Surrender (The Tribe MC: Chase of Prey Book 2)

by West, Heather

  The first woman stepped forward. Her arms spun above her head and her fingers came together in a move that dancers worldwide would have envied if they had seen it. Rain began to fall, splattering on the flames and making them hiss and sputter. With one finger the woman caused the rain to change directions, drifting along the crowd and forming gentle misting curtains that left the children laughing and some of the adults clapping their hands.

  The Elders nodded curtly and she stepped away. Next was a woman capable of mesmerization, and then a woman who could look into the hearts of the people standing around her and tell them what they were thinking.

  Cara watched all of them, and with each woman that stepped forward, her heart leaped with hope in her chest.

  She had a choice. She could pretend to be far less powerful than she was; she could let her spells fizzle and become muddled and confused. That would be the only thing that would keep her from winning the crown this night.

  But to do that would be to shame her family. It would be allowing her people to come to harm. She was needed, and despite her frenzied desire to be anyone else at all, this was who and what she was.

  She was last in line. She stepped forward and looked at the Elders, then over at the small copse of trees that sat just to her right. There were RVs parked around and behind it, but other than that, they were the same trees she’d seen in her vision. It was there that she had spotted a Wolf in her dreams, but Sebastian did not stand there now.

  Cara gathered all the power she had and flung her arms wide. A glowing column of solid blue–white light shot up from her chest. She wasn’t sure what she intended to do; she knew she was angry, and that she wanted to Sebastian to be where she had thought he would be, but he wasn’t. That light arced, turned in on itself and shot down toward the earth. It hit the trees and incinerated them. There were no flames; there was no burst of light or even the scent of crisped leaves. The trees were simply gone.

  Cara was as stunned as the onlookers. A small child began to cry and its mother rushed to pick it up. There was fear on every face and Cara knew that even here, even among her family, she was an oddity. They would follow her, but they would always be afraid of her.

  Tears soaked her cheeks and she looked over at the little boy crying in his mother’s arms. “Chava, bolde tut, kako,” she told him. The phrase meant “child, please turn away.” His mother gripped him tighter and turned her back.

  Cara looked around and saw that many others were also turning their backs. They had to: they were terrified. She didn’t blame them. Cara’s eyes closed and she took a long breath. Her feet left the ground and she was soon rising high above the caravans and the people gathered. She was soaring only for a moment; she didn’t know how to control it and she began to fall back towards the ground.

  Terror gripped her and a scream burst from her lips. One hand flashed out and a long spell came from her mouth. Her feet stopped just inches from the ground and she hung there, suspended and shocked. The Elders were all standing, and Cara knew there was no need for discussion. She’d be the one thing she never wanted to be — Queen of the Tribe.

  She sagged and her feet touched the concrete again. She went to her knees on that rough surface, not caring that it would tear her skirt and the flesh below. Every part of her cried out against this; every part of her wished that it wasn’t so.

  It was Darlo who came forward. He stood before her and said, “Do not kneel before us. We shall kneel before you.” Cara swallowed back her tears and lifted her chin in what she hoped looked like a proud gesture.

  She was lifted to her feet and the Elders, including her father, gathered around her. Darlo began to draw the runes and she could feel the power gathering below them. The magic was not his to give or command — it was her own — but this, these runes, were a gift from the entire Tribe. They would be her wards and her crown.

  And then she saw him: Sebastian. He stood within the perimeter of the caravan’s circle. He’d somehow managed to walk across the broken glass, through the fire and spells. He’d managed to find them despite everything they had done to cloak themselves!

  Her heart raced and she stared at him, her mouth parted and her eyes shining with tears and hope. He was here, and she’d had this vision. Could she have both? Was it possible?

  Suddenly, screams filled the night. A small child shrieked as a heavy black–furred creature leapt down from the top of one of the motor homes, its fangs bared and foam pouring down its muzzle. The child’s mother grabbed a burning stick from the fire and thrust of the flame into the rogue’s face. It squealed in anger.

  Ion suddenly appeared, running through the small gaps between the motor homes, followed by a group of young Tribe members both male and female. They wore heavy guns on long leather straps and they began to fire into the crowd.

  Cara stared around in horror. The rogues were attacking and Tribe members were falling. Gunfire was sounding out, bullets striking the concrete and bouncing back up, stopping as they hit flesh. The rat–a–tat sound made her want to clap her hands over her ears, but the shrieks of fear and pain were far worse.

  She saw Sebastian running out her and she stood frozen, not knowing what she should do. The Tribe was being attacked, and not just by rogues, but by members of their own family.

  Darlo let out a low and restless scream. He pointed, his finger shaking as he cried, “It is her son! It is the son of the cursed Queen!”

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  CHAPTER 1

  The cursed Queen? What was Darlo talking about? Confused and still woozy from the music and the potent drab that had been added to the wine, Cara stood frozen, watching the rogues attack the Tribe’s magic circle.

  Horror and shock was gone, and anger was brewing inside Cara. Sebastian was leaping into the fray, his blond hair shimmering in the firelight and the silver on his arms and neck glittering as he fought a rogue that had tried to snatch a small Tribe child.

  Did Darlo mean Sebastian? What Queen was he referring to? Was it her? No, that was not possible: she had no children. She shook those thoughts away as more rogues poured into the circle. Behind the rogues came the Wolves, and it was obvious that Sebastian had led the wolves there because he had known this would happen.

  The Wolves fought the rogues. The sound of motorcycle engines had been replaced by the screams of the dying and the howls of Wolves and rogues alike. The moon, a mere sickle in the sky, barely illuminated the grisly scene unfolding all around them.

  Cara glimpsed Darlo being tackled by a rogue. Cara cast a spell, hoping to save the Elder’s life, but it was too late. The rogue tossed him like a ragdoll, spilling his blood into the bonfire that she danced around just moments before.

  Not thinking, and not wanting to think, Cara simply reacted. She held her hands up and allowed magic light to flash from her palms. A rogue went down, its fur ripping open to reveal the human within before bone and meat exploded into flames that rapidly became ash.

  Sebastian was in trouble. Several rogues had banded together to attack him. Cara ran toward him, casting a spell as quickly as she could. Fire erupted from the earth, catching one of the rogues in its grip. The rogue howled as its paws ignited; the attack only slowed it down for a moment, but Sebastian took advantage of that moment. He thrust a huge silver blade into the rogue’s lower belly, slitting it neatly.

  The rogue toppled onto its side, blood and gore staining the earth and Sebastian’s hands with its stinking, iron-rich slickness.

  Cara drew even closer to Sebastian. There was a woman fighting next to him; Cara didn’t know who she was, but it was obvious that she loved him, and that she was protecting him. Despite herself, Cara felt jealous, and her emotion lent power to her next spell. The massive rogue that Sebastian had just killed lost its head to the long silver sword that appeared in her hand. Cara had no idea how she’d managed to make that happen, or where the sword had gone after it struck tha
t fatal blow. All she knew was that one moment she was looking at a rogue’s body, and the next she was looking at a man’s.

  The woman fighting with Sebastian let out a strangled cry of grief and stepped forward. She reached her hands out to touch the dead man on the ground. Sebastian yanked her back just as the body ignited and began to turn to ash.

  “Father,” Moira wept.

  Sebastian looked stricken but determined. Cara knew then that this woman was his sister, and the man on the ground had been their father. Pity filled her, but she could not allow that to distract her. Tribe were dying everywhere at the hands of the rogues; she had to save her people.

  All around them there was chaos. The sound of motorcycles had begun again, and Cara could see the hardcase members of the Tribe — Sammy, Tick, Dog and the others — riding those huge chrome beasts into the fray.

  The fire was scattered, children were hustled into the nearest RVs and doors were locked. The strongest of the Tribe stood outside guarding them, doing their best to cook up spells that would keep the rogues reaching their children.

  It seemed to be working. Cara saw one rogue slam into a wall of blue power and yelp as it was hurled backwards by the magic. One of the Elders was firing a gun, an old-fashioned musket; inside the musket balls were sharp nails and silver. As soon as a ball hit a rogue’s flesh, it exploded, sending hundreds of nails throughout its body, ensuring its death.

  After that Cara did not have time to notice anything else. She found herself face-to-face with a rogue that seemed vaguely familiar. It stopped her, its lips raised back from its dripping fangs and foaming muzzle. Its eyes glowed with a feral and unholy light. It nipped at her, almost taking one of her ankles in its mouth.

  The silver sword was back in her hand. She was stunned by its appearance and its weight. How was this happening? It was coming, unbidden, from thin air!

  She brought the sword up, but she was clumsy with it. The rogue bared its teeth again, this time lifting its lips so high that she could see the gray–black and pink mottling its gums.

  Several more clumsy thrusts and parries with the sword left her arms aching. She was out of breath and becoming frightened. The roar of motorcycles had not abated — the hardcase guys who rode with the Tribe and others, perhaps human members of the Fallen’s gang, were slashing in and out of the battle.

  The fire had spread and split off. Several people were trapped behind walls of fire, but they weren’t trying to get past it — it protected them from the rogues. The fire illuminated the eyes of Cara’s opponent rogue as it drew closer, a low rumbling growl issuing from its throat. Cara shuddered, but held her ground.

  The rogue leaped at her with a ferocious speed. It was sheer instinct that sent her spinning, the sword whirling over her head. Blood rained down and the rogue fell to the ground, whimpering in agony as it landed on its back. Unphased, she lifted the sword again, and dispatched its head neatly.

  Her lungs were squeezed dry when a heavy weight landed on her back; Cara was thrown forward into the dirt and grass. Her bare knees stung as the flesh was peeled away by small rocks and tough stringy grass. Pain lanced through her, making her cry out. She managed to flip over onto her back, and when she looked up, what she saw astounded her. Ion was on top of her, his profile outlined by the scant moonlight.

  Like the rogues, his lips were pulled back and his teeth were showing. Despite his human face, he looked like an animal. And she hated him in that moment.

  “Get off me!” She twisted and fought, her fist coming up to pound against his chest and shoulders. The sword was gone; she would have loved to have known how she was getting it in her hand and where was going, but it seemed that right then was not the time to go seeking out that answer. “I said, get the hell off me, Ion!”

  “Shut up! I’m taking what’s mine! The rogues have given me permission to keep you even though they know you could destroy them. Since you haven’t yet been declared Queen, they aren’t very worried about you just yet.” Ion held her wrists down. “Since you’re never going to mate with that Wolf again and any child you bear will be mine, they have no reason to fear your child either.”

  Fear her child? What did that mean? She shoved him harder, her fingers pressing against his flesh so strongly that one of her fingernails snapped off at the quick. Tears stood up in her eyes but she fought them back, refusing to let him see her cry. “How dare you? Get the fuck off me!”

  “You belong to me!”

  “The hell I do!”

  “Yes, you do. Did you think I waited around for you all these years to see you run off with some bastard Wolf?”

  She never had time to answer that. A rogue plucked Ion off of her body neatly, lifted him high in the air and broke his back with a sharp cracking sound that Cara knew she would never forget. The sound of the bones breaking was like thunder in her ears.

  “Never trust a rogue,” Cara said as she shot to her feet. The sword was nowhere to be found but there was dirt in her fists and she threw it, temporarily blinding the rogue. It dropped Ion to the ground where he lay screaming in agony. Cara tossed a spell at the rogue, but she was tired or weakening, because it only glowed a faint pale blue then flickered out.

  Sebastian came running in, his knife at the ready and his silver knuckles flashing. He jumped on the rogue’s back, pummeling it with his silver. He slashed and cut as well, his knife leaving wounds that healed almost immediately. Cara had never seen a rogue heal so quickly. Rogues didn’t have the same healing abilities that werewolves did, or at least they shouldn’t. Rogues gave up everything, including their mutant healing abilities and their immortality to live as wild animals, to hunt and to eat human flesh.

  Or maybe that wasn’t true anymore either. The whole world had been turned upside down; the Covenant had been smashed and broken; the truce was gone and these were the consequences.

  But perhaps the consequences weren’t as bad as the Tribe ancestors had once imagined they would be. Here they were: the Fallen and the Tribe working together to rid the world of rogues.

  Ion’s looked up at her. His face contorted with anguish; he was paralyzed from the neck down. “Kill me,” he whispered.

  She wanted to, but she couldn’t. “You can still live, Ion.”

  “No. I let them bite me. I let them drink my blood because I thought it made us brothers. They lie, Cara.”

  Of course they did. Had he expected anything else? Cara did Ion the favor he asked: she drove the sword deep within his body then she staggered back in disgust, her cries ringing out into the dark. She was repulsed and angry at the man dead on the ground before her, and the rogues who had turned him into a traitor.

  The rogues began to leave the battlefield. Several of the bikers chased them past the circle. Gunfire sounded out and howls — both human and inhuman — rose high into the air. The sound of the motorcycles was comforting and familiar.

  Cara found herself with her back pressed against Sebastian’s as they battled two rogues who were circling them. Sebastian’s went down first and then he spun around and helped her dispatch the one attempting to kill her. All around them the dying sobbed and cried out. Even those who were not wounded wept and screamed as they found their loved ones bloodied, bitten and savaged.

  The battle was over. But the war had only begun.

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