Outcast BoxSet

by Emilia Hartley

  The creepy shifter smiled and waved at her from inside a van.

  “Ashe,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “What?” The woman twisted to look, and her mouth dropped into an elongated O. “I didn’t see this. Why didn’t I see this?”

  “That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is how we plan to get away from them?” Kaylee felt like she was outside of her body. She could feel nothing, no tremble, no pulse, no wash of cold fear. All she could think of was how she couldn’t protect both of them.

  Ashe had no animal to unleash. As far as she knew, all Ashe could do was predict glimpses of the future. If the creepy shifter and his friends managed to catch up with them, to get them off the road, Kaylee could only make a stand while Ashe ran.

  “Don’t pull off,” Kaylee warned her. “If we pull off the highway and stop, we’re dead.”

  Ashe’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. Kaylee felt bad for her. She hadn’t asked to get caught up in this. Kaylee hadn’t, either, but she wasn’t about to roll over and let the world fuck her again. She was done taking its crap.

  “Assholes think they’re tough because the boys aren’t with us,” Kaylee growled, keeping an eye on creepy shifter’s car.

  It drifted toward them. Ashe jerked the car to avoid being hit, and a tire bounced off the highway. The car shook around them as she jerked the wheel to get them back onto the highway. Ashe squealed with surprise. Her glasses bounced on the tip of her nose. She took a hand off the steering wheel to shove them back into place, drifting into another lane in the process.

  Someone honked angrily at them. Kaylee fought back the urge to flip the honker the bird. Instead, she twisted in her seat to locate the car of feral shifters. Their own car was their greatest weapon. It kept them safe, but if the shifters managed to shove them off the road and caused them to flip, they could be crunched.

  She glanced at the gas gauge, wondering if it would get them all the way to Maryland. Would they make it home? Fear stabbed through her. The thought of bringing the shifter back to her hometown terrified her. Kaylee’s fingertips tingled with fear. She imagined her mother at the mercy of the feral shifters, of her stepfather trying to protect them and dying in the process.

  Her heart threatened to stop beating until she shoved aside the image. They couldn’t go to Maryland. If they couldn’t go home or pull off the road, what could they do?

  “I don’t know if I can do this!” Ashe shouted, her voice pitching, as the car rammed them again. The machine wobbled and veered toward the side of the road.

  Ahead, Kaylee saw it. There was a median road coming up. It bridged the two highways, North and South. Sure, it was technically illegal to use them as a civilian, but Kaylee couldn’t have cared less in that moment. She flung out her hand, pointing to the median.

  “I don’t understand!” Ashe was in panic mode.

  Kaylee didn’t blame her. “Turn around. We’re going home.”

  She didn’t call it Stonefall. She didn’t say they were going back to the boys. She called it home. It’d been home for a long while. Maybe not the town itself, or even Vancourt house, but Gage. All along, he’d been her true home. And, she was going back.

  “The shifters want me because they consider me part of their pack, right?”

  The tires screeched on the pavement as Ashe attempted to swing the car onto the narrow road. Kaylee clung to the door handle, bracing herself. Her heart lodged itself into her throat.

  “I don’t know shit about packs, but if I were a part of another pack, they wouldn’t have any claim to me. Right?”

  Ashe cast a quick sidelong glance in Kaylee’s direction. “I’m not sure you want to…”

  “What other choice do we have? It’s either mass murder, or we do something about it.”

  “I thought you wanted to go home?” The car’s engine revved, struggling to shift gears. Ashe let out a soft curse just before it kicked into gear and shot forward.

  Kaylee twisted in her seat, neck aching from the strain.

  “Whose idea was it to send me with you?” Ashe’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “I’m so useless in a situation like this.”

  Kaylee wanted to argue, to tell her it would be alright, but she wasn’t sure. They were a couple hours out from Stonefall and they would need to stop and refill the gas tank before they made it there. The shifters in the other car turned on the median, wheels screeching as they careened sideways for a moment.

  “Grab the wheel,” Ashe demanded.

  “Huh, what?” Kaylee spun toward her.

  “I’m going to do something, but I need you to take control. The car is in cruise control, all you have to do is steer.”

  “This sounds like an absolutely awful idea.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  In that moment, she didn’t. They were vulnerable no matter what they did. She could call the brothers, but they were still too far out. Kaylee sucked in a breath and grabbed the wheel. She’d done similar things with her siblings, reckless and stupid in their youth. Someone would always let go of the wheel and wait for someone else to grab it while they veered toward a ditch.

  Kids were stupid, but as she steadied the car, she was a little bit grateful they had been that dumb. Ashe’s eyes clouded over and her body fell still. Even her breathing became shallow. Kaylee opened her mouth to ask what was going on, but thought better of it. There seemed to be a lot she didn’t understand about this world. Whatever Ashe was doing, she was trying to help.

  The car sped past another median at seventy miles an hour. A parked cop car made Kaylee’s heart thump in her throat. She glanced in the rear-view mirror and felt her heart stop altogether when the lights above it blazed.

  No. They didn’t need this right now. The cop would most likely be human. Kaylee knew a human cop wouldn’t deter the feral shifters.

  But, Ashe returned, a laugh bursting out of her. Her hands flew up and grasped the wheel.

  “What are you laughing at? The cop is pulling us over!”

  “No, he isn’t.” Ashe’s eyes flicked to the mirror, crinkling at the corners.

  Kaylee looked back. The highway was filled with spinning red and blue lights. They made Kaylee’s head hurt, but as she watched, the squad of cars circled the feral shifters and forced them to pull over.

  “How?” She turned back to Ashe.

  “Magic, my dear. Simply magic.”

  Kaylee’s brows dropped into a flat line.

  “Fine. I astral projected into the phone lines and made a 9-1-1 call. Gave the local police their plate number and claimed they’d just robbed me at gunpoint.”

  “That has to be illegal!” Kaylee shouted, even though she knew there was no way the call could be traced back to Ashe. It wasn’t like astral projection had a call back number. “Phone lines, huh?”

  “I used to use it to make prank calls on Sampson Vancourt,” Ashe said with a smirk. “Gage tormented my father. I tormented his.”

  Kaylee felt relief surge through her. The squad of armed police would hold the shifters at bay long enough for them to make their way home.

  Home.

  She would throw herself in Gage’s arms when she got home. She would cling to him and ask him to stand by her as they got through this together. There was no one else she wanted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Missing?” Kaylee’s voice broke. The world shattered around her, crumpling into a feeling of wrong.

  Joanna’s scowl turned into a snarl. She reached for the nearest object, a butter urn, and chucked it against the wall. Shifters definitely liked breaking things. In the moment, Kaylee understood. The feeling of wrongness made her stomach churn, but she tried to be positive. The shifters had been after her, not him.

  “You haven’t heard from him all day? Are you sure he isn’t just bugging Faulkner?”

  Archer let out a long sigh. He sat at the table, his head resting on his steepled fingers. When he looked up, she could
see the wariness on his face. “He and Cohen are missing. Cohen would never stoop to the shenanigans Gage pulls. If they’re together and we haven’t heard from them, I’m afraid something happened.”

  Kaylee felt her knees wobble beneath her. She looked out the window as if she could search her surroundings for Gage, as if he would be standing outside if she looked hard enough.

  “They might have… just left,” Archer began. “Neither of them wanted much to do with Stonefall. They aren’t Pack so there’s no reason for them to stay.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  She hadn’t come back only to find nothing waiting for her. She refused to think Gage would run away. He’d talked about finding a new life, about leaving Stonefall behind because nothing asked him to stay. This felt… different.

  He’d begged to put the feral shifters’ heads on spikes. He wanted to end the threat they posed. The idea of the feral shifters running free and creeping onto Vancourt territory whenever they wanted had pissed him off. If anything, he would have gone looking for them.

  Kaylee warmed, knowing he hadn’t gone alone. Cohen was with him. Even if Archer hadn’t heard from his brother, she told herself they were fine. Gage was strong. No coyote could bring him down.

  Sill, something felt wrong. She didn’t know how to describe the feeling. It was as if her entire body tingled with fear even though there was no threat present. She paused, trying to dig into the feeling and break it apart so she could better understand it. It was kind of like trying to find the flaw in a tattoo design.

  She had to step back and look at it to find the disproportions and errors. As soon as she stepped back from Joanna’s anger and Archer’s resignation, she saw the issue. What was between her and Gage was so much more than they’d thought. It was more than the attraction that pulled them together.

  She chewed her lip. She’d seen the anger in his face, the way it radiated off him as if he would happily set the world on fire. Because someone had threatened her. And so, the moment she was gone, he thrust that anger toward the threat.

  “I’m not going to stand around,” Kaylee said. “I’m going to look for him.”

  “You can barely even handle your animal,” Archer argued. “What makes you think you’re fit to go out there? What makes you think the feral shifters aren’t laying in wait for you?”

  “If you think I’m going to let them make me sit here and do nothing when your brother is in trouble, then you can get bent.”

  Archer searched for words, but in the end, he sighed.

  Kaylee didn’t wait for him to try again, she swore under her breath and ran for the door. She’d been gone for hours. The sun was touching the horizon. There was no way of knowing how long Gage had been in trouble. Joanna and Archer called out after her, but she didn’t pause to give an answer. Her coyote took claim of their body. The shift was quick and nearly painless. Neither of them wanted to pause for the pain to fade, to catch their breath. There was no time.

  “If you would just wait,” Archer grunted. Heavy footfalls sprinted after her. She knew she couldn’t waste time, so she wove across the grass. Her movements made her slippery, hard to catch.

  “Son of a…”

  Hands gripped the scruff of her neck and her feet lifted off the ground. She thrashed in his grip, but couldn’t escape Archer’s big hands. He pulled her up so that she was eye to eye with him and he scowled at her. “If you could wait, I can keep you from dying.”

  She pulled her lips back from her teeth. Desperation clamped around her heart. She thought it might burst if she didn’t run toward him. She needed to find Gage. The scent of him was faint in the air, but it was there. She could track it.

  Archer handed her over to Joanna before plucking his phone from his pocket. He met his mate’s eyes and a message passed between them that Kaylee could not decode. It was silent, nothing more than an exchange of glances.

  “I’m not sure the Vancourt pack will listen to me,” Archer warned.

  “They better. The Bart Pack is still too small to take on situations like this by themselves. It took both last time.”

  He sighed and nodded his head. Meanwhile, Kaylee scanned her surroundings. She needed to get out of Joanna’s grasp. The woman held her around the middle like a baby. Her grip wasn’t strong. If Kaylee twisted, she could break free.

  Calling the packs was going to take too much time. There was no telling what was happening while they waited. Gage could already be… She wouldn’t let herself think of it. It wasn’t an option. Kaylee refused to believe Gage would die so easily. He wouldn’t give in to those weak creatures.

  He was a bear.

  Still, her human mind filled her with the worst-case scenarios. Archer and his mate might mean well, he might love his brother, but he didn’t understand urgency. He needed to move quickly if they were going to help his brother. Both of them.

  Kaylee planted her feet against Joanna’s stomach and vaulted herself upward. Joanna cried out, but Kaylee’s feet hit the ground and she started running. Her nose caught the scent of Gage and her heart lifted. She could find him. She would make it in time. If anything, she could buy Archer and Joanna time.

  She wished she could tell them, but she didn’t want to waste energy shifting back. Hopefully, her refusal to sit put spoke loud enough. These monsters were not going to hurt Gage. Not if she could help it.

  Just as she broke through the brush of the wood-line, she heard Joanna’s voice as she spoke to her husband.

  “I kind of like this girl. Honestly, I hope she joins the family.”

  “If we can keep her alive long enough,” Archer grumbled.

  ***

  A song filled the night air. It echoed through her skull, leaving behind the clues she needed. The feral shifters were celebrating. While they failed in catching Kaylee and Ashe, they’d succeeded in capturing two of the Vancourt brothers. How that happened, Kaylee would have to ask when she found them.

  The song echoed on, guiding Kaylee toward the pack’s den. They cheered and whooped with their howls as they ran in circles around it. Help would be on the way soon, but she hadn’t been able to wait. Waiting left Gage vulnerable and the coyote refused to let that happen. He was their first priority.

  The realization spiked through her, like an electrical jolt. Despite how they met, how she once considered him a kidnapper, she realized she loved him. It had grown and become something real that tethered her to him. She didn’t know how it could have happened so fast, but she knew she needed to see that spark of mischief and that silly smirk every day of her life.

  Gage would survive, she told herself. Her stomach tightened, and cold fear spilled through her body at the thought of Gage in their hands. He was strong, she reminded herself. He could take care of himself. She repeated it like a mantra as she crept through the tall grass.

  She dropped her body low to the ground and inched forward. The glow of firelight filled the clearing ahead. Her nose tickled with the smell of burning woods and decay. She fought back a sneeze, burying her nose in her own fur. She couldn’t sneeze. Not now.

  Little by little, she crept forward to get a better view. The grass parted to reveal a lean, dark-haired man standing before the fire. His back was to her, but she hoped she was also downwind. If she could smell the decay of the graves dotting the land around them, then he might smell her, too. Past the fire, two figures were hog tied.

  One moved, fighting against the restraints. It would have been comical if Kaylee hadn’t been terrified. Why weren’t they freeing themselves? The brothers were stronger than anyone she knew. Ropes were nothing to them.

  Something was wrong.

  She shimmied back into the grass and turned to flank the bonfire. It crackled and reached toward the sky. She heard the thump of wood being added to the fire and startled. She dropped her body low and strained to hear what was happening beyond the wall of grass. When she didn’t hear footsteps, she inched forward once more.

  Soon, the
grass stopped, and the headstones appeared. She hesitated, not ready to leave the safety of her organic wall. Parting the grass, she peered out. The fire burned to her right, casting garish shadows between the headstones. That was it, she thought. If she stayed quiet enough, she could slip through those shadows. Kaylee spared a last glance at the man near the bonfire, feeling her coyote stomach churn. He was not a coyote, she realized. He was something larger. Larger than her.

  Fear made her joints tremble. Before she found herself stuck in the grass, she leapt into the shadows between the headstones. It was a macabre setting, she thought. The old church loomed like a monster, dancing in the firelight. She did her best to ignore it while she made her way to Gage.

  Closer now, she could see him fighting against his restraints. There was something in his mouth, muffling the curses he was trying to spit at the man near the bonfire. What caught Kaylee off guard was the glow in his eyes. The bear pushed and fought, but all it could do was settle in his eyes. He pinned the man with that eerie glow, as if promising the man a slow and painful death.

  “You know,” the man said, breaking the silence. “I was hoping they would send help once they realized the two of you were gone. Looks like no one cares about you. Pack-less. Love-less. It really sucks to be you two.”

  Gage screamed something at the man, but they couldn’t tell what it was past the gag. Kaylee dropped to the ground. Did he know she was there? But, he didn’t turn toward her or look in her direction. Nearly on her belly, she kept moving toward Gage.

  The scrape of her stomach against the ground caught his attention. His eyes widened when he saw her, flicking to the man and back before he shook his head. Kaylee was supposed to be in Maryland. She should have been sitting down to dinner with her parents, awkwardly relaying a very redacted story about her time in Stonefall.

  Instead, she was right where she was supposed to be. A warm thrill passed through her, chasing back the cold of fear. Her eyes met Gage’s again and, if she could have, she would have offered a sly smile. The world was a great big, fucked up place. It could keep feeding them crap, but as long as they stood together, they would overcome anything.