The Wolf's Surrender (16 page)

Jenner walked quietly beside her for a few minutes, and Mia waited. Though she hadn’t known him long, she understood how he was. Jenner was a living illustration of how still waters ran deep.

Finally, he spoke. “I didn’t think I’d ever be all that interested in anyone again, Mia. But every time I’m near you I forget every damn rule I’ve made for myself. Last night...” He trailed off, then stopped, turning to face her.

“Last night meant something. I knew it would, I guess, which is why I was trying not to let it happen. But it did, and I can’t take it back. I wouldn’t want to.”

A hard knot she hadn’t even been aware existed finally began to loosen deep within Mia’s chest.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Mia admitted. “It ought to feel crazy, but it doesn’t. Look at what I’m dealing with, what I just went through. The last thing that should be on my mind is a guy, but it’s all I can do not to throw myself at you every time you walk in the room. And last night...” She tried to find the words and failed miserably.

The deep rumble of Jenner’s laugh rippled through her, telling her he understood.

“It’s like that with wolves, when things are...right,” Jenner said. “Even faster with us because you’re bitten already. Nobody’s really sure why werewolves have accelerated courtships, but it’s expected within the pack.” He watched her from beneath long, impossibly dark lashes. “I won’t lie, Mia. This might turn out to be a big mess no matter how you or I feel about it. But there’s no way in hell I’m letting Kenyon Chase or any other man anywhere near you for even one night.”

“You’re offering to initiate me,” Mia said.

Jenner shifted and ran a hand through his hair, finally showing some of his agitation. He blew out a breath, then said, “Yeah. And after that, we can maybe, you know...see where it goes. There were some good reasons I told you I wasn’t the right guy to choose for your initiation, or for anything. I don’t know how much I’ve got to give. I can’t promise you anything. But I can tell you that what you’re feeling, what I’m feeling, means we’d be good together. And...I’d like to give it a shot. I know what you said about wanting to take off soon, but...I’d like it if you stayed a little while. Maybe give it a try with the Blackpaw. With me.”

Mia looked at him standing there, looking every inch the fierce, protective werewolf he was, and felt her heart clench painfully, then release. He was taking a big chance, one she’d never expected him to take.

She wasn’t the only one who was learning to take risks, she supposed.

And she knew that before long, she would have to take a few more. Jenner couldn’t stay in the dark about her gifts. She needed to find a way to tell him. Soon.

“Will Bane accept this?” she asked, hating that it was even a question. But this wasn’t her world, and she didn’t want Jenner to suffer on her behalf.

Jenner nodded. “Yeah. He, ah...wasn’t exactly surprised. There are going to be ruffled feathers, but you made your position on choosing pretty clear.” She saw a hint of his smile. “He only asks that we wait a couple of days. Until the night before the full moon. He’s worried that if we close you off to Gaines, he’ll just go and find someone else. Unseelie blood is rare, but...”

Mia nodded, relieved. She had a little time to figure out how to tell Jenner everything she needed to...hopefully in a way that wouldn’t ruin everything. Even though it was selfish, she wanted to enjoy him right now, in this moment. She’d never had anyone, not really. It couldn’t be wrong to want to enjoy a few hours of it, no matter what came after.

“So,” Jenner said softly. “What do you think?”

Mia saw the way his Adam’s apple moved and knew just how twisted up he was over this. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and reassure him, to feel all that wonderful warmth and strength and know it was hers...even if it was just for now.

“Yes” was all she said.

She immediately found herself crushed against Jenner’s chest, his mouth on hers. Her head was full of him, every inch of her skin feeling like it was shooting off sparks. She opened her mouth for him, moaning as his tongue swept inside. Jenner lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She could feel how hard he was for her, and she arched, gasping, into all of that delicious heat.

It was an unpleasant shock to feel herself lowered quickly back to the ground, though Jenner wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head beneath his chin. It was some small consolation that she could feel his heart pounding just as quickly as hers was.

“I promised myself we were going to take it slow this time,” Jenner said, his deep voice husky.

Mia laughed. “Nothing about this is slow,” she said.

“Okay. Mostly I promised myself I wouldn’t tear your clothes off in the middle of this field if you said yes.” He looked down at her. “Let me take you home, Mia.”

She nodded, then she put her hand back in his and held on tight, hoping she wasn’t taking this step only to be forced to let go.

Chapter 16

B
y the next night, Mia had almost forgotten about the watching eyes out in the darkness.

No matter how intense her connection to Jenner seemed, the fact remained that she was only just beginning to learn about his life. And to her delight, he’d begun to show it to her. She’d gotten to see the garage he owned, enjoying the way he prowled around the cars like a restless animal. It was his territory, and she found she liked watching him on it.

It surprised her that the gruff werewolf was still tentative with her in some ways, as though he was afraid she would somehow find him lacking. How could he possibly know just how little he had to be afraid of? There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the man. Or at least, nothing wrong with him that she didn’t find strangely sexy anyway.

So Mia watched, and enjoyed, and wished there were more she could show him of her own life. His quiet, slightly awed appreciation of the design work she showed him meant a lot to her. But it wasn’t until she watched Jenner’s interactions with the tight-knit pack of the town that she realized what she’d been missing. The thing she couldn’t share with him because it didn’t really exist.

A network of friends and family. A home.

She’d been lonelier than she’d known. Here, she was less hidden than she had been in the city...and infinitely happier. Aislynn had been by again to see her, and people had begun to wave at her as if they knew her. More, Jenner’s house had already begun to feel more like home than any she’d ever been in. And his bed, as she’d been frequently reminded, was a place she might happily spend days on end as long as Jenner was with her.

She could belong here, Mia thought.

She could almost believe nothing could touch her.

Almost.

The moon hung fat and heavy in the sky when Mia’s eyes flew open in the darkened bedroom. She frowned, unsure of what had wakened her. Jenner was still beside her, his warmth reassuring in the silence.

Then she heard the whispers.

Mia...Miiiiiiaaaaaaaa...

Something flickered past one of the windows, darker than the night. Her breath stilled in her throat. They were outside. Waiting.

She lifted a hand to wake Jenner up, but paused just before touching him. Moonlight poured into the room, flooding her system with the kind of energy she and Jenner had talked about. It was the power of the moon, calling to the wolf now running in her veins. In seconds, she was wide awake. And with her alertness came an anger so deep it stunned her.

This was
hers
. Nothing in her life had ever inspired this sort of raw possession. She immediately found herself struggling with the urge to dash outside, teeth bared, and make a stand against the things that wanted to take all of this away from her. To take
Jenner
away from her.

She knew what he would do if she woke him. He would do exactly what she was trying not to. And as strong as he was, if these things had slithered this far into protected territory to taunt her, they were feeling confident about their chances.

Mia pulled her hand back, eyes caressing Jenner as he slept. The pull at her heart was deep, real, and accompanied by an ache she’d never felt before. He looked so innocent in sleep, less hardened, less wary. His lips were slightly parted as he breathed deeply.

Mia sighed softly as another shadow made the moonlight flicker through the window, then another.

She knew what she was feeling, even though it was new and unexpected and unfamiliar. Jenner said that when things were right between wolves, they just...
happened
. Fast. That was an understatement, but she knew with a bone-deep certainty that she would give everything she had to keep him safe.

Miiiiiiiiaaaaaaa...

She turned her head to glare at the dancing patches of darkness that continued to drift gleefully through her line of sight. The Shadowkin were tired of waiting. And she was tired of being a victim. A vision flickered through her head of Jeff in his wolf form running away from her, howling.
I could do that again
, she thought. She wouldn’t have to go outside. She and Jenner would be safe for the rest of the night, at least. He would never have to know.

Silently, Mia slid out of the bed. Jenner didn’t move a muscle, a relief.

Her anger rose quickly, something she would have to channel if she didn’t want another episode where she nearly succumbed to the wolf. But she was getting stronger. This time, Mia felt a great deal more confident that she could handle it. And sending a few Shadowkin shrieking back into the woods should help.

She padded down the stairs in her bare feet, looking at the huge window. She tried to stay as far back from it as she could. It was dark, but she was hardly the only thing that could see in it. Her confidence faltered, but only for an instant. Because they would sense her weakness.

And there were dozens of them.

The woods were full of them, human-shaped patches of a black far deeper than any night. They slipped in and out of the trees, some walking, some running, others seeming to float...and a few actually flying. There were glints of red, bright fiery sparks. Their eyes.

Mia drew in a single, shuddering breath.

All at once, they stopped and turned to look directly at her.

For what seemed like forever, nothing moved. They were simply...waiting. And that was when she felt it, the power gathering inside of her with a strength she’d never known. It coursed through her blood, singing its wild midnight song as her skin lit, then burned brighter. Pale tendrils of violet light drifted upward from her skin like smoke. And as the magic rose, so did her fury.

She would banish these things from her life, from this place, for good. She knew she could do it, if she could only reach a little more deeply into herself, if she got just a little closer.

Mia felt herself descending the stairs the rest of the way, though she was barely aware of it. She let herself be pulled toward the moonlight, the starry night—the sources of her magic. Then she could hear the whispers rising all around her, taunts of what the Shadowkin planned to do to the Blackpaw, of how pathetic she was to even try to stop it.

Her entire being thrummed with magic, so that she began to shake with it. Somewhere deep in her mind, warning bells began to go off. This was too much. She didn’t know if she could control this, she’d let them use her emotion to goad her too far.

And it was too late, because she had no idea how to make this stop without releasing what was building inside of her. But she had to get out of this house, or she was going to unleash hell in here, and she had no idea what would happen.

Mia barely managed to stagger to the door, flinging it wide and forcing her legs to move to where the Shadowkin twisted and moved, waiting. She could feel them surrounding her, pressing in.

So much power. Show us...

Dimly, she heard a shout behind her, then a snarl. Her heart sank, even as she let go. A violent flash of light shook the very ground as a wave of magic tore through the gathered Shadowkin. But instead of hurting them, she could feel their pleasure, like a sigh. They vanished, at once, riding the wave of dark energy away from her, out of the clearing.

Mia fell to her knees, utterly empty. Every ounce of strength she had was gone, drained from her...and given, albeit unwittingly, to the very things she’d been trying to banish. This was what they’d wanted, she realized dully. A wave of nausea shook her. Her hands hit the ground. Her vision began to waver, but not so much that she couldn’t see Jenner’s bare feet move slowly into view.

“Jenner,” she said softly. “Help me.”

But when she looked up, it was into a face that was filled with so much horror it might have been a stranger’s.

“Mia?” It was a question loaded with meaning, and Mia suddenly knew that if she gave the wrong answer, he was prepared to go from her lover to Lunari. What did he think he’d seen? What did he think she was?

This was what that display from the Shadowkin had really been about, Mia realized too late. They hadn’t just taken her strength tonight. They’d taken Jenner’s trust. And she was too weak to defend herself against the accusation she now saw in his eyes.

“I was trying to make them go away,” Mia said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I thought I could make them go away.”

Then she closed her eyes, finally feeling Jenner’s hands on her just before she lost consciousness. He was giving her the benefit of the doubt, she guessed...but there was no feeling of relief. She’d seen the betrayal stamped all over his handsome face.

He wouldn’t take her life.

But it seemed that Jeff and the shadows that swirled around him had taken everything else.

Chapter 17

J
enner sat slumped at the bar, completely disinterested in the plate of eggs over easy and hash browns that Rowdy had slid under his nose maybe ten minutes before. Now it was cold, and he was even less interested. All he could hear around him was the low and comfortable chatter of his fellow wolves after a hunt. Everyone knew the woods had suddenly come alive with Shadowkin last night, vanishing even before they needed to be chased off.

He was the only one who knew why.

He glared at the well-oiled wood his plate rested on, knowing the others would sense his mood and leave him be. He’d hoped the running, the chase, would help clear his head some. It hadn’t, though. Instead of focusing on the fading scent of Jeff Gaines, all Jenner had been able to see in his mind’s eye was Mia, glowing like a candle and so full of power that it was impossible for her not to have known she had it. The memory of it played over and over in his head, violet light slicing through the air, her eyes on fire. She’d drawn them. They’d fed off of her, leaving her so weak that he doubted she was yet awake. Aislynn was watching the house...from a distance this time, on his orders.

For a terrifying few minutes last night as he’d watched Mia, he’d been sure he was going to end up with another woman’s blood on his hands. That he’d look into her eyes and see a dark and twisted thing that had eaten her alive, and would have to act accordingly.

But drained though she’d been, she was still herself. Even if he was no longer sure just who that was.

She’d been beautiful. A little frightening. And full of the kind of magic he’d sworn he’d never go anywhere near again. She wasn’t just a Shadowkin target—and no goddamned wonder they wanted her so much. If she wasn’t a half blood, she was close.

She was a walking weapon of mass destruction. And she wouldn’t need a single Shadowkin to destroy everything he loved.

Except she wouldn’t. Mia wouldn’t do something like that, and you know it.

He didn’t, though. Not anymore. When a woman who’d professed to be human started throwing fire from her fingertips, all bets were off. Whether or not her intentions were malicious—and somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to believe they had been—she’d only barely been in control.

And she’d been lying to him about herself this whole time.

Though he would only admit it to himself—that was probably what had cut him worst of all. He’d laid everything out for her. He’d told her things he didn’t share with anyone. And she’d kept this, and everything that went with it, to herself until it had nearly blown up on all of them.

Maybe she just didn’t trust him. Or maybe she had some other, darker reason. Either way, it came to the same.

With all the dark thoughts swirling in his head, he barely noticed the tall, lanky figure settling in beside him on an empty stool. Bane’s voice, low and smooth, sliced neatly through his thoughts.

“What’s with the brooding? Did she throw you out already?”

Jenner looked up to glare balefully at the Alpha, ready to engage him if a fight was what he was looking for. Bane only looked curious, however, so with a little bit of effort, Jenner let it pass without a fist to the nose. Still, though he’d been waiting to have a word with Bane, this wasn’t how he would have preferred to start the conversation.

Actually, he didn’t know how the hell to start the conversation.

“No,” he finally allowed, the only answer he could think of. Bane snorted softly.

Jenner sucked in a deep breath, then let it go. “I think we’ve got a problem, Bane.”

Bane’s cautious smile quickly hardened and vanished. “Well, shit. What’s up?”

“The woman is a stone-cold liar, for one thing.”

Now the Alpha just looked confused. “Mia? Are we talking about the same person? I can usually sniff out liars, Jenner, and she—”

“—is obviously very good at it,” Jenner interjected. “She hasn’t been straight with us from the start, Bane.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Bane asked. “Spit it out.” Then his eyes shifted to a point over Jenner’s shoulder and narrowed. “Or maybe I’ll just ask her myself.”

Jenner closed his eyes as her scent flooded him, provoking an almost dizzying sensation of hunger and need in him. He only wished he could convince his body it didn’t still want her, but that was going to take time. And time alone was something it seemed he was about to come into again.

He turned and saw her standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the daylight. He would have known her without even looking at her, he was so attuned to her presence now. But he didn’t anticipate the way her beauty just sliced right through him. Man, she had it down. The worry in her eyes, the nervous way she scanned the darkened room. Then her eyes caught his, just for an instant, and he swore he heard a faint echo of her voice in his head.

I’m sorry. Please, it’s not what you think.

Surprised, angry, he shoved the intrusion away. Was getting into his thoughts just another trick she hadn’t mentioned was in her arsenal?

“She looks worried,” Bane said. “And upset.”

“Yeah, she should be both,” Jenner returned, cursing Aislynn, who had to have brought her here. He turned his head away to stand and push the stool in with an angry little shove.

He saw the doubt in Bane’s expression, and it only fueled the fire of anger that had been on a slow burn all morning.

“You don’t believe me?” he snapped.

“I want to know what she lied about before I decide what to do about it. Jesus, Jenner, what do you think she
did
? I can smell guilt a mile away. It’s part of my job. There’s a little of that on her, but most of it is plain old anxiety. That and a hell of a lot of sadness. You sure about this?”

Rather than answer, Jenner did what he’d always done in his position as Lunari. He went on the attack rather than wait for an ambush. In just a few steps, he was standing in front of her, staring down into a face that looked drawn and pale and, yes, sad and anxious. Still, even now, the loveliest face he had ever seen. Doubt, never a friend of his, tried to creep in, but he quashed it ruthlessly.

You don’t even know her. The woman is Unseelie, for Christ’s sake. You asked her point blank if she knew why Gaines was chasing her, and she lied. She could have killed someone last night with the firepower she was carrying inside herself. If she’d hidden all this, what else was she hiding?

“Can I talk to you?” she asked quietly.

“Sure,” Jenner replied. The sound of it must have been sharp, because he saw a hint of a flinch before Mia squared her shoulders again. He tried to stop himself, but last night was still too close...his eyes roamed her hungrily, drinking in the way her jeans and sweater hugged her curves in all the right places. Curves he’d memorized already with his hands, his mouth...

“Alone, I mean,” Mia said, sliding an uneasy look around the bar.

“What, is there not enough light for you? Afraid you’ll start to glow in the dark here, too?” he asked, the words falling from his lips before he could think better of them. And he’d spoken far too loudly. All conversation stopped, all heads turned toward them. He could feel them watching, listening, waiting for any sign that his tension meant it was time to attack.

But attack was the last thing on his mind when he saw the hurt in Mia’s dark eyes. And not just the hurt—a weary resignation that told him she’d expected some of this...and had maybe even been through it before. One of many things she’d kept to herself, if so, Jenner thought, steeling himself. But he couldn’t stop the guilt from coiling through him at her answer.

“No,” she said. “I learned a long time ago how to stop that.”

He bared his teeth. “You could have stopped that last night? So you did know what you were doing.”

Mia sucked in a breath and shook her head. “No! I didn’t want you to get hurt. I’ve never let go like that, I...I thought I could do it on my own.”

She sounded so sincere. He wanted to believe her, with an intensity that actually hurt. But he’d trusted her, and she’d damn near blown up the woods.

“You made them stronger,” Bane growled.

Mia’s face fell. “I didn’t know it would happen. I was only trying to help. I...” Her voice dropped. “I wanted to protect you.”

He could only stare at her.
Protect
him? It wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. But what he knew of Mia—what he thought he knew of her—it made a twisted sort of sense. Frustrated, angry, he could only growl. His emotions hadn’t yet bothered to translate themselves into words. Mia stepped into the void between them.

“I’ve always had magic. I know I should have told you, but I was taught to hide it. I was raised thinking I was something awful and wrong. I know that doesn’t excuse me, but it also doesn’t change the fact that I’m exactly the same right now as I was before you saw me last night. Would knowing what I am have changed anything?”

Sympathy stirred, but he brushed it aside furiously.

“I don’t know. You didn’t give me a chance to make that decision. You lied to me. To all of us. You’re telling me that what I saw last night was you trying to fight about fifty Shadowkin by yourself, using something you don’t even know how to control that ended up backfiring. That tells me you’re either lying again, or you’ve lost your damn mind.”

Now he saw the flash in her eyes. Hurt, he supposed, and anger. Good. Maybe it would make it easier to break this off clean, before he got any closer to falling. She wasn’t for him. He’d known it from the beginning. Why had he fought that? She was something he couldn’t fathom...and his need for her, even now, was something he couldn’t control.

“I’m not crazy,” Mia said, her tone clipped. “Inexperienced, yes. You want the truth? My father was a half blood Unseelie. My mother had light fae blood, though it was more diluted. They were killed in a car crash when I was very young, and I was raised by my grandmother, who never let me forget that I should never have been born. Tainted, she called me. And for a long time, I believed it.” Her eyes were so haunted, so wounded, that for a moment Jenner saw a reflection of himself. He didn’t want it, that connection. Didn’t want to understand, to sympathize when her omission could well have placed them all in grave danger.

Mia looked around, her tone softening slightly when she spoke. “Then I came here, and met all of you. You embrace what you are, even though there are people who think you’re just as tainted as I was raised to believe I was. I started to think maybe...”

She trailed off, then gave her head a short, angry shake. To his horror, Jenner realized Mia was close to tears. “I’m sorry to have to do it this way. I was taught to hide my...my gift, I guess...from when I was very young, but...it doesn’t always stay under wraps.” Her laugh was bitter. “I wanted to do my part, to stop the things that hunt both of us. So I used what I had, and it was exactly what they wanted. I would never hurt anyone. I never
have
hurt anyone. Except you,” she said more softly to Jenner. “I broke your trust, when I know that’s the one thing you’re probably not going to be able to forgive. I just...I just wanted you to see who I was, instead of what I was. I didn’t want to lose you. Not to them. And not because of this.”

She stepped back, and once again she was incandescent, glowing with a silvery light that made her beauty look moon-kissed. Jenner felt his breath die in his throat despite himself. This was still Mia, but more. She’d become the fantasy Mia he’d already imagined her as—Diana, Goddess of the Hunt. There were gasps all around him. Mia held out one hand toward him, palm cupped. Within was a pulsing ball of light.

He felt as though she were holding his heart instead. And if she closed her fist around it, it would break him in a way even Tess hadn’t been able to.

How had he let it go this far?

Mia watched him closely. Even her voice, when she spoke, seemed shot through with magic. Whoever had taught her to hide this side of her had done it well. But again, when he began to wonder what such suppression had cost her and felt the tug of sympathy borne of his own long experience with his father, Jenner forced himself to push it away.

“You told Tomas I was just like everyone else,” she said. “And I am. I’m still me. This doesn’t change me. I think—I know I can learn to use what I was born with in a way that
will
help. But I can’t change this.”

“Mia.” Bane’s voice was surprisingly gentle when he appeared at her shoulder, touching her with a soothing hand. “Stop. It’s a surprise, but it’s not the end of the world. We’ll figure it out. You’re still one of us now—”

“How can you say that?” Jenner snapped, stunned that Bane could be so recklessly casual about this. “She lied about this, God knows what else she’s lied about! You don’t know what she’s going to turn into! What she could do!”

“Jenner,” Bane said, more sharply. “This is not Tess. Mia is nothing like Tess. If you really can’t see that, then you’re not only a jackass, you’re blind.”

“Please,” Mia said softly, taking a step toward Jenner. Only a single word. But she was asking for everything. And right now, he couldn’t see anything but what had come before. He’d let his guard down once, and people had died. So had a piece of himself.

He couldn’t risk that again.

“Whatever you think,” she said quietly. “You’ve got the real me. The magic is just...extra.”

“I figured out a long time ago that I can’t believe something like that just because I want to,” Jenner replied, every word twisting like a knife in his heart. “I can’t risk it. I just...can’t.”

“Jesus, Jenner,” Bane growled, pulling his attention back to the fact that they had an audience. “Mia, look, I’ll take you back to my place. You haven’t hurt a soul here. You’ve got the benefit of my doubt, even if you don’t have his.”

Mia nodded, but her eyes, so big and dark, were only for him. He could hear her in his head, as intimate as a caress.

“It meant so much to me.”

“I can’t,” he said hoarsely, hating the fear in his voice. Knowing, even now, that it wasn’t her he was afraid of.

“All right. I’ll go get my things. But I want you to know...” She trailed off, then simply shook her head.