The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  “You do not understand. You …”

  “He felt every ounce of pain. Every break in his fragile Human body. He suffered when he died. I would do it again. I would make you watch and see you cry like a fucking baby. The brother you failed to save. It was not me who killed him; it was you. You, when you got ahead of yourself and put him on my bus. You say you were ahead of me. You say you knew what I would do. You must have known they would all die … they all died, just as you will die. When you tell your mother he is gone, tell her you sent him to his death. You can kill me if you want to … kill me all you want, but still, you will know. You will always know."

  The bones in Lee's hand cracked as he clenched his fingers. Even his temples bulged with it, and he went back around to the computer. The room was silent save for the clicks as Lee navigated his way through folders and documents until he got to where he wanted to be. He threw one quick gaze into the general direction of where Stephen stood. The folder he opened contained hundreds of video files. Lee clicked on one.

  The film opened, grainy at first as the camera got itself into focus, and then the angle changed, and the image zoomed in. There was Helena, back arched, head thrown back in pleasure. She moved at a pace on Stephen, her nakedness bared to all.

  “You sick, f—”

  “There’s more you know? Every moment. Every love-filled whisper between you both. Do you want to see them? I have more?”

  Chapter 29

  Even though walking and running was just a blink for Stephen, he pushed himself on and tried in vain to push away the images of Helena on Lee’s computer and fought to get to her. He couldn’t make himself move with enough satisfying speed. His heart was a drumbeat thudding in his chest. His tiger growled, and for the first time since this had happened, he rattled at the cage in Stephen's mind almost hard enough he thought he might shift.

  "Come on … come on …" The ground was hard, cold under Stephen's knees like he was kneeling on a sheet of ice. He could feel it, not properly, not as if he were in a solid form, but better than he had been able to since he had fallen from his body. It made little sense, but at that point, he didn't care. He'd take whatever was offered to him.

  The rumble of his tiger was a soft sound at first that grew with every microsecond of time. Shifting when he was solid was something natural, something he'd taken for granted so much. It was almost like walking, or breathing … yes, breathing, he decided. No one had taught him how to do it, he'd just done it alone, and he would do it now.

  “Shift; come on. I know you want to.” He hadn’t meant to shift. His only focus had been to get back to the house, to Helena and Eden, but the bigger his need got, the more the tiger pushed at him for a hand at the reins of their body. Everything was so desperate by then; he was willing to try anything.

  Pressure started in his jaw just above his front teeth, and it spread, slowly, not like it usually did, but enough that his palate lit up with pleasurable agony and he let his bottom jaw hang open. He held his breath … nothing.

  “Shit.”

  With a deep inhale, Stephen pushed himself back to his feet. An ache ran along every single muscle in waves of pulsing heat, yet he couldn't force his tiger over that edge, even when he tried using it as a lever to get there. It had already been too long, and a full moon had passed. The itch hadn’t started in his skin like it did when shifters went too long. There wasn’t even a hint.

  It didn’t matter. This was just a wish … a tease. He broke into a jog and then a run as he headed for the house again. Each time his tiger pushed at him for release, he pushed back with a firm answer of no. There was no time for this, no time to play the games. He needed to make sure Aiden was safe, Helena was safe … all of them were safe.

  The outside of the house looked normal enough, but then maybe he knew better than anyone, looks could be deceiving. He didn’t stand outside for long like he did previous times. He raced up the steps and through the door. “Helena? Aiden?” He’d forgotten they couldn’t hear him, but that didn’t matter. The front room was empty. Aiden’s toys lay in a neat pile in the corner of the room. The chair Xander would sit on was also clear.

  Helena was in the backroom, asleep. She had her hand across the gap, and she was facing Stephen. Only when he saw her did he let out the breath that had been tucked so high in his chest he’d wanted to burst with it. “You’re okay.”

  Images of Helena on Lee’s screen burst into his mind, though, like somehow Lee had soiled those moments. The only thing Stephen had to fight them with was his memories. The times he had held Helena. The times he had watched her while she slept, just as he did now.

  "Helena," he said her name in a deep whisper. Words that coated his tongue and spilt out. "I need you all to hold on.”

  The bed creaked, and Helena groaned slightly as she rubbed at her eyes and shifted her position. “Hold on for what?”

  Her question put his mind on the edge. “Helena?”

  “Nick …” Her voice was thick with sleep. Her eyes were still closed.

  The space between the two beds was small, but Stephen moved into it anyway, not that the beds were a barrier, but he didn’t want to feel that through his body, that cold place where the real world almost broke through to his. “I’m here. I’m here, Helena?”

  He hovered a hand above her head. If he were solid, he would have run his hand through her hair.

  “I miss you,” she said, a soft smile ghosting around the edge of her lips. “I miss you so much.”

  “I know.” He lay his head on the pillow beside hers, so their mouths were close enough. He couldn’t feel her breath, and she wouldn’t be able to feel his. “I wish I could hold you.”

  The blood. It had to be the blood. In the arm resting on her swollen belly, she had a tube attached to the cannula again. It was filled with blood, his blood.

  “Do everything to keep the babies safe, okay? Don’t give up. No matter what happens, don’t you dare.”

  A pause as her tired mind took in what he was saying. "I won't. I promise." She reached for him, her hand crossing through him and to the him lying on the bed. She opened her eyes, blinked and then sat up as fast as was possible given her state. “Nick?”

  Her heart thudded so loudly in her chest, even Stephen could hear it, he could feel it … a faint whisper against his own that fed him with energy almost.

  "I heard you." She slid herself off the bed and went to his body. Everything was the same as it had been, his stats, his expression. She frowned as she read the readouts on the charts. "I wasn't dreaming. I know it was you.”

  There was nothing he could say to her. He stayed behind her and kept his mouth shut.

  The door opened, and Eden came in moments later. “I heard you talking … what’s wrong?” She dashed to the bed. “Is it Nick?”

  “He spoke.”

  Clenching his fists together, he pressed his lips into a firm line and stepped away from them both.

  Eden lay a hand on Helena’s shoulder. “Maybe you were dreaming. You’ve been asleep a good hour.”

  "No. I know what I heard. I heard him. I heard him, Eden. He spoke. I don’t know how, but he did.”

  A nod. “Okay. What did he say?”

  “To keep the babies safe.”

  “Then that is what you must do.” She pushed gently at Helena, trying to guide her back to the bed, but Helena put her hand out onto Stephen’s body, then she arched her brow. “Where’s Aiden? I don’t hear …”

  “He’s with Xander. He said since you were resting, he’d take Aiden out. They were going to try to get us a rabbit or something. Maybe there’s a way to get meat into Stephen.”

  “You let Aiden go out?”

  “He’s with Xander. He’s safe. He was going a little stir crazy.”

  Chapter 30

  For a long moment, the room was nothing more than a frozen montage of all the images in Stephen's head. He clenched his hands into tight fists so hard the veins in his arms bulged and threatened to e
xplode from the pressure. Even his tiger snarled inside him, hissing and trying to twist his way out through the curling tunnels of rage, anger, terror … so many emotions wrapped their clawed fingers around his throat and choked him at the same time. His breath came out in a growl, and right then, right at that moment, all the colours in the room changed and tilted in that way he was so used to. Every shape moved and morphed into something like all that rage, all that anger, spilt down into the depths of his animal and came out through the beast within him.

  “I have to go …” He forgot himself in the loss of the protective need to go to Aiden … to save him from the man supposed to be his friend.

  “Nick …” Helena tried to step around the bed, but Eden grabbed her by the arms and got in the way before she pulled the wires too tight and snapped them.

  “You need to sit.”

  “No. No. I heard him. Nick? Nick … it’s Helena. I heard you.”

  “There’s no one there, Helena.” With desperation and as much gentleness as she would allow, Eden pushed against Helena trying to get her to go back to the bed, but Helena pushed her bump in between the two women. The cannula in her hand strained and pulled her arm back, and Eden had to grab her at the wrist before she pulled the bloody thing all the way out.

  “I have to find Aiden.” Stephen was at the door. A war raged between his need to find the child he’d claimed as his own, to protect him, and his need to reach across that veil to Helena. “I’ll be back.”

  “He’s with Xander. Xander took him out.”

  “Yes,” Eden said. "They've gone out to hunt." Only Eden wasn't speaking to Stephen; she was answering Helena, pushing her at the same time and trying to get her back to the bed. Helena stopped at least, and the blood still ran down into her arm through the tubes, but if she took another step, pulled another inch, then it wouldn’t be. “You need to get back to bed. You need to rest”

  “No.” She pushed back against Eden, but when the women locked gazes, she stopped again. “Don’t you hear him?”

  The certainty in Helena’s voice didn’t convince Eden one bit. She understood magic, spells, rituals brought from the earth and the stones, but this … “I don’t hear anything. There’s no one there.”

  Helena pointed toward where Stephen stood. She wasn’t far wrong with it either. “He’s there. Just over there.” She raised her eyes and struck target so much, Stephen could swear she was looking him right in the eyes. “I heard you. I know I did.”

  For a long moment … a moment longer than he would have liked, he was held captivated by the caress of her words and the need to touch her, to go to her. He considered going silent again. If he didn’t speak, didn’t cross that place between them, he could leave. He could leave and find Aiden and sort all of this out, but Helena was in danger, Eden too. “I have to find Aiden. He’s not safe … you’re all …”

  “Not safe?”

  “No.” He stepped into the room again with such wanton need he almost couldn’t fight it. “I have to find Aiden.”

  “Helena, who are you talking to?” Eden glanced over her shoulder to where Helena was staring. She saw nothing, but then Stephen wasn’t paying her any attention. “There’s no one there.”

  A knot throbbed in Stephen’s throat. She’d heard him … she’d really heard him. Her hand was a warmth in the air between them when she held her hand palm out, and he met her touch unseen, but in the same way. "I can hear him. Not him on the bed, but Nick. It's like …" She stepped closer, pushing against Eden and then tutted when the cannula snagged at her hand. "It's like when a radio is just out of signal, you know? He’s in my head, but it’s outside. I …” she bit down on her lip. “I hear him.”

  Eden held onto Helena's hand, holding it in place so she couldn't pull the tube out. It was loose now and angled the wrong way, not that Helena noticed, or even saw that Eden had to hold it into place. She too looked at Stephen. "I don't hear anything."

  "It's the blood. It has to be." She looked at him lying on the bed. "What if Nick is out of his body like when he could reap the souls? Maybe that’s why he isn’t responsive.”

  As Eden swallowed, the harshness of it moved down her throat in a ripple, and she let her bottom jaw lower as she shifted her gaze across the room to Stephen’s body. Her breath was a warm hiss as she let it out, and her eyes shone. “I’m so stupid.” She tightened her fingers around Helena’s hand. “That’s exactly what this is. Oh, God. I have to get hold of Freya. She’ll …” Desperation coated each word as she understood with each second what was going on. “God, why didn’t I realise?”

  Stephen would have stayed and let them ponder the idea. Shit, he’d have done anything to get back just then, but … “Where is Aiden?” No. That was the wrong question. He knew where he was.

  “Aiden is out,” Helena said. “With Xander.”

  “They’re hunting,” Eden added, not hearing Stephen, but knowing enough.

  “When did they leave? How long?”

  “How long did they leave?” Helena asked Eden.

  The clock on the wall said it was just hitting six in the evening. “I don’t know, maybe fifteen minutes ago. Twenty at most.”

  Fifteen minutes … shit. He tried to tell himself that Xander wouldn’t hurt Aiden, but then he remembered, he’d never imagined Xander would have sold them out either. “I’ll be back, okay?” he turned.

  “Nick …”

  He paused.

  “Come back.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  His feet barely touched the ground as he raced back out of the house and into the street. He needed to see Aiden. He needed to see he was safe … Stephen couldn’t let his mind go there. Not to that place, not to what they did to those kids. But he couldn’t help it. Those images shook through his entire being.

  “God, he better be okay.”

  Joey was crouched near to the post that had once held the gates to the community this place had been a long time ago. The sight of him made Stephen stop and his heart clench. For the first time since he had first laid eyes on him, Joey appeared like the young boy he really was. His face held lines of dirt across his cheeks, his fingers were dusty, and he was kneeling, playing with something, pushing it in the mud.

  “Joey?”

  Joey stopped.

  “No.” Stephen’s words were a protest on the wind, falling on the deaf ears of fate as he added up what was in front of him to the deepest fear of his soul. “No. I won’t. I don’t care.”

  The ball in Joey’s hand was dark. They all came in shades, but this one was dark, and it was covered with dust from the floor where Joey had rolled it and made a mark in the gravel.

  “Aiden …” He couldn’t reap him again. He’d done it once … once felt so long ago. Once when he didn’t know him, hadn’t saved him.

  Joey raised glossy eyes up to meet Stephen's, and then he clasped his hand over the ball and stood with it. When he moved toward Stephen, Stephen moved back.

  “I can’t.”

  From the path, Xander and Aiden bounded back into the proximity. Relief swept over Stephen, but at the same time, he trembled like a volcano about to erupt with the realisation of the place Xander had now put himself. His friend, Aiden's friend … it didn't matter to Stephen. All that mattered was his guilt, and that rolled off him. He headed across the bridge, coming their way. This was his doing, his fault.

  “You did this.” Stephen didn’t care. He didn’t even think as he lunged toward the man who had once been his friend. The man he had once trusted with everything dear to him. "I'll kill you my fucking self." Joey let out a yell as Stephen ran with a fist raised and all the rage locked into his shoulder. He brought his arm back and then when they met in the space between the gate and the house, he swung and slammed his fist into Xander’s chest, grasping for his heart, gripping it and pulling.

  The sound that filled the air came from Aiden. A loud, high-pitched wail of horror as Stephen landed with one knee on the ground not so far a
way from him.

  He knelt by Xander’s fallen body. And Xander … he lay six feet away from it, and he looked up at Stephen.

  “Nick?”

  Chapter 31

  Stephen’s heart jumped as he stared down at Xander. The look of shock and surprise matched the expression on Stephen’s face.

  “Nick?” he said again, but this time his voice was stronger, realising, processing.

  Stephen let go of him and the fury that had ridden his body just seconds ago became a dull whisper to his brain. He flexed his hand and then opened it again, staring at it like it was some odd creature attached to his body. He’d never taken a soul out of a body before, never freed them the way Joey had done. Power, electricity, life … all of them ran through his veins with vibrating energy that seemed to grow as it spread. His skin was alive, humming and tingling with the oddest of sensations.

  “Xander.” He said it as a statement rather than a question, then his tiger reared, the beastly reminder why he had struck the fae.

  Xander pushed himself up onto his hands, but he was still sitting. In a rush, they had twisted, and it ended up that Xander’s body was behind him. Joey crouched with his hand on his father’s chest the way one might do when trying to stem blood-loss. Eden must have come out, because she was on her knees, her hands cupping his face. “Xander?” she said, over and over.

  But Xander didn’t hear her. He was confused, staring up at Stephen and how he might be there. “What are you doing here? Did you wake?”

  With slow movements, Stephen shook his head. The words, you’re dead, hinged on his lips, but he didn’t speak them. So much as he wanted to hurt Xander, to make him feel all that he was causing and then some, he knew deep inside he'd risk not getting any answers at all. "I saw you earlier. In the house."