Touch of Surrender

by Rhyannon Byrd

  He narrowed his eyes, the pale green beginning to glow with an unearthly light as he asked, “What do you think I was doing?” His voice was deceptively soft, but Morgan could hear the undercurrent of anger sharpening the words to a lethal point.

  “I think you went to the bar downstairs and…” She swallowed, unable to get the words out—but it didn’t matter. She could see from the grim, shocked lines of his expression that he knew exactly what she was getting at.

  He ran his tongue over his teeth, then forced out two low, guttural words. “I didn’t.”

  The way Morgan’s heart lurched in response told her how badly she wanted to believe him. Stupid, but she couldn’t help it. Taking a swift breath, she turned her face to the side, staring at the tangle of snow-covered limbs in the surrounding forest. “I’d be an idiot to believe you,” she whispered, shaking her head.

  “Damn it, Morgan. I didn’t screw anyone!”

  She flinched from the brutal force of his words, her gaze whipping back to his, caught by the fierce burn of emotion smoldering in that pure, beautiful green. She wanted so badly to believe him, which just made her feel like a bloody fool.

  “I could have had a woman under me, if I’d wanted one.” Husky words, heavy with restraint, as if he was struggling to sound calm. “But the only woman I was interested in was cuddled up in bed with a vamp. So I had a couple of drinks and came back upstairs to sleep on your bloody sofa.”

  “Why?” she murmured, her gaze locked with his. She couldn’t have looked away even if she’d wanted to. “Why did you come back to my room? Was it because you didn’t trust me with Ashe?”

  He pulled his hand from his pocket, shoving his long fingers through his windblown hair as he growled, “I was worried about you, damn it!”

  Her breath caught on a gasp, and she pulled her bottom lip through her teeth, wanting so badly to touch him…kiss him, even though she knew it would be stupid. A mistake. She was already obsessed, unable to get him out of her mind. Any extra contact at this point was only going to make it worse.

  In a soft voice, she asked, “What do you want from me, Kierland?”

  “Something I can’t have,” he muttered, looking away. “Something that doesn’t even exist.”

  Fighting the urge to reach out and touch his hard, shadowed jaw with the tips of her fingers, she whispered, “I don’t know what that means.”

  A rough, gritty bark of laughter tore from his throat, and this time it was his turn to shake his head. “You don’t want to know, Morgan. Trust me.”

  With a deep breath, she forced herself to take a step back, deepening the distance between them. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said in a soft rush, knowing she needed to turn around and walk away, before she did something stupid. “This was a bad idea. I don’t know what we were thinking. What happened between us, it…it didn’t make anything better.”

  His head shot up, nostrils flaring as he pushed away from the tree. “There’s no going back now.” He ground out the words, his eyes gleaming within the dusky shades of twilight.

  “No, listen. Three nights ago you were picking up two women in a club. Despite what you think of me, Kier, that’s not the speed I move at. I like sex, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. But I’m not…I don’t play the field like you do. It means something to me. There may be no love lost between us. I mean, I know you were just looking for a physical release to burn out whatever it is…lingering between us, but I’m not wired that way.”

  For a long, strained moment, he simply stared down at her, his eyes heavy-lidded, the muscular wall of his chest heaving with the ragged force of his breath. And then he was standing right in front of her, his powerful body pressing against her, his big hands holding the sides of her face, tilting her head back. “I didn’t want it to, but it means something to me, too.” Gruff, thick words that vibrated with hunger. “So stop thinking I’m looking for another woman to score with, because that’s not gonna happen.”

  Blinking up at him, she said the first words that popped into her mind. “But you don’t even like me, Kierland.”

  He shook his head a little, a wry smile touching the corner of his mouth. “I never said that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I think our history speaks for itself.”

  He blew out a rough, shuddering breath of air, and pressed his forehead against hers, his fingers shaping themselves around her skull. “My feelings are…complicated where you’re concerned, Morgan. But if I didn’t like you,” he rasped, his voice low…raw, “I never would have given a damn about what happened between you and Granger.”

  “You are so confus—” she started to say, but the rest of her words were lost in his mouth. Stolen right off her tongue.

  The deep, open-mouthed kiss was deliciously wild, hungry and gnawing, his body rubbing against hers in a way that made her breath get all stuck in her throat. He licked the inside of her mouth as if he was eating at her taste…her flavor, the sensual act one of the most erotic things Morgan had ever experienced, and her body answered with a startling, dizzying wave of heat.

  She’d never have guessed that he would enjoy kissing as much as he did, but it was obvious in the way that he ravaged her mouth with deep, seductive licks and nibbles and thrusts. It was hypnotic, rich and drugging and achingly delightful, every rough breath and hungry stroke of his tongue pulling up sensations from the churning depths of her soul.

  Growling low in his throat, he twisted around, switching their positions, a sudden urgency in his movements as he pressed her against the thick trunk of the same pine tree he’d been leaning against. She gasped, her pulse roaring as he tore open her jacket, shoving her sweater up and pulling the cup of her bra down until her pink nipple was bared to the elements, puckered from the cold. Morgan shivered, then cried out as his hot mouth closed over the sensitive tip, burning and wet. He suckled her greedily, working her nipple against the roof of his mouth, while he ripped at the button on her jeans, tugging on the zipper. Then he pushed his hand inside the opening, shoving those long fingers inside her panties, reaching deep until he was touching the hot, drenched folds of her sex.

  “You’re still swollen,” he groaned, licking her nipple, then catching it playfully with his teeth. His eyes flicked up to her face, full of secrets and hunger and things she needed more brain cells to analyze, but all the blood was rushing to the place where his fingers touched her, pulsing in the swollen knot of nerves caught beneath the deliciously callused pad of his thumb. “Too sore?” he asked, pushing two thick fingers into the slick, tender opening of her sex, stretching her as he forced them deep, up to the knuckles.

  Morgan shook her head, unable to keep her hips from shoving forward, seeking more of that intimate penetration. Snowflakes fell onto the dark spill of his auburn hair, catching at the tips of his long lashes. His eyes burned greener, as if they were soaking in the colors of the wintry forest.

  Then he kissed her again, and she was undone by the hot silk and velvety softness of his mouth. Ways she’d never thought of Kierland before. He was so hard and aggressive on the outside, and yet, his kisses were full of lush, carnal promise. They were like foreplay all on their own, and she melted from the sensual onslaught, drowning in hunger and blistering sensation.

  Curling his thick fingers inside her, he stroked the slick, sensitive depths of her body as he broke the kiss, his breath hot and fast against her cheek. Words tumbled out of his mouth, husky and rough. “I can’t stop thinking about you. About how you feel, how you taste. How tight this sweet little piece of you is. How it holds me. Sucks me in.” He pressed his warm mouth to the coolness of her face, rubbing pleasure into her skin. “I want to spend hours inside you, Morgan. I want to stay there until we can’t remember our bloody names.”

  “Yes!” she hissed, going crazy at the thick, rigid pressure of him grinding against her hip. She was desperate to touch him. To hold his heavy shaft in the coolness of her palm. Breathless and aching, Morgan reached for his fly, but he s
uddenly grabbed onto her wrist.

  “Wait,” he grunted, immediately pulling his other hand out of her pants. “Something’s wrong.”

  “What?” She shook her head as if trying to wake up from a dream. “What’s wrong?”

  Kierland lifted his head, sniffing at the air. “Shit, something’s coming. Don’t move,” he growled, drawing one of the guns they’d picked up that morning as he turned to face the clearing. She fumbled with the button and zipper on her jeans, oddly bemused by the fact that Kierland had situated himself in front of her, as if she was going to cower behind his back. His protective streak was kinda sweet, but she had no intention of allowing him to face the coming danger on his own, without her help.

  No matter what was out there, she would fight beside him. Though the darkness was deepening around them, she had a wide-open sky over her head, and fresh air gusting against her face. No way in hell was she going to let the panic sink its teeth into her again.

  A second later Ashe loped into the glade, his gun drawn, as well. “We have company.”

  “How many?” Kierland grunted.

  “One Deschanel male for sure. Maybe more.”

  “How close?” Morgan asked, pulling her own gun from the pocket of her coat. Bullets alone weren’t going to kill a vamp, but at least they’d slow it down.

  Before Ashe could answer her question, a raspy voice came from the trees off to their left. “Not nearly as close as I’d like to be,” challenged a tall, rangy male, his wild eyes glowing an unnatural silver in the flickering light cast from the fire. Morgan could tell from his scent that he was a Deschanel. He was dressed in boots, bloodstained jeans and a torn black T-shirt, his skin covered in a glistening sheen of sweat, as if he didn’t even register the cold. “Do you know you’re trespassing on my land?” he demanded, his English heavily accented.

  Ashe’s deep voice was calm, if not friendly. “This is neutral territory.”

  “Not anymore,” the male argued in a rising voice, his gray gaze jerking over Kierland and Ashe, before flitting to Morgan’s face, where it stayed. He was over six foot, his powerful body lean, making the definition of packed muscle sharper beneath his pale skin. Thick, chocolate-brown hair was brushed back from his flushed face, which would have been handsome if it weren’t for the heavy, potent pulse of madness vibing off him. “I’ve claimed this land as my own,” he added, “which means that everything on it belongs to me.”

  The vamp was clearly off his rocker, and Morgan’s stomach knotted with tension, a slithering sensation coating her skin at the way he kept staring at her, his bloodshot gaze moving slowly over the front of her body, lingering on her breasts…her thighs. There was a dark, reddish smear at the corner of his wide mouth that looked like dried blood, and she wondered who or what he’d last attacked.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Kierland said in what she could tell was a forced effort at sounding reasonable. “We’re not staying. Just passing through.”

  “You want across my land,” the vampire snarled, cutting a dark look toward Kierland as he released his razor-sharp talons from the tips of his fingers, “then you’re gonna have to fight me for the woman.” He took a deep breath, and Morgan knew he was pulling in her scent. His tongue flicked against his lower lip, as if he could taste her there, and his voice roughened with lust as he added, “She smells good enough to eat.”

  “Oh, hell. This is the last damn thing that we needed,” she whispered, checking her grip on the gun. “I thought you said you could get us across the Wasteland without any problems, Ashe.”

  “I never said one of us wouldn’t have to fight for what we want,” Ashe replied, his tone deceptively mild. “And by want, I do mean you, sweetheart.”

  “Damn it, Ashe. Did you do this on purpose?” she gasped, turning an incredulous look on him.

  “Come on,” he snorted. “Would I do a thing like that?”

  Before she could respond, Kierland took an aggressive step forward. “If I find out you deliberately put her in danger,” he growled, his deep voice vibrating with rage, “you’re a dead man.”

  The corner of Ashe’s mouth twitched with a wry smile. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about, Lycan. Now’s your chance to prove to her how badly you want her.”

  She jabbed her finger against the center of Ashe’s chest, her voice shaking. “Who said Kierland has to do the fighting?”

  “Trust me, sweetheart.” A lazy, laughing drawl, as if Ashe was actually enjoying the horrific situation. “There isn’t a chance in hell the wolf is gonna let me fight for you. Isn’t that right, Lycan?”

  Kierland muttered something ugly under his breath about Ashe’s parentage, then handed her his gun. “You’d better hold on to that for me,” he rasped, holding her worried gaze as he slipped out of his jacket, tossing it over a low-hanging branch.

  “Don’t do this,” she pleaded, begging him with her eyes. “Please, Kier. Just…just shoot him and let’s get out of here.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” he grunted, shaking his head.

  “Why not?” she whispered, keeping a careful watch on the vampire from the corner of her eye. “Because he issued a challenge? Forget your freaking pride, Kier. This guy isn’t sane. Something bad could happen.”

  “How about a little faith?” he muttered, making her want to grab his broad shoulders and shake some bloody sense into him. But he was already turning away from her, heading toward the waiting challenger. When he stood about ten feet in front of the restless vampire, he stopped and flexed his hands, his body held lightly on the balls of his feet, waiting for the vamp to make the first move.

  “Be careful he doesn’t bite you,” Ashe called out. “Some of the exiled clans are poisonous.”

  “THIS JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER and better,” Kierland muttered under his breath, keeping a careful eye on his opponent as the vampire flexed his talon-tipped fingers. There was a glazed look of insanity in the guy’s pale eyes, his skin slicked with a light sheen of sweat despite the bitter, biting cold.

  “Come on, wolf. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  In the next instant, the vamp launched his attack, and Kierland gave himself over to his instincts, blocking a series of powerful kicks, then countering with a swift right hook followed immediately by an uppercut that jerked the vamp’s head back with a sharp crack. The Deschanel roared, lashing out with his talons, and Kierland had to duck and weave to avoid the lethal swipes, before twisting around and nailing the vamp in the kidneys with a powerful roundhouse. Although the guy was obviously a hell of a fighter, he couldn’t maintain his balance, and he stumbled, falling to his knees. Keeping his arms loose at his sides, Kierland bounced lightly on his feet, waiting for the vamp to get up, but he didn’t. Instead, a sharp scream poured from the guy’s throat, and he curled his arms over his head, his body shuddering as if he was in excruciating pain.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Kierland grunted, his brows pulled together in a deep scowl as he kept a wary eye on the vampire.

  “He’s been poisoned.” The soft words came from the other side of the clearing, where a petite, dark-haired woman was stepping out of the thick forest, her pale face pinched with worry.

  “Who the hell are you?” Granger demanded.

  “My name is Juliana Sabin,” she replied, then gestured toward the vampire who was now slowly dragging himself back to his feet, his body swaying, as if he’d been drugged. “And that’s Micah, my brother. He’s…unwell. I ask that you turn him over to us.”

  “Us?” Kierland asked, keeping a careful eye on his opponent.

  “My guards,” she explained. There was a rustling of leaves, and four males came through the trees, flanking her sides. “If you’ll let us, we’d like to take custody of Micah.”

  “Stay out of this, Jules,” the vampire slurred, and then he staggered forward, targeting Kierland with a savage slash of his talons. Kierland dipped back, then swept his left leg low, catching the vampire on the backs of
his calves. With his balance already off, Sabin pitched forward, going down hard on his knees again, his body shaking with what appeared to be some kind of violent convulsion. Acting swiftly, Kierland trapped the vampire’s hands behind his back and shoved him face first into the snow-dusted ground.

  “Please, don’t hurt him!” the young woman cried. As Kierland braced his knee in the center of Sabin’s back, keeping his struggling arms pinned, she came closer, walking around the fire.

  “Remember what I said about certain nests here being poisonous,” Granger called out. “I don’t recall anything about the Sabin nest, but I wouldn’t let her get too close if I were you.”

  “We’re not one of the infected families,” the female argued, stopping a few feet away from where Kierland had trapped her brother against the ground. “But when we were exiled to the Wasteland several years ago, Micah was infected by a rogue female. We haven’t been able to extract the poison or find a cure, but it isn’t a contagious strain.”

  “Some of them are also liars,” Granger murmured. For whatever reason, he’d clearly taken a disliking to the woman, his tone thick with derision. “So be careful what you believe. This is, after all, a prison. If the Sabins are here, there’s a good reason for it.”

  Juliana compressed her lips, refusing to argue, though her eyes glistened with tears as her brother began to cry out in pain, another convulsion shuddering through his body.

  Kierland could have easily gone for the kill, using his claws to remove the vampire’s head, but he held back. If Juliana Sabin was telling the truth, then the man he was fighting wasn’t in his right mind, which made killing him out of the question.

  “Please,” Juliana choked out, lifting her hands in entreaty. “Please, don’t. If you’ll hand him into my custody, I give you my word that I’ll do everything I can to see that he won’t escape again.”

  Kierland consented with a brief nod, and she called her guards forward, telling them to carefully bind her brother’s ankles and wrists. Moving to his feet, Kierland made his way back toward Morgan, her expression a mixture of lingering fear and sharp relief as she stared into his eyes.