Allure of the Wolf (Seraphine Thomas Book 2) (4 page)

“No, but my people need to know so they don’t end up in a situation like you did, Sera,” he mumbled, actually sounding offended.

“Fair enough.” I wracked my brain as to how to present this without giving away my full hand. Then it hit me. “Remember that case a few years ago? That gang initiation thing those thugs off Clark were doing?”

“Yeah, beating up women in the neighborhood and making them their
mamas
or they were going to sell their little sisters into prostitution to the cartels,” he remembered after a moment of thought. Then he started cussing. “Are you telling me one of the preternatural communities is pulling
that
kind of shit?”

“Yeah,
my
species,” I drawled as my skin started to tingle simply thinking about the mess I’d been dumped in. “Welcome to what I walked into.
Personally
, Brian. The Alpha wants to do the same to me.”

“
Shit
, Sera. What can we do?” he whispered, fear in his voice. Nice to know he actually did still care about me and would do the right thing when he set his shit aside.

“Help me protect five female werewolves brave enough to step forward,” I answered honestly with a heavy sigh. I filled him in a little more, how I played it off with the Alpha and what the goal was for now. “Maybe even get an FBI counselor in to talk with them. They might not feel threatened with humans they could get away from. I don’t know. This is all new to me.”

“I’ve got an open safe house in Evanston that could fit them all and a team. I’ll put good people on it, no dicks, and pick some women to even out the testosterone.”

“Thanks, Brian. I owe you one.”

“No, you
don’t
. This is how things should be between our divisions.” He hung up before I could say anything, and I blinked at the phone a moment before I set it in the cup holder.

Cooper let out a soft whistle and I glanced at him. “The man wants you back, Chief.”

“Shut it.” I didn’t disagree, but this wasn’t a conversation I was open to having with
Cooper
.

Thankfully, he did.

I spent the rest of my day escorting each of the five women to their homes to get some essentials—a few had kids even—and taking them to a safe house. The taking away of the kids from the men of the pack did
not
go well, and I was glad right then for the Alpha’s orders for the wolves to behave.

Which surprisingly enough, they did besides some shouting and growling.

By seven at night, dinner was being delivered for Gayle Harper, Joan Martin, Margo Lewis, Connie White, Lillie Reed, six kids of varying ages, and ten federal agents assigned to protect them.

“Our mates and the Alpha will barrel these humans over like chess pieces,” Joan Martin, the woman whose mate was one of the pack’s Betas, hissed at me, wincing when she realized some of the agents heard her. “I’m sorry, but you need to know what you’re up against. I don’t want your deaths on my conscious because we asked for help.”

“Look, Engle gave the order to stand down and give you this space,” I assured them, nodding to the agents who now looked worried that I might not have the situation under control. “He doesn’t know what we’re really up to here. I’m playing nice with him and as a woman of the pack helping her sisters out. As for the humans, they’re well-trained, Joan. They’re not as fast as us, but seriously, you guys are used to dealing with bullies and brutes. Don’t knock real training. I’d rather have them at my back than most of the supposed hard-asses of the pack.”

“You didn’t fight the hard-asses, Seraphine,” Gayle Harper hissed as she waved her arms about, pacing. “You fought my mate, and he’s just a bully. The
enforcers
and
Betas
make Tony look like a high school football player compared to the NFL. If it was just a bunch of Tonys someone would have taken over the pack long ago. But there’s a list a mile long protecting Alpha Engle, and he has the money to pay for the best and biggest wolves to show up and get in his way.”

“That would have been good to know before I agreed to help you,” Brian Havers drawled shooting me a not-so-friendly look.

“I didn’t know that part,” I defended, but cursed myself for
not
knowing. I should have. Maybe if I ever had more than twenty seconds to get anything together before the next disaster hit, I would. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a major migraine coming on. “Look, I get that you guys are scared, but I hadn’t exactly planned for wolf WITSEC today. What did you want me to do once I couldn’t call in any vampires—”

“Why the hell
not
?” Connie interrupted and then growled. “Are they
still
going on about that Wisconsin dipshit? One vampire loses his shit, and for the rest of our lives, we’re helpless pups scared of anything with fangs.”

“So you’re
not
afraid of vamps?” I hedged, wanting to roll my eyes.

It was Joan who answered me. “
Strange
vampires with no allegiance, but yeah, who isn’t?” Her face drained of blood as her eyes went wide. “Unless they set this up so we’d only have humans protecting us and they could—”

“
No
, Engle gave me his word you were allowed to take a break from your mates,” I cut in, not wanting her to finish that thought and start some hysteria. “It was Tony and his buddies who told me, and it was out of genuine concern for Gayle after he promised he wouldn’t come tracking her. He didn’t want her scared.”

“Vampires do still scare me,” she whispered as she stared at her feet, no longer fussing about. “I was one of the wolves attacked. She’s right. He would have brought that up.”

They quieted down then, seeing it wasn’t a conspiracy and not pushing their friend. “Can I bring in some help
I
trust even if they’re vampires if you guys don’t feel the humans are enough?”

“Yes, but you won’t get Vlad to side against Alpha Engle unless you’re going for taking over the pack,” Gayle sighed.

“Wait, now you’re going to be Alpha?” Brian hissed, grabbing my arm and spinning me towards him. “When did you go so far off the reservation of normal, Sera?”

I narrowed my eyes and yanked my arm out of his hold. “Still feel bad for
Agent Frank
and his bruised ego that I saved his life? No, I don’t want to be Alpha. This is what I was thrown in the middle of when I became a wolf.”

The job should be ours,
my siren informed me in my mind as I got a visual of her smiling. Fuck, even my wolf was practically wagging her tail at the idea. I shook my head and they backed down. Work-time rules applied and they had to behave.

“I tracked the scent from each of their houses,” Harris announced as he walked up to us. I’d never been so happy to see his smiling face. “Nothing. The trail ends. We circled back enough times and there’s no wolf scent within a mile of the house. Davis’s spell or charm thing is working.”

“Finally, some good news,” I sighed, sagging against the wall. Then I turned back to the five wolves. “Agent Harris will be staying here with the other agents tonight. I will figure out about getting some more deputized help, okay? But I think for now you can see we’re taking every precaution. The best way you can help us is to tell us
everything
we can use to end this.”

“End this and become Alpha!” Lillie Reed demanded, her eyes flashing what little power she had in a blatant challenge.

“
You
become Alpha,” I snarled, my wolf and siren both riding me that this
weaker
wolf in our eyes just basically told us what to do in front of a group. Immediately she whimpered and bared her throat to me. “I don’t even know what being Alpha
means
yet, so stop measuring for curtains in my new office of a job I don’t
want
, don’t
understand
, and haven’t
asked
for! I’m trying to help. Let me do it my way and help us do it.”

“Chief, tone it back,” Harris begged me. I glanced at him and saw he was rubbing his arms before noticing all the wolves were showing me their necks. Damn it. Way to make them feel comfortable.

I sighed and leaned in, kissing Lillie’s neck. “I’m sorry. I know you’re scared. I’m doing the best I can. This is all new to me. Get me a full picture of what is going on, and we’ll figure out a next move that doesn’t land the pack with an Alpha who doesn’t want the job.”

“Doesn’t
want
the job,” Gayle hedged, studying me. I nodded, not sure where she was going with that. “But you could take it. If push comes to shove, you could beat Engle. You know you can—don’t you?”

“Yeah, I can take Engle,” I admitted even as my stomach churned at the idea, finally telling them what I knew they wanted to hear. “I know it and he knows it.”

“How do we know we’re not opening Pandora’s box only to get our asses handed to us if we spill all the pack’s secrets?” Joan Martin murmured, her head bowed as if making sure I knew she wasn’t being disrespectful.

It was a fair question given what they were about to do. I rolled my head and eased the growing tension there. “Brian, warn your people not to shoot me. Mike, can you handle this?”

He swallowed loudly as he took several steps back, taking Havers with him. “I’ll try, Chief.”

I waited until Brain called out to his people that there was going to be some “freaky power wolf thing” going on and not to shoot anyone. Always so polite and sensitive.

I closed my eyes and focused, giving my wolf and siren permission to come out and show off without the full seduction and shift. Basically it was almost the mental equivalent of them standing up and stretching out, doing a few practice kicks before a fight. Then they reeled it back in, and I blinked my eyes open.

“Your control is getting better,” Harris praised in a deep,
deep
purr that let me know what we’d be doing next if I ever gave him the green light.

“Yeah, my out-of-town visitors helped,” I mumbled. I met Brian’s eyes, and while I knew he didn’t fully understand what had just happened, he liked the power and felt
something
. The lust in his eyes told me that. But he wasn’t just staring at me. I yanked back from the five women rubbing themselves up against me and cleared my throat. “Okay so, you got a sample, control your wolves, ladies.”

“Fuck me, that was just a
sample
?” Connie panted as she moved away, leaning back against the wall. Damn, the woman looked as if she’d just had an orgasm. “Holy shit, Alpha. You could take on the whole pack with that kind of power. No one has that.”

“I’m not your Alpha.”

“Not yet,” Joan Martin purred as she leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Not yet, Seraphine Thomas. But I was born a wolf and there is one thing I know about intense, primal power and a true leader that knows how to control it.”

“What’s that?” I whispered as I leaned back enough to look into her eyes, wondering what was coming for me next.

“You won’t be able to stand by and let anyone else be in charge for long when you know you could do it better and protect your people by doing so.”

Damn her. Damn that woman for being right.

* * * *

“Want to talk about whatever’s bugging you?” Riley asked me when I got home that night. I shook my head and walked over to him.

My turn to play after being soooo good,
my siren demanded. I nodded and let her free.

“What do you smell, my wolf?” I purred and Riley’s eyes went wide.

“Alpha,” he breathed as he set down his drink, baring his neck to me. “Power and my Alpha.”

“Good Riley. Such a good Riley,” I cooed as I kissed along his skin, giving little nips. I groped him roughly, shoving my hands down the front of his shorts, smiling when he moaned. “Tonight your Alpha wants to be worshiped like a goddess. Obey and soon I think we should bring in another man who wants male wolf as much as I do.”

“I just need to know you’re in there, Sera,” he hedged, lowering his head so he met my eyes. “It’s not like possession, right? I mean, you know what’s going on?”

“No, nothing like that,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Sometimes your wolf is riding you and you say things more aggressively or act in a way you wouldn’t if you were simply human. That’s what it’s like. She wants things I might not ask for as
only
Sera. But I’m here. I want this.”

“Good,” he growled before dropping to his knees.

Apparently he did
too
. Worshipped was one way to put what Riley did to me as he lifted one leg over his shoulder, leaned me back against the counter, and went to town on my most intimate parts. Tristan was already out at work so we had the house to ourselves and that seemed to excite Riley, because after his first course, he picked me up and laid me out on the dining room table, stripped me naked and had another course just for me.

Then he whisked me off to the shower where he took the
best
care of my body while scrubbing every inch of me. I seriously lost count of how many orgasms I had during that time. The man was talented.