Wolf's Surrender: Part of the Immortal Ops World (Shadow Agents / PSI-Ops Book 1) (3 page)

The few seconds it took to register what he was seeing and what was happening was all it took for whatever had been in the darts to work. Brad’s vision dimmed and his head swam. He swayed and was powerless to stop himself from falling forward into the black abyss of nothingness.

Chapter Two

Months later…

Alice Gladden leaned against the wall of the fraternity house chapter room, soaking in the sexual energy surrounding her. The party was in full swing and the place was busting at the seams with lust. It was just what she needed. She was starving, and not for food.

She’d spent most of the evening helping her best friend and college roommate, Mae Bertelot, get ready for a blind date. It had taken all of Alice to keep an even façade during it all, the need to feed gnawing at her from the inside out. Mae didn’t understand what it was like to have a burning hunger. A need so insatiable that nothing seemed to satisfy it. Mae tended to frown upon what it was Alice needed to feed from—sex or sexual energy. Her succubus side demanded as much. It was a case of do so or die. No two ways about it.

Alice was often less than forthcoming about her needs in order to avoid having to see the pity and shame on her best friend’s face. As far as Mae was concerned, Alice didn’t need actual, full sex to handle her hunger—she only required energy. That was a lie. She needed both. The party would help check each box. It would give her both energy and full sex.

The fraternity party was packed full of exactly what she required. Hormone-driven young adults in their sexual primes too preoccupied with the shot at getting laid to notice her soaking in their lust. Her hunger was so deep that she couldn’t have pretended to be casual about feeding it. The energy settled against her skin and seeped through her very pores, rejuvenating her—nourishing her. The euphoric feeling was so great that she had to concentrate to keep her mental wards up to avoid listening in on everyone’s thoughts around her. If she wasn’t careful, the thoughts would all bombard her and she’d end up as sick as she’d have been without bothering to feed.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

It had taken her years of practice to perfect the skill of blocking other people’s thoughts
,
but she’d managed. At least with humans. Supernaturals were something altogether different. It was harder for her to control that particular
super power
around them.

She laughed softly as she thought of super powers. Mae didn’t exactly love how Alice described what they could do. The ability to mock her circumstances was another coping skill Alice had acquired as a young girl. Even with adoptive parents who were supernaturals, she didn’t feel like she fit in. Her mother was part vampire and part Fae and her father was a full-blooded were-cat shifter. Alice was none of those things. At least she didn’t think she was. From what everyone could tell, she was mostly succubus. None of the doctors she’d been taken to while young were able to pinpoint all of what she was. They could only say for sure that she had succubus DNA in her make
-
up. Though, all of them agreed she was more than a mere succubus. Their inability to identify her genetic make up had been concerning to her adoptive parents and Alice. Basically, no one knew exactly what the hell she was.

Always comforting.

A hot mess, that is what I am,
she thought with a sardonic smile. That was only half-true. Since meeting Mae, Alice had been making small strides to get her life in order. Baby steps, but steps all the same.

Music pumped through the air, the song choice one she didn’t much care for. Her music choices always surprised others as they were not ones anyone would expect a woman her age to have. She could listen to Marvin Gaye for hours and never tire. So much soul and passion. The rubbish coming from the speakers in the fraternity was a far cry from the legendary Mr. Gaye.

The lights were dim, save two disco lamps someone had plugged in at opposite corners of the large room. The strobe effect the lights created was nauseating. Not to mention the entire room was tacky beyond belief. College-aged men had been left in charge of the decorating. That much was evident by the copious amount of light-up beer signs, centerfolds pinned to the walls in place of artwork, and numerous unidentifiable stains in the carpeting. She noted the lack of any textbooks to be found when there was an overabundance of girlie magazines scattered about the varying crates and boxes that were acting as end tables. Yes, college guys had certainly been the designers of the room.

It was nothing Alice would have subjected herself to if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, she had to feed her succubus side and this was the best option. The alternative would leave her waking up with a man or men she didn’t know, possibly several campuses or states away.

It had happened before.

It would probably happen again.

Each time she woke to find herself in the arms of men she didn’t know, or remember being with, another piece of her soul died. Frustrated realization sank over her as the knowledge that this was her reality, her life, and it would be this way forever hit her hard.

She sighed, disliking her body’s needs. While others required food and water to live, she needed sex or at the very least sexual energy in addition to normal basics in order to survive. The sexual energy felt like static in the air, crackling, alive, zapping around the room like a live current. The energy built around her, gathering in close like a protective blanket, warming her body, soaking through her skin, rejuvenating her. The more energy around her, the faster she warmed and felt full. But Alice knew to push beyond what she wanted and to store as much as she could. She’d been working hard to try to train her body to go longer and longer between full feedings. She was up to nearly a week now, which was saying something.

There had been a time she could barely make it through an entire day. She winced, no longer wanting to remember those times in the past. She wanted to focus on the here and now. The party was slamming, and she was getting what she needed. In addition, Mae was on a blind date. It was high time the girl lived a little. So what if the date was set up by Mae’s mother. It was a red-blooded male, and Mae was in serious need of one of those. The girl had been spending way too much time in the art studio on campus sculpting her version of hotness. There was no denying the sculpture was sexy, but there was no replacing the real thing.
 

Alice’s succubus side, or inner harlot as she’d affectionately termed it some years ago, stirred more, purring deep within her like a well-fed cat. It would still make room for a hot and hard male. Her succubus was an unabashed whore and seemed damn proud of it all. If only Alice could hold her head as high as her succubus wanted her to.

She took a long breath in and let additional energy seep in from the couples around her. They were too busy with one another to notice she was alone and quickly turning into a wallflower. That was fine by her. The guys weren’t really her type. She preferred her men to be alpha, rugged and commanding. None of the young men present looked like they’d know how to tame a woman in the bedroom if their lives depended on it. They looked more like they were excited to just be close to women.

They probably were.

She snickered.

The place was jam-packed with horny people, each jockeying for the attention of another. She’d never really thought of herself as studious, but now that she was a fifth-year senior at the university and close to getting her degree, she found she looked forward to learning something new every day. She wasn’t quite the bookworm her best friend Mae was, but Alice had started to develop something of a healthy respect for learning.

Though, she doubted that anyone spotting her at the party would think she was doing much more than having a good time. Actually, she was doing far more than that, but no one, other than Mae, knew the truth. Her succubus side wasn’t something she was proud of. In fact, there were times she was downright ashamed of it and herself, but there was no changing what she was. No giving up the need to absorb sexual energy on a regular basis and so far, no giving up the need to fully feed the beast. She’d kept that part from Mae, knowing her friend would frown upon Alice sleeping with so many men. Mae prided herself on having held tight to her virginity and not giving in to society norms. Alice was jealous of that, of Mae being able to save herself for the right man. Alice had never had that luxury.

Nature had seen to that. It had stripped her of her options. As much as she wanted to be selective and wait for that perfect someone who made her feel whole, she didn’t get that choice. The best she could hope for was that she could at least stomach the person come morning who would need to fill the full sex side of her hunger.

Her first sexual encounter nearly killed a guy. She had been fourteen, and it had been nothing more than heavy kissing, but she’d drained him. He’d been human, and no one knew then about her requirements. That she was powerful enough to harm another with what was essential to her survival. The boy had been left hospitalized for several months, in a coma, the human doctors at a loss as to what had caused his condition. Thankfully, Alice’s father had managed to pull some strings, and he had someone sneak into the facility after hours with a small dosage of vampire blood. It was low enough in quantity that the boy had never been at risk of turning, but the blood had sped his recovery.

Alice’s guilt over who and what she was started then and it had never gone away. Ever since she’d tried her hardest to seek out supernatural males to fill her needs, but they were harder to come by than one would think in the college setting. So, she made do with what was available.

She glanced around the party and leaned against a wall, wanting to avoid sitting on any of the second-hand furniture for fear of getting something. No one in attendance piqued her interest or stirred her inner harlot’s desires. Slim pickings for sure.

This is what I’ve been reduced to, trolling frat parties for food
.

Self-loathing crept up on her, but she pushed it down, hiding it in the recesses of what she feared would be a heart that was unable to heal. Unable to ever open and love another.

She let out an exasperated breath
.

It was what it was, and she’d been forced to find ways to fill the void that didn’t involve sleeping with a new man every other night. While she wore a smile whenever it happened, it was fake, born out of a need to protect her feelings. She was thought of as a wild child, and in many cases she fit the bill, but more and more she wanted to shed the image and be thought of as more than just the girl who was always with a new man.

The couple nearest her were lip-locked. The man's hands roamed up and under the woman's shirt as they moaned into each other's mouths. The guy fumbled around, looking awkward and confused as to what to do next.

Yep, hardly an alpha in the bunch.

If it wasn't for the sexual energy radiating from them, Alice would have walked away to find a more titillating couple to stand near. This pair were merely eating each other’s faces, not moving into foreplay.
 

She tsked, sure this was one of the reasons the saying that youth was misspent on the young had come to be. She could teach them a thing or two—okay, ten. With a small snort, she looked in the direction of two women trying their best to gain the attention of a tall, built male. He was a new arrival, and the minute Alice laid eyes on him the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The man was good looking, no doubt about that. But there was something about him that seemed hard, removed from all that was happening around them.

The bitch better show tonight.

She stilled as the man’s thoughts hit her hard. Her nostrils flared and she slowed her breathing, knowing better than to tip him off that she was hearing him mentally. It was rare for a human to get through her defenses. She concentrated on her personal walls and continued to watch the newcomer.

These fucking pussies don’t know which end of a woman is up
, he thought.

While she agreed, her inner alarms sounded, but she stayed in place, watching him, getting the sense he was more than merely human.

Much more.
 

He sneered as he raked his gaze over a group of girls entering from the other direction. He paid close attention to their backsides as they walked past him.

They’d be fun to break
, he thought.

She gasped, feeling the full weight of the truth behind his words. The man wanted to inflict pain, and from the hardness in his eyes, he’d done just that before. She stiffened and eased off the wall, keeping a close watch on him. With slow movements, she pulled her cell from her back pocket, hoping to avoid drawing attention to herself. She was careful to control her breathing and heart rate to the best of her ability. If he was a shifter, and her instincts said he was, he could easily pick up on differences in her breathing and pulse. That tidbit she’d learned from her adoptive father and his friends.

Her father had spent his life pretending to be human, having to reinvent himself every so many decades to throw suspicion off the fact he didn’t age. He, like many supernaturals, went so far as to alter his hair to try to make it look as if he was getting grays. Her father’s current position was in the government. In truth, he’d been working for them for decades under different aliases. Currently, he was a face for the supernaturals, a representative for them within the government. A select few knew the truth about him.

Most didn’t. And no humans knew the truth of him or their kind. And for good reason. Humans had a longstanding history of panicking and trying to kill that which they did not understand.

Dumbasses.

She pressed the contact button on her phone and selected the one for her father. She didn’t dare risk dialing him. The supernatural male in the fraternity house with her would hear her conversation regardless of how low she tried to speak. Instead, she decided to type a message to her father.