Act of Surrender

by Mandy M. Roth

  “I do, but you shouldn’t know the details. You’d be in even more danger,” he answered, his back still to her, his voice deep.

  “More than people already wanting me dead? How much more dead could I get?” she asked with a snort.

  When he faced her, his green eyes were red again and his shoulders and neck seemed bigger than before. “They’d stop wanting to kill you and start wanting to capture you. And trust me,” he said, lowering his head, his words slurring a bit as if he was having trouble speaking clearly. “You do not want to be captured.”

  Her gaze went to his leg. Was that what had happened to him? Had he been held prisoner by these madmen? Rage trickled over her and she sat up straight, her feet dangling.

  “Tell me who hurt you,” she insisted.

  Hagen’s jaw worked back and forth. It was then she realized his wolf thing was impeding with his speech. Her anger faded fast, replaced with concern for him. She put a hand out, waiting, knowing he’d come to her. He did. She touched his furry arm. “My date with a werewolf has been something indeed.”

  Laney watched as the hair on his arms receded, disappearing as if it was never there. She let out a low whistle. “Coolest thing ever! If I throw a ball, will your instincts tell you to chase it?”

  Hagen’s neck and shoulders returned to regular, but still large, size and a slow smile crept over his handsome face. “No. But don’t throw a stick or I won’t be able to help myself.”

  Her eyes widened. Was he serious? “Really?”

  He laughed. “No.”

  She pushed lightly on him. “Jerk.”

  He caught her hand and kissed the back of it. “Laney, tell me more about yourself. Tell me what you don’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m good with computers and anything tech related,” she said.

  He gave her an even look. “That I know. Tell me something I don’t.”

  “Hagen, I’m not just good. I’m freakishly good. Like, I can work them and do things with them others can’t. Sometimes, I’m faster than the computer at processing the information I’m taking in.”

  He nodded and she kept going.

  “And Casey tells me I’m strong. Stronger than I should be for a girl, I guess.”

  “Not for a girl,” answered Hagen. “For a human.”

  “Oh.” She thought more on it all. “And at times I just get strange vibes from people and then I sometimes say things that don’t make a ton of sense to me. Harmony jokes that I have a sixth sense.”

  “She might not be wrong.” he said. “Anything else?”

  She shook her head. “No. That is it. Am I a freak? From what I could uncover about my birth mother, she was experimented on when she was pregnant with me. I couldn’t find out much beyond that—well, and that she was part of some Asia Project. I haven’t been able to find out more on it. I was digging for information and that was when I came across some files that suggested the government had knowledge about supernaturals but was hiding it from the public.”

  “And let me guess, that led you straight to the Corporation,” he said.

  She nodded. “Sort of. I had a little help with being pointed at them. They’d been on my radar for nearly a year, and then two weeks ago one of their facilities in France had a series of explosions. Their cover story didn’t add up.”

  “No. It didn’t. I was there. It wasn’t pretty,” he said.

  She looked to his leg. “My gut is telling me you were hurt and it has something to do with them.”

  He huffed. “Your gut is not wrong. But I don’t want to talk about my time being held there.”

  She flinched. He’d been held there? She’d read what they did to their captives. As she touched Hagen more, a sinking feeling came over her. “Test Subject 87P?”

  The veins in his thick neck worked and tension rolled off him. “Yes.”

  She cupped her mouth. “Oh, Hagen.”

  He lifted his head, the red gone from his eyes. “I don’t want you to pity me.”

  “Pity you?”

  Was the guy for real?

  “What they did was horrible. They’re monsters. All I want to do is wrap my entire body around you and hold you, just to show you what love is.”

  Love?

  Why had she brought that up?

  She didn’t throw the L word around with reckless abandon. She kept it closely guarded, as she’d never trusted anyone enough to set it free.

  While she was lost in thought, Hagen touched her lower lip with his thumb. The action was oddly erotic and she couldn’t help but ease a little closer to the edge of the washing machine in order to close the gap between them.

  He bent his head and moved his thumb, his lips pressing to hers. The kiss was chaste, unlike their others, but it still packed a wallop.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She took hold of his shirt, keeping him close. He cupped her face, his lips returning to hers. This time, the kiss was anything but PG-rated. Laney’s legs wrapped around his waist as if they had a mind of their own. Apparently, they were in league with her girly bits and on a mission to get her V-card punched.

  His kiss increased and Laney found herself untucking his shirt and pulling it up, her fingers finding his undershirt. There was simply too much material between the two of them. With a groan, she pulled up hard on his undershirt, their lips still together, their tongues darting and weaving from one another’s mouths.

  The minute Laney’s fingertips brushed over Hagen’s hot, hard abdomen, her hormones rocked into outer space. She sucked on his lower lip, and then Hagen’s hands were suddenly seemed to be everywhere at once and she loved it.

  Loved him touching her.

  He tugged lightly on her black, fitted top, lifting it at a snail’s pace, as if giving her ample time to change her mind. She broke the kiss and took his hands in hers, lifting them and placing his hands under her shirt on her bare skin.

  Chapter Thirteen

  James traced circles over Laney’s sides, her skin feeling soft and smooth under his fingers. It took all his control to continue to restrain himself. He wanted to lift her off the washer, wrap her legs around his waist and drive home, ramming his cock deep inside her. His fingers made their way into her hair and he tugged lightly on her ponytail, forcing her head back more, wanting to devour her.

  Slow down.

  His body didn’t want to slow down or listen to his head. He inched her shirt up more, his fingers skimming the undersides of her bra. Need took hold of him and he fought to think clearly. He needed her. Nothing else mattered. He wanted to feel her body from the inside. He wanted to taste her flesh, sink his shifted teeth into her neck and bite while he pumped in and out of her.

  Claim her!

  His inner beast shouted at him and James’s mind was such a mess of emotions and sexual lust that he couldn’t fully grasp why his wolf was yelling such a thing at him.

  If you do this and can’t control yourself, you could kill her.

  That did it. That cooled his sexual appetite. With slow, stiff movements, James jerked away from her. Her taste on his lips and the remembered feel of her torso and being so close to touching her breasts was burned into his brain.

  Laney stared up at him, bewilderment upon her face. “Hagen?”

  He opened his mouth to comment but stopped when every built-in alarm he had began to go off, firing incoming details at him with a frenzy. Something was wrong. Something was close.

  More than one something.

  The hybrids!

  With one arm, James grabbed Laney from the top of the washer and spun with her, just as the laundry room door was kicked inward, sending pieces of the wood splintering in all directions—including into James’s upper back. Ignoring the pain, he kept moving with her, putting her in the opposite corner before setting her on her feet and spinning fast, his claws coming out with lightning-fast speed. He knew what he must look to Laney with his upper body partially shifted. He couldn’t worry about that now. He needed to handle wh
at had sought them out.

  A vampire-wolf hybrid.

  He wasn’t sure if it had started out life as either of the two, but whatever the Corporation had done had left them a mix of both, and they were nasty cusses.

  The creature stood there, in even less human form than James, snarling, spittle running down its chin. It stared wild-eyed past him at Laney and James knew then that it had her scent, that it was tracking her and couldn’t give a shit about him.

  Well, it had another think coming.

  “What the ever-loving-crack-smoking-butt-ugly kind of creature is that?” asked Laney, her voice high, her fear riding the air.

  My woman has a gift for words.

  He stayed facing the hybrid, smart enough to avoid taking his eyes off it. James soaked in the way it moved, his own wolf reading the other, sizing him up. When the hybrid lunged for Laney, James was already there, reacting, impeding its ability to get her. He slammed the hybrid backwards into a clothes dryer. The sound of metal crunching under the weight of the supernatural was near deafening.

  James didn’t pause or let up in his counter-assault. He grabbed for the hybrid, remembering all too well what it had been like to be ambushed by similar ones and then subjected to tortures by them as they did their masters’ bidding.

  The temper he’d fought so long and hard to learn to control surged to the surface. It took the lead.

  Not the wolf.

  Not James.

  Just pure hatred.

  His vision blurred for a moment, filling with red before everything became clear—crystal clear. Ripping the man up, James snarled as he twisted his hand, snapping the man’s neck with ease. He sensed another hybrid coming and used the body of the first as a weapon, turning and then launching the weight of the limp man at the newcomer.

  The broken neck may or may not have killed the first hybrid. Being immortal meant one could bounce back from a lot, and he’d seen several hybrids return from what would have killed a normal supernatural. James wasn’t sure if this one would heal his injuries rapidly and rise again, but with the amount of adrenaline and rage consuming James, he didn’t care. He would annihilate them all. It didn’t matter how many times they came back for more.

  The second hybrid pushed to his feet, his fangs flashing and claws swiping at the air. James moved with such speed that it felt as if his opponent had started to move in slow motion. The doctor side of him knew why it was happening—the Corporation had amped him up, making him more of everything he’d already been. He doubted very much that they ever thought those very traits would be turned against them. They were arrogant enough to believe themselves untouchable. Feeling as if he had all the time in the world, James reached up and snatched hold of the hybrid’s wrist. He yanked hard.

  Very hard.

  Too hard.

  James struggled to come out of the red haze as he realized he held an arm in his hand but no body was attached to it. The anger, the rage, the hate kept control and James twisted, his gaze landing on Laney.

  I’m a fucking monster.

  Shock coated her face. She had the back of her hand to her mouth, her skin even paler than normal as she stared at the arm he was holding.

  James managed to get enough common sense through his wolf and his rage that he dropped the arm. It landed with a splat in a puddle of blood that was pooling and spreading in Laney’s direction.

  James reached for her and she screamed, pressing herself against a washing machine. “You ripped his limb off.”

  He grimaced. There was nothing he could say. Yes, he’d done it. Yes, she’d witnessed the entire act. All he could do now was get her to safety. The hybrids traveled in groups, and these two wouldn’t be alone.

  “Laney.”

  “Holy crapola,” she whispered, her attention on the floor as she practically crawled onto the washer to keep the blood from getting all over her. “You just pulled it off like it was a wing on a fly.”

  James clenched his fists, his claws digging into the palms of his hands, reminding him of their differences. He was an animal. She was not.

  She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, her gaze wild and focused beyond him. On the door.

  Behind you!

  James tipped his head, feeling as if she’d screamed directly into it. How had Laney done that? How had she projected her voice into his mind?

  He didn’t have time to figure it all out. Something massive slammed into him from behind. James threw his arms out, breaking its hold, and then spun, charging the mostly shifted hybrid. Going low, James put his shoulder into it, ramming directly into the hybrid’s midriff, knocking him backwards. With the momentum James was carrying, he went too, right out the laundry room door and into the hallway where he was yanked to the right by yet another hybrid.

  They were everywhere.

  James ducked and came up, striking one in the nose, sending bone fragments into the hybrid’s brain. It fell backwards into the wall and the other behind it tripped, falling at James in a way that James simply grabbed its head and snapped its neck as well.

  He turned, claws erect, and took out the throat of another. He was about to bite the shoulder of one more when Laney’s screams rent the air, pulling his attention in her direction and off the men trying to kill him to get to her. The red around James’s gaze thickened as he saw Laney being carried out of the building by a hybrid.

  His woman kicked and thrashed to no avail. James shut off and it was he who reached for the wolf instead of the other way around.

  Come. Be free. Protect her!

  The wolf obeyed and James surrendered himself to it, understanding there was a chance he’d never gain control or shift back to human again. She was worth the risk.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Laney dug her fingernails into whatever the hell the thing was that was carrying her like a sack of potatoes. She bounced around, nausea rising. The thing holding her was built like a tank. A hairy, smelly tank with pasty grayish-blue skin showing through its patches of fur. She slapped at it more, wiggling, twisting, and finally gaining some room to move. She turned as much as she could and went for the eyes, like Casey had taught her to do when all else failed.

  She scored a direct hit. Her thumbs poked into the creature’s eyes and Laney had to fight to keep from being sick as there were two rather loud popping sounds right before the creature dropped her and grabbed its face, blood running down its cheeks.

  Laney hit the ground hard, her side taking the brunt of the fall, and it knocked the wind out of her for a moment. When she got her bearings, she turned to see more of those things pouring out of the building she’d just been in. The building Hagen was still in.

  “Hagen!” she screamed, pushing to her feet, planning to charge in and do whatever she could in an attempt to save the day. Something caught her by the arm and she turned fast, delivering a wicked kick to the man’s kilt-covered groin.

  “Och!” the man yelled, bending forward, releasing her arm.

  Kilt-covered?

  Why the hell was a bad guy in a kilt?

  She looked again. And why was he wearing a black t-shirt that said Have Stake Will Use It? Over it he had on a gun holster, the shoulder kind, and two pretty big weapons. It took her a minute to pull her gaze from the guns as she wondered why he hadn’t just shot her. The others had tried.

  Stop waiting around for it.

  This certainly was not how she imagined paranormals to be when she’d been on her quest to unlock the truth of them. Whatever he had on, he wasn’t going to touch her. She made a move to kick him again when a different man leapt in front of the one in the kilt and put his arms up. The newcomer’s black shirt said Got Sparkle. And this guy looked completely different from the kilt-wearing redhead with the thick beard. He also had multiple weapons covering his body.

  “Whoa, we come in peace there, little punk rock girl,” he said, hands still out like that was going to somehow make him magikally less threatening. Not after what she’d seen since fi
nally coming out of her computer cave.

  I’m never leaving my hacking haven again.

  Ever.

  She eyed the man who was decked out in black leather and enough piercings to possibly make a silver vase should he ever have them melted down and repurposed. His hair looked almost blue-black in the dim glow from the security lighting of the other building. He had enough eyeliner on to make Laney and her normal heavy-makeup-wearing ways seem bland. His violet gaze held no malice. His features were strange, yet oddly stunning. What’s more, they were familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on them. When it hit her, she pursed her lips. Feline. He somehow managed to remind her of a cat.

  “Seriously? You, of all the people here, are calling me punk?” asked Laney.

  The man shrugged. “Got your attention off trying to kill Striker.”

  Striker?

  She’d heard Hagen mention the name. She kept her attention on Violet-Eyes. “Are you Boomer?”

  “I am,” he said. “Where is James?”

  Laney turned to point at the building’s back entrance and found it bursting open. One of the foul-smelling, nasty creatures that had grabbed her was there, on its back in the alley, sliding to a stop while the biggest friggin’ wolf she’d ever seen rode the thing’s body like a surfboard.

  She blinked, sure she’d lost her mind.

  Nope. There was still a huge wolf on a stinky monster.

  Never, ever, ever leaving my computer cave again.

  Boomer pulled Laney back more and then gasped. “What the fuck?”

  Striker, who was still nursing his groin, looked up, his eyes widening. “Do my eyes deceive me or is that James?”

  “On spinach!” yelled Boomer. “His wolf is huge. What the hell did they do to him?”

  “Gave him a hell of a vitamin regimen, apparently,” the Scot said.

  Laney said nothing as the wolf they were claiming was Hagen, though she had no actual proof since she’d never seen the guy fully shift into anything yet, bit down, removing the creature’s neck.

  “Eww,” she said, wrinkling up her face at the sight of it all. Strangely enough, she was less freaked out by the fact he’d killed the creature than by the knowledge that nasty creature’s flesh and blood were in Hagen’s mouth. A mouth she’d only just been kissing moments before. A mouth she thought she wanted to kiss again, but not with creature bits in it.