The Wicked City. Megan Morgan

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      Cover Copy

      Whatever June Coffin says, goes—literally. And it’s not just because she’s a chain smoking rebel. As a Siren, June has the ability to force people to obey any command she voices. But in a world where those with supernatural powers quickly become lab rats for science, she’d rather look out for herself than fight on the front lines…until her similarly gifted twin brother, Jason, is captured by Chicago’s Institute of Supernatural Research.

      To save Jason, June has no choice but to enter a hidden world of conspiracy, murder—and strange bedfellows—including a widowed paranormal advocate whose memory June accidentally erased, and a fiery paranormal separatist leader. Soon the lines between attraction and strategic alliance become blurred. But in a city exploding with paranormal crossfire, and her brother’s life at stake, June will have to face her inner demons and finally take a stand.

      Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Books by Megan Morgan

      Siren Song Series

      The Wicked City

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      The Wicked City

      Siren Song Series

      Megan Morgan

      LYRICAL PRESS

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

      www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Copyright

      Lyrical Press books are published by

      Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

      Copyright © 2014 by Megan Morgan

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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      First Electronic Edition: March 2015

      eISBN-13: 978-1-61650-683-4

      eISBN-10: 1-61650-683-0

      First Print Edition: March 2015

      ISBN-13: 978-1-61650-684-1

      ISBN-10: 1-1-61650-684-9

      Printed in the United States of America

      Dedication

      To Abe Schaffer, my first reader and fan.

      Acknowledgements

      To my family and friends who have supported me in every effort over the years. Thank you for listening to me, encouraging me, and believing in me. Also to my wonderful son Cain, who is by far my greatest piece of work.

      Foreword

      This book has gone through so many changes and rewrites since the original story I started seven years ago, the first draft and what you're about to read are not even comparable. Along the way I lost characters, picked up new ones, invented pieces of story, dropped what didn't work, made connections, and cut loose ends. The protagonist of this story started out as an incidental male background character in the very first draft. Look at her go now!

      However, this story, no matter how much it has changed, has always been set in Chicago. I love the Windy City with all my heart and try to visit as many times as I can each year--hopefully, I'll live there one day. Many of the city details are things I've personally seen and been close to. Some are the result of loving and dedicated research. Chicago is the ultimate city for urban fantasy, as it's vast, dazzling, awe-inspiring, a little dangerous, and a lot sexy. If you've never been there, I hope I can give you a clear picture with my words.

      June Coffin is a character built from the ashes of other characters I had to dismantle along the way, and she is, at last, the perfect person to tell this story. She's a reluctant heroine battling with the things that make her who she is, a character who has to find the courage to balance past pain with the need to accept the dark parts of herself in order to move forward. Despite her reluctance, she doesn't take crap and she doesn't mind expressing her opinion. She's deeply complex because I've put her layers on one by one, until I found out who she was. I hope you'll feel the same way about her and enjoy this story told through her eyes--the story I was trying to tell all along, I just had to find it.

      Thank you for reading.

      Chapter 1

      The first time June Coffin saw Micha Bellevue, he was giving a lecture at the Chicago Institute for Supernatural Research. June and her brother Jason weren’t yet prisoners of the unholy place and June had sneaked into a conference room. Though the subject of the lecture—something insipid about paranormal rights in the workplace—didn’t interest her, the lecturer certainly did. Micha was tall and rugged yet boyishly handsome, all her weaknesses. Meesha, not Mi-ca, much easier to yell in bed. He had sandy brown hair with gold highlights, cut shaggy with a swoopy fringe. He also had sky blue eyes and a crooked smile.

      June, in contrast, was five-four, lean, and petite. Her father once called her “diminutive,” and she’d hated the word ever since. She had a flowing mane of jet-black hair, though at the moment it lacked volume or luster and she’d been keeping it in a ponytail. Her eyes were vivid green, nearly iridescent, but their color was real, unlike her hair. She was also over-fond of tattoos and piercings.

      She was Micha’s exact opposite, which was fine, because she believed people needed to explore sexual pursuits outside their peer groups.

      In the fifteen minutes she spoke to Micha after the lecture at the Institute, the lovely man revealed himself to be full of ostentatious ideas and painfully corny jokes. A bit later, June stood in an atrium, smoking a cigarette while he led a string of eager young supernatural neophytes across the courtyard below. She narrowed her eyes against the smoke curling around her face. I’m so gonna hit that. She hadn’t, not yet, for huge moral reasons.

      Namely, because Micha had a wife.

      Except, his wife currently lay trussed up in her casket, awaiting her funeral service in the morning, and June had kind of helped put her in it.

      But right now they also had this issue with the gun.

      Hanging out with dead people on a Sunday night didn’t rank high on June’s to-do list, despite her last name. But as she stood in a darkened funeral parlor staring at the tall, buxom, red-haired woman with said gun, she realized how much her priorities had changed.

      “What the hell is that?” June’s question was rhetorical, but she still wanted an answer.

      “It’s a Glock.” The redhead—whose name was Cindy—said this coolly, as if she were describing a pair of shoes. Cindy had dressed all in black for