Siren's Kiss (Seraphine Thomas Book 5) Read online

  Table of Contents

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  The End

  Find A New Series To Love…

  Or A Different Genre…

  About the Author

  Other Titles by Erin R Flynn

  If you did, thank you. Thank you for respecting me and other authors for their hard work, understanding this is our job, and while we love it, we do deserve to be compensated for all the hours, and hours, and hours we put into it.

  If you did not… Go buy one! You are a thief and your parents and grandparents and cute animals all around the world are ashamed of you. There is no justification for committing this crime because it is a crime, no different than walking into a physical bookstore, taking a print copy off the shelf, and walking out of the store without paying for it.

  There is no such thing as a victimless crime. If you truly believe that, you’ve never been a victim. And the victims aren’t only the authors, but the fans who lose authors that quit over our constantly being stolen from and mistreatment. Mistreating the authors that write the books you like or read—not liking them isn’t an excuse for theft, it’s just extra weird then—that’s not a fan. Fans leave reviews to support. Fans send messages of love. Fans… Well fans are nice. Be nice.

  There are lots of ways to fight eBook piracy, reporting the site even if you’re not the copyright holder is always a good option. If you want to help in the fight, Google it and you can see there are many ways.

  A few months after the mayhem in Vegas, FBI Division Chief Seraphine Thomas is still juggling too much… And adding more onto her shoulders. However, there has been significant traction on making things better for paranormals in the country.

  And with work going well, it’s time she finally handle her personal life a bit. Things blow up after stumbling through all the problems over the past several months, and it leaves Sera to reevaluate her life and the path she’s on. There’s always too much wanted from her and too many ways to be pulled.

  But maybe the answer is to start enjoying new and interesting instead of fighting that it doesn’t fit into what she knows?

  The club is opening, and while Simone handled most of it, thrilled things are going well and jobs for the community it provides, Sera is happy at the subterfuge it creates to protect her and the ones she loves. But can she push aside who she was and become who she needs to, or will she let it fail everyone and herself?

  Note to Readers:

  I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive of the series and my other books and the sabbatical I took last year. That’s it. Just wanted to say thanks for continuing the ride with me, lots of love to you who leave reviews, and it really warms my heart to hear how excited people are when the new books release. Really, it’s like I sit back and go “I did my job well and no one yelled at me for once.” And then I take a night off before doing it all over again.

  Kisses from Vader and I!

  Hint for what’s to come: This book sets up a LOT of the path of what’s to come for Sera. So much was torn apart and taken advantage of her circumstances… And we all know money is power and building up your side means a stronger side. It’s also how she gets from no reason to leave Chicago and the same old cases to leaving Chicago for more FBI fun that everyone seemed to LOVE in Vegas.

  Which was always my evil plan. *insert evil laugh*

  1

  “You’re not even going to try and fake it this time?” Hagan asked, bringing me back to what was going on.

  I glanced around, and it was my bathroom… And we were having sex.

  Shit.

  “What? Did you get another dead fish performance?” Reagan, his twin and second of my three live-in lovers, demanded as he came into the bathroom, rage in his eyes from what I saw in the reflection of the mirror. I pulled away from Hagan, realizing he’d finished and I hadn’t even been aware.

  Again.

  I hurried to clean up after I wrapped a towel around myself, not meeting either of their gazes, too shocked they would act like this. “Dead fish performance?” I wished I hadn’t said the words out loud because I felt the tension go up in the room instantly. Ducking out of there, I went to the only walk-in closet in the master bedroom that had clothes in it to pick out something to sleep in.

  “Yeah, you lay there and maybe give a last flop around for your performance, but really you act like a dead fish—cold and lifeless,” Reagan answered.

  I wished he hadn’t answered. Tears burned in my eyes as I changed my mind and reached for something to wear so I could leave the house instead of go to sleep. No matter how many square feet of mansion I now lived in, it was suffocating. I was suffocating in my life all the time.

  “We get it,” Hagan sighed heavily as they followed in after me. “You’ve been different ever since Vegas.” I flinched, and while that wasn’t the full truth, he wasn’t wrong either. “Ever since you slept with Dain, you’ve been different. You found your Zeno.”

  I froze, my heart the only thing I could hear as it thudded too loudly in my body, in my ears even. I slowly looked at the matching expressions of hurt and anger. “What?” I breathed, unable to get enough air for more than that.

  “You love him. We get it,” Reagan snapped. “You don’t want to tell us you realized you didn’t love us as you thought after you were with him. But enough is enough, Sera. We won’t leave the pack even if you choose him as your mate. The boys are like brothers to us, okay? We won’t leave. We know this has all been too hard on you, but we deserve better than this. We deserve—”

  I turned before I even realized what I was doing and slapped him across the face hard enough that something snapped in my hand. “That’s what you deserve. Share it with your twin because apparently you’ve been sharing making the decisions about my feelings with him and come to your own stupid conclusions.”

  Hagan’s breath hitched as I turned away, scrambling to throw on enough to get out of the house. “Are we wrong?” He moved closer, and I could feel the heat of his body. “Sera, tell us if we were wrong.”

  “Don’t touch me,” I hissed, moving away from him when I felt him reach out for me. I grabbed slip on sneakers as I raced out of there, glad there was no chance they could keep up with me when I pushed my speed fully.

  Surprisingly, I found myself snagging a bottle from the fancy bar we’d put in on the far side of the kitchen that led to the dining room or towards the sitting, family, or living rooms. I didn’t even slow down as I grabbed my keys and headed to the garage.

  Minutes later I was driving away, tears streaming down my cheeks as I fought the need to sob. I stopped myself from opening the bottle and doing something so stupid like I was in a bad made-for-TV movie and just drove. Honestly, I had no clue where I was driving to, so numb inside I wanted nothing more than to breathe without feeling a huge weight on my chest or shoulders for once.

  When I arrived, the location sort of made sense somewhere in the back of my mind that wasn’t clouded by months and months of stress, too little sleep, too little to eat, and all around not feeding my body as I should since returning home from Vegas. Reagan was right that I was different since Vegas, but it wasn’t about love.

  It was trauma. Over three months since the incident with the cheetahs, four since the
vampire bastard councilman showed me how little of a fish I was in vast, scary waters that terrified me and I’d allowed unspeakable things to happen to me in the name of protecting people, someone I trusted leading me into the trap, and all I could feel most days was buried under the traumas.

  I opened the door before doing the same to the bottle of booze and taking a long ass drink. Too long for someone so sleep deprived and unable to think of when her last meal was. I stared hard at the spot where my life had changed, the me I had known for so many years dying really, and sank to my knees, chugging way too much whiskey to numb the pain.

  Funny how I’d wanted to feel anything but numb and pressure, but now that they’d pushed me to face the start of my traumas, the agony it caused made me want to go back to numb. I had no idea how long I sat there, staring at a stain on concrete before my phone rang. It startled me, not knowing I’d had it.

  Then again, habits could easily be done without much thought. Keys, phone, badge, and wallet were what I never left home without. Normally guns too, and realizing I didn’t have them made me feel a bit naked given there was always so much trouble around me.

  I ignored the first call, but when my phone wouldn’t stop, I answered it with a sigh.

  “Sera? Sera, are you there?” Brian Havers, my old boss and sometimes sex buddy, asked loudly. “Sera, where are you?”

  “With the last piece of me that’s human,” I muttered, reaching out and finally touching the blood stain on the concrete. “It’s still here. Over half a year later, and it’s still here. I think it’s the only piece of me left.”

  He cursed under his breath and in several interesting combinations that almost made me giggle since I knew a few weren’t physically possible. “I can’t remember you ever getting drunk and certainly not to the point you slur. Where are you?”

  He was right. I wasn’t ever much of a drinker and rarely in excess. That should have been one of the first clues to me that something had been really wrong with me in Vegas. I had wanted to get drunk and let go. Though I’d told myself it was Vegas, it was stress—I knew better. It wasn’t like me.

  Havers repeated the question.

  “Where I died.”

  “Sera, you’re not dead,” he choked out. “Tell me where you are, baby, and I’ll come get you. Please don’t be alone for whatever’s going on now.”

  I was going to reply with something about him calling me “baby,” which he’d only done a few times when we’d been together, and I didn’t like it coming from my boss I’d crossed lines with. I really didn’t like hearing it now.

  Except the air moved funny about ten feet in front of me. Not smoke or mist, but refraction of the little light that was in the warehouse. Then suddenly someone was standing there. I met deep, lime green eyes as he stepped out of the shadows in the building.

  “Oh, Milady,” Dain breathed, taking in my state. “What has been done to you now?”

  I looked away from those eyes that saw too much and tried to take a drink from the bottle, but a strong, not drunk hand intercepted it. “Why are you here?”

  “Sera, who’s there?” Brian shouted from the phone, and I guessed it wasn’t really the first thing he’d said since I’d lost the conversation.

  Dain took it from me, putting it on speaker. “Chief Havers, it’s Dain Morton. I just arrived at her location, and we’re in an abandoned warehouse.” He went to help me up, but I fought him. “Milady, you can’t stay here. We should leave.”

  “Sera, listen to him, please?” Brian begged.

  “But this is the last piece of me!” I bellowed, moving my hands to the blood stain, hating the slur and hysterics in my voice. “I can’t leave me. I can’t be this person anymore.”

  “I know, I know, Milady,” he whispered. “You don’t know who you are any longer.”

  I blinked up at him, tears blurring him, but still focused on his eyes that seemed to hold too many answers. How did he understand what I felt but no one else did?

  He gave me a sad smile as he tucked loose hair behind my ear. “All infected shifters go through what you are, but you more so, as you are not only a wolf. It’s as if this has happened twice, or now there are two people taking over the one, not simply learning to cope with an animal side.” He must have seen the confusion I felt in my eyes because he went on. “Vampires stick to vampires. Shifters to their own.

  “To truly know about all the species, to become a scholar of the mythical that is not strictly myth, one must spend much time with them. I have. You are not the first. You are simply the only one I’ve seen in such depths so soon. Too many rely on you when you should be relying on them as new and traumatized. Let me help you.”

  I went to nod but flinched as what the twins had said came back to me. “I can’t. They think I love you and want to leave them.” I let out a small sob. “They called me a dead fish. I don’t want to be like this anymore and be a dead fish.”

  “What is she talking about?” Brian demanded as Dain pulled me into his arms, easily overpowering my drunk ass.

  “Hagan and Reagan’s perfect exterior finally cracked and they’ve shown their bad side in a phenomenally stupid way,” he explained. “What happened in this warehouse? I’m missing a piece of this I believe I need to help her.”

  “I think she’s where she got infected. It’s the only place I can think of that might still have a human piece of her.”

  “She’s sitting by a stain on the concrete,” Dain explained, moving his fingers over it. “Dried blood in the concrete. This is your blood, yes?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, sounding hollow even to myself.

  “Chief Havers, I will bring her to my home and tend to her. Please inform the others that she is safe.”

  “Thank you and I will, but I was originally calling because we have a work situation and I need to see her tomorrow. I know she’s been avoiding me and anything personal, throwing herself into getting the training center up, the club, even that greenhouse, and fixing the pack, but this is work.”

  “I will make sure you are contacted in the morning, but she is not herself tonight.” He cursed, and his arms were around me as I lay almost on the ground. “I must go. She just passed out and almost cracked her head open.” He tapped the phone before Brian could argue, and his face moved closer to mine. “Milady, feed. I can feel how depleted you are on all fronts. Please feed your siren before this situation becomes so much worse.”

  I didn’t even have time to argue as he mashed his mouth to mine and pushed my lips open with his tongue. I felt my siren stir, as weak and malnourished as I was. Part of me had been doing it on purpose because then she left me alone. Her and my wolf did if they were abused.

  If we die, you die. I can only work with what I know, and if you would start being more honest with yourself, we would know you are drowning and help, not push you, my siren lectured as she drank huge gulps of power from Dain. Have we not both proven that in the past?

  You can’t see the horizon or what’s going on around you when you’re drowning.

  I had the mental image of her nodding that she understood, worry in her eyes, as I felt the darkness pull me under. I didn’t even care if it was sleep or something more.

  2

  “Good morning, Milady,” Dain greeted as I felt my hair brushed back from my face. I blinked up at him, and he gave me a soft smile. “Time for you to wake and start your new routine.”

  I blinked at him a few more times. “Huh?”

  He chuckled softly as he pulled back the covers and grabbed my wrists to make me sit up. “I gave Hagan and Reagan a chance to take care of you as they should, but they failed. I now demand the task be left to me.”

  I frowned even as I slid out of the bed. “I’m a grown ass woman, Dain. I don’t need anyone to take care of me.” I glanced around and frowned even deeper. “Where am I?” Then I looked down and growled. “Who got me into different clothes?”

  “I did, Milady,” he answered easily as he walked to
the door. “I apologize for being forward, but we don’t have our guest room set up yet, so you slept in my bed. I did bathe you, as the alcohol spilled all over you when I tried to keep you from cracking your head on the concrete. Now, breakfast is ready, and then there will be a bit of yoga.”

  “Look, I have to get home,” I argued even as I followed after him. “I’ve got too much—”

  He spun around and grabbed my shoulders, giving me a shake. “Seraphine, it is enough. Everyone is terrified over your well-being. What you have been doing isn’t working, is it?”

  “No,” I rasped, finally admitting it.

  “Then accept help. Please? It doesn’t make you weak. You are a ‘grown ass woman,’ of course. You also are Alpha and a chief of the FBI and a new mother in many ways with six teenage boys. You accept help for them, do you not? Guards? Tutors? Noah teaching them self-defense?”

  “Yes, of course, but that’s—”

  “This is no different,” he assured me firmly. “If you were a normal new wolf, or came into a pack not so messed up, this is what would have happened. Someone would have worked with you from the moment you woke up in the hospital to acclimate you to your new life. You were just too powerful, and everyone wrongfully assumed you knew it all without thinking that through. Please? Give me a month, even a week to work with you and show you—”

  “Okay,” I whispered, the urgency and desperation in his tone getting through my stubbornness. “Okay, Dain. I get it. My way hasn’t been working. I can try a new way. I’m sorry I’ve worried everyone.”

  He let out a heavy sigh and kissed my forehead. “Thank you, Milady.”

  I followed him to the kitchen, checking out his new house as I went. When I had won Dain, Alok, and Tasar from the fairy queen, Laila, after she’d challenged me in her court, they had bought a house a block away that had been for sale. It was very nice. Expensive because of the area, but with just over five thousand square feet, they all had nice sized rooms, space of their own, and seemed very happy.