Hunted Wolf (Seraphine Thomas Book 6) Read online

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  Siren’s Kiss is open and thriving, booked through the holidays and providing tons of jobs. The new training facility is built and has stacks of applications from paranormals who want to help keep people safe. A normal woman would take a moment and simply enjoy what her hard work has accomplished, bask in the achievement.

  Seraphine Thomas is far from a normal woman and doesn’t know the meaning of “relax” when there’s more work to be done. Meeting more Alphas at the club opening, she learned that the danger for paranormals is worse than she had thought.

  After the win of taking down terrorists everyone wanted, she uses that goodwill to get her team to Memphis to help out the regular FBI and paranormals there. The problems start right away, and when the reports she received only scratch the surface of how bad things are, she realizes the people she brought aren’t enough against the threats. But when the FBI isn’t enough to protect herself and others, can she work with her other sides to be the champion everyone needs?

  1

  “I’m dying.”

  I blinked at Milo, opening my mouth to say something but then closing it and simply staring at him a moment. This was one of those times people tended to say stupid things, and I was familiar with that, as people had done the same to me when they’d heard my parents had abandoned me. “What can I do to help?”

  He slowly raised an eyebrow at me. “No apologies? No saying you’ll pray for me?”

  “I don’t believe in a higher power, or one that really gives a shit about the day-to-day stuff, or he wouldn’t allow so much suffering, and I always find saying people will pray as an empty promise. If they really cared, they’d at least send a casserole. And I’m sorry for what you’re going through, but we’re also not friends, so it’s awkward when people say that and you barely know them.”

  “This is why I came to you,” he chuckled, giving his head a slow shake. “You don’t do bullshit, and you’re a good person.”

  It hit me like a ton of bricks. Wolves couldn’t get cancer. Turning into a shifter could help a lot of everything, but most wouldn’t do it because of the problems it caused, or people saw it as problems. For some, it was against their religion.

  Milo wasn’t like most people though. He and his team knew me from undercover work when I used the alias Ms. Penar, an Eastern European arms dealer and procurer of many illegal things. The first time his team had helped me was to get into and escape a precarious situation to help solidify my cover. The second time was the same thing, as the bust had happened, and the way to keep my cover was to get me out.

  The third time was my last undercover assignment, the Bernard Dorcus bust where I was cut up by his claws and became a shifter. They were read in on the morning of that one and helped us make it happen… Not the clawing up part, but the bust.

  “I’m from sort of a wolf royal bloodline, so I don’t know if I can just turn people,” I told him, knowing now why we were sitting in the regular FBI office where he’d asked for the meeting to take place.

  “I figured that. I’ve done some research into the whole thing. Also, that you belong to the pack that turns you. At least for the first years. It’s how they take responsibility for what’s been done.”

  “Then you also know people can get in serious trouble for turning someone.”

  “Not with their permission. I’ll sign whatever that I came to you for this, even if it doesn’t work. Even if the shock kills me.”

  That made me flinch. “How bad is your cancer?”

  “Almost stage four. I’m teetering on that line between three and four.” He snorted, shaking his head. “Never smoked a day in my life. One joint in school but never got it. All the idiots who smoked when I was in the Army, and I never did. All those idiots who drank and abused their livers. I never did. A beer here and there with pizza. Same with sex. Never had too much, never risked what you risk being a ‘stud’ which means slut.”

  “And you got it anyways. What kind?”

  “Several. Go big or go home, right?”

  We stared at each other several minutes, my mind racing with this development. “You’re smart, Milo. You know this would change a lot.”

  “Yes, but my guys want to do it too.” He smiled when my mouth fell open. “You’re still young, Chief Thomas. If you had waited another decade when the injuries start aching and when you hit mid-forties like we are, that abuse you’ve done on your body really starts to catch up.”

  “So you want a chance at longer? A chance to settle down? What? What are you offering for me to take this risk, Milo? You skirt the law but aren’t exactly on the right side of it. Why would I want that in my pack?”

  He moved his hands together and started ticking off fingers. “One, you need muscle you can trust. Months of being low on enforcers and not having any idea how to get good ones that won’t try to take over, as lots want the prime Chicago turf, and your bloodline loaner wolves are the only reason no one’s tried. That and the video of you taking out New York’s hitter.

  “Two, there’s a lot you don’t like about the system and you’d want to check out, but now you’re too well known. You can’t get into New York and see what’s what. Three, you know we skirt, but we have very firm lines we won’t cross. There are even people we won’t work for because of what they stand for. Surely becoming a wolf has led you to see more gray in the world, right?”

  “It has,” I agreed, sitting back in my seat. “So you and your team become enforcers for the Chicago pack, and you go undercover for me? Check out other packs?”

  “We’d be willing to.” It was his turn to study me closely. “Is there something else you’d want from us? We’re pretty open here, Chief Thomas, since I need this, and while immortality sounds great, I don’t want to be sucking down blood forever.”

  When he put it like that, I agreed with him. But that also meant he didn’t know about the immortality of my strain of wolf. Interesting. They really did keep info on sirens locked down.

  “When I was in Vegas, there were some wolves that hated it there and thought they had no place to go. A wolf living paycheck to paycheck isn’t going to tour other packs, and why would they? Like they wouldn’t put on a good song and dance to get more women in a pack, and then they can’t leave once there if the Alpha doesn’t allow it.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You want us to recruit?”

  “Yes, but also there’s a pressing situation that I think adrenaline junkies like your team would prefer, but
that would be what I want in between missions.”

  His lips pulled up into a grin, a pretty wolfish grin if I was honest. “You want us to help get out wolves from countries that shoot on sight. Go into hostile zones and get them out?”

  “Yes, but not just wolves. Bringing a whole pack here is stupid. That’s a leader and bullshit I don’t want. However, if families or part of packs were pulled out and brought here then another part of the pack brought to another pack—”

  “They’re not trying to take over if you separate them out,” he surmised.

  “Exactly. Queen Laila is willing to send in teams of some of the finest fairy warriors who, believe me, are an asset and amazing in a fight but don’t know the terrain. You guys do. You’ve done everything from guarding Arab royalty on secret trips to high value extractions. I’ve done my homework on you too, Milo.”

  “We wouldn’t be against the idea, but you’re also talking about high risk when the whole point is to save my life here, Chief Thomas.”

  I snorted. “You have no idea our durability. It’s pretty badass.” I decided how to make this work. “Your word what we say stays with your team?”

  “Of course.”

  I leaned over across the table, and he went stiff as I kissed him, feeding him energy. He shivered and moaned, his hands gripping the edge of the table. “What was that? I feel amazing.”

  “I’m not just a wolf, Milo.”

  “You’re the siren,” he guessed, giving me a wide-eyed look. “They’re immortal, even infected.”

  “They are, and I could offer you that. Not my bloodline, but I’m sure we can find someone willing to help us out for a trade, or Alena would just order someone to do it. Let a different bloodline take the win of turning the heroes who want to save paranormals from hot spots and keep other bloodlines intact.”

  “So you feed? It doesn’t work like that for the men, right?” he checked, the wheels of his mind turning.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I act like your security for a moment?” he muttered, studying me closely. I gave a slight nod. “Don’t ever do that to a human again, Chief Thomas.” I knew he saw surprise in my eyes when he sighed. “Sera, you’re young. For all of your training and experience, you bleed red, white, and blue. That’s great. They never screwed you over. Our government might be one of the best in the world, but they also screw people over.”

  “I know that. I see how they don’t protect their citizens as they should simply because they’re not human or—”

  “There’s not a government in this world—ours included—who wouldn’t lock you up in some lab to study how you did what you just did. I feel better than I have in months. I feel like when I went to the doctor and found out I have stage two cancer and we started with chemo. I’m not saying what you did kills cancer, maybe it does, but people do all kinds of crazy things to feel better, feel younger.

  “Don’t give them a reason to be crazy with you. Don’t ever do that again with a human because I’m even tempted to go see if my cancer is better then lock you up somewhere and have you cure me. Or fuck, just keep making me feel better and not like I’m dying. Have you ever done that before to a human? Do you know what it does?”

  I thought back to the other lecture I’d gotten like this before. “Only to the one I’m intimate with, and he would never betray me or let someone hurt me. He warned me too, telling me his old injuries don’t hurt and he’s only mid-thirties.”

  “Chief Havers, yeah, you can trust him. He’s so damn solid and noble we call him the Boy Scout.”

  I snorted, thinking that was pretty accurate for Brian. “I get you, and I won’t show humans. I’m showing you so you get what you’re asking. I don’t know I could cure cancer, but it’s an energy transfer. Maybe it could.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Showing me that could risk all sirens because if I went back to my doctor and my cancer was better, he would want to know how. Doctors rarely shout ‘miracle’ and instead, dig and dig as to how it happened.”

  I felt the floor fall out from under me but then recovered, glad he wasn’t a wolf who could hear my racing heart. “I get you. I do, and I’ll take that under advisement. I’m also not stupid, Milo. It would be my word against yours, and all anyone would see is a kiss. No doctor who isn’t paranormal would jump to a wolf kiss healing cancer.”

  “True, but I’m just saying don’t make them go there.”

  I gave a nod, and we went back to staring at each other. “I couldn’t have seven or eight new wolves at the same time. That would just be insane, and if you get the strain I have, you won’t be weak wolves. How do I know I could trust you? That you won’t run off or try and take over?”

  “Smart to ask, but I promise we don’t want to be lead wolf,” he answered, biting back a grin. “We don’t want to get all involved. We get we have to jump in if there’s a threat against the pack, yeah, totally, but we want to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

  “So you’d want extractions anyway. You’d have to shift to legit bodyguard and security gigs, Milo. Paranormals are too exposed. The order across all species is nothing criminal or shady, as the last thing we need is any bad press.”

  He gave a slow nod. “Your vamp has a security specialist school that trains vamps to protect covens. What we’d really like is to expand that or talk him into expanding it to more than vamps and bring them into our business.”

  “Legit bodyguard gigs where people could hire paranormals? Get on actor and celeb details? That might be—”

  “You guys are a hot topic and very in,” he interjected. “We’ve had lots of back door talks about it with people, and they’re interested. For one, as you said, you guys are shockingly durable.”

  “That’s fine, and I wouldn’t have a problem with you guys branching out that way but only after you have your wolves under control because accidentally infecting people would be horrible and probably why people haven’t taken high profile gigs. Also, not all of you could be sent off always, or what’s the point of being enforcers for the pack? And you guys need to know that Alpha is boss.”

  He gave a slow nod. “This does complicate a few notions we had, but you’re a good person if we have to have a boss. You wouldn’t micromanage or get all in our shit.”

  I snorted. “I barely have time for my own shit, Milo. Stay in the lanes we have to as wolves, help when needed, even if it means giving time to fix a roof or like we’ve helped Nina Jezebel on the house she bought for the coven she’s going to start here. We do help in that way. It’s a community, and before I could agree to this, I’d want to see how you do in that community.”

  “Agreed,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “We might not ever be potluck and graduation party people, but we were also Army. We can work for the greater good as long as it’s something we are willing to support.”

  “If it’s not, the difference of the life you lead now and if you were part of the pack is you couldn’t just brush it off or walk away. You have to come talk to me and tell me why. I don’t run my pack like a dictatorship, but if I say something, it goes unless you clear it with me.”

  “So we’d have a CEO in our business and life?”

  I bounced that around in my head. “Yes. Not your business unless it risked the pack or wolves in general. Life, yeah, but understand I’m not like normal Alphas. Hell, Vegas wolves have to work for the casinos or clubs and they get paid but—yeah, it’s messed up, Milo. I don’t want to lie to you about that. You lose some of your freedom, but you get a lot. It’s a lot like the military where there’s an extra set of rules.”

  “But better perks, as you guys heal faster and have lots of extras,” he muttered, nodding. “I’ll talk with my guys and go over it all, but we still want this. I really don’t have much of a choice, and it has to happen within the next few weeks, or turning me could kill me.”

  “It could anyways. There’s a five percent chance with every human that the virus won’t transmit the way it
should and will kill them instead. They need to know that and especially turning so many of you that one might not make it, and I’m not having that animosity on the person who does it or the pack.”

  “That we knew, and we all agreed we’re good with it. Life is a risk, and so is every job.”

  “Good. I’d want a show of your ability to work with the pack and my people.”

  “Doing what?” he asked, eyeing me carefully as he sat back in his chair. “It couldn’t be me. I’m not physically able to.”

  I gave him a look that I knew said no shit. He had stage three cancer and said it a few times. He shouldn’t be doing much besides sitting on his ass. “A few weeks ago when Queen Laila was here, several additional deals were struck. One was for her to go into business with Nina on her teas. Given construction in winter in Chicago is stupid, they immediately began work on the greenhouse on land Laila purchased to beat the first snow.

  “The deal included bringing in two fairy families that the pack would sponsor and would live in the new townhouses Laila finally got to buy with our help. Nina bought some six million dollar mansion on the waterfront right by us for—”

  “Are all your people buying up that area of Highland Park?” he asked, his lips twitching. “Good neighborhood to take over.”

  “Yeah, it is, and I didn’t plan that, but it is better if we’re all together.” I shrugged. “Fae have money. Nina’s centuries old, so she’s not broke either. My point in telling you all of this is we learned there were witches that were trying to get out of the Middle East.”

  “As any paranormal found there is burned alive,” he muttered, bobbing his head. “You want us to get them out and show we’re really willing to go this route?”

  “Not all of them because, well, it’s bad. I mean bad. It’s why we haven’t gone in yet. I have a friend in Naval Intelligence who’s been giving us what he can, and we’ve tried to come up with a plan, but it’s also not all we have going on. There are the two families of fairies that need help in South America as well that are needed for this.”