Outcast (Hunter: A Thieves Series Book 4)

by Lexi Blake

  I hated how solemn he sounded. “You can’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “Do you think I’ve never met a legacy before?” Gray asked. “I’ve met several. I knew a couple before their descent. They changed.”

  I knew one, too. “Sarah Day descended. She was a legacy and now she’s fine.”

  “I don’t think I’ll have an angel from the Heaven plane with me to keep me sane, Kelsey mine. I’m not saying no. I know I should, but I can’t stand the thought of not leaving a piece of myself behind. Maybe if we had a child, a part of me would always be able to love you. But I can’t do it until I’m certain I’ll be able to protect my son or daughter. Even from myself. I’ve been assured that any contract I sign before my descent will be binding after.”

  “What kind of contract would you sign?” I didn’t like the thought of more contracts.

  “I don’t know. I’m looking into it. I’ll tell you more when Hugo gets back to me.” He unsnapped his seatbelt and opened the door. “Let’s do this thing so we can get back for dinner. I know that mass of meat and bread the little thing gave us won’t hold either one of you for long.”

  “She’s a brownie,” I said. “You can’t call her a thing.”

  Gray settled his Stetson back on his head. “I’m not used to the Fae stuff. They tend to stay away from demons. I’m surprised Edward’s staff is made up of them. Was that a troll I saw?”

  “We got Fae all over now,” Trent said, hopping out of the SUV. “Mostly Unseelie because Dev’s their high priest. He’s the High Priest of the Seelie, too, but they tend to stick to the sithein. The brownies are pretty cool once they realize you won’t eat them. The trolls are fine, too, but watch your house pets around those suckers.”

  I looked up at the ranch house, which had seen better days. It was obvious someone had once put some love into the place. There was a big porch with lovely pots for flowers and a couple of rocking chairs where people could sit and watch the sunset. There were cobwebs on the rocking chairs and the pots had weeds in them. Even the weeds that had blown in and taken root appeared to be dying. The paint was starting to peel on the railing.

  I glanced over at Trent, who was quietly doing his thing.

  He winked my way. “Just one human and a whole bunch of cattle. But the human is coming and he’s got a gun. Recently cleaned. I can smell the gun oil.”

  Gray stepped in front of me, putting his big body between me and the dude with the gun. Oddly enough, he also stepped in front of Trent. I wasn’t sure if he meant to do it until his hand came out, palm gesturing for Trent to stay behind him.

  Which was weird since Trent and I were both on vamp blood and Gray was not. But I let him do the “protect the women and the alpha wolves” thing because he could take a ton of damage, too.

  Trent frowned my way. He was the bodyguard. He wasn’t used to being told to hide behind anyone. I shook my head and gave him my best go-with-it look.

  The door flew open and Martin Jensen stalked out. He was in his late sixties, still fit from years of hard physical labor, but there was a weariness in his eyes that belied the healthy state of his body. He held a Colt in his right hand, but it was at his side, merely a threat at this point. “What are you doing on my land?”

  So he was a friendly soul.

  Gray put his hands up. “I’m hoping to speak with Martin Jensen. My name is Grayson Sloane. I’m with the Division of Criminal Investigation here in Wyoming. I’m going to reach into my pocket and pull out my badge.”

  Jensen stayed close to his door, as though ready to lock himself in at any moment. “Ain’t no reason for you to come out here. Nothing I say you’ll believe, so just forget about all of it. I wish I’d never called in. I’m not talking anymore. Can’t lose any more of my herd. Get on out of here.”

  “Who’s taking your herd?” I had to ask the question around Gray’s broad shoulder.

  Jensen’s lips closed mulishly, and he stepped back again. “Don’t have to talk to any of you.”

  “Are you afraid of Lupus Solum?” I figured as long as I’m here I might just throw everything out.

  “I thought we were going to be subtle,” Gray whispered.

  I couldn’t see his face, but I knew what expression would be there. It was the one that let me know I was going rogue and he didn’t like it. “I’m not good with subtle, babe.”

  But I was good at getting a witness to talk. Jensen’s eyes had widened, and I could see the fear there. “They sent you?”

  “Mr. Jensen, I really am law enforcement,” Gray said in his most reasonable tone. He wasn’t lying, though he wasn’t with the agency he claimed to be. I was certain, though, that he had all kinds of paperwork to say he was. I knew Liv had made sure he had his magical badge. Basically it was an enchanted object that allowed the user to influence the people around him to see what he wanted them to see. If he said it was a badge for the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, that’s what Jensen would see. “But I think you’ll find me more open than other officers you’ve met. I’ve seen a lot of strange things, if you know what I mean. I’m out here because I’m looking into an incident where a wolf got into your home. It happened a week ago.”

  “It happened during the last snow of the season,” Jensen said. He stared at Gray for a long time. “Did they send you?”

  “No,” Gray said. “Look, I don’t know what the group is like. I’ve never met them, but I am here to make sure they’re not doing anything they shouldn’t be. If they’re causing trouble, I promise you, me and my team will take care of it.”

  “Your team?” I whispered because it was my team. Mine. If he wanted it to be his team he should have gotten himself appointed Nex Apparatus.

  Trent merely grinned at me. “Go with it, baby.”

  “All right.” Jensen opened the door, looking around as though trying to figure out if anyone was watching. “You best come in if we’re going to talk. You never know when they’re listening. I’ll tell you all about what happened. Craziest damn thing I ever saw. Still can’t explain it.”

  I followed Gray up the stairs and into the house.

  It was time to go to work.

  The inside of the house wasn’t any better than the outside had been. A veneer of neglect clung to the place. It was obvious at some point a woman had lived here. She’d selected the pretty yellow drapes and matched them to feminine furniture in the parlor. Mr. Jensen looked slightly out of place in that front room. There was a china cabinet that hadn’t been dusted in what looked like years. It contained all the treasures of a homemaker’s life. There were carefully placed china and serving dishes. Lace doilies covered the side tables.

  Trent looked out of place, too. He frowned at the delicate settee as though wondering if it would hold his weight.

  Gray sat on the chair across from Jensen and placed his hat on the table beside it. “I thank you for speaking with us, Mr. Jensen. This is my colleague, Kelsey Owens. She’s with Fish and Wildlife and my intern, Trent Wilcox. He’s part of our new program to help ex-cons get back on their feet. Don’t worry. He wasn’t a violent offender. He got caught stealing women’s underwear. Just shoplifting.”

  Trent stared at Gray. “Really?”

  I wanted to get down to business. “We’re here to talk about what happened the night you found the wolf in your kitchen. We’re concerned about activity in the area. The wolves seem to be getting more aggressive.”

  That was our cover. I personally would rather just tell the truth, but telling a human that we’re looking for a mutant werewolf who probably ate a bunch of people on his way here was frowned upon.

  Jensen’s gun was sitting on one of those lacy doilies, the sight a bit incongruous. “There’s definitely more of ’em in the last couple of weeks. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always wolves in the woods, but I think they’ve multiplied or something lately.”

  Or the mutant wolf was somehow calling the natural wolves to him.

  “It was the last snow
of the season. I can always tell. There’s something about that last snow that lets me know spring is coming. It was a hard winter. I was ready for spring. Lost too many this winter. Anyway, that night was cold. I finished up early and went to bed. Around three in the morning, I woke up. That’s not surprising. I don’t sleep well since I lost my Mary. She’s been gone two years this May and I haven’t slept properly since. You sleep beside a woman for forty years and you can’t go back, you know what I mean?”

  Gray’s hand came out, covering mine. “I do. We haven’t been together for as long, but I know I would miss her. Even one night away seems like too long. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Jensen nodded, as though seeing us as a couple helped him to relax a bit. I sometimes forgot that Gray had been doing this for a long time and he had terrific instincts. “Anyway, I woke up and I laid there in bed. It’s real quiet out here at night. In the summer there are a lot of sounds, but in the winter the silence can be stifling. There wasn’t even a wind that night. When I heard the creaking on the floorboards down here, I knew someone was in the house.”

  “Are you the only one out here?” It would seem like he would need some ranch hands.

  “I have a couple of fellows who used to come out here and help me, but they quit back before Christmas and I haven’t had luck finding anyone else,” he admitted. “It’s weird. I guess there’s a lot of work to be had right now and no one wants to do manual labor. Anyway, I’d been alone all day. For about a week at that point in time. I was used to the quiet, used to being alone. I think that’s how I was certain someone was in the house. Something, it turned out.”

  “Did you call the sheriff?” Gray asked.

  Jensen shrugged. “Sheriff’s twenty minutes away. What would he do? Besides, he would likely tell me to shoot the fucker and call him in the morning. Sheriff’s not worth much. I crept down the back stairs. He sounded like he was in the kitchen. I figured he was looking for something to steal. Joke was on him. I got nothing but cattle.”

  “What happened when you got to the kitchen?” I noticed Trent was staring out the window, though I knew he would likely recall everything the man said. There was something about the way Trent went still that made me think he was wary.

  “I got to the bottom of the stairs and the back door was open. I know I shut it. I didn’t lock it. No reason to lock it. No one out here to bug me. It was the weirdest thing, too. I expected to see footprints, and there were some. That was when I got real scared. I don’t know why but the thought of facing down a man didn’t frighten me. It made me mad, but when I realized it was a wolf…”

  His voice drifted off, his eyes unfocused as though he was reliving the night over again. We all stayed quiet, not wanting to break his memory.

  “There were paw prints on the floor. Big ones.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I reached for the shotgun I keep near the backdoor. Sometimes we get coyotes and bears and the sound will scare ’em off. I knew I was going to have to kill this one. Which was why I was shocked to see that little boy sitting in the middle of the kitchen with his face in a bucket of rocky road ice cream. And that kid didn’t have a stitch on. How he wasn’t blue I have no idea.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” In all my imaginings of what he would say, I hadn’t dreamed he would mention a kid.

  “The police reports said it was a wolf that had gotten into your house,” Gray said, looking every bit as confused as I was.

  Jensen shrugged. “Yeah, I think it’s because he was probably one of them. You know the religious folk out past the river. They practically own the police here. Way I figure it, the kid had probably run away.”

  And he probably had. I looked over at Trent. He was frowning as though he too realized we were wasting our time here. Gray, however, pressed on.

  “So there was a kid sitting at your table,” Gray said.

  “Nah, he was on the floor. And he’d eaten a bunch. There was a plate of cookies the church ladies had sent over after service on Sunday. He ate all of those. He ate the ham I had bought for sandwiches. Didn’t touch the fruit on the counter top. I’m afraid I don’t keep a lot. Since my Mary passed, I don’t eat as much as I used to.”

  “He was on the floor?” I’d gotten a glimpse of the kitchen. There was a big table there and a counter top. Why would this kid have dropped to the floor? I understood why he hadn’t been wearing clothes. If he had run from Lupus Solum, he probably had changed into his wolf form. And he would have changed from wolf form when he’d found a place to raid because his wolf doesn’t have the opposable thumbs required to open refrigerator doors. What I didn’t get was the kid dropping to his knees when he was in his human form.

  “No idea. The boy was on all fours. He had his face in the bucket like a dog eating from a bowl,” Jensen explained. “I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. The boy looked up and growled and then ran off. I tried to go after him. I’m not some monster. I don’t want some kid out there starving and freezing. But he was fast. I called the sheriff and he took a report, but he basically told me I should lock my door better and mind my own business.”

  I wanted to get to know this sheriff. “He didn’t seem worried that there was a kid running around in the snow?”

  “Like I told you, my first thought was the kid was from them.” Jensen carefully emphasized the word them.

  “You mean Lupus Solum,” Gray prodded.

  “I’ve heard that name. I’ve also heard the rumors,” Jensen replied, but his voice had gone tight again. “They’ve been out past the river for decades. My daddy used to tell me to stay away from them if I ever saw them in town and to pray they don’t show up on our land.”

  “What do you know about them?” Gray asked, his tone careful.

  Jensen was quiet for a moment. “I know they’re some kind of cult that worships wolves. I think they train them and use them to keep everyone in line. We’ve had some trouble with wolves around here, but sheriff told us we weren’t allowed to hunt no matter what the bigwigs in Cheyenne say.”

  That made sense. It was hard for me to believe that the whole town knew there was a big old pack of werewolves roaming around. But there would be a ton of conspiracy theories.

  “Wolves were taken off the endangered list,” I mused. They’d had a resurgence in the Western US, and I wondered how much of that was Dev Quinn’s fertility powers. “Have you seen many in the woods around here?”

  He nodded slowly, as if this was a bad memory for him, too. “Yes. They roam around from time to time. I hear them howling at least once a month. I think that cult out there does rituals around the full moon. They’re freaks, all of them. I don’t mind a freak, to tell you the truth. Knew a bunch of folk with weird ideas, but they didn’t hurt people. I think they’re hurting the kids out there. Never see ’em, but I know there’s some out there. Harold, who runs the general, says they buy kid shoes every now and then. No clothes. Only shoes. Who does that? And the only folk who ever come into town are the men. Never seen a single woman.”

  Weird cults did that. I would bet the women were far too busy with DIY projects and attempting to get pregnant to ever show themselves around town. I had some other questions I wanted to ask. Something he’d mentioned in the beginning, when he’d been worried we’d come from “them.”

  “Mr. Jensen, what did you mean about your herd? Is someone stealing your cattle?”

  Jensen twisted in his seat, apparently trying to find a comfortable position. “I’ve lost a few. At first I thought it was wolves taking them. You know in the winter the packs can get hungry. It’s why we hunt them during the fall. Not that we’re allowed to around here.”

  It was one of the reasons, but not nearly the only one. “How many have you lost?”

  “Three in the last week. Like I said, I thought it was a pack at first. I found carcasses and they’d been chewed on, if you know what I mean,” Jensen began. “So I did what every rancher does. I set out traps.”

  Trent crossed
his arms over his chest. “Did you catch anything?”

  He asked the question as though he knew the answer and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Jensen shook his head. “Nah.”

  But I could see that wasn’t the truth. “What happened?”

  “Thought you were only here to ask about that boy.” His eyes slid away from mine.

  “You’re not in trouble,” Gray assured him. “We are here about the break-in, but like you said, I’m also worried he could potentially be a runaway from the cult. When we first got here you thought we were from Lupus Solum, didn’t you?”

  He gestured toward Trent. “He’s got that look about him.”

  Trent sat down beside me. “That’s because I used to be one of them. I was raised in the cult. They buy shoes because they’re harder to make than clothes. The women of the family make all the clothes. The men come into town when they need to buy supplies, but women and children aren’t ever allowed off the compound save for rituals. And yes, the cult hurts them. If that kid’s on the run, he’s got good reason. I only hope they haven’t found him and dragged him back.”

  “I hope not.” Jensen sat there for a moment. “And you’re not with them anymore?”

  Trent shook his head. “I got away a long time ago.”

  I had him. I just had to reel him in. “Mr. Jensen, the truth of the matter is, I belong to an arm of law enforcement that deals with special problems like Lupus Solum. We’re quiet about it, but if we think a group is dangerous, we’ll deal with them. Now please tell me what’s going on because it’s easy to see you’re afraid.”

  He was quiet for a moment, but finally leaned toward me. “Sheriff said we couldn’t hunt the wolves, but I had to protect my herd. I set out some traps in the woods. One day I went to check on them and there was blood everywhere.”

  “You found a body?” The only thing I could think of that would be more terrible than finding a body in this situation was not finding a body.