Outcast (Hunter: A Thieves Series Book 4)

by Lexi Blake

  Since she was basically sending everything she learned back to Henri, I would make it as detailed as possible. I glanced back at Gray before turning to go.

  I walked out the door to the small lab/infirmary and Eddie was standing over one of the big comfy couches in the lounge.

  The cherubic demon looked up at me, his distress obvious. “I am not sure what to do, mistress. Should I wake him? My job requires that I ensure comfort for everyone. How do I know he’s comfortable? What would be the best outcome? If I wake him, he might not get back to sleep. If I leave him here, he could be angry that he wasn’t taken to bed.”

  Lee was curled up on the big couch, his sneakers still on. He’d waited up. I knew exactly what to do. I grabbed the blanket on the edge of the couch and eased his shoes off. “He’s fine. You don’t have to worry, Eddie. You’re doing a fabulous job. I know your intent is always good.”

  He shook his head. “Intent means nothing in a contract, mistress. Only the actual verbiage counts. Contracts are literal things.”

  He’d grown up in a world where intent meant nothing and his life depended on the wording of a contract. I reached out and touched his head, hoping he could feel my affection. “Your intent means everything to me. Now go to bed and rest, my friend. You have bacon to cook in the morning.”

  He perked right up, smiling brightly. “Oh, mistress, I have the best bacon for you. And pancakes and all the things. Yes, I need rest so tomorrow is an even better day.” He looked down at Lee. “You will care for the young master? I worry for him. He’s a special child. I know what it means to be different.”

  I loved the young master with all my heart and tonight had proven one thing to me. Life was going to be far more difficult with children. “Yes.”

  Eddie nodded and stepped back. “I have the night shift brownies bringing Master Trent a treat in an hour or so. I brought along good sausages and plenty of beef jerky. I’ve told them not to fear him in his wolf form. He’s a good wolf. Good night, mistress. It has been my pleasure to serve you this day.”

  “Good night, Eddie.” I tried not to think about the poor brownies chucking beef jerky at Trent and running for their lives. They would find him to be a perfectly polite wolf. I kicked off my shoes and slid in behind Lee. The couch was big enough for the two of us.

  I watched over him for the longest time, wondering why boys ever had to become men at all.

  And why Gray had been staring at Lee during his prophecy.

  A trick and a trap. The words played through my dreams.

  Chapter Eight

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” I sat beside Gray the following afternoon as he drove the SUV past the small town of Glenton and onto the highway that would take us where we needed to go. It was set to be a busy day. We’d already gone over all the police reports, but Casey was studying them and planned to have a big board for us tomorrow. He was super good at those big-ass conspiracy boards that linked crimes and people. Gray said they helped him think. I thought they just looked cool. Liv was working the protections spells with Eddie, and Meredith had a conference call with Henri to discuss everything I’d told her about our wolf.

  She didn’t believe me about the not so rabid part of my story. Oh, she’d nodded and said all the right things, but I knew when I was being shrugged off.

  “I’m fine,” Gray replied, his hands on the steering wheel at six and nine.

  “But you don’t remember anything?” Trent asked from the backseat where he was munching on the snacks Eddie had sent with us. He’d promised a “repast” to help us on our mission.

  “I remember there were a lot of fucking wolves in the forest last night,” Gray explained. “I remember going back to the tent. And then I woke up and Meredith was standing over me. That’s it.”

  “You asked our forgiveness,” Trent pointed out.

  “I’m sure I asked for hers,” Gray replied. “I have done nothing to you that requires forgiveness.”

  I rolled my eyes and reached into the basket the brownies had given us. Gray hadn’t woken up in a good mood. He was right back to sniping. As far as I could tell, passing out and waking up in the hospital wing of our magical mansion had made him even more surly than normal. “I got the feeling you were talking about the future, babe.”

  His hands tightened on the wheel. “I can’t remember. I listened to the recording Eddie made and I still can’t remember. I know some of the prophecy, but whatever future I saw in that moment is gone. It’s like I know it’s there, but I can’t see it anymore.”

  “You said we shouldn’t leave the king behind,” Trent pointed out. “I called in today and Donovan seems fine. I even talked to Zack and told him to watch the king closely. Apparently they’re spending time showing Myrddin around. Marcus is with them.”

  I felt better having Marcus close to the king. “He’ll monitor the situation. I sent him a copy of the tape Eddie made and he and the other academics will try to figure out what it all means. Do we know anything about the hunter in the woods last night?”

  “I have a scent,” Trent admitted. “I went up there and found where he’d been waiting. He’d been tracking the wolves. I followed the scent back to where he’d parked his vehicle. I could find him again. I might go into town and try to see if I catch a whiff.”

  I glanced at him.

  “Or we can all go back to the motel and I’ll see if I scent him there,” Trent offered.

  That was better. I’d dreamed about my stepfather the night before. The dreams had been violent and odd, and my real father had shown up in them. I had to know if John Atwood was here.

  “Hey, could I get even one of those sandwiches?” Gray complained as he drove down the highway. “You know there was a point in time when I thought I was the one with the crazy appetite.”

  Lucky for us those brownies had been spectacularly well trained. Our small repast turned out to be four chicken salad sandwiches, another four ham and cheese, a big old bag of chips, a six-pack of beer, and a treasure trove of cookies.

  Trent passed him a ham and Swiss from the back seat. “You’ve exchanged your appetite for paranoia. Why do you think we even need to talk to this guy? We saw the wolf thing last night. We know he’s here. Why does it matter that it might have broken into some old guy’s house? For that matter, I don’t get why Casey is doing all that detective stuff.”

  “He’s not big on investigations,” I explained to Gray.

  “I just think you two are clogging up the mission with a bunch of intellectual stuff,” Trent replied. “There’s a big-ass monster out there. We’ve seen it. We find it and kill it, then if we need to keep the kid safe, we don’t tell anyone we killed it and we stay in our nice mansion under the tent and let Eddie feed us for a couple of weeks until the wizard is gone. Easy-peasy.”

  Gray shook his head. “You’re nothing but muscle, aren’t you? Have you thought about the fact that Kelsey thinks her stepfather might be the one who took the shot at us last night? Or that all of this came about because of my father, the Hell lord? It’s a lot to take in, and I don’t think this is coincidence.”

  I forced myself to keep eating even though talking about my stepfather made me lose my appetite. I’d learned though that no matter what my emotional human self needed, if I went too long the she-wolf got hungry, and she didn’t care if her meal was alive when she started eating it. Swallowing a bunch of chips that suddenly tasted like paper was a small sacrifice. “It might not have been him.”

  My morose tone of voice got Trent to stop eating. He leaned my way. “We can handle this quickly. If the man in the woods last night was John Atwood, I’ll take care of the situation. Let’s go to the motel right now.”

  “You’ve assassinated enough people lately,” Gray grumbled. “And if he is here, don’t we want to know why a known hunter would waltz into a Lupus Solum stronghold? From everything I know about the man, he did his homework. He might have been a bastard, but he was careful about his hunts. He didn’t put
himself in danger.”

  Nope, just his children and partners. “If he’s here, I don’t want to tip him off. He might not know anything about me. He’s been out of the supernatural world for a long time. He never exactly fit in. And I don’t know how many people who hunt supernaturals get the Council newsletter.”

  They really had one of those. There are some excellent recipes in the back.

  “Please be serious about this,” Gray said with a sigh. “Your stepfather is dangerous. He tried to kill you when he didn’t even know you had power. I can’t imagine what he would want to do to you now.”

  “Kill her?” Trent went still behind me. “I know he was a hunter, but I didn’t know he’d tried to kill Kelsey.”

  “I don’t know that was his intention, but he wouldn’t have minded if I died,” I admitted. “And he knew. I’m not sure how, but he knew there was something wrong with me. I think he also knew I wasn’t his biological kid. It doesn’t matter now.”

  Even thinking about my stepfather took me back to a dark place.

  Gray’s right hand left the steering wheel and came out to rub across my thigh. “It does matter. It always matters. And once we figure out what he’s doing here and if he’s connected to anyone in any way in our world, I’ll let Trent assassinate him. He likes to do that.”

  Trent groaned. “Fuck you, Gray. She was dying. She was too stubborn to save herself so I did what I had to do.”

  Gray’s hand went to the wheel, tightening around it. “I know.”

  Trent sat back, smartly taking those two words for what they were. The beginning of the thaw. “All right. What do we know about the guy we’re going to interview?”

  Gray seemed to relax a bit. “His name is Martin Jensen. He’s a widower. Runs a small ranch outside of town. His property backs up to the woods, so we can assume he’s had dealings with Lupus Solum. I’d like to know how many people in town understand what the community is made up of.”

  Did they know they lived close to werewolves? It had been obvious that the owner of the motel had known something was off with us. That meant he likely knew a bit about the pack. “I thought the community was hyper isolated. Why would they have anything to do with the locals, much less let the locals know what they are?”

  “I doubt they would have said anything out loud,” Trent began. “But the locals tend to know things. Most of these people have lived here all their lives. Land in a place like this tends to be generational. The Lupus Solum pack has been here for a couple of decades. The men would go into town to pick up supplies. They would have to deal with local law enforcement. They don’t like humans, but they’re smart when it comes to dealing with them. They likely take care of problems for the locals.”

  “Problems?” I probably didn’t want to know.

  “Say something was killing their cattle. The men of the community would offer to take care of the situation,” Trent explained. “Of course, they’re likely the ones who ate the cow in the first place, but the locals only know that now they don’t have the problem anymore. Or if it was a wolf, the family will kill the pack and peace comes back to the ranchers.”

  “And if the locals get nosy?” Gray asked.

  “They would likely get their noses taken off in a nasty way,” Trent allowed. “Turn off here. According to my directions, the ranch is two miles north on this road.”

  Gray did as asked, the SUV’s tires crunching on the dirt road. “It’s smart of them to find this place. Western towns in particular have a ‘live and leave me alone’ attitude about them.”

  “They always find communities like this.” Trent sat back and he wasn’t eating now. “They need a town where no one will question them. If the local sheriff asks, they’re a religious group looking for the freedom to worship as they will. There are protocols in place if law enforcement has questions. Every member of the community knows what to say. It was drilled into my head from childhood. And every member knew what happened if you didn’t comply.”

  “Punishment?” Gray asked.

  “Oh, yes. They know how to punish a wolf. For the young candidates it was worse in a way. I was considered chosen so I couldn’t be physically harmed, but my caretakers could. I would be forced to watch. My friends, those outside the chosen, could be exiled or killed. I learned very quickly I had to comply. I also learned not to be open about my relationships. Even my relationship with my wife was something I kept quiet. When we came of an age where we were allowed small freedoms, we would meet in the woods and talk. I was careful to not let anyone see me. Especially my father.”

  “Something we have in common. We all have shitty dads.” Parents, really. Gray’s mom had sold him to a demon in exchange for power, and apparently Trent’s was some kind of breeding machine. When we got back, I wouldn’t complain about Sundays at my mom’s anymore. And I would try to find a way to include Trent. He needed to not be the dirty secret. He’d had to keep a whole lot of his life hidden.

  “Yeah, well, mine intends to drag me to Hell, so I think I win.” Gray chuckled a bit. “I could ask if he’ll drag yours. He likes dragging people. It’s a hobby of his. Speaking of Hell, I want more information on our demon butler. Do you know how he came to work for the royals?”

  “Eddie’s cool,” Trent said. “He’s been in the royal house for a couple of years. It happened like Lee said. Zack and I were working security for the king and Quinn at some Euro vamp’s mansion. They treated Eddie like shit. The companion was particularly bad, but the vampire is highly placed and he’s always backed Dan. Quinn came up with a compromise.”

  “The compromise should have been to punch the fucking companion in the face,” I replied, warming to my subject. Anything was better than talking about my stepfather and his possible motives for being here. It also made me think about my talk with Meredith the previous evening. Politics often made it difficult to do the right thing.

  “Did you hear the part about the highly placed vampire?” Trent asked.

  “She doesn’t understand politics,” Gray said. “Or rather she doesn’t care about them.”

  He was probably right the first time. I didn’t get the idea of being nice to some asshole because he can do something for me. But then that’s why I’m not the king. I would be a terrible ruler. I would likely execute all the assholes. See, that totally sounds like a good idea to me. “So Quinn offered to buy Eddie?”

  “He did. The problem is the king hasn’t exactly done much to make the vampires think he gives a shit about demons. Pretty much the opposite,” Trent explained. He put his hands up when I opened my mouth. “He heard you, baby. He’s working on it, but at the time he didn’t have a leg to stand on. Money was his only bargaining chip. Eddie came with us and, man, you think he’s bad now, you should have seen him back then.”

  “Just because he’s been through something terrible doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of doing evil,” Gray pointed out.

  “All the dude wants to do is run his own household,” Trent said. “He’s incredibly helpful, almost to the point of obnoxiousness.”

  “So was Syl.” Gray sighed. “Any demon is capable of evil. And any single one of them could be reporting back to my father. It wouldn’t be the first time he enlisted a servant to fuck with my life.”

  “They’re not all the same.” But I knew what Syl had done. Syl had been the one to dose my food with fertility drugs back when Gray and I first had been together. He’d done it at Gray’s father’s behest. “They don’t all work for your dad.”

  “Are we going to talk about it?” Gray asked. “Are we going to talk about the whole baby thing?”

  Damn it. The thought of Syl had reminded him the same way it had me. At the beginning of our relationship, Gray’s father had fucked with us in an attempt to produce a child between a Hunter and a powerful royal halfling. Not only had he thought I would follow my husband into Hell, he’d wanted that child. Lupus Solum aren’t the only ones to play around with genetics trying to produce powerful kiddos. />
  “Yeah, you should just lay back and enjoy the experience, man.” Trent sounded far more comfortable talking about this than he had his childhood. He reached for the last of the sandwiches. “When a she-wolf gets it in her head that she wants some kids, there’s no stopping her. She will get your sperm one way or another. Nod your head and drop your pants. That’s how to handle her right now.”

  “I’m not a wolf. I’m a man without a ton of time left on this plane.” Gray was the uncomfortable one now. Up ahead I could see the ranch house come into view.

  “You know I’m going to find a way.” I wouldn’t let him descend. I couldn’t. Despite the fact that he’d been an asshole for the last six months, he was my asshole.

  “Hugo doesn’t have a lot of hope.” Gray started to slow the SUV down. “I would have to get my father to negate the contract himself. And you can’t murder him. If you think you got in trouble for killing my brother, Lucifer himself would come after you for Lord Sloane’s death. Unless we can find a legal way to execute him, it means your deaths, and I don’t want that. I know I’m pissed right now, but not even you, Trent.”

  “Hey, it’s good that you don’t want him eviscerated by the Lord of Hell.” I was going to see it as a win.

  “He’s right.” Gray parked the SUV in the circular drive. “Someone has to take care of you when I’m gone.”

  “You won’t have to stay there all the time,” Trent pointed out. “Not if Lord Sloane wants you capable of using your dark prophet powers. He has to allow you some residency on this plane.”

  I saw Gray’s eyes lift, meeting Trent’s in the rearview mirror.

  “I won’t be the same, and you have to understand that because she won’t,” Gray said. “I won’t be the same man once I descend. Yes, I’ll come back to the Earth plane, but it will be a different me. I worry if I have a child, my father won’t leave him alone. That’s why I talked to the satan. There is nothing I want more than to have a child with the love of my life, but not if my child’s life will turn out like mine. I don’t trust my father. The truth is after I descend, I don’t want you to trust me either.”