Their Unusual Mating [Paranormal Protection Unit 5] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  Paranormal Protection Unit 5

  Their Unusual Mating

  She was no one, so why in the world would anyone want to kidnap her? That is the question that surrounds Charisma Coleman after a thwarted kidnapping attempt leads her to an old but trusted friend's home. Unsure of everything around her, she's as surprised as everyone else to find her calm in the arms of a man she thought nothing but a dream.

  Months before when he'd been woken by the Queen's return, Laighean had been sure the woman of his stasis dreams was nothing more than a figment of a slowly degrading mind. To find her in his Queen's home, mere feet separating them, he fears the worst, insanity finally claiming another victim.

  Their passions are fierce, years separated having stoked the fires of their needs to a fiery pitch. Charisma is still in danger, as are others who would be bond-mates, from an unknown threat. To protect his woman Laighean will need to learn his new world and fast.

  Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal

  Length: 57,529 words

  THEIR UNUSUAL MATING

  Paranormal Protection Unit 5

  Honor James

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  THEIR UNUSUAL MATING

  Copyright © 2013 by Honor James

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-433-7

  First E-book Publication: March 2013

  Cover design by Viola Estrella

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Their Unusual Mating by Honor James from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

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  This is Honor James’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. James’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

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  DEDICATION

  This is to my family who puts up with me and my ramblings that seem to be never ending. This is also for my fans. Without you I wouldn’t be able to continue to write these amazing stories. Thank you, my Dear Ones, for accepting the invitation into my wild and chaotic imagination.

  THEIR UNUSUAL MATING

  Paranormal Protection Unit 5

  HONOR JAMES

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  Waking had been a strange thing. In an unknown place and time. A new Queen having been crowned and many of his friends and kin long since buried in a war long since forgotten. Forgotten by many of those that had moved forward, but not those that had been forced to sleep.

  A war not of their making, one constructed and construed to ensure the Fae were put to sleep and, if their enemies had gotten their way, left to turn to dust. But Gaia had been on their side finally and the new Queen had been found and her people awoken. Or rather, most of her people had been awoken.

  It took him a great deal of time to realize it, there were so many amongst the Fae, the Pixie, and others of the realm of Nature, but some hadn’t ever made it to the Sleeping. “The Sleeping” was such an innocuous term for stasis where there was to be no dreams, no thoughts, nothing but darkness. No, it was obvious that those that had known the truth had been exterminated, all but him. Why he had been spared he didn’t know, but hopefully in time he’d figure it out.

  First though came the passing of knowledge. Absorbing all that had passed in the too many years, new technology, new population growth, new cities, new laws, new, new, and more new. It was quite frankly scary, terrifying, and downright horrifying by equal turns. That the human race had nearly exterminated them all not once, not twice, but several times out of their own sheer stupidity was unreal.

  Gaining and absorbing the knowledge was hard. He would easily admit that. Next though came the testing, to ensure they had all absorbed it and understood it, including the new laws that governed the world, but mostly where they would be going. Or rather where the majority would be going.

  He hadn’t spoken to any of the others of it, but he needed to do something before going to be with their Queen. Yes, it was a driving desire to be close to her, at least for a time until their tie to Nature was reestablished. But he had to do one thing first. He needed to know, for himself, just who had set them up to fall.

  He could have asked Gaia. He likely could have even asked for an audience with their Queen, but he didn’t trust either. Not given that he was the only surviving member of the original Royal Guard who had known the threat imminent on the horizon. They never should have gone to the Queen of that time. That’s where they’d gone wrong, where everything had gone wrong. It was why his brethren were not there and why none of their family was either. Full extermination.

  Which yet again begged the question, why had he been saved instead of another?

  * * * *

  Six months after the awakening he was standing right where the final battle had been waged. He was hoping for some bits of information to return. He was missing large chunks from his memory and likely not from anything but a well-thought-out plan. Crouching in what had once been a valley with rolling hills on either side, now a housing complex around a ravine, he touched the soil. “What am I missing?” he whispered in the old language.

  Closing his eyes, he thought back to that day. He and his Fae brethren had heard tell the borders had been breached by a warring facti
on of the Dragons. Dragons that had thrown off their King and gone rogue. The Fae Queen had dispatched much of the army as well as a select group of the Royal Guard, himself included, to go and meet the Dragons and ensure they knew they were not permitted to be there unless it was in peace.

  Looking back at it now he realized that those selected from the Guard were all dead, all but him. Licking his lips, he let out a shuddering breath and stood, turning to look up the way. He was seeing the past, not the present. He saw his group of Fae riders coming over the hill to the south riding in a northwestern direction.

  The wind was coming from the west, helping to hide the Fae’s scent from the Dragons. But it was aiding them to know just where the Dragons were. Which allowed the Fae to get close. From there it had all gone downhill fast.

  The Dragons had known they were coming. It was all planned. The battle had raged hard and fast, other Fae coming in at the call, not to aid their own but to aid the Dragon rebels! Frowning as his memories started to fuzz over, he fought to know more, to remember more.

  The Dragons had pulled back. It had been a power play by the Fae Queen’s former King. She’d stepped down…Wait, when did that happen? Events were muddling. He was having a hard time keeping it all straight. The Fae fighting Fae had been discovered by Gaia and she’d stopped them. He and others of the Guard had tried to explain, but had been silenced by the Goddess, unwilling to hear their side and know the truth.

  They’d been punished, all of the Fae, put into stasis, the sleep of the dead. Or so it was told. But it wasn’t silent, at least not for him. No, he’d dreamed, over and over of the moment when Gaia had refused to hear his words. But he, unlike all the others who had known the truth, was alive. Why?! “Why am I still alive, you bitch?!” he yelled in the original language to the Goddess who had no care.

  He didn’t get an answer, not that he expected one. Not from her.

  Knowing he had nowhere else to look he gave up. While Gaia had the answers she wasn’t answering. Perhaps the new Fae Queen could help him fill in the gaps. Not that he believed she’d give him the truth, not if Gaia was controlling what memories she might have. But he had to head for the Fae’s new home, a trip he was not looking forward to in the least.

  Looking around at what he once knew and what was there in the now, he sighed. So much time had passed. So much had changed. How could he reconcile the past with the present? Taking one last look that only depressed him even more, Laighean turned his back on the place of his memories and headed into a future he wasn’t sure he wanted to face.

  Chapter Two

  “Shake-Shake, Shake-Shake, Shake your Sensa.” She rolled her eyes as the commercial played in the background. “God kill me now,” she grumbled and tossed the stress ball against the wall once more. “Un-motherfucking-believable,” she muttered. “Thirty seven minutes,” she whispered. “I have been waiting for thirty-seven minutes for this douche bag to show and he’s not showing.” Standing, Charisma, “Rimi” to her friends, ran her hands down her skirt to straighten it and then tugged down the jacket. Sliding her feet back into the six-inch Jimmy Choos, she then adjusted her hair back over her shoulder and pulled her Blackberry from her purse.

  “Waste of time,” she typed. “Prospective buyer never showed up.” She grumbled as she typed the message. Tossing the Blackberry back into her purse, she slipped it onto her shoulder and then grumbled to herself, “Thanks for wasting my first Friday night off in a month, you douche. That’s the very last time that I ever, ever freaking take a ‘hot sales lead’ from that asshole Hector.”

  Moving to the foyer table that she had put her brochures as well as business cards on, she sighed and looked back at the house again. “Sorry, house, looks like you aren’t getting sold today.” She knew that it was silly to talk to a house, but why wouldn’t a house have a heart and soul? People created life in houses, and she firmly believed that a house chose its owners to make it a home. Yep, she was a weird duck.

  Putting the key back in the realtor lock box, she patted the door of the house and headed out toward her car. Sliding into the soft leather seats, she closed her eyes for only a moment and let the peace and quiet take away her anger. So what, she had wasted a Friday night. Her date had cancelled on her three nights earlier, so it really didn’t matter.

  Turning on her vehicle, she flipped the station from Hits 1 on XM to Smooth Jazz. Leaning her head back once again, she breathed in the jasmine scent of her air freshener and closed her eyes. Allowing the music to wash over her, Rimi relaxed for several seconds and then moved to pull the car into drive but was shocked to see a shadow beside the door.

  She squeaked, but then he raised a large meaty fist to knock on the window of her door. “Crap,” she muttered and put the window down only about an inch. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Sebastian Montrose. I have an appointment.”

  She wanted to tell him that he had an appointment forty-five minutes earlier, but she held her tongue and pasted a smile on her lips. “Certainly, Mr. Montrose. I know traffic must have been hard getting out here.” All right, so that was bitchier than she had wanted it to be, but Gods dammit all, the bastard was forty-five minutes late!

  She watched the way that his lip curled, but she just smiled brightly. “If you would back up just a smidge please?” she asked sweetly, sugary with her request, and even batted her eyes as she did so.

  “Yes, traffic was a bear,” he stated quietly and took one large step back, his eyes constantly watching her.

  Rimi grabbed her briefcase and passed him a brochure before she stepped out of the Mercedes. “As you can see from the flyer,” she began and clicked the lock on the door, “the home is a five-bedroom, seven-bath home.” She smiled. “The previous owner who built the house was fastidious about bathrooms, hence why there are more bathrooms than bedrooms.”

  Rimi continued to talk, her voice rising and falling as she hit the highlights of the home and so on. Stepping into the home with him, she stepped off to the side. “Please, feel free to look around. If there is anything that I can help you with or if you have any questions at all please do not hesitate to ask because I will be right here,” she told the man with a smile.

  “I will, thank you.” It was a pretense. All of it was a pretense, but he had to get her from the open door first. She was the one. He knew it in the deepest part of his heart that this woman was the one that their organization had been searching for. She was the one who would bring the unnaturals to them.

  A smile crossed his lips as he thought about how they had gotten that information. Ah yes, that had been utterly brilliant. They had caught one of the so-called magical workers, a man who could tell the future. Yep, he had been a bastard to break, but once he was broken that son of a bitch spilled his guts, just before Sebastian spilled them for him. Ah yes, that had been a good night.

  As he walked from room to room, Bastian put together the weapon he had brought for the woman. It would put her down before she even realized what had happened to her. Ah yes, it was going to be a very, very good thing and he knew it. He had a team member who would come in and move her vehicle away as soon as they had her, but right now, right now he just had to get the little bitch cornered so that he could shoot her with the dart.

  Moving from foot to foot, Rimi was feeling worse and worse with each and every second that passed. This was so not good. She knew that this wasn’t good. She listened to her grandmother’s voice in her mind that told her that sometimes you just simply had to run. She shifted again from foot to foot when her cell phone beeped.

  What lead are you talking about, you crazy bitch? Have you been snooping through my files again? I’m on my way. Don’t you dare sell that fucking house without me or I’m going to go to Michael on this, the text from the realtor whom she had only earlier bitched out on her Blackberry read. That’s when she knew. It was a setup.

  Grabbing her keys from her pocket, she slipped from the home after calling out to ask if “Sebastian” had
found the wine cellar or not. Hearing him, she knew he was at the back of the house, so she raced for her car, starting it remotely and then unlocking the driver door only. Hitting the emergency button on her dashboard, she told the responding operator, “I’m leaving right now from 820 McEnroy Street. There is an intruder who—oh God!” She screamed as she punched the gas to drive, seeing the weapon in the man’s hand raised. “He has a gun!” she screamed.

  “We have units en route, ma’am. I need you to drive up Main Street toward the nearest police station. The route should be downloading on your navigation panel now,” the operator told her.

  She turned onto the street and in her mind went through where the local station was and made the turns before the nav system told her to.

  Chapter Three

  “What do you mean that there has been ‘an incident’?” Katherine asked her friend, Betsy Wilderbrand. “What kind of ‘incident’?”

  “Our goddaughter, Charisma, has been missing for the last three days.”

  That had Kat frowning. “Rimi?” she asked and shook her head. “She never goes anywhere for three hours without telling you where she is.” Since Rimi’s parents died several years earlier, the woman was absolutely adamant about assuring her godmother Betsy that she was all right.

  “I know, Kat. I just…” She sighed and then asked, “Do you think that maybe your big guys that are in police work can send out some help? We were told that because she’s twenty-seven years old and we aren’t her real parents we can’t file a missing persons report on her,” she stated. “It really makes me angry, too,” she muttered.