The Redemption Saga Box Set

by Kristen Banet

  He’d never been scared of something he felt before, but this scared him. Loving her scared him. She was dangerous - her life was dangerous, even without being with the IMPO. She made dangerous decisions and got into dangerous situations like she didn’t know any other way.

  “Good night, Cowboy,” Sawyer murmured to him, backing away.

  “Have fun with Sombra,” he called out to her as she closed his door.

  Unlike every other guy on the team, Elijah had done the committed relationship thing before.

  He’d loved someone who’d died too young, and he saw her and felt how he felt; she lived such a dangerous life that she could possibly die on him too. The jungle had only proven that. He was terrified of jumping in and admitting it, only to lose her one day.

  Elijah tried to sleep, he really did, but two hours later, he was still just laying next to his sketchbook, cranky. His mind was working too hard to convince his heart to quit with whatever the fuck it was doing.

  He jumped out of bed and stumbled down onto the back porch, finding Vincent there doing exactly what Elijah wanted. Smoking a cigarette.

  “May I?” he asked gruffly.

  “Here,” Vincent sighed, holding out his pack.

  Elijah took one and lit it as he took his first drag. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Watching them,” Vincent answered, nodding his head to something. Elijah looked out and swallowed hard on another wave of emotion he couldn’t deal with. “They found something in the jungle I don’t think any of us expected.”

  Sawyer and Quinn were laughing as Sombra pinned Shade, then turned to pounce on Scout.

  “How did you find out?”

  “Kaar sent me an image of the kissing. He’s decided to continue to spy on Sawyer and now her new animal bond. He’s a freak, but he saw it. I’m thinking those two will tell us tonight at dinner. It’s not a big deal.” Vincent took another pull on his smoke before continuing. “It’s nice to see, really. Quinn seems to have figured out something. I’m not sure what, but he’s seemed different since he walked out of the jungle with her. More comfortable.”

  “Yeah…” Elijah sighed. It was everything he’d ever wanted for Quinn. Find someone who loved him for exactly who he was. Someone who could understand him in some way. He figured Sawyer probably knew more about Quinn than him now, which should have upset him, but he was just happy to see them happy.

  He was only worried about the scene for one reason.

  “You’re out of excuses, Elijah,” Vincent told him. “Completely out of excuses. You need to get your head on straight and admit your crush on her before you lose your chance.”

  “We have time,” he reminded Vincent with a bite. “Three months of vacation time, to be exact. They can’t call us in unless there’s a legitimate emergency.”

  “Have you noticed that those tend to follow us around now?” Vincent raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Fuck.” He looked away from his friend. “I’ll handle it.”

  “I can’t have you hung up on her and not thinking straight, unwilling to deal with it. That shit after we got out of the Amazon, Elijah? It can’t happen again.”

  “I know,” he agreed. He looked back out to Sawyer and Quinn. Sawyer was walking to them, but Quinn pulled her back and kissed her. Elijah watched his arms wrap around her waist and hold her for a long time.

  It took a few tries, and even Elijah was chuckling a bit when Sawyer finally got free from Quinn, who just followed her like a puppy to the back porch.

  “Smoke?” Vincent offered her innocently.

  Elijah didn’t like the look on her face.

  Sawyer took the pack of cigarettes and shook her head. Then she crushed them.

  “Wha-”

  “I’m quitting,” she told them. She snatched the cigarette hanging from Vincent’s mouth and then reached for Elijah’s. He just let her take it, putting it out so she didn’t burn herself. “So are both of you.”

  “Why?” Vincent looked offended.

  “Because I’m tired of plants that can kill me,” Sawyer answered with a smile. Elijah watched her put the cigarettes in the ashtray, then she took the ashtray. “Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Elijah couldn’t resist giving her a response. He looked away though when she looked at him.

  “Sawyer.”

  “Vincent.”

  The standoff was real.

  “Fine. I understand your reasoning,” Vincent agreed. Elijah knew that their Italian was going to go and find his other pack. He was going to smoke in secret. Vincent had been a smoker since he was seventeen. Sawyer was going to have to fight to get him to quit.

  “Awesome,” Sawyer said brightly. “I’m leaving Sombra out here and going to pass out. Oh, and you’ve probably noticed, but Quinn-”

  “We noticed,” Vincent said kindly, leaning to kiss her cheek. She kissed him back. “Just want you happy, remember?”

  “I do,” Sawyer whispered. She looked at Elijah. “I’m not going to step in on what you guys have either.”

  “Thank you,” he said honestly. That was a big gesture. He looked at Quinn, whose eyes danced with ideas.

  Elijah would have been down with his body. He was now scared for his heart. The two pieces of it were in love with each other and he was caught, too scared to jump in with them.

  Elijah had never been a coward until he met the bravery and fight in Sawyer Matthews.

  He watched them go inside and stayed with Vincent. “Are you going to quit smoking for her?” he asked as the sun dropped.

  “I’m going to try, I think,” Vincent conceded, shrugging. “Elijah, talk to her.”

  “I will.”

  He had time. Elijah wasn’t concerned. Three months to figure himself out, and her and Quinn. They’d survived hell and had time off.

  An Echo of Darkness

  The Redemption Saga

  Copyright © 2018 by Kristen Banet

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  When echoes of the past threaten to drag you back,

  Keep moving forward.

  You are not alone.

  1

  Sawyer

  Sawyer thought she was going to get a good night’s sleep, she really did. She wanted to remain curled up in black sheets with the warm body next to her, one she was growing more accustomed to sleeping with. Vincent was an easy man to cuddle with, she had learned. She just wanted to press her face to his chest and hope that obnoxious black paw on her head would go away.

  The paw just lifted up and fell back on her head. She had one, only one, thing to be thankful for. The claws were put away.

  “Sombra, go to sleep,” she mumbled. “I’m too fucking hungover for you.” She was probably still drunk, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was not moving from the bed.

  The jaguar wanted to show her something new. And she needed to go outside. Both of these were apparently pressing matters.

  “How did you get in here?” Sawyer groaned, pushing her head up to glare at the big cat.

  Sombra, who was standing over her, tilted her big head. She had pushed down the door handle then pushed the door. Like the humans. She seemed to be asking how else she would get in the room.

  “I hate you sometimes.” She’d somehow forgotten her jaguar knew how to open doors.

  Sombra snorted and jumped down with a loud thump that made Vincent groan. Sawyer looked around the room and saw that sure enough, the door was op
en. Other than that, the room was just how it had been when they went to sleep.

  Except Kaar. He was no longer sleeping in his cage, but sitting on top of it, staring at her.

  Weird-ass bird.

  “Correction,” she muttered. “Weird-ass animals. All of them.”

  “What?” Vincent asked, grumbling.

  “My cat. It’s not a big deal,” she whispered, leaning back down to kiss his shoulder. “Sombra wants to go out, it seems.”

  “What time is it?” he asked, opening his eyes. She had a special love for those dark olive green eyes. His hair was messy and in her mind, perfect.

  He brought up a good point, though, so she reached for the table closest to her. It meant she had to roll away from him, away from the warmth, but she didn’t want to force him to move because her cat was an asshole. It was too damn early, she realized, looking at her phone. “Four,” she answered.

  “I’ll go out with you,” he said, pushing himself up. He groaned and fell back down. “I’m still drunk.”

  “Me too,” she agreed. She pushed the blankets off and shivered at the cold. It was freezing. “God. Is the heat off?”

  “Yeah. It normally isn’t this cold this far south.” He pushed himself back up and moved off the bed. She followed, collecting her clothes off his floor. They had stayed up drinking and playing chess all night, a quiet evening with just each other’s company. That became a night in bed together. “I’ll turn it on, and it should be warm when we come back in.”

  “Thanks.” She pulled on her sweatpants and then grabbed her tank. She didn’t have a jacket around, but she figured Sombra would just want to go out, do her business, and come back in. The big cat wasn’t used to the cold, and Sawyer hoped that worked in her favor.

  She heard the heat kick on as she finished getting dressed. Vincent was half-dressed, his pants on but unbuttoned, looking absolutely delicious. He was feeding some treats to Kaar, who ruffled his feathers.

  “You know, I go weeks without seeing him and now I see him all the time in the house,” she noted, pointing at the bird.

  “He comes in for the winter like the rest of our animals,” he explained, rubbing the raven’s chest. “You know, Quinn and the wolves.”

  “Quinn is not an animal,” she said, chuckling with a shake of her head.

  The look Vincent gave her in response had her laughing. All it said was ‘Are you sure?’ Sawyer’s shoulders were shaking as she tried to contain the laughter.

  “He’s not!” she proclaimed, snorting. “Ok. We’ll agree to disagree here.”

  Vincent’s face didn’t change. He just finished buttoning his pants and reached down for his shirt. His face had yet to change as he put it on and turned away.

  Sawyer was still chuckling as she followed him out of the room. Kaar didn’t follow them, but Sombra ran out of the room and nearly knocked them both down on the stairs. As they got to the back door to let the jaguar out, she realized what was going on.

  “It snowed,” she said to Vincent, keeping her voice down so they didn’t wake up everyone in the house. “Something new. She doesn’t want to miss it.”

  “She’s probably never seen it.”

  “She hasn’t,” she confirmed, opening the back door. Her jaguar ran out and the world, serene and quiet, exploded in a cloud of white, flakes flying everywhere. Sudden confusion ran through the bond. “It’s called snow, silly. It’s frozen water.”

  Sombra looked back at her, a tilt to her head. She was trying to figure out how this stuff was water. It boggled her South American cat brain, to the point that Sawyer felt it bleeding into her own mind and making them both confused.

  She had to mentally push the connection back to stop it, something Quinn had been working on with her since they got home. Sawyer hadn’t had Midnight long enough to explore the bond and what it could be like or do. She’d also been unable to pull away from the bond to preserve the two minds or avoid feeling all the fear and pain Midnight had. With Sombra, she was learning things she should have already known. How to peer into her eyes and see her world, use her senses without Sombra needing to send the information back to her.

  “It snows down here like every ten years,” he told her quietly. “She’s lucky it did. Or unlucky. Let’s see if she likes it.”

  Sawyer shrugged and stepped out, looking down at her bare feet. She should have grabbed some shoes. Part of the porch was covered, so there wasn’t any snow, but the wood was still cold. She crossed her arms over her chest and put one of her feet on top of the other to keep at least one slightly warm.

  The backyard was a field of white to the woods, which were topped in white as well. It was a tiny little winter scene just for them.

  “I should have guessed this would happen, after how freakishly cold November was,” Vincent mumbled, also crossing his arms. “Do you mind…”

  “You can smoke,” she said, shrugging again. “You don’t really need to quit with me, you know.” She’d been a bit ridiculous that day, taking his pack and crushing it. She knew he hadn’t stopped, but they never really talked about it. He just didn’t smoke in front of her. This was the first time since they got back from the hot hell of South America.

  “You’re doing very well with that,” he replied, pulling out his pack and putting the smoke in his mouth. He lit it before continuing. “You never smoked as much as me, though.”

  “Before I met you, I only smoked in stressful situations. I smoked more after coming here. Quitting isn’t as hard for me.” She eyed the cigarette between his lips. She wasn’t interested. She’d meant what she’d said. She was tired of plants that could kill her.

  “I can see that,” he said, exhaling smoke. “Also, it looks like she won’t want to come inside for a long time.” He pointed out to her jaguar and Sawyer groaned. She knew. She could feel the pure joy radiating from the feline. She was experiencing something new and exciting. All six inches of snow that had fallen in southern Georgia, the only snow she’d ever seen.

  “It’s too damn cold,” she complained, frowning out at her jaguar.

  “It’s December,” Vincent reminded her, chuckling. “Of course it’s cold.”

  Sawyer sighed. December. She hated December. She wished for a moment that she could continue pretending it was November - or just skip straight into January. She didn’t respond to him as she watched Sombra jump around in the snow. She couldn’t share the good mood. Something else had crept into its place: a bone-deep chill.

  “What day is it?” she asked softly.

  “The second. We’re off until January thirty-first. They’re calling it a well-earned holiday vacation.” Vincent flicked his cigarette. He didn’t seem bothered, but why would he? He didn’t even realize she was bothered.

  Sawyer stopped listening after she heard the day. They had been off for the rest of October, all of November, and Sawyer had missed them entering December. She hadn’t paid attention at all.

  “This is a really early snow,” he continued. “Even when it does get this far south, it’s in mid-winter, like January or February.”

  She shivered, but it wasn’t the cold this time.

  “Do you need a jacket? I can run in and get us hoodies,” he commented.

  She blinked and looked over at him, wondering how much she’d missed of him. “No, I’m fine,” she whispered, unable to summon even a fake smile. A jacket wasn’t going to chase the chill away now.

  “Sawyer?” He frowned at her, stepping completely into her sight, blocking her view of her jaguar. “Where did you go? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t lie well to me.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” she corrected. She should have known not to go with the ‘fine’ sentiment. He would never believe it from her. “I’m sorry. Later. It’s too early, I’m kind of hungover.”

  “Okay,” he murmured. “I’m going to get us some jackets, all right?”

  “Thank you.” She didn�
��t look in those dark olive green eyes anymore. Now they seemed like too much, too close to the chill settling around her. Too much of a reminder. He probably realized she was avoiding eye contact. He always noticed those types of things from her. He could probably guess what it meant. Something was reminding her of either Axel or Henry.

  This time, it was both.

  He left without another word, and Sawyer went back to watching Sombra. The jaguar had stopped jumping around and stared back at her with those bright golden eyes. They seemed to glow in the night, too aware. There was intelligence in those eyes that frightened her.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she repeated, softer, looking away from the jaguar.

  It was a quiet morning and the sun wouldn’t come up for a long time. Sombra went back to disturbing the peace, jumping around, so excited about this new white and wet thing on the ground.

  Eventually, the jaguar’s good mood began to bleed through the bond stronger, as if it was being pushed. Sawyer even cracked a small smile at the ridiculous cat. Her human didn’t want to talk about it, so Sombra saw no reason why she should be sad. She couldn’t erase the sadness, but she could cover it for a moment. So that her human wasn’t so sad when she should be happy about this new stuff called snow.

  “Fine!” She rolled her eyes, the small smile turning into a grin. Something about Sombra made her chest less hollow, and it was easier to break out of the chill thanks to the cat’s insight about her mood, even for just a moment. Sawyer reached out and grabbed some snow off the porch, patting it carefully into a good ball. Vincent walked back out at that moment, holding a hoodie and wearing a thick coat.

  “Don’t you dare,” he warned. She wiggled her eyebrows at him.

  “I would never. Not at you, anyway.” She looked back out at her jaguar and threw, laughing as the snowball exploded against the black fur and the jaguar jumped nearly eight feet in the air. “Got her!”