Outcast BoxSet

by Emilia Hartley

  This was a time to fight.

  Nora’s voice was steady and unafraid when she spoke, as if the woman found some center made of steel and determination. She was far stronger than Sydney had thought. She was far more than she looked.

  “As long as I never turn on myself, I’m okay with that.”

  “Don’t talk to your mother like that. Blood is thicker than water, child.”

  “And I found something even stronger, so don’t talk to me about blood and water. That isn’t even how the saying goes.”

  Silence followed. Sydney’s body twisted and changed. Her limbs bent and cracked into the shape of her blonde wolf. It hurt, like she was being torn apart, until she let go and the change flowed freely. Getting back into her human skin again would be a pain, but all that mattered was that she had teeth.

  While the woman droned on abut blood and betrayal, Sydney laid on the floor, panting. Her feet tangled beneath her and she let out a strangled sound. How could she protect herself if she was as wobbly as a newborn colt?

  Jax’s fingers found her fur. They sank deep and gripped her, yanking her to her feet. She jolted up, and her feet were forced to find themselves beneath her. She swayed unsteadily, but Jax held onto her.

  “You’ve surrounded yourselves with the monsters. Should I be worried that you’re laying with them now? Have you developed a kink for them since your husband died? Playing with the monsters won’t bring him back.”

  “We’re done here,” Nora snapped. There was a cracking sound that split through the air, and light appeared.

  A red-haired woman stood near the door with a sneer on her face. Nora’s shoulders heaved, some kind of powder clutched in her raised hand and a smoky scent in the air. Nora glared at her mother, the fury of whatever she fought for apparent.

  “You can’t hide from me.”

  “We’ll see about that.” The red-haired woman, Nora’s mother, spun on her heel and stormed out of the room.

  The fight was over. It hadn’t even been a fight. Sydney wanted to chase after her, hunt her down, and sink her teeth into her. The wolf wanted it. It craved it. The fight would be over. The head cut from the snake.

  Nora dropped to the ground. “I’ve never stood up to her like that.”

  Nora’s eyes slid to Sydney and she huffed a laugh. Since the change had been pulled out of her by fear and anger, the woman hadn’t actually seen Sydney’s transformation. To her, Sydney was still a human sympathizer. The blonde wolf was just a new monster.

  If the woman was smart, she might put two and two together. She’d come up with Sydney’s change. But, what if she didn’t?

  Nora seemed to come up with the same idea as their eyes met and held.

  “No,” Jax said. His voice was heavy and flat, carrying the weight of his refusal.

  But, he couldn’t stop her from doing anything. If she went ahead with her idea, she and Nora could distract them while they freed the shifters.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The night howled.

  No, that wasn’t right. A beast howled. It sang with pain and mourning, a rage flowing beneath it that was untampered. Sydney glanced at her companion, a question lodged in her throat. Was that another soul-less beast? A product of her family’s horrors?

  How could they do what they were doing and call it protection? Sydney’s chest ached as she thought about the lives being torn apart. Becca and the mayor had seemed like a happy couple, even if she’d hidden what she was from him. Had they been mates? The way he accosted the station on her behalf told Sydney they might have been.

  Soon, she would have to visit him and tell him his mate was dead. She hoped he would understand why there was no body, no way they could prove her death. Becca laid, as the corpse of a wolf in the mountains. She’d passed her beast on to Sydney in a way.

  “Are you ready?”

  Sydney snorted. The warrant was all written up. The bruises were gone, but they’d been smart to take photos of them after it’d happened. It’d helped Sydney get a warrant for the woman’s arrest. She wasn’t sure if they would be able to get her to the station, but she knew the chaos it would start would help Jax and Rhylan enter the barn behind the house.

  “Is this why you were homeschooled?”

  Nora looked down at her calloused hands. “While you were learning colors and the alphabet in kindergarten, I was being shown pictures of shifter killings. I had nightmares as a child. Ones where I’d wake screaming after being mauled like the people in the pictures. Mom didn’t care, as long as I was good and afraid of the world.”

  Sydney’s heart twisted. While Nora must have helped her family from her position in the station, she could tell the woman now regretted everything she’d done. What had caused it? Sydney remembered Nora’s mother mentioning a dead husband. If a shifter had killed him, there would have been no change of heart.

  “Was you husband a shifter? Is that why you’re rebelling?” She didn’t ask what she really wanted to know.

  Did your family kill him?

  Nora shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it right now. Sydney understood. She knew the pain of losing someone, but she wasn’t sure she understood the pain of losing someone so beloved. There hadn’t been that kind of love between her and her partner. It’d been a flurry of lust and obsession.

  Sydney adjusted her jacket and holster. Both would be inconvenient if her wolf forced another shift. After Nora’s mother visited them, Sydney and Jax had run through the mountains to help bleed a bit of the beast’s energy. Sydney wasn’t sure it would help if she or Jax got into trouble again.

  Ahead, the windows of a small farmhouse glowed against the dusk. The sky shimmered with shades of lavender and teal as darkness descended from above. Stars glittered behind them, tiny pinpricks of spirit and hope.

  They could do this.

  They would all survive.

  She looked at Nora again, the woman’s face pulled and drained despite the look of conviction in her eyes. A pair of cuffs dangled from Nora’s fingers. They’d spent an hour on those alone, Nora engraving the inside of the cuffs with sigils that would contain her mother’s magic. It was a tie, she’d told them. Her mother tied herself to the souls of the captured shifters and pulled on them like a thread. The sigils in the cuffs would sever that thread.

  At least, that was what Sydney hoped. For all she knew, Nora was leading them into a trap. She still didn’t know what it was that drove Nora to help them. Without that piece of information, she wasn’t sure if she should completely trust the human who’d pulled a gun on her.

  Nora knocked on the door, Sydney shifting to stand slightly behind Nora in case it was a trap. Her fingers danced along the butt of her gun. There was a shifting inside, the sound of something crashing to the floor and someone swearing. They hadn’t been expecting visitors, that much was clear.

  It made Sydney look to Nora again. What would cause that kind of steely determination? Sydney knew she would do anything for Jax. Her heart tightened to the point of pain, the point of bursting when she thought of him in trouble. Had Nora developed a mate bond with one of the trapped shifters?

  What kind of soulless beast did she fight for? Because if the shifter had been here long enough for the mate bond to surface, he must have been lacking part of his soul.

  Nora glanced over her shoulder one last time just as the door flew open. The redhead’s familiar face appeared, her lips dropping to form an exaggerated O of surprise.

  “Cordelia Beauchamp, you are under arrest for the assault of a police officer and breaking and entering.” The words left Sydney’s mouth like an automated response, the guise of her job pulled over her face for the time being.

  The woman’s surprise faded, slowly, before her eyes narrowed and settled on Sydney’s jaw. Her heart fluttered inside her chest.

  Nora stepped forward, raising the cuffs to wrap around her mother’s wrists. Cordelia stepped back. Her eyes flicked from the cuffs in her daughter’s hands to Sydney’
s face.

  “You’re a damned monster,” Cordelia spat at Sydney.

  Her jaw clenched. How had she found out so quickly? Sydney looked at Nora, but Nora’s fist was already pulled back. It collided with her mother’s face. The woman staggered back. Sydney lurched into action. She hadn’t been expecting it, so her movements were shaky as she grabbed the woman’s falling form.

  Cordelia managed to lean away from her. She hit the floor, and rolled away from them. Sydney swore. The woman was prepared for everything. Her hand snapped out and she flung something at them. The small knick-knack hit Sydney in the cheek. It burned, unlike anything she’d felt before.

  Silver.

  The woman truly was prepared for anything.

  “Grab her!” Nora shouted, running into the house.

  While they chased after Cordelia is a house filled with silver, Sydney hoped her mate was faring better than she was.

  ***

  The barn door creaked open. The sound was deafening while they waited for someone to come running after them. All they heard was the sound of faint whining, an animal in pain. Not long after, a menacing growl rumbled through the room. It morphed into a snarl.

  Jax wondered if it was another soul-less beast. Could he defeat this one, put the poor creature out of it’s misery, or if he would have to leave it locked away in the hands of the hunters. They couldn’t do that if the cops came to investigate the house.

  Beside him, Rhylan inched forward. He’d kept his human shape, kept his human voice.

  “Theo?” he whispered into the room.

  The smell of desperation, sweaty and sharp with ammonia, slapped Jax in the face. He shook his head, fighting back a sneeze as the scent burned its way through his nose. No sound. They couldn’t get caught.

  “Theo?” Rhylan tried again.

  The sound of a human groan came from the far right. Jax ran forward. Around the wall of a horse stall was a steel cage. The bars were thick, a thin wire wrapped around every other bar. His skin itched with the presence of the silver. He couldn’t imagine being trapped inside that all the time.

  The man inside the cage pushed himself up from where he lay on the floor. His eyes were bleary, unable to focus as he looked at Jax and Rhylan. The man couldn’t seem to make sense of what was happening. He began to shake, his body convulsing.

  Rhylan cursed and fumbled with the cage closure until he found a padlock. Jax jumped forward, closing his teeth around it. One shake of his head, fury rising, and the metal snapped. It was a strength he’d never had before. The ghost swarmed around him and lent their energy to him. They wanted the shifters freed as much as he did.

  His heart lifted. He was doing the right thing.

  The ghosts faded as they lent him their strength. Their howls turned into smiles.

  “Theo?” Rhylan repeated. He ducked into the cage, shuddering as he passed the silver wire, and reached for the man. “We’re here to help. We need to get you out of here.”

  The man scrambled away from him. A howl touched his lips, tearing through the silent darkness with a soul-shattering sound.

  “Hush, shh,” Rhylan tried. It all failed as the man continued to scream.

  He knew it was dumb, that this might backfire later, but Jax entered the cage. The silver wasn’t a great feeling, but he shoved his own comfort aside and leaned his heavy body against the man. He licked his face, trying to comfort him.

  But, the damage had been done. They could hear footsteps racing toward them. Jax had taken them on, one by one, in Sydney’s house. Could he take them on all at once? Theo was clearly in no shape to fight, and Rhylan needed to get him out of there.

  Rhylan quickly reached forward and yanked the cage door shut. He lowered himself into the shadows and waited. Jax followed suit, laying his stomach on the floor. Maybe there was a way out of this that didn’t include fighting.

  The human hunters raced past the closed cage, unable to see the man and wolf crouching in Theo’s cage. He let out a sigh of relief and struggled to stand again. The weight of the silver weighed on them all. Rhylan’s breath came heavy, his hands trembling as he slowly eased the door open again. Poking his head out, he peered down the aisle for the hunters.

  A long moment passed, his heart only giving one, heavy thump.

  If this went well, they would rescue Theo. He would be able to point fingers at the Beauchamp family, and Sydney would have her arrest.

  If it went bad, there would be a pile of bodies in this barn. Sydney would have an unclosed case and the weight of bodies buried without ceremony. He wouldn’t allow that to happen. This had to go perfectly. His mate’s career relied on it. Theo’s life relied on it.

  Rhylan motioned for them to follow. As they passed other stalls, Jax could see the other silver lined cages. It was monstrous. Small figures, animals and humans, crouched inside. They shivered and shook with fear or madness. How many of them would survive this? How many of them had souls left to recover?

  Jax heard the cries of a woman inside the house. Rhylan had Theo’s arm thrown over his shoulder. He looked between them and the house, his heart hammering. Was that the cry of his mate? She was a shifter now.

  What if Nora had betrayed them? What if she’d led Sydney inside to take her instead? His wolf yanked him forward. He raced toward the house despite Rhylan’s hissed warnings. He needed to protect his mate. She was all that mattered.

  Theo was in good hands. He and Rhylan would make it out, but Sydney needed him. If they’d been betrayed, he would tear Nora apart. He would make her scream.

  Jax passed a cage that let out a fearful howl. His feet tangled beneath him and he came to a stop. The beast screamed for freedom. It attacked the silver bars, uncaring of the pain it must have caused. It howled and fought.

  Unstopping.

  Uncaring.

  It had to fight.

  Instincts told Jax to open the crate. It told him that this would be an ally, but images of Becca’s soul-less snarl filled his mind. That was one beast he was not sure he could stop if it attacked.

  Another scream lit through the house. Footsteps raced toward the farmhouse, the men that had been in the barn racing to their leader’s help. Jax jumped into the shadows near the creature’s cage and hunkered toward the ground as they ran past.

  Just as they reached him, he leaped. His paws hit their backs and shoved them into the ground. Using their backs, he launched himself forward and set off toward the house. It would slow them down, but only barely.

  As much as he wanted to hurt them, keep them from following, his mate came first. She needed him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Cordelia threw everything she could at Sydney. Her skin burned, and her joints ached. The presence of the silver was driving her mad. It scratched against her skin and itched its way though her throat. She could feel it slowing her down.

  But, the warrant had been served, and she would be damned if she didn’t take this woman into the station for the way she and her lackeys had beat her. Sydney stifled her growl and lunged for Cordelia’s plait of red hair. She caught the very tip of it and yanked.

  Cordelia fell back, but Sydney didn’t see what was in her hands. It flashed in the lamplight before a bang filled her ears. Sydney waited for the sting and burn of the gunshot, but it never came.

  A black form staggered between them and fell into Sydney’s body. She screamed, the sound ripping its way through her body and out her throat. Jax dropped. Sydney let go of Cordelia’s braid and reached for her falling mate.

  Where had he come from? How had he been so fast? Her fingers searched for the gunshot wound in a blind panic. Where had he been shot? It had to be silver. What else would Cordelia load her guns with?

  It happened again. She’d gotten headstrong. She’d acted without thinking. And, it’d gotten someone she loved hurt. Jax collapsed in her arms. His body went limp. A scream fought its way out of her throat. It burned with rage and despair.

  Nora jumped past her. The cuff
s sang in the air and clasped around Cordelia’s wrists. The fight was over. It was done.

  “He’s been shot,” Sydney croaked. Her heart threatened to stop.

  Jax was dead. Her life was over. Her soul was torn in half without the help of Cordelia’s magic. Her body shuddered.

  No. His body shuddered.

  He was still alive. Her heart jumped into her throat. She surged to her feet. That was when she saw it. Blood leaked from the back of his skull. A sob caught in her throat, trapped behind her heart.

  Her knees threatened to drop her again. Nora yanked her mother from the floor and shoved her toward the door. What could Sydney do? How could she save him from that? She gripped him, holding him tight to her heart as if that alone would save him.

  “Who was shot?” Rhylan’s voice echoed through the house, suddenly taking on a tone she hadn’t heard before.

  Control.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jax’s skin was starting to regain color. The ashen look faded, only clinging to the corners of his eyes, as if the silver had taken years off his life. Sydney leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest. Her heart lodged itself in her throat, unwilling to go anywhere else while she waited for him to wake.

  Would he?

  Even if his coloring came back, would he wake and be the same?

  The silver bullet had only grazed his skull, but what if the silver had seeped into his system? She didn’t know if it could cause brain damage. She had no idea what she would do if the man she’d so suddenly and completely fallen in love with didn’t wake. If he didn’t look at her with that wry smile. If she couldn’t hear that husky laugh at her choice in music again.

  Tears burned her eyes. She let her head fall back, trying to contain them because she couldn’t deal with crying again. She’d thought she’d run out of tears, that her body was devoid of them by this point. The night before had been spent kneeling on the floor near the bed, lost in her sobs. The morning had been spent wrapped around his body.