Dark Surrender

by Rachel Van Dyken

  He glared down at my stomach and then back up at my face. “Did you just ask if you were a baker of cookies?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “Oh!”

  Alex jumped at the word.

  “Or a shoemaker.”

  “Let’s see.” Alex pressed a hand to his forehead. “So when I say elf…”

  I nodded.

  “You either think of cookies or shoes?”

  “Yeah,” I croaked. Well, when he repeated it like that. “That about sums it up.” I pulled at my itchy sweater. “Why is it so hot in here?”

  His lips twitched.

  “Are you doing this?”

  “Not on purpose.” He sneered, and a piece of reddish blond hair fell past his shoulder, narrowly missing my face. I could smell it all the same; the scent of rain filled my nostrils again, and I inhaled because I really couldn’t help myself. “Believe me, if it was on purpose, I wouldn’t be in such extreme pain that I’m actually tempted to do it.”

  “Do what?” I just had to ask. I knew it was impossible, but my body felt numb from the inside out, like the minute I’d breathed him in, I’d taken a drug. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth.

  His eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “You.”

  “Do me what?”

  “Do you.” He emphasized the you and then the heat spread down my thighs again, tickling, aching. “Understand?”

  I gulped. Then nodded. Then gulped again.

  “Gods!” Alex turned on his heel and in a flash was at the door again, hitting it with the palm of his hand. “It won’t work, damn it! Cassius, are you even listening to me?”

  Well, this was fun.

  I was trapped in a cement room that was turning into a sauna by the minute, with a siren who was so in love with himself that I had no doubt in my mind if he could screw himself — he would — and I was going to die of thirst.

  Fun day.

  So glad I woke up and went to work early in a vain attempt to show the immortals my punctuality and ended up trapped with a sociopath.

  Alex let out a pitiful groan, his blue eyes snapped to mine one last time before he clenched his fists together and spoke. “The only way we’re getting out through that door is if I make you my mate.”

  “No.” I shook my head as if to add more emphasis and repeated. “No, I don’t think so, I unvolunteer.”

  “First…” He rolled his eyes. “That’s not a word.” I could have sworn he mumbled idiot elf under his breath. “Second, do you truly believe I want you?”

  I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears as my chest cracked a little. No. I didn’t. Because nobody had ever truly wanted me, not that I was stupid enough to admit it to him. I still had my pride, even if it was such a small amount, it was staggering. “No.”

  He swallowed; the motion of his throat moving caught my attention, his skin shimmered with a sheen of sweat. His lips parted and then a bead of moisture slid along that smooth neck and trailed down his perfect chest.

  “Hot?” I asked crossing my arms.

  “Sirens don’t get hot,” he snapped, seemingly upset about his own body temperature. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you?”

  “Completely. Like I said.” He leaned back against the pillows. “I can do this all day.”

  “Me too.” I closed my eyes. It would be easier to hate him if I didn’t have to look at him. It was hard to hate someone so beautiful, even if the inside was ugly.

  The minute my eyes slid closed the heat intensified. I was going to die in that cement room with a siren by my side and all because my organs burned me alive from the inside out.

  The smell of rain intensified.

  It was absolute torture.

  Finally, in an effort to cool down, I peeled the sweater from my body and tossed it on the floor.

  But if anything — the heat merely intensified. What was happening to me?

  Alex released a series of ugly curses before locking his blue eyes on mine. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “What?” I sighed. If he hated me so much why was he talking to me?

  His hungry gaze roamed down my body. “Stripping in front of a man who takes his pleasure wherever he can. Whenever he can. However he wants.”

  “But you don’t want me.” I shrugged. “Ergo,” I held out one hand. “Die of heat stroke.” I held out my other hand. “Or take off my ugly sweater.” I shrugged. “Seemed like the only choice I’ve been given since being trapped in here.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “If I want you or if I despise every inch of you.” With a snarl, a faraway look passed across his perfect features, he was sweating more now, heavily, and I wished it looked horrible on him, but somehow it enhanced every single muscle on his body. “We cannot leave this room unless I make you my mate. The doors unlock the minute I claim you.”

  I gulped. “That sounds….” Primitive. Exciting. Horrible.

  “Elf.” He spat the name. “I would rather die than mate with one of your kind.”

  “I’m not an elf or whatever you call it.” I waved my hand in the air. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d stop looking at me like I singlehandedly destroyed the entire universe by merely existing.”

  Alex sucked in a breath, and his eyes roamed over me again. He leaned forward and then jerked away as his eyes flashed with something familiar. My chest flipped because of the way he had looked at me, as if he’d seen me before and my body physically responded to him like it knew him. Maybe it was a siren thing.

  I, however, was still ready to die, and it seemed the hotter I became, the more irritated Alex got. It didn’t help that he smelled like fresh rain, that my brain had me completely convinced that if I just touched his skin, it would soothe me.

  Which was stupid.

  I mean he was just as hot.

  Physically.

  In every way.

  I exhaled slowly and swiped his phone before he could stop me, which meant he probably let me since he didn’t seem to be the type who had slow reflexes. I turned off his heavy metal rocker music or whatever the heck it was and put on classical music.

  “I’ve entered into Hell,” he muttered to himself. “And violins shall escort me there. Funeral music, how poetic.”

  “You should like this music, after all, weren’t you born before any of it was created?” I joked. “You are old.”

  That pissed him off.

  Nostrils flaring, he sat up on his knees “Did you just call me… old? Me?”

  A little thrill of triumph traveled along my nerve endings as I inclined my head in query. “Is there anyone else in the room?”

  “That’s it.” He whispered the words almost too low for me to hear. I’d crossed some sort of invisible line I hadn’t even known existed.

  He stalked me like I was his prey. I scrambled away from him, but he didn’t stop until my back touched one of the walls, and he was a mere inch from me.

  My body swayed toward him. I couldn’t help it.

  “By God, you’ll not deny me anymore, human.”

  A buzzing filled my ears as my body hummed.

  “Bow.”

  Alex

  SHE WAS DEFIANT.

  I hated defiance.

  She reminded me of myself, which is the last thing I needed to be reminded of. The fact that many years ago I wore that exact same expression on my face for all the world to see, a hard mask of impenetrable strength just daring the world to try and take me down.

  It was a lonely look.

  Worn by those who had nobody but themselves.

  And it made me feel.

  Oh, I felt, daily, but this type of feeling wasn’t the typical lust I was used to. It was protective in nature.

  It was familiar.

  I longed for it.

  And hated her because of it.

  What made matters worse, she was a direct descendent of the very creatures that so long ago, I’d failed to protect. Memories were fuzzy, they always were when I thought upo
n that time in my life, like someone had ripped away every important piece of information except for the main story. They had died. And it was my fault.

  How, I wondered, would she react if she knew that I alone was responsible for the death of an entire race because I was in bed between the thighs of a woman who I later cursed to a slow painful death by sexual disease?

  Impossible.

  She was impossible.

  Her presence. Was an impossibility. And yet there she stood, a mere inch from me and if I looked close enough her skin was almost translucent with the remnants, small pieces of blue blood that were hidden within her human DNA.

  Of course, she didn’t know.

  She would die without me.

  Literally cook from the inside out, because the mating process started the minute the door sealed us in. Stupidly, I’d walked into that room and released my scent into the air to choose.

  And — unfortunately for both of us — I’d chosen her.

  I was selfish. Not so selfish that I would allow myself or her to die just because I’d rather turn her over my knee.

  I let out a low groan. The vision too erotic for someone so weak, she’d probably bruise from a mere pat on the ass.

  The last thing I needed was someone who would fear sex.

  And I had a sinking feeling she would fear anything sexual from me, she would shy away, defy me, deny me my rights as a siren because of her damn pride, not realizing that the only way to stay strong was to take that strength from my mate.

  “I said,” I repeated the word. “Bow.”

  “No.” She blinked her large eyes up at me. “I… can’t.”

  “You will.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Human—“

  “I’m a human now? Not an elf?”

  “Truthfully, you’re both, but that’s neither here nor there.”

  She chewed her lower lip, I focused in on that lip like a starved man, probably because it was painful to breathe, the pain of not touching her was excruciating, unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

  “I can make it go away, you know,” I said in a calm voice. Thank God I still had the ability to speak; pretty soon I’d turn into an unrecognizable animal and it would only be her fault — not mine. “The heat.”

  Her pink tongue stuck out and wet her lower lip. I nearly exploded right then and there — the most likely result of that being to kill us both in the process. I was too strong for her.

  “Oh?” She finally squeaked out.

  I could work with curious.

  Forcing her wasn’t working. Seducing her… had only done the opposite and made her angry.

  Damn, what I wouldn’t give for one of Mason’s cool berries now, the bastard.

  I opened my mouth to apologize and only managed to choke out, “Touch me.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  My body pulsed. “Oh, believe me, it’s the best idea I’ve had in a very long time.”

  She reached her hand out, and my breath hitched as my body already sensed the pulsing heat from her palm.

  Time froze as her fingers collided with my skin.

  And the heat that had boiled beneath my body and hers, instantly disappeared and was replaced with a comfortable warmth and then, the ever present smell of rain as her body stepped into the comfort of mine, her breasts pressed against my chest, seeking me — only me.

  With a muttered curse, I wrapped my arms around her body and slid my hands down her wide hips. She was passable — for a human.

  Odd that she smelled so delicious, I sniffed her neck, causing her to stiffen, and then, because my self-control was barely hanging by a thread, I slid my tongue past my lips and licked below her ear.

  Nothing could have prepared me for her taste.

  Or the hunger that it stirred in me, until it was too late.

  Until the lick turned into a hungry open-mouthed kiss, until I slid my hands into the waistband of her leggings and cupped her ass, molding her body against mine as the rich taste of honeyed mint filled me.

  A moan emitted from her lips, I pulled back and silenced her with my mouth — and sealed our fate.

  Mason

  CASSIUS STOOD IN the corner of the kitchen, his eyes doing that creepy white thing that had the rest of the universe shitting itself, while the council looked on. Genesis shivered, Ethan pulled her close.

  Stephanie sighed as Cassius’s feathers strained toward her and fluttered, damn flirt that man was. Not like he could help it — they were bound together by more than just their bodies — the spiritual realm was not something I would ever pretend to understand — nor did I care.

  “Damn it, Cassius,” Ethan rubbed his face with both of his hands. “At least let us know how it’s going.”

  I crunched down on the pinecone in my hand — the only noise in the entire room was my loud chewing.

  Ethan’s jaw flexed.

  I crunched harder and shrugged.

  He could go to Hell, and he knew it. The last thing I was going to do was stop my nervous eating because it bothered him.

  Guilt lingered at Alex’s predicament. It was my fault he was in there. But the thought of going through another mating had me ready to puke up the only thing I could manage to choke down.

  It was a sad day when a werewolf couldn’t eat meat. Others viewed it as a choice, a way to honor her, not understanding the reality that I lived on a daily basis.

  The simple truth?

  I wanted to die.

  Every breath.

  Every second.

  Every minute.

  Every day.

  Every year.

  But Cassius would not allow it, and the only way to kill me was pretty damn difficult.

  Cassius barked out a laugh.

  Which was comparable to the world ending, since the man rarely laughed out loud for all to hear. Frowning, I leaned forward on my haunches, waiting for him to say something.

  “He’s angry.” Cassius’s mouth pressed into a cheerful smile. “He wants to end me.”

  I growled. “He always wants to end you.”

  Cassius’s smile fell. “He won’t take her.”

  “What do you mean he won’t take her?” I repeated. “He must.”

  The room dropped a few degrees as Cassius stood and breathed out. “Impossible.”

  I saw my own breath before my face as the man I called King — cursed in what I could only identify as shock, before he disappeared altogether leaving a single purple feather behind.

  “Hate it when he does that.” I crossed my arms. “Complete wastefulness of his abilities, use a car man.”

  “Was it just me or did he look… surprised?” Stephanie asked. Her hands were shaking. She was being strong, but she was nervous, tense. After all, she’d lived her entire existence believing Alex was her brother — she was protective to a fault and nervous about his ability to commit to one being for the rest of his life. Then again, weren’t we all a bit worried about a siren settling down? Especially a siren who was as powerful as Alex?

  The man could seduce a houseplant if he so desired.

  I crooked my head. “He blocked your thoughts?”

  She colored. “I’ve been trying not to pry.”

  I snorted.

  And earned a glare from the Dark One.

  “Well.” Ethan stood. “We could sit here all day or—”

  All eyes fell to me. “Yeah, yeah.” I stood and grimaced. “I’ll get to work. Does anyone know what the female eats?”

  “Try food.” Ethan winked. “Same as Genesis.”

  Genesis walked over to me and patted my hand. “I’ll go shopping with you.”

  “The hell you will.” Ethan growled his eyes flashing green, fangs lowering.

  With a sigh, I tilted my head in his direction. “Do you truly think me incapable of taking care of your mate?” My question hung awkwardly in the air because Ethan knew my shame: when it mattered most, my own ha
d died in my very arms.

  My stomach churned.

  Nausea threatened.

  “I’ll be fine, Ethan.” Genesis rolled her eyes and whispered out of the corner of her mouth, “Take me to the mall and I’ll find you the biggest pinecone you’ve ever seen, after that you can check on Alex.”

  She made me smile.

  Because she reminded me of what I had lost.

  “You have yourself a deal.” I winked.

  Hope

  SMALL WAVES OF heat pulsated through my body in perfect cadence with the movement of his tongue, like he was creating the force itself with his mouth.

  I wanted him.

  But I didn’t want to want him.

  He was kissing me because that’s what he was — a siren.

  And I was kissing him back because I was weak.

  And the heat had finally lifted — he tasted like fresh rain, like water — life. I couldn’t kiss him hard enough, or get close enough. My body trembled with the need to somehow crawl into him.

  The world around me faded away — and all I knew was his mouth, his fingers as they dug into my skin, and the taste of rain on his tongue as I drank my fill.

  A sudden image of us kissing flashed in my mind and disappeared.

  My brain told me to pull away.

  My body convinced me that if I did — I’d die.

  Give yourself to me.

  A voice whispered.

  It was faint, but strong, the words caressed my body, swirled around inside my head, I could taste them on my tongue just like I tasted Alex.

  Give yourself to me.

  Alex’s hands increased their pressure as they lifted me against his strong body. His tongue retreated just as molten heat exploded through my body.

  YES! I screamed without moving my mouth. Yes.

  An explosion jolted my thoughts as part of the cement wall near us moved and then jerked open with the force of an earthquake. Alex didn’t stop kissing me, though.

  When the dust settled on my skin mixing with the sweat, I opened my eyes.

  Alex’s blue eyes were hardly noticeable against the yellow that flashed within them, circling his purple iris in a wavelike manner.