Touch of Surrender

by Rhyannon Byrd

  The winds were blowing colder, but he was thankful for the light snowfall that would make it nearly impossible for the Kraven to scent his presence. He’d been hiking through the woods for about twenty minutes, heading east, and although the weather was making it difficult for him to scent his brother, Kierland knew he was getting close. He could feel it, his senses telling him that it wouldn’t be long now. He tried to clear his mind as he made his way deeper into the towering, shadowed forest, focusing on the mission…burying all the emotional crap that was scraping him raw—and then he caught the glow of a campfire flickering in the distance, and he knew that he’d found them. His heart began to beat in a hard, thundering rhythm, and he waited for the flood of relief he’d expected to feel at this moment. But it didn’t come. Instead, he kept hearing Morgan’s husky words as she’d begged him to listen to her.

  You have to have faith, Kier, because Kellan’s not going to fail. This is too important to him.

  Damn it, he needed to get the bloody woman out of his mind. Now. Before he completely lost it.

  He moved closer, stealthily silent, expecting to find sentries guarding the perimeter of the camp, but there weren’t any. The Carringtons who had survived the fight the night before obviously hadn’t warned Westmore and his allies about their presence, but then he supposed one couldn’t really expect loyalty out of a nest of marked, poisoned psychopaths, no matter how much money had exchanged hands.

  Hell, considering they were in the Wasteland, the deal might not have even been negotiated on monetary terms. For all they knew, Westmore might have offered the bloodthirsty vamps that “fresh meat” they were so keen on, and his stomach curled at the thought.

  As he drew nearer, Kierland could see that a fire had been started in the center of a small clearing, and the Kraven were huddled around the flames for warmth, their voices rumbling in conversation. They were gossiping about two women that Westmore had in custody at his compound, referring to one of them as “the witch.” She had to be Chloe Harcourt. When the men made a lewd comment about the one they called “the psychic,” Spark, who sat removed from the group, looked up with an expression of disgust. “Pigs,” she muttered, then turned back to her reading, her brow furrowed with concentration as she leafed through a small leather notebook.

  And at the far edge of the clearing, about fifteen feet away from Spark, sat Kellan.

  Kierland’s heart clenched as he caught sight of the thick metal shackle around his brother’s left ankle, the cuff attached to a heavy chain that was locked around the trunk of a nearby tree. They’d chained his brother to a tree, like a damn dog, and he choked back the feral rise of fury, wanting to launch an immediate attack against Spark and the Kraven, tearing their throats out with the wolf’s deadly jaws.

  Pulling in a deep breath through his nose, Kierland forced himself to stay calm as he assessed the situation. His brother looked exhausted, with bruise-colored circles beneath his eyes and grim brackets framing his mouth, his auburn hair now long enough to blow against the sides of his face. There was a feral edge to the look in his eyes, as well as the way he held his heavily muscled body, and Kierland knew that Kellan had been traveling in full “wolf” form. Taking the complete form of his inner wolf would have enabled Kellan to travel faster…and safer, than in his human or “were” forms, but there were consequences. Their kind didn’t often take the complete shape of their beasts, but when they did, they gave more of themselves over to the animal…and could be dangerous as hell because of it. Their tempers were shorter, and their aggressive tendencies became more pronounced. Which meant Kellan would have to walk a very careful line when he finally found Chloe Harcourt, or he would end up scaring the hell out of her.

  Whoa. What’s that? What do you mean “when” he finds her? Aren’t you here to stop him?

  Cursing under his breath, Kierland scrubbed a hand down his face, and wondered if he was losing his mind. Not only was he having conversations with himself, but he was forgetting his entire friggin’ purpose for being there. Which was to save his brother’s ass, whether he wanted to be saved or not.

  Do you really think this is what he would want? You coming to his rescue? He has a plan, Kier. He’s a grown man and a helluva soldier. Let Kell do what he thinks is right.

  He scowled at the whisper of Morgan’s soft voice slipping through his mind, and moved until he was positioned directly across the clearing from Kellan. Kierland kept to the shadows, crouched behind a massive toppled tree trunk with a SIG Sauer in one hand, just watching, confident of the fact that Kell would sense his presence. He knew the bullets wouldn’t kill the Kraven, since they could only be taken out with a wooden stake driven through the center of the heart, but the bullets would slow them down enough that he could get Kell out of there. A few moments later, his brother took a deep breath, and raised his head, scanning the shadowed edges of the clearing, his night vision far better than that of a human. Within seconds, his brilliant blue-green gaze locked with Kierland’s, and he sent him a dark, uneasy look of warning.

  Using a swift series of hand signals they’d devised when they were younger, while playing war on the sprawling grounds of their grandfather’s estate, Kierland asked him if he was okay.

  Kellan slid a surreptitious glance toward the Kraven and Spark, making sure no one was watching him, then braced his elbows on his bent knees, so that his hands were hanging loosely between his legs. Keeping his gaze on the others, he signed Compound north. Thirty miles. She’s called for backup. They’re taking me in tonight.

  He waited for Kellan to look his way again, then found himself signing You know what you’re doing? when he’d meant to warn him to get down, so that he could open fire on Spark and the Kraven. What the hell was he doing?

  With his heartbeat roaring in his ears and Morgan’s husky words still spiraling through his head, he watched as Kellan responded with a sharp nod, his eyes bright with determination.

  Okay, he signed. I hate it, but won’t interfere. We’ll monitor the compound. Then set up a rendezvous two miles south. If you’re not out by next Friday, we’ll attack. Just…get out of there as soon as you can. I don’t want to lose you.

  Kellan grinned at him, the boyish, lopsided tilt of his mouth making Kierland want to throw back his head and howl. God, it hurt so much to let him go. But Morgan was right. This wasn’t his situation to control. Kellan wasn’t a child who needed him to make his choices for him any more.

  Slipping away with a silent goodbye, Kierland felt strangely lost as he turned and headed back the way he’d come, like a compass that had suddenly lost its sense of direction. Something was happening to him, everything spinning out of control, his mind caught in a loop that kept leading back to one single, shining point of importance.

  Morgan.

  Christ, she’d been right. He was the one destroying everything, with his insane control issues and the stupid, blind fear that he couldn’t get past. He was the one who’d shoved everything into shit. He’d have ditched it, the whole manic, screwed-up mess, if he could. But he didn’t know how. He was trapped inside a prison of his own bloody making, and he was going to lose her because of it.

  Lose her? Hell, she was already lost. Gone. Driven away by his miserable, prick-of-the-year attitude.

  Unless I go after her. Get down on my knees and beg her for another chance.

  The urgent, fervent words echoed through his mind, but he didn’t know what to do with them. Yes, he knew that he loved her. That he wanted her. That he would’ve killed to have her. But where did that leave them? For one, he was still scared shitless of what that love might do to him. Of how it might get twisted and mangled by jealousy, until he’d become as big a monster as his father had been. And then there was the fact that she hadn’t told him she was still in love with him now. Only that she had been. Before she’d run to Granger and fallen in love with the vamp.

  So what in God’s name was he meant to do? He couldn’t just let her walk away…and yet, he didn’t k
now how to trust himself to be a part of her life, to be the kind of man that she deserved.

  I need to talk to her. Tell her how I feel. Lay it all out on the line, and let her help me. Give her the chance to tell me what she wants, and help me figure it out. Together. Without freaking out on her.

  It was terrifying as hell, the idea of opening up to her and confessing everything that was inside him, but at this point, what did he have to lose? He already knew what his life was going to be like without her. Cold and pointless, until his bitterness had turned him into someone he no longer even recognized. He had to at least try, damn it. Who cared if he made an idiot of himself? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except for finding her and throwing himself at her feet.

  Driven by adrenaline and desperation, Kierland started running, his legs pumping, picking up speed until he was racing through the moonlit forest, determined to reach her before she…

  Huh. How strange. Just like before with Kellan, his brain derailed on him again, because his intended finish to that thought had been…before she left with Granger and I have to chase her down, when all I want is to talk this out, so that I can make sense of what is happening.

  But it was a different track he found his mind traveling now. One that had him running harder, faster, his muscles burning as he pushed his body to its limits, a horrible sense of panic wrenching through him. He didn’t know why, but he had the strangest sensation that something had happened. Something bad. It was impossible to ignore the cold suck of fear in his chest, in his gut, his entire being swamped with terror.

  Too late, he thought. I shouldn’t have left her. I’m too late.

  Running as if the hounds from hell were on his ass, Kierland had already covered over half the distance back to the cabin, when he heard someone coming toward him in the opposite direction at an almost identical speed. He could tell by the scent that it was Granger, the vamp doing nothing to mask his presence, and they both came to an abrupt, jarring stop the moment they caught sight of each other.

  Granger’s grim, shocked expression confirmed his fears that something had happened to Morgan. He could smell blood on the bastard—Morgan’s blood—and something inside him cracked with a sharp, piercing pain that nearly staggered him.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he snarled, his beast punching against the confines of his body, as furious and as worried as the man. “I smell blood. Where’s Morgan?”

  “You’ve got to hurry,” the Deschanel panted, his hands braced on his knees as he leaned forward, struggling to catch his breath. “I got her back to the cabin, but she’s in trouble. Bleeding. We don’t have any time to lose.”

  A red haze filled the Lycan’s vision, and he fought to keep it together…to keep himself from sinking into the visceral, destructive burn of rage and despair. “What happened to her?” he growled. “Was it vampires?”

  Granger shook his head. “Death-Walkers. The fool woman masked her scent and snuck out of the cabin to come after you,” he muttered. “By the time I realized what she’d done and went after her, they’d already attacked.”

  “Oh, Christ.” When the Death-Walkers hadn’t attacked that first night, Kierland had foolishly assumed that the creatures hadn’t followed them into the Wasteland. But he’d been wrong. And now Morgan had paid for his mistake. “How’d you find her if she was masking her scent?”

  Granger curled his lip. “I could smell the Death-Walkers.”

  “Where are they now?”

  The vampire shook his head as he straightened to his full height. “You won’t believe it,” he rasped, “but we have Juliana Sabin to thank for running them off. She’s with Morgan now.”

  “Juliana?” he croaked. “What the hell is she doing here?”

  “Micah managed to survive the blast last night and made it back to his compound. In one of his more lucid moments, he told Juliana what he’d done. She got her guards and started heading this way, to make sure we were okay. It was just blind luck that they found us when they did and were able to chase off those ugly bastards.”

  Knowing there was no time to waste, Kierland started running, only dimly aware of Granger keeping pace behind him, his entire focus centered on Morgan. He was sick with fear, his body cold, his thoughts tangled and twisted as he tried to wrap his mind around what had happened. They made it back to the cabin within a handful of minutes. He immediately rushed inside, not even sparing a glance at Juliana’s guards, who were setting up a camp in front of the small structure. The scent of Morgan’s blood was overwhelming, and Kierland broke out in a cold sweat as he moved in a numb haze toward the bed tucked into the far corner of the room. Morgan lay stretched out on top of a dark quilt, her eyes closed, her face and clothes spattered with blood. Juliana Sabin was sitting in a chair beside the bed, using a cloth to clean the blood from Morgan’s torn cheek. But the vampire rose to her feet as he and Granger made their way across the room, murmuring that she would be waiting outside if they needed her.

  Walking to the side of the bed, Kierland stared down at Morgan’s pale, blood-streaked face through a burning sheen of tears, his hands shaking, his heart lodged in his throat like a boulder. He made a raw, fractured sound of rage as he looked over the slender length of her body, unable to believe what he was seeing. Her jeans and sweater were completely shredded by claw and bite marks, her delicate skin bloodied and bruised and torn open by those sick bastards. The Death-Walkers had obviously been toying with her, taking their turns attacking her. His hands clenched into trembling fists as he thought about how terrified she must have been.

  “She’s been unconscious since I found her,” Granger rasped. “She’s lost a helluva lot of blood, and her self-healing abilities aren’t powerful enough to deal with the damage. Something has to be done.”

  Knowing exactly what the vamp meant by something, Kierland lowered his head and pressed his thumb and forefinger over his eyelids, his facial muscles pulled into a tight grimace. He wanted so badly to be selfish and take what he wanted, but for once, he needed to make this about Morgan. Not his wants. Not his desires. But hers.

  He couldn’t ignore the memory of how devastated she’d been when the vampire had broken things off with her all those years ago. A pale, hollow ghost of herself. Clearly, she’d been nuts about the guy. Which meant there really wasn’t any choice. If Kierland loved her, and God only knew that he did, then he had to do what was right. To hell with what it did to his own life. As Morgan had told him before, not everything was about him. What he wanted didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she got what she wanted.

  Cutting a narrow look toward Granger, he took a deep breath, then forced out the five fractured, guttural words that would permanently tear out a piece of his soul. “You have to bite her.”

  Kierland knew a Deschanel couldn’t “make” a vampire. You were either born one or you weren’t. But the males of the species could pass on some of their traits when they took a mate and bonded with her. It was done through a special serum that they carried in their genetic makeup. They would make a bite, inject the serum into the female’s bloodstream and then nature would do the rest.

  From the foot of the bed, Granger returned his stare with a piercing gaze, and asked, “Why me?”

  “Because she loves you,” Kierland conceded, the words vibrating with emotion as he moved his gaze back to Morgan, “and no matter how badly I want her, I’d rather see her live a long, happy life with you than a miserable one with me.”

  A heavy, breath-filled silence, while the heat of Granger’s shocked gaze burned against the side of his face, and then the vamp quietly said, “You really do love her, don’t you? I had my doubts that you had it in you, especially after today. But it couldn’t be clearer now.”

  “What does it matter?” he growled, his pulse roaring in his ears as he struggled to keep it together. Keep from falling apart. He could fall apart later, after Morgan was no longer bleeding out in front of him, as pale as a ghost. “All that matters is making the
choice she’d make for herself, if she could.”

  “That,” Granger rasped, “is how I know you’re in love with her.”

  Forcing himself to move back a step, Kierland shoved his fingers through his windblown hair, his breaths coming in hard, ragged bursts as he shot a furious glare toward the vampire. “Christ, we don’t have time for this bullshit,” he snarled. “How and what I feel are irrelevant. All that matters is keeping her alive. So get your ass in gear and do it!”

  With a rough sigh, Granger crossed his arms over his broad chest and said, “I can’t. As badly as I’m tempted, I won’t do that to her.”

  A dark, primitive sound tore from Kierland’s throat, and he fisted his hands at his sides. “Damn it, she loves you!”

  “As a friend, you jackass.” The vampire jerked his chin toward him. “It’s gonna have to be you.”

  “No.” He shuddered, and took another heavy step away from the bed, not trusting himself to be near her. “That’s not even possible.”

  Granger stared back, unrelenting. “Why the hell not?”

  Rubbing his hand over his mouth, Kierland struggled to put his chaotic thoughts in order. “She can’t be turned to a Lycan,” he explained in a raw voice, “because she’s already a shifter, which means that I can’t change to ‘were’ form and pass the gene on through my bite. The only way I can give her the healing trait is by marking her. I’d have to bite her in human form, with the wolf’s fangs. And because of how I feel about her, that would…bind her to me.”

  “Then do it,” Granger grunted. “And before you waste more time telling me you can’t, there’s something I might as well go ahead and make clear right now. Morgan is the one who left me, not the other way around. She tried to make our relationship work, but she couldn’t, because she was in love with you. And she still is.”