Seducing Serena
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Seducing Serena: Shifting Passions book 1
Copyright © 2009 Gabriella Bradley & Bonnie Rose Leigh
ISBN: 978-1-55487-226-8
Cover art by Martine Jardin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Seducing Serena
Shifting Passions book 1
By
Gabriella Bradley
Bonnie Rose Leigh
Prologue
Huddled within the folds of her tattered windbreaker, the woman leaned against the hood of the beat up Toyota and stared up at the house on the hill. Golden lights glittered through the freezing rain, making the mansion look welcoming. The warm glow shone like a beacon through the night, a beacon she wished she could follow. She needed the warmth she knew she could find there, the gaiety, the feeling of safety that embraced her every time she had ever stepped foot through those doors. She shook her head. It just wasn’t meant to be. Not now, and perhaps never again.
Her heart a dark pit of gloom, Serena Patterson turned away from the beckoning light and opened the rusted through door to the twenty year old piece of crap car she’d managed to buy with the last of her own money she’d earned doing odd jobs and got into the driver’s seat. With one last glance at the home she once dreamed she would fill with love and laughter, Serena put her seatbelt on, slammed the door shut, turned the key in the ignition and slowly drove away from the only place she’d ever truly felt loved. Her hands gripped the steering wheel hard, her fingers stiff and sore from cold. Frozen droplets melted and ran down her face, mingling with the salt of her tears that ran freely down her ice cold cheeks.
She drove blindly to the place she remembered so well, the creek where she was abandoned as a child after her parents were killed by those whose sole aim in life was to annihilate those who were considered not human, the place where her brothers had found her and taken her home to their grandmother. This was the place she now chose to die. They were better off without her because all she did was bring danger to their lives.
Driving as far as she could, she stopped the car and turned off the engine. It was nearly out of gas anyway and keeping it running gave her no warmth, the heater hadn’t worked from the day she bought it. Then again, it was only a hundred dollar car. What could one expect? Not that it mattered now. She considered driving into the freezing water, but decided to just let the weather do its work. It wouldn’t take long for the freezing rain to turn to snow. By morning she’d be dead from hypothermia. She took off her jacket, yanked the handle on the side of the seat and let the back down completely. Lying down, she blanked out all thought and as her teeth started chattering, her body shaking uncontrollably from cold, all she wished for now was sweet oblivion.
She knew it would soon come and didn’t care.
If she was gone, it would solve all her problems.
Chapter One
Brady Turner and his brothers watched the small car parked at the bottom of the hill, just near their driveway, the dark figure standing next to it, the face a white blob as the person stared up at the house. Brady knew who it was. Instinct had always told him when Serena was near—the same for his brothers, Asher and Damen. Although they shared no blood, they had been raised as brothers by his grandmother, the bond between the three men almost as intimate as lovers. After a mass killing of many of their kind, his grandmother had taken his two best friends under her wing and brought them up as if they were her own flesh and blood, with the help of her younger brother Uncle Sean. Sean’s mate was killed many years ago and they had never had offspring so he welcomed the addition of youngsters to the household.
Brady’s grandmother was gone now. One night her soul left her aging body. She’d died peacefully while asleep. His uncle Sean was killed a few years ago by a contingent of feline hunters. Oh, he’d fought bravely, but his aging body wasn’t as strong, and the many wounds they dealt him, caused his death. Brady was the sole heir to the estate and the family business, though after the will was read he gave instructions to the lawyer that he wanted to share everything equally with his two brothers and sister—not that his feelings toward her at that point were at all brotherly. His grandmother had appointed a guardian for the business—a close family member, one whom they’d adopted as an uncle, their Uncle Bernard.
He was a baby, taken in by his ever loving and kind grandmother many years before Brady was born. She had included him in her will, left him a considerable amount of money and the custodianship of the business, but the bulk of her estate she’d left to him, Brady, the blood heir. To him, his two adopted brothers and sister he’d grown to love so much, deserved to share that estate. Sure, his grandmother had left them something as well, but to Brady, it wouldn’t feel right unless he shared the entire fortune with them.
It wasn’t long after that when Serena suddenly disappeared. They had been devastated and had tried to track her scent, but she’d managed to evade them for a very long time. Every now and then they heard news of her, of the dangers she submitted herself to, causing them to cringe. And now she was here. His heart beat faster at the thought she’d soon walk up that driveway, but she didn’t. She just stood there.
He—like his adopted brothers—just wished they knew what stopped Serena from walking through the doors and into their arms. He was about to rush out those doors and run to her when he saw her get into the car. Within seconds the little beaten up vehicle started and drove away.
Brady strained his eyes to watch the car drive away. The slashing, icy rain made visibility bad.
One taillight was broken, the other faded from view very fast. Brady sensed his brothers and turned to face them. He didn’t have to read their minds to feel their disappointment that she hadn’t come inside, come to them for help. In her haste to assert some control over her life, she had cut them out of it completely a long time ago. They sensed she was in danger, but even so, she didn’t come to them. How could they have let things go so horribly wrong between them? And what were they to do now?
“If it’s any consolation, she hasn’t forgotten us, Brady.”
“And apparently, she hasn’t forgiven us either for not really being there for her when our grandmother died,” he replied to Asher, again looking at the distant spot where he could see the red glow of her retreating lights. “We just didn’t understand her feelings, losing her real parents when she was so young, then the only mother she knew all those years passed away.”
“We were young, too insensitive to her needs.
Well, she’s here now,” Damen added. “As long as she stays in the area, we can keep an eye on her without it being obvious.”
“You think she isn’t going to catch on, Damen?
She isn’t a little gir
l anymore and whatever naiveté she had when she was a teenager, I suspect has long since disappeared. You know of the dangers she’s faced over the last years and she never contacted us once. We read her mind, knew what was happening to her, but not once did she let us in long enough to know where she was exactly. What are the chances of her coming to one of us for help now, never mind the three of us, when she may very well blame us for everything that happened to her?” Brady sighed and ran his hand through his hair in agitation.
“We don’t know that, Brady, and making assumptions about her state of mind isn’t going to bring her back into our lives. It’s time she came home to us. We just need to let her know that she can trust us with not only her life and well-being, but also with her emotions.”
Brady scowled at Damen. “And how do you suggest we do that? She wouldn’t even come up the driveway. She just parked at the edge of the property and looked up at the house as though she doesn’t belong here, will never belong here. I could feel her pain and loneliness from here. I just wish I knew why she ran off the way she did years ago, whether it was because of our stupidity or something else.”
“That’s something we’d all like to know, Brady.
But for now, we have something else to worry about. The bond between Serena and us is growing stronger the closer she gets to the age of her first transformation. She must take her mates by Imbolc if she is to come into her abilities. If she doesn’t come back to us soon, before her twentyfifth birthday, it may be too late.” Damen worried his bottom lip, then turned to Ash for inspiration—at least for a way to stop this conversation so they could form a plan to get her back home. Permanently.
It was already nearing the end of January. Her birthday was only a week away. That left the brothers only seven days to tell her of her heritage, let her fight her inner demons and protect her from her enemies. She would not only reach her sexual maturity during the pagan holiday, but she would shift to her white tiger form and would immediately seek a permanent bonding. They needed to be nearby, ready to mount her because they’d be damned before allowing other males to mate with her after waiting years for her to grow up so they could claim her themselves.
“You don’t have to tell me that her time is running out, Brady. She knows that she isn’t exactly human, but she doesn’t know about her upcoming passage into maturity. If only she had been raised completely as one of us, as part of a feline pride, so many things would be different now. But the elders insisted my grandmother not tell her anything until her eighteenth birthday. By then, she was already gone from our lives. There was nothing we could do.”
“We could have disobeyed Uncle Sean and the Elder Council, Damen. Instead, we did nothing.”
Asher stepped between them. “Stop it you two.
There is no sense in disagreeing amongst ourselves. The point is, before we found her, she wasn’t raised among our kind so she doesn’t know everything she needs to know. She’s been abandoned too often in her life. It’s time we make her see that she can come to us, no matter what the problem is, and that we’ll stand by her. Until she feels as though she has a safe place to go to in times of trouble and in times of joy, she’s going to keep on running, running from us, from those chasing her, escaping from love, period.”
Brady and Damen looked at each other, then back to Asher. Sometimes they forgot that behind his golden good looks and playboy veneer beat the heart of a man who would do anything for them. He was always the voice of reason when their passionate personalities demanded action.
His first priority was to talk them down so they wouldn’t accidently hurt themselves or innocent bystanders. In this case, calm heads would definitely help their cause in locating her.
Damen straightened, then stepped back.
“You’re right, Asher. What do you suggest we do?”
“We need to find out where she’s staying. If the car she’s driving is any indication, it wouldn’t surprise me to find she intends to sleep in it on the streets. I have a feeling she’s broke.”
Brady ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “She’s got to know that she always has a place here, with us. Why wouldn’t she come here if she has no other place to go?”
“There are any number of reasons, Brady,” Asher stated, his voice calm as ever. “You know how stubborn she is, how proud. We’ve got to find her so we can keep her safe. There have been entirely too many narrow escapes with her life since she left home. From kidnapping attempts to muggings and attempted hit and runs, someone has been stalking her across the country for the last seven years and we need to find out who and why, and put a stop to it. The point is, until we know where she’s staying, we can’t keep her safe from the danger persecuting her.”
Damen spoke up. “Then let’s stop wasting time with all this talk and go. There are too many back roads around here she could use. We can track her by scent trail, but in this weather we might lose her before even pinpointing the direction she took.”
“You’re right. Let’s take the Land Rover.”
Brady turned, placing his hands against the cold glass of the frosty window. “The weather looks grim. I especially don’t want Serena out there in what could turn into a major snow storm.” Brady grimaced, his gaze still riveted out the window.
“Alright, I’ll gather our coats. Asher, you and Damen can head on out to the car and get it warmed up.”
“You got it. Oh, and grab something warm for Serena just in case. It didn’t look like that jacket she had on earlier would keep a flea warm.”
How long, Brady wondered, had it been since Serena felt warm and safe at night? Years, he imagined. Years she could have spent warm and dry with them. Well, he knew one thing for certain. They wouldn’t make the same mistakes they had made in the past. She would know to the depths of her soul that she was meant to be a part of them. She’d never doubt their love for her again. First, they had to find her and convince her to come home.
With an urgent need riding him he didn’t understand, Brady headed to the master suite where a wardrobe of clothes awaited their mate.
After grabbing the warmest looking coat he could find from her closet and ripping a blanket from her bed, he raced down the stairs and out the front door where his brothers of the heart awaited him.
The three men rode in silence as they searched the roads into town for Serena’s rattletrap of a vehicle. Once they arrived in Graton, the small town located at the base of mountain, they drove every single street, stopped at the two motels, but saw no sign of Serena’s battered vehicle.
“We’ve been searching for more than an hour.
There’s no sign of her car,” Brady muttered.
“We can’t give up now. She’s got to be somewhere. She couldn’t have disappeared that fast.”
“I suppose. We’ll search a while longer.”
“Look, it’s no use. I don’t know where the hell she could have gone,” Brady said. “This is turning into a blizzard. All we can do is pray that Serena has found a warm place to hole up until the storm’s over.” He turned back toward home. The windshield wipers could hardly keep up with the ice pelting against the window. Brady leaned forward to peer at the road. Visibility was bad so he slowed down to a crawl and drove on in silence.
Damen broke the grim stillness. “Ash, Brady, you remember where we first found Serena when she was just a kid? Down by Wolverine Creek?”
“Yeah. What of it?”
“Do you think she’d go there? The creek is about the only place we haven’t looked that I can think of.”
“There isn’t even a level place down there to pitch a tent and she knows of the wolves in the area,” added Brady.
“I know, but it’s the only place left that we haven’t searched, and though you couldn’t pitch a tent there, there are plenty of places to park a car.
Remember how everyone used to go necking there?”
Ash nodded. “Among other things. The turnoff to Wolverine Creek is only a couple of miles
ahead.”
Chapter Two
Within a couple of minutes, Brady turned the Land Rover down the narrow trail that led to the swimming hole at the base of the creek. As they rounded the last bend leading to the creek, they spotted Serena’s vehicle.
Brady hit the brakes too hard and the Rover slid, almost ramming into Serena’s car. They practically fell out of the vehicle in their haste to rush to her aid. Within seconds they were standing beside her car, looking in, barely able to see her. The glass had started to frost over and the engine was turned off, yet Serena only lay huddled beneath the threadbare jacket she’d worn, a jacket wet from her standing out in the pelting frozen rain. A wolf howled in the distance.
And again. Brady frowned. “The Weres are on the prowl tonight.”
“I hear. We’d better hurry and get her out of this car. The wolf senses an easy kill,” Damen muttered.
“What does it say about us that she’d rather sleep out here and face danger than come home to us?” Asher asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“This is our fault. We should have been different.
Better. Look what we’ve done to her.”
“I have a feeling she didn’t just come here to sleep. I think she wants to leave this life,” Damen retorted, gloom tainting his voice. He scraped the ice off the side window.
Her usually lush lips were now a thin line of ice blue skin. Her once radiant golden blonde hair now hung limp and dull against her hollow cheeks. She didn’t even have a hat to cover her ears or a pair of mittens to warm her fingers. She looked like a starved street urchin instead of a healthy twenty-four year old. It was all the men could do not to rush and carry her away so that they could take care of her.
Even though everything inside of Brady demanded that he jerk open the door and drag her out by force if he needed to, he couldn’t do that.
He had to give her the chance to respond. Instead, he sucked frigid air into his lungs, letting the cold air burn its way through his airway before gently rapping against the driver’s side window. She didn’t respond, nor move at all.