The Wolf's Surrender

Because it was easier than forcing her mind to formulate coherent sentences, Mia shoveled up a forkful of the hash browns and dug in. Her taste buds sang their praises so immediately and loudly that she was pretty sure her eyes rolled back into her head in pure pleasure. Apparently, she’d been hungry.

“Umm. Mmm,” she heard herself say.

When she opened her eyes again, Jenner had paused in the middle of sitting down next to her with his own loaded plate and was looking at her with that intense, heated expression again. Almost as though he was thinking about taking a bite out of her. But as quickly as she could blink, it was gone, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined it.

It spoke to her addled state, Mia supposed, that she kind of hoped not.

“Tastes okay?” he asked.

Mia swallowed. “Yes, thank you.”

Jenner slid onto the stool beside her without saying another word. Not much of a talker, that much was obvious. And it seemed like whatever questions she wanted answered, she’d probably have to ask them herself. While she pondered what to say next, she ate another bite of food. It was so good she quickly had another, and it took some time before Mia realized that she and Jenner had been eating for several minutes in complete silence. She glanced at him, certain she’d be confronted with at least an odd look, some sign that her lack of conversation was off-putting. But to her surprise, Jenner seemed perfectly comfortable in the quiet, eating and lost in his own thoughts.

It was easy to imagine him doing much the same thing every day of his life. A cozy thought, one that gave Mia a warm feeling she knew she had no business having over this man. But…it was so unusual, to be with a person who felt no need to inject words into a moment that was fine without them. Jeff had chattered ceaselessly, sometimes nervously…mostly about himself, Mia realized.

And he was as different from the man she was sitting next to as night was from day.

She looked back down at her plate, which she discovered was nearly empty. Jenner, it seemed, was noticing the same thing. He leaned over just a little to look, and now Mia could smell him again, a musky blend of forest and wood smoke. She had a mad urge to stuff her face in his neck and breathe it in.

“I guess that agreed with you,” he said.

“I…yeah, it did. Thanks,” Mia replied.

He eyed her plate, amusement glittering in his eyes. “I don’t know where you put all that, but there’s more where that came from if you want it.”

“No,” she said with a laugh. “Any more and I’ll explode.” She put her fork down and watched Jenner return to his breakfast. Mia took a sip of coffee, thought a moment, then plunged in.

“So,” she said, not missing the way his shoulders stiffened ever so slightly, as though he knew what was coming. “How long do I have before I turn into a werewolf? And when can I go home?”

Jenner had known she was going to ask the questions.

He just wished she’d waited until someone else had shown up to answer them.

He looked at Mia, her expression open and earnest as she watched him through a pair of glasses that shouldn’t have been nearly as sexy as they were on her. All that thick, dark hair was tucked behind her ears, and she looked like a young, bookish innocent.

Young, she most certainly was. Bookish, maybe. Innocent…well, he hoped Mia wasn’t as innocent as she looked, because otherwise her life was going to be very unpleasant until she got used to the way things worked with a wolf pack.

And she was still staring at him with those pretty eyes of hers, waiting for an answer.

“Well, you see,” he started, and then stopped again. Damn it, explanations weren’t his deal. Running off intruders and taking care of the filthy menaces that oozed around the edges of their territory was. He wasn’t valued around here for his communication skills…and he was now getting a very potent reminder of why not.

A crease appeared between Mia’s eyes, the beginnings of a frown. “I am going home soon, right? I’ve got work.”

“Work. Yeah.” God, he sounded dumb. What would a woman like Mia do for a living? he wondered. His curiosity about her—strange for a man who was picky about who he spent his attention on—prevented him from giving her an answer that was vague enough not to upset her.

Or any answer at all, for that matter.

“Okaaay,” Mia said, drawing out the word. “We have now established that we both understand that I work. Nick—”

“It’s Jenner,” he said reflexively, and knew at once how defensive he’d sounded. Well, great. That would do a lot to help his cause. He snuck a glance at the clock on the microwave and wished it were sometime in the afternoon instead of morning. Then Bane could deal with all of this. He’d expected, hell, hoped for a groggy Mia to feed and send back to bed. Instead he was getting grilled over breakfast.

Mia blinked at the sharpness of his tone, but to her credit, it didn’t seem to put her off much. “Jenner. Right, sorry. Look, I don’t know what you thought, but I’m not exactly living a life of leisure back in Philly. I need to get out of here as soon as possible, today if I can. I know you said you needed my help, and I’ll be happy to tell your…your Alpha, or whoever…everything I know about Jeff. But that shouldn’t take more than an hour or so, tops. I haven’t known him long.” She looked away. “I really think we should call the police. I don’t want him coming after me. I can’t have him coming after me. If he does, he’ll kill me. But I can’t stay here.”

Her blunt assessment, and the resigned way she delivered it, surprised him. Suspicion, always his first reaction, made the hairs at his neck prickle. He tamped it down as best he could, knowing it was unfair. Or maybe he was just hoping it was.

He still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something important here.

“I don’t think he was trying to kill you, Mia,” Jenner said slowly, unsure of how close he should get right now to the truth of werewolf bonding. She looked back at him sharply, and in that moment, despite her previous uncertainty with him, he could see the steel spine lurking beneath the surface.

“Yes he was,” she said flatly. “I saw the knife. He was about to finish it when your men arrived.”

“Jesus.” Jenner stared at her, astounded she could be so calm about this. “Why didn’t you say something last night?”

“I didn’t know the knife made a difference,” Mia replied, shifting a little. “I thought it was pretty obvious he was trying to kill me. What, did you think he just wanted to…to make a new werewolf girlfriend or something?”

Jenner resisted the urge to get up, get away from that too-perceptive stare of hers. “We thought he wanted to turn you and keep you, which is bad enough,” he said, skirting the issue as best he could. “Why would he want to kill you?”

He knew it was a stupid question the second it was out of his mouth, and Mia’s withering look said as much.

“Because he’s crazy. He thinks—” She hesitated, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. He’s insane. I’m glad to know you and your pack are hunting for him, but I really think it would be best to involve the police, too, just to keep the bases covered. They don’t need to know what he is.”

Jenner’s instincts sharpened. He could hear the uneven beating of her heart, could smell the fear beginning to taint that seductive citrus scent of hers. His feeling that there was more going on here had been dead-on. He could see it in the stiffening of Mia’s shoulders, hear it in that unfinished sentence. But the look on her face, and the weariness still hovering over her features, made him stop. She’d tell him, or tell someone. She was going to have to.

Given what she’d been through, he’d wait to push her on it.

But not long.

“You’re forgetting, our sheriff is on it. Anybody asks, you’ve already been to the police. Buddy will get the word out, but this is going to work its way through both channels, Mia. Isn’t that better?”

She sighed and shook her head. “I suppose. I wish I’d never met him. Or at least that I hadn’t been so stupid when I did.”

He shouldn’t have felt relieved, but Jenner couldn’t help himself. All of his questions about her relationship with the feral were now answered. Mia hadn’t been engaged, or in love, or anything much at all with this Gaines. He could read it all over her face. And giving a damn about it, Jenner knew, was bound to put him in a foul mood when he had a chance to mull it over.

“It wasn’t stupid,” Jenner said, unsure why he was compelled to soothe her. Maybe she had been stupid about it, but he doubted it. “Sometimes we just get…unlucky.”

He knew more than a thing or two about that, and he could see that she got it right away.

Mia curved one corner of her mouth up in a small, self-deprecating half smile.

“Yeah,” she said. “You can say that again. Though fangs and fur kind of pushes the situation somewhere past just unlucky.”

Jenner chuckled. It seemed like he was going to end up liking Mia D’Alessandro, whether or not it was in his best interest. Her own smile faded away far too quickly, replaced by grim resignation.

“So about the going home?” she asked. “Like I said, I’ll talk to whoever I need to, but this was only supposed to be a weekend getaway. Just tell me what I should be expecting.”

“What you should be expecting,” Jenner repeated. He’d never met anyone who treated becoming a werewolf like catching a cold. He shook his head, amazed. “You’re a strange one, Mia.”

He could see right away he’d said the wrong thing.