Sedona Sanctuary: Southwestern Paranormal Romance with Shifters, Psychics, and Secrets

By Lisa Kessler

Miller Sloan may not be an active duty general anymore, but he still has one final mission to complete. If he succeeds, the top secret government research on shifters will remain classified. Failure is not an option. He’s lost too much along the way to give up now. But without a pack, or a mate, or family at his side, his iron will is starting to falter.

Rayne Lowry has always been a free spirit at heart, but never more free than today. After accepting her early retirement package from the FBI, she’s now on an extended vacation to plan the next chapter of her life, and what better place for self-reflection than Sedona, Arizona?

Her plans did not include a chance encounter with a silver fox who is hiding something. Her years as an FBI profiler make his secrets irresistible, but it’s the deep well of regret in his eyes that lure her in. When she’s called to consult on one last case, Miller is a potential suspect, and she’s left wondering if she’s falling in love with the enemy, or have they both finally found sanctuary…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Oct 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781094460796

Lisa Kessler

Stay up-to-date on new releases and giveaways by subscribing to Lisa's newsletter here: https://goo.gl/56lDla Lisa Kessler is a Best Selling author of dark paranormal fiction. She's a two-time San Diego Book Award winner for Best Published Fantasy-Sci-fi-Horror and Best Published Romance. Her books have also won the PRISM award, the Award of Excellence, the National Excellence in Romantic Fiction Award, the Award of Merit from the Holt Medallion, and an International Digital Award for Best Paranormal. Her short stories have been published in print anthologies and magazines, and her vampire story, Immortal Beloved, was a finalist for a Bram Stoker award. When she's not writing, Lisa is a professional vocalist, and has performed with San Diego Opera as well as other musical theater companies in San Diego. You can learn more at http://Lisa-Kessler.com

Book preview

1

MILLER

Istared at my cell phone, willing the damned words to change. No such fucking luck. Senator Hanson knew the judge was dead. There was no stuffing that genie back in the bottle. I’d known we couldn’t keep the charade going forever, but I’d hoped to hide the fact that he was gone for a few more months. I was so close to getting the leverage I needed to keep the senator from declassifying the super soldier research that would expose shifters to the world.

Weighing my options, I sucked in a slow, deep breath through my nose and read the text for the hundredth time.

I’m not covering for killers, Sloan. The military isn’t going to shield you anymore, either. The world is going to know who you are. Soon.

My finger hovered over the senator’s private cell phone number, but my better judgment kept me from pressing it. He was goading me into making a mistake. It would be a tactical error to engage the enemy without having a defense and a ready counterattack.

I stuffed my cell phone back into the pocket of my jeans and approached the counter. Gail was already ringing up my black coffee and plain bagel. I handed her a ten-dollar bill. The change is for you.

Thanks, General. Her eyes sparkled as she grinned. It’ll be ready in a couple minutes.

Even though the three cashiers rotated shifts, my order never changed so they all knew what to ring up as soon as I walked in. Maybe it was because I’d spent a lifetime in the military, but I found comfort in routines. Knowing exactly what lay ahead each day meant fewer surprises, which was a win in my book.

Thank you. I didn’t tell her I retired, forced into it by the senator and his Transparency Collective emperors. The first time I’d come through the doors here, I’d been wearing my dress uniform. Gail didn’t know I no longer led the Air Force. No one in Sedona did.

Maybe I was a little more pissed about my forced retirement than I wanted to admit.

Excuse me, could I get some creamers? a woman on my right asked.

Her straight auburn hair cascaded to the middle of her back like liquid fire. Gail handed her some little white tubs, and when the woman turned, her deep-blue eyes met mine for a moment. She forced a polite curve to her lips and went back to her table in the corner and sat behind a laptop screen.

I studied her for a minute. I’d never seen her here before. Java Joe’s wasn’t in the tourist heart of Sedona, and since I’d arrived in the desert town a few months back, I visited this coffee shop at 9:00 a.m. every Monday through Friday. I knew all the regulars, and she wasn’t one of them.

I definitely would’ve remembered her.

She lifted her gaze and caught me staring, but she didn’t blush or break eye contact, almost as if she was daring me to look away first. Deep from the shadows of my soul, my wolf snarled. She wouldn’t be baiting me if she knew I was a werewolf.

Here’s your coffee and bagel, General.

I spun around at the sound of Gail’s voice. Thanks.

When I turned back with the steaming mug and the plate, the woman was feverishly typing on her laptop. The moment had passed. It was just as well. I didn’t have time for any distractions right now anyway.

My usual table was in the northern corner facing the door. The woman with the creamers was on the opposite side of the coffee shop, all her attention still on her computer screen. I took a bite of my breakfast and pulled out my phone again, mentally going through my options.

I was running out of the damned things.

The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces was led by Senator Carl Hanson from Massachusetts. I’d worked with him for the past twenty years as the liaison to the Department of Defense, and after all those years, the bastard had gone behind my back and forced me out. I hadn’t understood why at the time, but once I’d discovered his connections with a shadow faction that called themselves the Transparency Collective, I’d realized that somewhere along the way his priorities had changed.

I found out about his involvement with the Collective too late.

The Transparency Collective had been formed when a computer programmer had accidentally stumbled onto research footage of a werewolf shifting during the first top-secret super soldier project. Operation Moonlight was the name of the experiment, and the horrific footage he’d hacked was…me.

I’d spent my life working to keep all that research hidden, and now the senator was on the brink of declassifying all of it. I wasn’t just covering my own ass. There were wolf packs all over the world, peacefully living among humans and shifting far from human eyes during the full moon. Unlike in the movies, most of us were born this way, with the shifter gene passing from a father to his twin sons. Because of that, we stayed away from hospitals, and the only medical doctors that treated us were usually pack members. We even cremated our dead so no shifter DNA would ever be discovered.

Countless lives were going to be ruined if the super soldier research was declassified and released into the world. Humans killed what they feared, and if that footage got out, they would most definitely be afraid. We’d be hunted, and our children would never be safe again.

After another bite of my bagel, I started a reply to the senator.

I had nothing to do with Judge Mitch Jones’s death. The death certificate says he died of heart failure. Your threats are short-sighted. You still don’t understand how many Americans are shifters. You’ll start a civil war you can’t hope to win. When you’re ready to talk, you know my number.

Hopefully he’d accept my bluff. The truth was, humans outnumbered shifters by at least fifty to one, but I was probably the only person in the country who knew that. For decades I’d been the only one recruiting werewolves from their packs to serve in the military. My Alpha, Allen Caldwell, had filled my head with the idea I could make a difference. In hindsight, he’d been very close with Antonio Severino, who ran the Nero Organization. Severino had won coveted defense contracts to develop super soldiers. I hadn’t known about the conflict of interest back then. I had pressured my twin brother and our friends to join with me. Now I loathed myself for it, but at the time, I’d bought into all the bullshit about the country being threatened by mounting military forces on multiple fronts. I’d believed that shifters might be able to provide the key to a stronger military.

But that was before I’d witnessed how far my country was willing to go—and who they were willing to sacrifice—to protect its interests. By the time I’d recognized it, I was already a cog in the machine.

I’d spent the past ten years trying to repair the damage and bury the evidence of the super soldier programs, but every time I thought I’d put the lid on one leak, another popped up. And I wasn’t an overconfident young man anymore. I was fucking exhausted.

But my work wasn’t finished, not yet.

I swallowed my coffee, relishing the way it burned down my throat, cauterizing a lifetime of wounds. If only it were so easy.

Dammit. The auburn-haired woman cursed under her breath at her laptop.

No human would’ve heard it, but with my heightened sense of hearing I had no trouble.

She groaned. Are you kidding me?

I glanced over at the woman at the keyboard. Her eyes met mine, and she took out her earbuds with a sheepish almost-smile, as though she only just realized she’d spoken aloud.

I took another sip of coffee, studying the way she wrapped her hair up into a ponytail without ever taking her eyes off the screen. She wasn’t wearing much makeup, maybe some eyeliner and lip gloss, and if she had on some kind of pricey perfume, I would’ve noticed it the second I’d entered the coffee shop. My sharp sense of smell hadn’t dulled with the passage of time.

But there was something about her…

I’d already established she wasn’t a regular customer, but if she was in town on vacation, why would she be working so intently? Maybe she was a workaholic. I could relate.

As she sank back into her work, I lifted my mug to take another sip of coffee. Her gaze suddenly flicked up to meet mine. I raised my mug a little in her direction, and she smirked, picking hers up in solidarity.

I chuckled and took another swig. Obviously, I was too damned lonely because instead of losing my shit about the senator’s threat, I was trying to figure out a stranger in a coffee shop.

Maybe I was just getting too old for this bullshit. I’d sacrificed my entire adult life to keeping the lid on the Department of Defense’s research to shield shifters from being exposed and made out to be bloodthirsty, unstable killers. But there was no second-in-command to take over for me. If I gave up now, all those little boys racing around the Sedona Pack Alpha’s ranch would be rounded up and caged for study. Or worse, exterminated.

If humans were scared, genocide became a distinct possibility.

Talking to this woman might assuage some of this curiosity so I could focus on the task at hand. It wouldn’t take long anyway. I got up and took my empty plate to the bussing station, then carried my mug over to the other side of the coffee shop.

I cleared my throat when I reached her small round table, surprised by the way my pulse thrummed. Maybe I was just out of practice but meeting women didn’t usually make me nervous. I’d been so busy for so long that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even had dinner with a woman, let alone had any physical contact.

She looked up from her computer with no trace of a smile. Her eyes were indigo blue, and her high cheekbones were accented with a few freckles. Can I help you?

I raised a brow at her apparent annoyance. Maybe I’d misjudged our connection earlier. I haven’t seen you here before. I thought I’d say hello. I shook my head, feeling ridiculous, and dropped the front. I’m actually having a shitty morning and you distracted me from it. So…thanks for that. Sorry for the interruption.

When I headed for the door, she sighed. I set my mug on the bussing station by the door and reached for the handle.

Wait.

I looked back, and she waved me over. When I got to her table, I didn’t take the other chair. We don’t have to do this. I wasn’t looking for pity.

She chuckled and gestured to the chair across from her computer. Please sit. I could use a break anyway.

You sure?

She nodded and closed her laptop. Yeah. She picked up her mug. I’m Rayne, by the way. And you are…

"Sloan. Miller Sloan. I shook my head, baffled at my fumbling. Maybe I was more out of practice than I’d realized. Sorry. I recently retired from the military. Sometimes I forget I have a first name."

I thought maybe you were a spy. You know, like Bond. James Bond. Her smile was refreshing, like the desert breeze just before the sunrise.

I chuckled, shaking my head. The grin curving my lips felt foreign. Sorry to disappoint.

Silence spread out between us while I tried to figure out what the hell I was doing at this woman’s table. I should be working on a plan to stop Senator Hanson.

She took another sip of her coffee, and I struggled to keep from watching her lips. When she lowered her cup to the table, she cleared her throat. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Miller before. Is it a family name?

My father’s childhood friend was named Scott Miller. He saved my dad’s life when they were in high school so my dad named me after him. I rested my arm on the table. I’m guessing you were born on a rainy night?

Not exactly. She laughed and shook her head. "It’s spelled R-A-Y-N-E. My mom just liked the way it looked."

It’s a pleasure meeting you, Rayne. And I meant it. I was stone-cold sober and my world was on the verge of imploding, but I didn’t regret stopping by her table. Are you just passing through Sedona?

Something like that. She picked up her phone and her smile faded. Hate to break this up so soon, but I’ve got to run to an appointment. It was nice to meet you, Miller.

I stood while she slid her laptop in a bag and turned off her mouse. She smiled as she straightened up. I hope your day gets less shitty.

The corner of my mouth trembled as I bit back a smile. It’s already improved substantially.

She grinned. See you later.

I actually hoped I would see her again. Bye, Rayne.

When she walked out the glass doors, the morning sunlight shone against her red hair. She got into a silver Toyota Prius and drove away.

I shook my head. Enough wasting time. I had to get out to the ranch and talk to Asher. The Alpha of the Sedona Pack needed to brace himself for the coming storm, if it came to that.

I still had a couple cards up my sleeve, but they might not be enough this time.

2

RAYNE

Java Joe’s shrank in the rearview mirror, and I focused on the road ahead. Was I really driving away from a silver fox who was obviously interested in me? Yep. Dammit. This was supposed to be a new start, but I was still struggling to break old habits. Brushing him off was ingrained in me. I’d spent my adult life keeping myself from getting entangled in relationships. They got in the way of my career goals. Or at least that was my excuse.

The truth was a little harder to swallow. After watching my mom struggle to raise me on her own because my dad had walked out before I was born, I had promised myself that I’d never trust a man enough to be a partner. I’d had brief relationships over the years, but at the slightest hint of commitment, I was out the door.

Pushing them away was instinctive now, and I wasn’t sure how to change that.

Oh well. I adjusted my grip on the steering wheel. I probably saved him from heartache anyway. Miller Sloan. He had a strong name. His posture and gait exuded confidence, but his awkward silences made him seem sincere. He obviously didn’t try to pick up women at the coffee shop very often. And his military background meant he thrived on routine so it was no surprise that the cashier had known his order before he’d even stepped up to the counter.

There was a better than good chance he went there at the same time on the same days and placed the same order.

I groaned as I drove toward my vacation rental. Was I seriously profiling this guy? Maybe there was no hope for me. How could I start a new chapter if I couldn’t ever close the old one?

I parked in the driveway and headed inside to get changed. My appointment was with a rock-climbing guide. Today I was going to climb the Red Rocks. I was pretty fit, but I’d never tried climbing before, so I’d arranged for a private tour with an experienced climber who could teach me and keep me from breaking any bones. Hopefully.

I didn’t have a death wish, but I did want to take some chances and try new things. Life was short, and up until last month, I’d devoted all of mine to work. I’d blinked, and twenty years had flashed by.

The FBI hadn’t even been my dream. I’d always imagined I’d be a behavioral therapist, helping people overcome hurdles so they could live their best lives, but when the Bureau had stopped by my college looking for psychology majors, they’d lured me in with their benefits and retirement packages. With how poor my family was growing up, my mom had drilled into me the importance of financial security, of being able to support myself no matter what.

But last year, when cancer was stealing her from me slowly, she’d taught me a new lesson: every second, every breath, was a gift.

I had taken my golden