okay. It had nothing to do with Jeff Gaines, and everything to do with the surly, difficult, and entirely honorable man who’d sworn to protect her.

She wanted him. Badly.

And she had begun to fear that her desire might make her the most dangerous creature of all.