Allure of the Wolf (Seraphine Thomas Book 2) (31 page)

“Point made,” he sighed, rubbing his temples.

“Um, Chief, I have two very large men demanding to see you,” Davis informed me. My head snapped towards the door and my heart sped up.

“I told you
not
to come!” I snarled at Hagan and Reagan Cooney as I stormed towards them.

“No, Alpha, you said not to
out ourselves as wolves
,” Hagan reminded me as he dropped his rucksack in my foyer. “We didn’t do that. We have friends in high places too. They simply changed some memories and doctored our paperwork so we were out of the Marines as of yesterday.”

I gasped and launched myself the rest of the way into his arms. “You guys are awesome!”

He caught me easily and hugged me tightly. “Glad you like our surprise and aren’t mad.”

“As long as you’re not mad when I tell you I have a surprise of my own,” I countered, realizing it was time to spill the beans on something else I’d done. Hagan leaned back and nodded for me to go ahead. “I found you a place. I put down the deposit for you. I saw it this morning and”—I rolled my eyes—“yesterday morning now I guess, but—”

“You’re fucking
kidding
me,” Riley growled, probably guessing where this was going. I heard a loud crash and turned to see he had thrown a beer bottle against the wall. “You rented the house
next door
for your new twin wolves?”

I snarled as I spun to face him. “Maybe
you
should move in there with
your
little wolf you had
offer
himself up to me in front of a whole fucking club after begging me to take over as Alpha and promising to
help
me
get things off my plate.” I approached him slowly, my power building the angrier and angrier I got.

“I wanted you to have some
fun
,” he argued, shying away from what I knew he was feeling. “Stop making it seem like I betrayed you. I didn’t tell Engle your secrets or call you a monster to all your old team or something. I’m on
your side
.”

“As long as I am who
you
want me to be!” I roared, shoving him harder than I meant to. He went flying across the dining room and into the living room, rolling ass over head once he landed on the floor.

I was actually shocked how fast he jumped right to his feet, keeping his hands fisted as if ready for anything but making no signs of aggression. “You make everything so fucking personal, Sera. As if the world is out to get you, everyone will betray you or leave—”

“Shut up, Riley, just shut the
fuck up
,” Davis snapped, moving up next to me. I was surprised she jumped in and then it hit me.

She knew about my past. I lost my anger in a flash and looked at her. “Do I do that? Is he right?”

“No, he’s not,” she murmured,
her
fists balled and in front of her body—but not raised yet—though still clearly a sign of hostility towards Riley. Wow, she was that pissed on my behalf. “You protect yourself, vigilantly after what you’ve been through, and if he’d stop long enough to pull his head out of his
ass
, someone who cared enough would wonder
why
.”

Riley’s face went pale as he glanced between us before focusing solely on me. “Why? Why do you wait for everyone to betray you—assume that’s what it is? What does she mean?”

I took a few deep breaths and glanced around the room,
hating
this was going to be done with so many people around. Then I realized they had a right to know given what we were about to do and let out a bitter chuckle. “Fine, we can do this now, like this.” I narrowed my eyes at Riley. “You want to know who you’ve been pushing to take over the pack,
preaching
it should be like a
family
, Riley? You’ve lived with me—what, four weeks? Seen any
pictures
of mine?”

“No,” he hedged, glancing around. “I just figured you hadn’t unpacked them yet.”

“Sera was the first to finish unpacking,” Tristan sighed. I glanced at him and he was frowning. Of course he’d figured some of this out.
He
paid attention.

My gaze swung back to Riley as I swallowed the massive, steel-wool-like lump in my throat. “You know I was always clairvoyant, or had the tendencies, whatever. I was a crappy one. My parents were normal so maybe I was a genetic fluke. I don’t know. My fifth birthday, they took me to Wrigley Field, best day of my childhood, my first really clear happy memory in between all the ones of getting in trouble for saying things that upset them because I knew things I wasn’t supposed to.

“I must have done or said something that day with all those people around that was pretty bad but I don’t remember it, I had a great time. Because less than a week later, they dumped me on the steps of DCFS. Just took off, disappeared so there was no chance I’d be returned to them. I grew up in the foster system, being bounced to one family after another ditching me when they found out I was a freak—and no one ever told me why or that other people didn’t see the things I could at times.

“Only after I was
thirteen
did I understand and that was because one of the
families
I was supposed to be placed with had a dad that liked getting foster kids so he could sneak into their rooms at night—or so I saw after he touched me. I refused to go with them, fighting and screaming that he would hurt me, I saw him hurt other kids. The social worker yelled at me that I couldn’t make up stories, but I knew what the kids looked like, and she believed me, having placed the others. She explained things to me.

“She told me I would never fit in with any family I’d be placed with and my best option was to get emancipated, and to college as fast as I could, so I did. I graduated high school two
years
early just so I had a fighting chance at this life
alone,
knowing I would never really fit anywhere.”

“You fit now, Sera,” he muttered as he moved forward.

I blinked at him. “I do?” His jaw dropped open. “Explain to me
how
exactly? I’m a new fucking wolf who’s so strong you want me to take over the pack. I have a wolf
and
siren and I can do things none of you thought possible. You want me to be someone I’m not and accuse me of not taking shit off my plate while adding to it. That’s the very definition of fucking being
alone
, Riley. So yeah, excuse me for not wanting to lead a goddamn family when I never had one. Thanks for showing me how to rely on other wolves right off the bat.”

I brushed past him, knocking him with my shoulder, and headed out back. It surprised me when it was Monroe who came after me a bit later, handing me a beer.

“Why do you go to Wrigley if you need to think then, if that’s the memory you have of it?” he asked gently.

“It was the last time my life wasn’t complicated,” I admitted with a shrug. “I was still ignorant to the world and what hell life can be. It reminds me not to let people in and be happy because in a blink of an eye it can all be gone.”

“You are way too morbid and jaded for someone so young, Sera,” he sighed. I shot him a nasty look. “I’m not saying you don’t have every
right
to be, but you are though.”

“Riley left,” Tristan informed me as he joined us. “He says he’ll be back to do whatever you need him to help tomorrow so just give him a job.”

“Are you mad at me?” I glanced at him, seeing Monroe give me a nod before heading back into the house. It was nice of him to come check on me but I was glad he had the manners to know when to excuse himself from the conversation too.

“No, not at all, Sera.” He wrapped his arms around me and sighed. “Do I think that maybe you see betrayal where people are just fucking up? Yes. Is it valid?
Yes
.”

“And?” I mumbled when he stopped talking.

“Don’t ask me that. I’m not getting in the middle of this.” Okay now I
couldn’t
let this one go. I turned in his arms and stared up at him. “
Please
don’t ask me to.”

“Free pass, okay?” I whispered, rubbing my hands up his chest. “I won’t hold anything you say against you. I need you to be straight with me so I can settle this in my mind and focus on what needs to be done. Just tell me what I’m doing wrong and how I can fix—” His eyes went wide and I shut my mouth so fast I bit my lip, but then he didn’t say anything. “What? What am I missing again?”

“You think I blame
you
and here I think you’re asking me what you should do about Riley,” he murmured as he pressed his lips to my forehead. “The
and
you wanted to know about earlier was I think you’re right that he wants you to change. He’ll want you to quit your job and be only Alpha but I’ve not wanted to come between you. I’ve asked myself if that’s what I see because you sovereigning me can make me jealous or is it really there?”

“What have you come up with?”

“It’s really there,” he sighed, turning his head so his cheek was resting on my hair. “It’s in his comments, his demeanor, his attitude about your work. It’s little things and maybe they brushed me the wrong way, but when you said he wanted you to change, I thought
he asked her to quit
.”

“I think he’ll want that too. There was something else he wanted me to change, I saw it in his eyes and that was what popped into my mind first too,” I admitted but then took a moment before asking what I needed to next. “Will you ever ask that of me?”

“No, not ever,” he swore. “I don’t want you taking over the pack because you don’t want to. I’ve tried to help you come to terms that you’re going to because I don’t see another way around it. You won’t let what’s happened continue, but your work, your job—it’s who you
are
. Being Alpha is what you have to do because it’s the right thing in your eyes. I think most others will see it the other way around.”

“Thank you for understanding that.” I kissed his shirt over his chest before leaning around him to stare at the Cooney twins who I’d known had come out a little bit ago. “And you guys?”

They glanced at each other as Tristan turned us so we could both see them, leaning me against his chest. It was Reagan who answered me.

“Your life is your choices, Alpha, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Some people are born to lead, are born Alphas whether they are wolves or not. You simply became a wolf because of the luck of the draw. You’re an
Alpha
, Seraphine, through and through. You made the choice to dedicate yourself to the FBI and uphold the law, protect people, it’s who you are. When you became a wolf, you were thrown into the next phase of that and had the pack added to that. I don’t see it as mutually exclusive.”

“But we don’t see them as ever really being able to be separated either,” Hagan clarified, glancing at Reagan who nodded. “The law is the law, and protecting people is what you swore to do. The pack needs you just as the FBI does. You can do both. We couldn’t as Marines and that’s fine. We were born wolves
and
Americans and joined the Marines because our country needed us. We believe in
semper fidelis
—always faithful. Our country needed us then, our birth pack needs us now. We will do what is needed as we swore.”

“I like the way you guys see things,” I muttered, glancing between them. It was the truth. Everything seemed clearer from their eyes. Take out the bullshit and the politics and there was just the mission, the duty, the purpose.

I was
all
for that.

Hagan opened his mouth but then music came from the house and I burst out laughing when I realized it was CCR’s
I Put a Spell On You
. Harris poked his head out the patio door with a big grin on his face.

“
Really
, Mike?” I teased, giving him a smirk.

“
Bad Moon Rising
would have been too obvious coming from a cheetah,” he shot back. “And this cat’s got too much
taste
for that.” He winked at me. “Come on, Chief. I’ve got good news, and I know how you like that.”

“I’ll find out what they learned and keep the animals from breaking the china,” Tristan chuckled, kissing my head before jogging into the house.

I stared at the twins as my mind raced. Were they going to be pissed I overstepped? Did I ruin their nice gesture of coming here to help me?

Reagan slowly smiled. “Ready to kick Engle’s ass?”

Or not.

“No, but I’m ready for this shit to end and the pack to be free of living like this.”

“Close enough,” Hagan chuckled, throwing his arm around me as they flanked me. We headed inside to join the others, and I shivered at the cool June night. “So what’s the house like next door?”

I tripped over my feet and almost went down if not for his strong hands catching me. I blinked up at him and swore. “I never looked. I have no idea.”