Surrender (The Tribe MC: Chase of Prey Book 2) (7 page)

He remembered a story that Cara had told him when they first met. She said that the Tribe had given the Wolves back their human shapes out of kindness, but that’s not the way he’d heard it. He’d always been taught that it was the Tribe who lowered the curse in the first place, who had created the first rogues.

Now was not the time to sort that out.

“The next guy that pulls down his pants and shows me his ass cheek is getting a kick in that cheek,” he said.

Sammy glared at him. “I guess you Fallen ain’t got no scars. Given that you guys ride like sissies.”

Sebastian cocked an eyebrow at him. “We could outrun you anytime, you old geezer.”

“Why don’t you try it, sonny?”

Nico interrupted. “Now is not the time to start banging each other’s club colors! If you’ve got beef, clear it up later. Right now, we’ve got to sort some shit out, because it sounds like we have mutual enemies here.”

Cara let out a long breath of relief. Her eyes went back to Sebastian and her heart gave a familiar squeeze. He had said he would protect her, and she believed him. But was his desire to protect her the same as caring about her?

She wished that she knew the answer; she wished he would tell her, but she knew that right now, here in this room full of hardcases and true Tribe members, was not the appropriate time or place to figure that out.

“Sebastian, you’re coming with us,” Nico decided. “It seems like the best solution. If you really want to protect my daughter, now’s your chance. You make one false move and I’ll fill you so full of silver, you’ll never be able to open a single eye ever again, do you understand?”

Dog added, “I’ve known that girl since she was a little thing. If you make one wrong move on her, I’ll run you down.”

Cara closed her eyes in exasperation. When she snapped them back open again, it was to see Sebastian looking at the men around him with an amused smile on his face. “I can accept every bit of that,” he said, and that was all.

Chapter 7

Nico was anxious. The entire Tribe was gathered in the living room of the Tribe house, watching the evening news. Sebastian stood near the doorway, his face was creased with worry. The blonde reporter standing in front of a burned-out house was speaking into a microphone with that bland professional horror in her voice that was meant to communicate she was a human and not a robot, although Sebastian often doubted that any reporter was human. He had known one who’d been a vampire, come to think of it.

“As you can see here behind me,” the reporter intoned, one slender hand indicating the burned building behind her, “The war between the two motorcycle gangs known as the Tribe and Fallen has escalated exponentially in the last few days. Police warn that the violence will only grow from here. I have with me today vice detective Mark Johnson.”

The camera cut to show the powerful-looking black-haired man that had come to the Queen’s house earlier that day. The reporter shoved her microphone under the detective’s nose. “Tell us all about the situation please Detective Johnson.”

Detective Johnson cleared his throat and said, “We’ve known for quite some time that we have two rival gangs here in our city. As the violence between the two has escalated, so has the damage to our citizens and to city property.”

“Man, that’s bullshit!” Sammy shouted. “We never burned down that damned building!”

“It would have eventually turned to violence, and you know it,” Sebastian said. “But this is not about drugs or money. This isn’t even about guns or power.”

“Then what the hell is it about?” Sammy said.

On the TV, Detective Johnson droned on and on. Cara stared at him; there was a deadliness in his eyes that she had not seen even in the hardest and most violent of men. Nico had said that a Hunter had a look about them; she shivered, certain that she had just figured out what he meant.

“It’s about who’s going to run the world,” Nico said. Sebastian looked at him, then looked away.

“The Tribe runs the city,” Sammy replied, glaring at Sebastian. “You can take your fucking rabid dog friends and get the hell out of here.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Sebastian said. “Unfortunately, I think that we have members of the Tribe and the Fallen working together to create chaos. And once you get Hunters and cops and the public involved, it makes it a lot easier to take us down.”

“I hate to agree with a Wolf, but I believe he’s right on this one,” Nico said.

Sammy protested. “Oh come on! This dude is what, twenty? What the hell does he know?”

“Actually, I just turned two hundred and four,” Sebastian said.

Darva retorted, “Well, you just blew your chance at Cara. You’re way too old for her.”

Dog began to laugh. “Hey, in the movies them old vampires always go after the young chicks. Haven’t you ever watched Twilight?”

Tick glared at him. “I love that series.”

“I always knew you were a little soft in the head,” Sammy said.

An argument broke out and Cara decided to end it. She clapped her hands together hard and a spray of ice shot upward and hit the ceiling. Everyone in the room, including Sebastian, stared upward at the icicles dangling from the ceiling fans.

“One more word that doesn’t have anything to do with our current situation and those icicles are going to fall. I think they’re pretty sharp.” The threat in her voice was clear.

There was some muttering but it subsided. Cara looked back at the television. The detective had finished speaking; now the reporter had the mic back and she was speaking in that hushed, synthetically sympathetic voice again.

“It’s obvious that these two gangs must be stopped. These lawless men who are attempting to swamp our fair city with drugs and violence must not be allowed to continue on that path.”

“She must not be from around here,” Dog muttered. “Drugs and violence are what New Orleans is all about. It’s part of our heritage, dammit.”

Nico said, “Well, that settles it. We’ve got to figure out who these traitors within our midst are and deal with them. Otherwise, this is just going to get worse.”

“It’s a brilliant plan,” Sebastian said. “While the humans are trying to get rid of what they think are just regular biker gangs, the traitors get to help decimate us from the outside and the inside.”

“Yep,” Sammy said. “They’re thinning the ranks. It’s how they used to get us back in Vietnam too. We’d get these people that said they wanted to help and the next thing you know, they’d planted bombs right in the middle of our tents.”

“How do we know if anyone in this room right now is one of the traitors?” Darva asked.

Nico turned to Cara and said, “Daughter, it’s time for you to start using your powers the way you are intended to. It’s time to start using it to help your people.”

Help people do what? Cara looked at her father and she looked at the floor. She knew that many of the men who rode with the Tribe were good men; despite their past and their willingness to commit crimes, most of them had good souls underneath it all. But that did not excuse the fact that they were criminals. And that was the main problem for her.

“You should know what I want out of my own life. I love you and I want to help my people but I don’t want to be Queen.”

Sebastian’s hand came up and rested on her shoulder. Cara had not known how rigid her muscles were until he touched her and they all relaxed. How could he do that? How could he make her feel like everything would be okay with just a single touch?

“We are only what are fate decrees, Cara,” Nico said. “If I could spare you from this, I would, but I can’t. I prayed for a son; I did simply because I knew what it would it be like for you if you had to take this on. Your mother and I both knew that you would be Queen one day. From the moment you were born your power was so visible, and so strong. It’s only grown. Nobody ever tried to teach you how to use it because nobody knew how. Nobody tried to help you hold it because there’s no way to hold something so natural and so wild. The power more immense than anyone has ever seen. None of us know how to help you.

“That’s my biggest failing as a father, and I hope one day you’ll forgive me. I will completely understand if you don’t. I’m so sorry, but I can’t release you from your destiny. Nobody can do that. You are to be Queen, unless there is one who is more powerful than you. But we all know that there isn’t.”

Tears leaked down Cara’s face. “I don’t want it.”

Nico said, “I know.”

“I don’t even know how to use my power. Like you said nobody ever taught me. I don’t know what I can do, and I don’t how to stop doing what I do. I set Ion on fire, for God’s sake!”

One of the icicles broke from the ceiling fan and hit her right in the middle of her own head. Cara yelped in pain and rubbed the crown of her head. More icicles started to fall, and everybody began to duck and cover. By the time the last of those dangerous little spikes had hit the floor, Cara was sobbing.

Sebastian didn’t even think about it. He went to her and held her in his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder wrapped her arms around him. He’d been going to tell her earlier that she smelled of toasted almonds and sugar. That was her natural smell. He didn’t think he’d ever met a woman who smelled so incredibly good.

He looked over her head and caught sight of her father’s face. Nico was frowning heavily and there was concern and fear written deeply in his expression. Sebastian knew that was more to all of this, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

How many legends had been lost? How much of the past had been hidden and forgotten? People often distorted history for their own purpose. Maybe the Fallen and the Tribe had long since forgotten the truth behind their animosity toward each other.

Cara continued to sob. Her slender body was wracked by her cries and Sebastian’s heart was breaking for her.

Her father said it was her destiny and there was no way to avoid it. Perhaps that was true. Destiny was said to be a wheel that spun continuously and without care for the people caught in its cogs. Nobody had ever called destiny kind.

He understood exactly how she felt. He’d never wanted to hunt rogues. He’d never wanted to kill people that he’d known, loved and cared for. He’d never wanted to be the one who brought death. When his uncle had come to him and bestowed the silver knife upon him, he’d known there was no way to fight it. His uncle had told him that night that killing rogues was his destiny.

Cara broke away from him and ran up the stairs. Her feet pounded on those steps and he stared after her. None of the men in the room spoke. All of them knew that she was not the kind of woman to give in to tears often or easily.

The other women in the house had left earlier to go and meet the families that were trickling in slowly but surely. Nico knew that they were out preparing a site for tonight’s dance.

He looked over at Sebastian. “Don’t just stand there — go up there and see if you can’t quiet her down.”

Sebastian knew that Nico had just given him a blessing. It wasn’t a blessing that would last forever; it couldn’t be. A Wolf and a member of the Tribe could never be together. There were laws and rules, and no matter how or why they’d been set forth, right now, the two were at war, not only with themselves but with the outside world.

But Nico had just given Sebastian his blessing, temporary and fleeting as it was, because he knew that after tonight, whatever there was between his daughter and this Wolf could never be again, and he could not bear to be the one to take it from her before then.

CHAPTER 8

Cara ran into her room and flung herself on the bed, dislodging many of the garments that had been laid out for her inspection. Something on this bed would be what she wore later tonight as she danced in the sacred circle.

Angry and heartbroken, she snatched up a thin, silvery scarf. Small coins dangled from the center of it. She wanted to rip it into shreds, tear it until it was as tattered and torn as she felt. But she could not — it had belonged to her mother.

Clutching the pretty scarf close to her heart, she rolled over onto her belly and sobbed violently. She was only nineteen — why couldn’t anyone see that? She wanted a life that she carved out for herself — not a life that people insisted that destiny had decreed would be hers.

How could that be fair? How could there be just one outcome for someone’s life? If that were so, it would mean that her mother had been destined to die by the teeth and claws of a rogue; she just couldn’t believe that destiny would give anyone that ending.

Nor could she believed that destiny would be so cruel as to force a husband like Nico to have to remove his own wife’s head. Cara knew how much her parents had loved each other, and she knew her father had never taken another mate because none could compare to the love he felt for her mother.

There was a knock on the door and she buried her face in her pillows, trying to wipe the tears away from her cheeks. “Come in,” she said in a muffled voice. It wouldn’t do any good to tell whoever was out there to stay out; they would not listen. She refused to roll over; she just lay there with her face in the wet pillows and her body sinking into the soft feather mattress.

The mattress sagged and then a hand landed gently on her shoulder. Her entire body responded. She knew that touch; she knew that hand. It was Sebastian.

“What do you want?” she said.

“To live the rest of my life with you. I know it sounds a little hasty, all things considered. But I want to say ‘fuck you’ to destiny and do exactly what I want. I want to go to Hawaii. And right now, this second, what I really want is a shrimp po’ boy. I think that about covers it.”

Cara rolled over and looked up at him. His handsome face was so dear to her. “Do you think it’s possible, Sebastian? Do you think we can just say ‘fuck you’ to destiny?”

“No, but I think we can tell it to wait its turn.”

“How do we do that?” Her words were a whisper.

“Like this.” His lips met hers in a soft, slow kiss. Her mouth opened as his tongue ran across her full, soft lips and then traced the outlines of her teeth. His tongue slipped past her teeth and into her mouth, teasing her until she began to meet his kiss with her own.

Their tongues intertwined, danced and caressed. His hands held her face tightly as he lowered himself onto the bed next to her, pulling her body snugly against his. Cara could feel his hardness; it pressed against her lower belly and she ran her hands down his back to the waistband of his tight jeans. Her fingers dipped below that waistband, traced the lean angle of his abs then slid forward so that her fingers were brushing against the thick blonde bush of his pubic hair.

His low gasp told her that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Cara already knew that if he was here, it meant that her father was going to allow whatever happened between them to happen. Maybe he figured that if she could have this one day, then she would go willingly into the circle tonight. She shut those thoughts out, not wanting to think of anything else, not wanting to know of anything else. All she wanted right now was to be here with Sebastian.

His fingers tugged at her pink tank top. She’d never gotten around to changing it after they’d come back from the Queen’s house, and when he lifted it off her head, she could smell a faint tang of sweat in the material. His mouth moved to her neck and his teeth nipped gently at the flesh just below her ear. She shivered all over and her nails bit into his shoulders as she moved his own shirt up his long torso and over his head. Her fingers went back to the waistband of his jeans, dipping below them and then coming back out. She pressed her hips into his, grinding and rubbing against him as their kisses turned more serious and passionate.

His hands bound her breasts and then his head bent to those ripe, firm globes. His tongue streaked across her nipples and made them harden, lifting towards his cunning tongue.

He pressed her back into the mattress and positioned himself over her, his head dipping lower as his fingers went to the buttons on her jeans and began to unfasten them.

Cara’s fingers struggled with his buttons. She somehow managed, amidst some laughter and a lot of kissing, to get his boots off. They made a heavy thumping sound when they hit the floor; she knew that all of the men gathered downstairs would know what that meant, but she didn’t care.

Sebastian didn’t care either. The only thing he cared about was this beautiful and glorious woman that he loved. He shouldn’t love her; it was against every rule and it would probably cause ruination, but he couldn’t help it. She was everything he had ever wanted.

Her lovely translucent skin fairly shone against the sheets. He touched her reverently, gently and deliberately. Each caress was intended to bring her pleasure, and it did. He opened her innermost folds with his fingers, dipped inside her softly and gently stretched her wide so that she would be ready for him.

Cara cried out as sensation rolled through her body. His tender lovemaking was exactly what she needed. He seemed to know every secret desire lurking in her heart. His fingers found the delicate, sensitive area between her anus and swollen channel and pressed into it, causing her legs to spread wider, and then he pulled back.

Cara could feel the air stroking her wetness, could feel her fluids dripping onto the sheets below her as he gave her a kiss so intimate that it made her toes curl and her back arch. Her fingers clutched at his hair; her hips rose and fell faster and faster as his tongue and fingers stroked her inner folds and the tight hard nub that lay above. Cara muffled her cries and deliberately bit one of her pillows to keep her cry from her sounding out and spilling into the hallway. Her thighs clenched and her toes curled. Her fingernails left tingling scratches on Sebastian’s scalp as he took her to the edge and over it.

He wasn’t done yet, though. He positioned himself between her open legs and took himself in hand, guiding his stiff shaft to her still-pulsing opening.

He entered her gently and then slid along her walls, moving further and further into her until he was completely encased by her tight sheath.

He looked down at her. Her black hair was spread across the pillows and her pale skin was mottled with slight red patches from her orgasm. “I love you, Cara. No matter what happens, I want you to remember that.”

“I love you too, Sebastian.” It was the truth.

He withdrew only to plunge deeply inside her once more. Soon they were creating a rhythm with their bodies, their hearts aching as they sought to fulfill each other’s desires in the only way that they had left. They both knew that by the end of this night everything would change, and that they may not ever be able to see each other like this again.

Cara’s tears ran down her face. Sebastian tasted them as he kissed her fully and furiously. Her fingers were on his back now, her nails leaving little scratches that healed almost as soon as she left them behind. When this was over he wouldn’t even have the slight scratch marks on his back to remind himself of this moment. For some reason that loss — as small as it should have been — broke his heart utterly and completely.

With the final thrust, they came together. They collapsed, exhausted and limp but still wanting more.

Sebastian turned her over gently, staying inside of her because he could not bear to leave her — not yet. His arms wrapped around her and he pulled her head to his chest. His chin rested atop of her silky tresses and his fingers rubbed the small delicate bones along the column of her spine.

Cara whispered, “I will find a way to be with you if you’ll have me.”

“And I you.”

“As Queen, it will be up to me to lead by example. I’m not sure what my people will think of me meeting with a Wolf.”

“At least I’m royalty.”

He could always make her laugh, even when things were at their darkest. “I have to go to the circle tonight,” she sighed. “I have to dance for my place. I don’t want to. I used to want to run away from home, change my name and just be somebody else.”

He stroked her hair with a gentle hand. “Why didn’t you?”

“This is my family,” she said simply.

“I thought you’d say that.”

“I can’t leave them, and I can’t shirk my duty.”

“Neither can I.”

“The circle is designed to keep Wolves out.”

“I know.”

“I want you there.”

“I have something I must do as well.”

His entire body was tense. She lifted her finger and placed it on the flesh right above his heart. “What you need to do?”

“I have to kill my father.” His words were hushed, almost inaudible, but she heard them. Pain smote her so harshly that she could barely stand it.

“I’m sorry, Sebastian.”

“He chose to do this.” His voice sounded dead and sad. “I have no idea why. I don’t understand it; we have fought against rogues my entire life. My father was King, so he could not hunt them down, but my uncle did, and it was my uncle who taught me how to do it. We don’t tolerate them. We are human and we have always lived as humans, despite the fact that we turn without silver. I don’t understand why he would do such a thing.”

Cara knew there were no words that she could give him that would change anything. All she could do was hold him and give him the comfort of her own body, her warmth and her love.

Sebastian knew the same things. The moment was ending. Dusk was creeping in; purple–blue light mingled with a lemony yellow had begun to shine through the glass and he knew that pretty soon the women would arrive and prepare her for her dance. They would have to leave each other.

Maybe this was destiny. If it was, he wanted no more part of it. It seemed cruel and unforgiving.

He would have liked to stay with her forever, but if he was going to protect her, he had to leave her. He could only hope she would she understand that.

There was a loud pounding at the door, and a woman’s voice. “Cara, come out of there now. You have to be readied for this evening. Time is running out. Get up and get out here.”

Cara turned to him and their lips met him one last, Arctic kiss. His hands held her shoulder so tightly that when he finally released her, small red marks showed wear he had held her. She looked up at him and whispered, “I will find a way, Sebastian.”

She grabbed her robe and dashed out the door. Sebastian wanted to roll over and sniff the pillows and revel in the scent of their lovemaking forever, but he couldn’t. He had to find a way to track down his father and his wayward younger brother or she would die tonight.

Cara walked into the bathroom where the tub waited. It had been filled with water that was purified, blessed, laden with many different herbs and flowers and oils. Steam rose from the surface, bringing the fragrances to her nose. She knew this was necessary; she must be purified as well. She must go into the circle clean and sweet-smelling, but she didn’t want to. Sebastian’s seed was still within her and she wanted it there; she wanted to feel the imprint of his fingers on her flesh, smell his scent on her body.

As she shed the robe and stepped into the tub, she wondered why it was that what she wanted did not seem to matter.