Allure of the Wolf (Seraphine Thomas Book 2) (30 page)

“I’d love to but I’m an early riser,” she warned me playfully. I smiled and gave her a wave before heading to the locker room… Only to lock eyes with Riley.

As he engaged in some fun of his own—a nice bear riding him to be exact. No, not like a biker bear, like a
bear
shifter. I looked away and kept going, not because it bothered me he was with a man or someone else, but that he was getting what he wanted, me taking over the pack. And instead of turning to him right away about it, the fact it was happening now after what he’d done was like salt in the wound.

Five minutes later I was in my car and on my Bluetooth calling Reagan Cooney. “I’m fine,” I announced right away. “I needed cover to get out of a tight spot and you guys blowing up my phone gave it to me.”

“Alpha, we were shitting bricks,” he growled. “So you’re not in trouble and in need of us?”

“Oh no, there’s definitely trouble and I could
totally
use you guys,” I chuckled darkly as I peeled out of the parking lot. “But there’s no way to get you here in time so there’s no point in asking for it.”

“That might not be true so fill us in and let us decide,” Hagan argued.

I rolled my eyes. I was a big girl. “I can handle this.”

“Of that we have no doubt, but trust us enough now to at least
advise
you since you’re new to being in a pack and we’re not,” Reagan offered.

Well, when he put it like that… I told them. I winced as my ears rang with the litany of curse words that came over the line. Wow, they had some
interesting
combinations. And here I thought I swore too much.

“Sera, it’s not possible to have
eighteen
dominance fights and
then
take the Alpha. There’s not enough time. He’ll still have the
induction
or whatever the fuck they call it,” Hagan told me.

“Engle said a person can delay a day if
they’ve
been challenged more than once that day,” I mumbled. “He didn’t say anything about the challenger having more than one fight in a day.”

“You can’t be
serious
,” Reagan gasped. “You can’t possibly be thinking of having all those fights tomorrow
then
taking on Engle.”

“She’s
seventeen
, Reagan,” I whispered, tears burning my eyes. “What other option do I have? Give me another way and I will gladly take it, but if not—
yes
, I have to try.”

There was a pause before Hagan spoke up. “They’d have to yield their position to you as you said your wolf did before.” I winced at the mention of Riley. “You have more than your wolf in your arsenal, Sera.”

And just like that I knew what I had to do. “That’s not considered cheating?”

“Fuck no. You’re a wolf,” Reagan growled. “No matter which strain of wolf lycanthropy you have, you’re still a were
wolf
.”

“Is there
any
way to get around killing Engle?” I muttered, sick down to my bones I was plotting to murder a man even one so vile as him.

“Maybe,” Reagan hedged. “We’ll make some calls. I remember something in the old rules about the Betas stepping down but I don’t know if it’s still an active council law. I have to check.”

“Please do.”

“Alpha, we can help,” Hagan murmured.

“You’ve got another week before you’re even out of the Marines,” I reminded him.

“We could let it slip what we are.”

“No!”
I snarled, my hands clutching the steering wheel tightly enough that I heard it creak under the force. “You don’t know what you want to do when you’re out. You’re not blowing the lid off what you are for this.”

“Damn it, Sera, you could fucking
die
!” Hagan roared. “They get a
whiff
of what you’re doing and Engle will have them jump you before you get a chance to show up on pack lands and challenge them.”

“Let them. I won’t be alone. I’m getting help. Simone’s in and she’s head of one of the panther packs. I’m calling Vlad next. I’ve got backup. Just not
wolf
backup besides this Beta.”

“What about your wolf?” Reagan asked quietly.

“I’m not sure we’re on the same page but I know I can trust him against Engle.” It was true. I might not feel all that confident about where Riley and I were but I knew if it came down to me and Engle—he’d choose me.
Maybe getting jealous and jumping to siren someone isn’t such a good idea after all, now is it?

Point taken, point
very
well taken,
my siren conceded. I had a feeling she wouldn’t be pushing me to make anyone ours for a while. She mentally nodded. Look at that. She didn’t like getting played either.

Yay us.

“Fine, but keep us updated. We only have so much time to hop a flight and get to you. We need to know for sure who’s at your back, Sera. If the rules aren’t followed the right way, you can’t be Alpha, not
ever,
and who knows what will happen then,” Reagan warned.

“All right, you have my word.” I went to hang up but paused, my heart filling with something I didn’t really recognize. Trust? Gratitude? Something more? “And thanks. It means the world to me you would blow your cover just to be there for me like this.”

“We meant it when we said we were pledging ourselves to you and would be whatever you needed, Alpha,” Hagan assured me before they hung up.

Next person I called was Monroe, then I left messages for Vlad and Tristan, realizing they were doing their shots game at the club since it was Saturday night. Next was Harris, Davis, Cooper, Remington, and Jennings. Surprisingly enough they all answered.

I cursed when I went to connect to Noah’s number. Of all the times for him to be out of town. Fuck a duck.

As I whipped into my driveway, I saw a figure standing on my porch. I parked and got out, relaxing when I smelled Chief Monroe.

“As much as I
love
being paged to my subordinate’s house in the middle of the night on a weekend—”

“I’m taking over the pack tomorrow,” I interrupted. “Are you helping or not?”

His jaw fell open. That was about the reaction I expected. I let him in the house and then caught him up. I wasn’t surprised at his first question. “What’s your plan?”

“I have
no
fucking clue,” I snickered before throwing back my head and laughing. I laughed so hard it turned into that hysterical kind that scared me, tears running out my eyes so bad that I had to wipe them a few times.

“It’s going to be okay, Sera,” he murmured when I started to hyperventilate.

“Chad, she’s
seventeen
. Forget the fact
I
barely know how to be a wolf without everyone telling me what to do and I’m the
last
person who should run a pack, I now have the fate of a seventeen-year-old girl on my shoulders.
None
of this is
okay
.” Cooper showed up then and I pulled myself together. “Can you fill them in? I’m going to call Greece.”

He nodded and that was what we did. Luckily Alena was able to take my call. Saying she was
appalled
at the news about what else Engle had been up to was an understatement. Outraged was more like it and mortified her son had not only known but had been party to it.

“I will send you half a dozen of my wolves to help,” she informed me, rattling off orders in Greek.

“Alena, that’s not—”

“Sera, my blood helped
make
this mess. You are our blood now. Do not argue with me on this,” she ordered. “This
is
what pack does. They will follow your commands as Alpha and help you keep peace. You are new and do not know this, but once you have allies, this is what wolves do with friends. You asked Simone for help and I applaud that, but once you make more wolf allies your first move would have been to call another pack in New York or wherever else that were
wolves
, not bring cats on pack lands.”

“Oh shit, I didn’t think of that,” I grumbled, rubbing my tired eyes as I tried to figure out how to avoid another cultural or rule-filled minefield.

“That is why you have me. I will send my best I can spare not of my own
special
wolves,” she hinted. “They can stay for an extended time, a few weeks perhaps, while you take stock of who is left in your pack that is not corrupt. But know this, my dear girl, the moment you take over, that will be your first job. Any pack who has ever set eyes on a large turf like Chicago will see nothing but fresh meat at the idea of a new leader and think you are an easy target. You need new, strong wolves to take the place of what you are losing.”

“Alena, I don’t know if I can do this,” I admitted for the first time. Not that I didn’t
want
to—that I wasn’t capable of it.

“Nonsense. I have not a doubt that you can and will do it wonderfully.” She paused to let that sink in before continuing. “We don’t advertise this but Greece is a high percentage of paranormals compared to other countries. With legends of gods and other mythologies, it simply became a mecca of sorts to all creatures and some believe it is where we were all born. I know of some who would like the chance to move up in a good pack with a strong leader when they won’t have that opportunity here.

“There are ways to get good wolves, Sera. Strong,
born
wolves you can trust. You simply have to know the right people and most do not have the connections needed. But you? You do, my friend.”

“Well hot damn,” I cheered somewhat sarcastically, shaking my head. “Go me for once.”

“Yes,
go you
,” she agreed and I could just about see her rolling her eyes. We spent the next half hour talking strategy in between her ordering people around to “ship out” the help I needed as she kept calling it.

By the time we hung up, I felt who I wanted to see most walk into the house and slowly looked up and met the cobalt blue eyes that actually gave me the strength and comfort I dearly needed.

“Sera,” Tristan whispered. He rushed to me and I jumped into his arms, letting myself be consoled. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,”
I breathed, thinking someone
finally
said the right thing. I hadn’t wanted this. It really meant everything to me that he was acknowledging that.

For the next couple of hours it was filling people in, getting everyone on the same page, and by then it was after three in the morning and over four hours since I’d left the club. I was
exhausted
.

I wasn’t sure we were much further than when we had started.

“So let me get this straight,” I tried once again. “Freddie can’t relinquish his spot to me as Riley did because he’s a Beta and there’s no jumping in line with them?”

“No,” Monroe agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he paced my living room. Then he snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Think of it this way. When you were an agent and you got an assignment, you might be able to hand it off, or bump someone in seniority because you worked Christmas or had some other training, right? That would put you in front.”

“Right,” I hedged, following the analogy.

“Those are all the wolves in the pack,” Riley explained but not looking at me. He’d come home sometime in the middle of everyone arriving, and while he’d jumped right in, we’d not spoken privately or even glanced at each other. “We can hand off work, rank in the pack. I was at the top of the line before the enforcers. After that, you
have to
fight your way up.”

“So you can’t just switch off teams or
cases
once you’ve been promoted,” I muttered, following along. “They have to yield or you kick their ass into yielding. How is that different than skipping over them?”

“Each person has to yield after the challenge is issued,” Riley answered. “I just said you could have my place, no worries. You have to challenge an enforcer, he shows up and denies the challenge, which is a yield.
Or
shows up and takes a knee, saying he yields to you.
Or
you fight and whoever wins takes that spot.”

“And there’s no skipping in line?”

“Right,” several people told me.

“This shit hurts my head,” I bitched.

“Sera, you’re used to rules and fucking red tape,” Monroe snapped. I heard a knock at the door but ignored it, too busy getting
schooled
. “What’s the big deal with this?”

“
This
is not like FBI regs,” I growled, waving my arms about even as I started to pace. “This is like crack Monopoly. If there’s a hotel on the first day after the full moon and he’s a douche enforcer but not a Beta following Alpha’s direct orders but still breaking the law, then he can be arrested as committing a crime under duress unless it’s under the guise of dominance shit—then who fucking knows?”