Surrender (Fated Souls Book 1)

by Elle Lincoln

  “No.” That one word holds more power than anything he’s spoken before. This sexy, commanding stranger refuses to leave my home.

  I can’t tell if that pisses me off or turns me on, but that emotion is far better than the panic I’m feeling right now. “No?” I question, irritation piercing through as the dominant emotion.

  “No. Two of us will be with you at all times until you understand the threat you are under, and even then, two of us will still be with you at all times. You aren’t even safe when you’re asleep.” His own anger threads his words. “I need to consult the council of elders. I don’t know what this means, but I need to find out. Stay here. In the house. Do not leave.” He steps away, his will spoken.

  I’m wrangling my anger and holding it damn close to my chest because I like the way it feels. The way it consumes me, drowning out all of my pain. “Like hell!” I throw at his back as he strides down the hall. He freezes, his body going taut. Beyond him, the guys take an involuntary step backward. “Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? You are nothing but a stranger in my home, holding secrets that you just can’t explain to me.”

  Tension vibrates off of him, and the atmosphere around us crackles as electricity zings through the air in arcs. As Athos spins around, I realize the minor mistake I may have made. The man the others call alpha. A man who is no man at all but a lycan, a beast of lore, and one I don’t yet understand.

  “I told you, little cub, that I’d allow that smart little mouth of yours to disrespect me once and only once because you didn’t know who I was.” He steps closer, his eyes flicking to my mouth. I hold my ground even though the energy dripping off of him fills the space with aggression. “Now you know, and yet you still defy me.” He crowds my space, and I’m feeling anything but scared.

  Oh no. The anger flees my body, leaving a lick of desire in its wake. I don’t yet understand why, but its existence is hard to ignore. His voice, his anger, it turns me on, and I want to push his buttons until he breaks. Until he throws me against the wall and shows me just how commanding he can get. Just the thought of it sends my body spiraling into need.

  His nostrils flare, and a cruel smile lifts those sensual lips. “You will stay here.” His voice is filled with a wicked promise, and I almost want to push him further just to find out what it means. “Otherwise, Sabina, I’ll tie you to the bed.” His hand reaches out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, then he leans down, his exhale washing over my nerves. “And there you will stay, fulfilled.”

  He backs away, taking his aura of warmth and desire with him, leaving me cold and staring at his retreating back as he marches down the hallway.

  “Nix, you’re with me,” Athos demands, tramping out of the space.

  Nix glances at me in the hall before following his alpha out of the house.

  I don’t breathe until the door slams shut and silence engulfs us.

  A low whistle falls from Liam’s lips before he chuckles, the mood instantly lightening. “Doll face, I’ve never seen him so worked up like that. You are so hot and cold, we don’t know which way is up or down.”

  Yeah, that makes two of us.

  I look at Christian who regards me with more interest than usual until, finally, his mask slips back on and he scowls at me. “Babysitting duty, and I can’t even get my dick wet.” He stomps over to the kitchen and out of sight, probably searching the liquor cabinet.

  I rub a weary hand down my face. What the hell had I been thinking poking the bear like that? Or rather alpha wolf. Resigned, I amble into the kitchen where Liam and Christian rifle through my cabinets. “Tell me everything. All the wolf things. The rules of engagement and what the hell it all means. I’m running around blind here.”

  “Why they hell should we do that, Damsel?” Once more, Christian scowls at me, but this time with resentment in his voice. His back scrunches with tension as he slams a cabinet harder than necessary. “Especially when you are so inclined to deny our fate.”

  “Fate?” I lash out. “You call this fate? Was it fate that my father died? Fate that stole his life from me? From the women in our family? Was it fate to take them all?” I’m shouting at him because fate and me, we have issues.

  Christian turns around, his chest heaving. “Every fucking step led you to us, and I call that fate.”

  “Even my father’s death?” I sneer.

  “A fated mate, no matter how she enters our lives, is a gift from the gods.” He spins back around, dismissing me.

  I toss the saltshaker at him, but the bastard ducks, not even giving me the rise I seek. “I’d beg the gods to bring him back if I believed in their existence.”

  “You should believe in them, Damsel, because they apparently believe in you.” His voice is barely above a whisper, but it drifts to me with his haunting tone, stopping me cold.

  “Doll face?” Liam’s soothing voice breaks through the red in my vision. “Hey. I think there’s some shit you have to work through.”

  “Oh yeah, that will help, Mr. Suave.” Christian spins around just to roll his eyes before settling on me. “You sure you’re mentally well?”

  “No, I’m not freaking mentally well!” I raise my fists. “Blasted unicorn farts!”

  “She’s said that before.” Christian’s brows draw low. “It’s weird.”

  “Want to talk about it?” Liam teases.

  “No.” Yes. Maybe. I turn around, realizing just how right they may be. My moods swing from one to the next, and I hold on like hell to each one that isn’t painful, terrified to fall into the grief that threatens to take over my soul. Because I know, I freaking know, that if I allow the grief to take the reins, then I will forever drown in it.

  “What do you mean take them all?” Liam asks from the bar top where he sits on a stool, referring to my slipup.

  I shake my head, cursing myself for the error. “Nothing,” I answer in defeat.

  Christian snorts. “Looks like we aren’t the only ones with secrets.”

  I gaze out the wall of windows, the moon taunting me with its mysteries. Its lies. Dad died a month ago. Did the moon watch? Or did clouds blind her sight?

  “Hey.” Liam’s warmth gathers behind me. His face nuzzles my neck, the scrape of his scruff teasing my skin.

  I don’t pull away, feeling sturdy in his heat, in the safety of his arms as they wrap around me. To my side, Christian steps into view, his clean-shaven face blushing. It’s so out of character I almost laugh, yet the feelings churning inside me douse the urge.

  He steps into me, his arms hesitantly reaching out before giving in and folding himself against me. His nose nuzzles the other side of my neck. I sigh against the cocoon, my body sagging between them.

  “You should rest, Damsel.” He’s right, I know he’s right. Christian’s voice now holds a soft ring to it, his moods flickering from one to the next. Yet as his hands seek my waist and his sigh gusts across my skin, all I feel is his need to hold me tight. To chase away the dreams that turn to nightmares. Probably chase them with his snarky mouth.

  Yet... “What if I close my eyes and I’m back there? In that clearing?”

  “I know you aren’t sure of the mate bond,” Liam begins, his hands tightening on my hips. “But it’s all our fathers and grandfathers ever spoke of. A buildup of something that may never happen in our lifetime. To us, you are a gift that we only ever imagined. Let us care for you tonight.”

  I snort a laugh. “What does that even mean?” I rest my head on Christian’s shoulder, melting into him.

  “We’re wolves, Damsel.”

  “We like to cuddle.”

  Right, cuddle. That’s where my mind went, yet it’s exactly what I need.

  Chapter 11

  Despite the world crashing down around me, I fell back asleep until the morning sun woke me. Now, I find myself stifling between two shifters who run hotter than a furnace. Sweat beads on my brow, running in rivulets down the side of my face and into my hairline, soaking the light strands. I g
aze at the sun just peeking above the skylight, telling me it’s far later than I’d normally ever sleep in.

  Yet the comfort they gave me kept the nightmares at bay, a fact my soul greatly appreciates. I just need to wiggle my way out from between the two snoring wolves. Liam lies on his stomach, his hair in disarray as half his limbs hang off the bed and the other half holds me down. His leg pins my thigh in place while his arm drapes just under my breasts. His breaths come in deep inhales, and on the exhale his nose grunts like a pig in heat.

  Turning my head, I gaze at Christian, his brow soft and relaxed while those long, dark lashes splay across his cheeks. One arm lies across my abdomen, just below Liam’s, while the rest of his body presses tightly up against mine. In slumber, his beauty appears almost angelic, especially without his mouth to mess it up.

  I’d hate to wake them, knowing they were also probably up late guarding me from whatever demonic hell broke into their territory. They need an enormous gate to keep out the other wolves. Maybe a magical barrier. If that’s a thing. Who knows, maybe Nessa and Pepper weren’t too far off and bigfoot exists.

  “Do you need help?” a dark voice whispers from the doorway.

  I lift my head slightly, startled at the sight of Athos standing in the doorframe. His arms are crossed, and he has a crooked grin on his face. His hair frames his cheeks, down for the first time since I’ve met him, falling in golden waves to his shoulders. The simple white button-down tucked into his dark jeans doesn’t at all look off on him. It’s a business casual style I can get behind.

  “Yeah.” I wiggle, truly thinking at any moment these two will wake up, but they don’t. Not even an eye twitches on their peaceful sleeping faces.

  Athos walks toward the bed on silent feet, his face full of amusement at my predicament. Not just that, I realize, but an expression of peaceful acceptance that this is how it should be. That this scene is what he would prefer to walk in on daily.

  I’d laugh at the expression playing on his features, but Christian’s arm presses against my bladder in such a way that has me gasping to rectify that issue soon before it decides to just let it happen here in the spare room.

  With more care than I thought he’d offer, he moves their arms and places them beside their torsos before his hands grip me and lift me up with ease.

  Athos’s eyes darken as I wrap my legs around his torso and lock onto his waist. It was more to keep from kicking Christian in the head, but that’s only a partial truth. Still, I don’t complain when he doesn’t let me go to stride into the hall and to my own room.

  “That one had a bigger bed,” I whisper, hoping I don’t have morning breath, though it’s inevitable. Who the hell doesn’t have morning breath? Unicorns, that’s who.

  He raises a brow, settling his hands on my waist and squeezing as though he just isn’t ready to let go, not yet, and who does that make me if I’m perfectly okay with it? “Do all the rooms have small beds?” he teases.

  I’m too busy restraining myself from running my hands through his hair to reply. His heat burns through me everywhere we touch, while peppermint and pine envelop me. Giving into the urge, I thread my fingers through the silky strands as Athos walks to the bathroom where he deposits me on the sink. He doesn’t move away, yet his face falls, and for a moment regret flashes behind his eyes.

  “You can’t tell us no and then sleep with us in the same bed, plan dates, and touch us without caution. That isn’t how this works, Sabina. It’s all or nothing. Either you accept us, or you don’t. You don’t get a choice for in between.” Though his voice remains calm, my heart stutters and stops at his words, then rolls into a pounding rhythm that spirals me out of control.

  “I—” Have nothing to say to that because he’s right. I can’t gloss it over with humor. I can’t act as though he’s mine, or any of the others, not when I told them no. Not when I told them I didn’t accept them nor the bond that marks me as theirs. “I had a nightmare.”

  His palms slide to my thighs and down to my feet as though he just can’t help himself. The feel of his touch on my body sends heat surging through me. Yet as he untangles himself from my body and steps back, my heart falls into my stomach.

  “I suggest figuring out how to deal with that.” He turns to leave, his frosty demeanor chilling me with an arctic blast.

  “You know that goes both ways, Athos.” I hop off the sink, swallowing my anger, knowing he’s only lashing out at me because of my denial. “You can’t touch me as though I’m yours and walk away.”

  “Shower and get dressed, Sabina. Today you learn what it means to be a wolf. Today you learn why that bond holds the significance that it does.”

  “That’s not why I’m here.” I cross my arms, my annoyance winding through me, even as my body burns to run to him. “What the hell is wrong with me?” I rub at the burn scratching deep beneath my skin, stealing my logic.

  “It’s the mating call.” He steps forward, his hands reaching out to embrace my shoulders. The instant his body touches mine, the burn eases and the itch settles.

  A sigh of relief slips past my lips. “Athos, I didn’t ask for this.”

  “That’s why I’m being patient and not claiming you, why my order stays the hands of the others. No one will claim you until this is what you want, Sabina. Until this is what you yearn for.” He sounds so sure of himself that this is what I’ll want.

  But I can’t. I step out of his reach. He’s right. We can’t act like we are lovers when we are hardly friends. Even though the need to touch him has my muscles tightening, I cannot.

  “Why?” His voice turns hard with the desire to understand. His eyes pleading.

  I open and close my mouth like a damn fish. But what am I going to tell him? That I’m cursed? I can’t, so all I do is shake my head.

  His jaw clenches as he steps out of the bathroom, locking the door as he goes, leaving me standing in the cool room. Swallowing thickly, I turn the water on, craving the heat that these wolves bring and knowing this is the only way I can obtain it.

  I strip down quickly and step under the spray, allowing it to wash away his touch, leaving my skin red from the scalding water.

  Only days ago, I wondered if curses were real. Now, I know that men can turn into wolves. Calling themselves lycans. I may not know if any other creature of lore is real, if magic exists, or if unicorns fly through rainbows and shit skittles.

  But something inside of me burns like acid, telling me that this curse is real. Until I understand that, I can’t allow myself to touch the men who need to claim me as theirs. I can only befriend them. Which means no movies, no sleeping in the same bed, and no taking comfort from their touch, their words. I can’t allow myself to fall for them.

  As I wash my hair, rubbing the silky strands, my chest aches. Can we ignore this call of fate? Dismiss it? Athos isn’t wrong about my need to know more about their world.

  Though I wasn’t wrong either. I came here for a reason, and I’ve neglected that reason. Dad’s ashes still sit under the seat in the truck, lying there like a forgotten kid’s toy. Guilt creeps up my spine, taunting me as my mind splinters between two words.

  Just like Dad, living as one but in another. I need to know why he was here, and the guys have yet to be forthcoming about that. Perhaps when we go out today, I can figure that out.

  The notion that I hardly knew my dad at all tries to reach in and grasp me with claws. I brush it away, even if the truth of that sounds like a gong inside of me.

  Shutting off the water, I climb out of the shower and grab a towel to wrap around my body. I don’t know if I feel any better, only cleaner. I no longer feel the press of Athos’s fingertips upon my thighs, or Liam’s and Christian’s arms across my body. Yet I ache for it.

  I snuff out that need. I don’t know their world, and so far, all I’ve seen is blood and gore and death. None of which grants me the motivation to want to learn more. Yet Dad was a part of it.

  I step into my room, the temperature
warm from the skylight, and crouch before my suitcase. I idly wonder if I should even bother filling the drawers, or if I should just keep my clothing in the suitcase. If I put them away, it gives a finality to staying here, even if I can’t part with leaving for good.

  I slip on jeans and a light shirt, keeping my underwear on the granny side of things to remind me that we are just platonic. No sex here. Nothing screams undesirable like silky panties that engulf the entirety of my ass.

  I jump up and down a few times, hyping myself up to leave the room, then stretch from side to side. I want to learn how to lift weights, get strong, and fight off a wolf if need be because I’m a damsel. I wrinkle my nose at that.

  I am a warrior woman. Xena is my middle name. I am a fierce human that no wolf would dare face. My snark and wit bring creatures of the moon to their knees.

  I bounce a few more times, my affirmations lifting my spirits back to the level they should be at. Bounding through the door and down the steps, my mood stays in place until I see all the guys settled around the living room. It flickers for a moment before I pause and stand on the steps, my chin high and regal like the queen I freaking am. A unicorn amongst wolves.

  “Wolves, I have an announcement.” My hand slides to the banister as I roll my shoulders back.

  “This should be good.” I don’t spare Christian too long a look. Not while he’s shirtless with his hair a mess and he’s sipping coffee. I should be thinking about how I can tip the cup onto his crotch, not about how damn delicious he looks with bed head.

  Focus, Bean.

  I cough into my hand, feigning disinterest at how amazing they all look. Liam, still in a pair of sweatpants, leans against the bar top, while Nix, who sits at the table, assesses me with his dark eyes, his head tilted as his full lips fail to hide his amusement.

  “Athos has informed me that until I thoroughly understand my circumstances, there will be no canoodling. Therefore, I am issuing a no touching policy.” I roll my hand. “That is all. Bring me breakfast.” I eye the counter, looking for doughnuts. There aren’t any.