Outcast (Hunter: A Thieves Series Book 4)

by Lexi Blake

  “Come over here,” he growled my way. “You have to kiss me.”

  I got that he was happy to see me, but we needed to save the reunion for later. The ropes were too thick, and someone had known how to tie a knot. I should have sucked it up and brought the ax with me, but pulling an ax out of someone’s back is grosser than you think, and you probably think it’s super gross. I’d avoided it and I was paying for my queasiness. “Can you change?”

  He shook his head. “The ropes are coated in wolfsbane. If I can get out of them I can clear it from my system, but you need to kiss me.”

  I would have explained to him that kisses had to wait, but that was the moment a wolf jumped on me, knocking me down to the bloody earth. I heard Trent call my name and I barely managed to roll out of the way of snarling teeth coming for my throat.

  I held on to the gun and rolled again. When I turned back to my attacker, I pulled the trigger. I might be human, but my aim was true. The bullet slammed into the werewolf’s head, and Nesta had been smart. She’d put silver bullets in that sucker. I wasn’t sure how many bullets I had, but as long as they held up, I could put a few blood-crazed predators down.

  Would a silver bullet work on Lord Sloane? If I could take that asshole down, so many of my problems would be solved.

  I got to my knees and that was when I saw Liv. The pistol dropped from hands and I knew I should pick it back up, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but look at her.

  There are times even in the middle of a battle when the world slows down and emotion chokes you so hard you can’t see anything but the sight ahead of you. The rest of the world seems to fade and you’re left in a place where you can’t quite understand what you’re looking at. In this case, I knew I was staring at my friend, but my eyes and my brain couldn’t make that connection between the woman who’d stood by me most of my life and the still body on the ground.

  She was lying on the grass, face up, and there was a knife sticking out of her belly. Her arm reached out as though she’d known I would be here and she could reach me.

  My best friend. I’d known her since high school, long before we’d both known we belonged in the supernatural world. Her parents hadn’t had power. She’d only begun to find her talents as a witch in those first few years of our friendship. I’d watched as she’d grown from a girl who could barely levitate a grape to a white witch of enormous power.

  They had drained her of that magic. I knew a ceremonial knife when I saw it. It had likely been the first part of their ceremony. They had been down a couple of witches so they’d attempted to use all of Liv’s magic to make up the difference. They’d used the knife to pull my sweet friend’s magic from her body and to take it for their own.

  I’d been quick enough to save Trent and Fen, and god please let me have saved Gray, but I’d failed Liv.

  My heart stuck in my chest and for a moment I was sure it wouldn’t beat again. I crawled across the ground to get to her. Maybe if I took the knife out, she would come back to us.

  “Kelsey!” Trent screamed.

  I knew I should deal with Liv later, but I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off her.

  “Olivia?”

  I looked up and Casey stood a few feet away, his eyes on Liv’s body. He was pale even in the light from the fire. But his tortured flesh was healing right before my eyes. All the visible proof of the pain he’d been through would be gone in moments, but the scar on his soul might last an eternity.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t get here in time.” I could barely hear my own words over the roar of the fight behind me. I started to get to my feet. We needed to get Liv’s body away. The wolves would tear her up in their frenzy, and I couldn’t stand the thought.

  A wolf leapt through the air, coming straight at Casey.

  He simply punched the fucker away, never even taking his eyes off Liv. His fist came out and there was a mighty crack as he caved in the werewolf’s snout. The wolf hit the ground yards to our left and it didn’t get back up.

  This wasn’t the Casey I knew. This was an entirely different creature. His fangs grew, his eyes bleeding to an otherworldly blue. They shone as he dropped to his knees and took Olivia in his arms. He pulled the knife out and tossed it away.

  “I can still hear her heartbeat. It’s faint and something’s changed.” He brought his wrist up and bit a chunk off. He spat his own flesh out and brought it to Liv’s mouth. “Come back to me, baby. Don’t leave me alone here.”

  She was alive?

  I looked to where Casey was feeding her his own blood. His own blood that had been strengthened with companion blood. A shudder went through Liv’s body and I watched her lips move.

  “Go and get Trent off that altar,” Casey commanded in a tone I’d never heard from him before. “I’ll stash Liv with Lee and come back to help you.”

  Her hand had come up and she clutched at him now.

  “And Kelsey,” Casey said, his eyes on me now. “You should understand that I’m going to kill them all.”

  Casey had never killed. Casey was the guy who ran and got the car while I took out the bad guys. He was the tech guy who made our lives easier. He wasn’t a killer.

  But he would become one tonight.

  I picked up that knife because I intended to use it on the next witch I saw. Fuck that “Hell will deal with them” shit. I would be the one to send them all there. The knife would also help me with a problem I had. I was covered in blood, but everyone was. And the bodies were piling up. I had to step over the wolf I’d killed to get back to Trent.

  “Kelsey, come here,” he implored, his head turned to me.

  But I was already working on the ropes at his feet. I started to saw through them. They were thick and my biceps immediately started aching.

  I almost had his first leg out when I felt a hand twist in my hair and draw me back.

  Trent yelled as I dropped the knife.

  I was thrown to the ground and I looked up into the dark eyes of my stepfather.

  Chapter Twenty

  My stepfather’s rifle pointed straight at my head. “Do you have any idea how much I wanted to do this when you were a kid?”

  I stared up at him. In shadows, his face was dark and his eyes looked as black as any demon I’d faced down. He was my personal demon and it looked like it was time to exorcise him. I reached up for the rifle and he fired as I tried to wrestle it away from him.

  Sharp pain flared through me because I’d taken a bullet, or at least my right forearm had. I’d never felt anything like this. It burned, and for a second I couldn’t breathe. The bullet had gone straight through my arm, but I was pretty sure it had broken the bone. I tried to hold on to the rifle, to keep him from firing at me again, but my arm was utterly useless. It flopped back to the ground, bleeding freely.

  “Not so tough without that bitch inside you, are you?” Atwood said with a smirk. “The witch tried to pull a fast one on us, but the she-wolf won’t have anywhere to go when you’re dead.”

  He pointed the rifle again, and I knew this time he wouldn’t miss. This time he would take me out and there would be no more tomorrows. I prayed Casey would save our friends, that he would get Trent off that table and he and Gray would find a way to move on, that he would take Fen to the queen because if I couldn’t be his mother, I certainly knew she would step up.

  But I wasn’t going out without a fight. I started to bring my leg up to kick the fucker in the place that hadn’t been a part of my personal conception when his eyes went wide and he stumbled.

  John Atwood screamed and that was when I noticed the ax sticking out of his right thigh. It was in there good and he dropped the rifle, his hands moving to get to the foreign object deep in his leg.

  “Leave her alone.” Lee stood above my stepfather.

  I ignored the pain in my arm and threw my body toward the pistol I’d dropped when I’d seen Liv’s body. I didn’t care about telling the old man who’d tormented me off. He didn’t get my words. He
didn’t get my attention. I had more important things to do. I got that pistol in my good hand and aimed at his head.

  “Don’t…” my stepfather began.

  I did. I pulled the trigger, so grateful that Marcus had insisted I train with my non-dominant hand, and I made sure my bullet hit him right between the eyes.

  Lee looked at me right as a wolf carcass was thrown past him, barely missing his head. “I found an ax. It was in a lady’s back. I thought you could use it.”

  He was so going into therapy. I would be right there beside him.

  But I also wasn’t making the same mistake twice. I tucked the pistol into my waistband and pulled that fucking ax out of my stepfather’s body. I gestured for Lee to pick up the rifle. I happened to know his fathers took him and Rhys to the shooting range and planned to teach their sister as soon as she was old enough. They didn’t have the privilege of keeping their children innocent in this case. Too many people would love to take down the royals.

  I nodded as he picked up the rifle in his small hands and held it like he knew how to use it. “You stay close to me and use that thing on anyone who gets close to you.”

  I couldn’t take the time to stash him again, and honestly, he would just show up at my side unless I was willing to handcuff him to something.

  Besides, my stepfather had given me the keys to my personal kingdom.

  I glanced up and Jacob was still there, still watching.

  Half is not whole, but half can be made whole again if chosen.

  I would choose. I would always choose to be whole.

  Liv had held me before they’d dragged her away. The soul is an odd thing, Kelsey. If you don’t properly destroy it or send it somewhere else, it tries to find a home. I did the only thing I could.

  I knew where my she-wolf had fled. She’d gone home.

  I stood above my poor wolf. Trent had done everything he could to save me. He’d taken all that pain and he’d given half of me a place to hide.

  He stared up at me. “Kiss me.”

  “Always.” I leaned over.

  “Uh, guys, the kissing stuff is yucky, and we should help Fen and Gray,” Lee was saying.

  I kind of heard the words, but the minute my lips met Trent’s it was like the world rushed back to me.

  I felt her enter my soul, filling up the empty space, but it was different. I’d thought we had mingled before, but now the halves of me embraced and despite the pain and terror, I felt a great joy.

  I lifted my head and not even the pain in my arm could hold me back now.

  Trent looked up at me. “She saved me. When I thought I was going to die, she gave me strength. You gave me strength. Now go and do what you do best. Kick a little ass, baby.”

  It didn’t look like there was much ass left for me to kick. Lord Sloane and the primal had taken out most of the wolves, and the ones they hadn’t seemed to have run.

  I watched as Lord Sloane looked back at me. The primal charged and Sloane snarled right before he disappeared. The primal didn’t seem to understand what had happened. He caught sight of a witch running for the woods and took off after her.

  I wasn’t going to feel bad about that.

  I winked down at Trent and I could already feel that zing I got along my arm when I changed. The pain disappeared as I healed in that moment. I gripped the ax with my shiny demon hand and easily chopped through the thick ropes that held my wolf.

  Beside me, Lee raised the rifle and shot at the last snarling werewolf coming our way. The kid was good and my stepfather believed in silver bullets. The wolf went down with a hard thud and didn’t move again.

  “I’m pretty sure that was my brother,” Trent said, sitting up.

  “Sorry,” Lee replied with a frown. “Hey, I think Kelsey killed your mom.”

  Way to throw a friend under a bus.

  “I’m good with that,” Trent said, looking over at Gray. “I’ll get him up. They set his back and gave him vamp blood, though given the fact that he was covered in it, I think he’d had some of Casey’s already. They didn’t have a chance to work their spell, but when the primal came, Lord Sloane knocked Gray out. I’ll watch over him. You go and get Fen. We’ll make our way back to the tent and hole up until the king can get here.”

  “He’s already on his way,” Lee said, his words seeming to echo around the now quiet forest. “Mama was mad because he took Papa with him instead of her. I’m grounded, right?”

  So grounded. Gray was already moaning, so I let Trent take care of him.

  “We still need to move fast,” I said, approaching Fen. I didn’t know how long we had. “The primal will be back and he can’t control himself.”

  Fen was so tiny on his altar. His human form was vulnerable and I was grateful he was still sleeping. If he could sleep through all of this, I would thank the universe and even that bitch Meredith for properly dosing the kid and sparing him the horror of all these bodies.

  “Hey, man,” Trent was saying as he stood over Gray. “Time to wake up. You’re still you and we’re going to find Meredith and figure out a way to destroy that last piece of Nemcox. You’re going to be okay.”

  Gray moaned. “Did someone kill my father? Tell me you killed my father, Trent.”

  I eased the ropes from Fen’s thin body.

  “Is he okay?” Lee asked, standing next to me. He still had the rifle in his hands. I wanted to take it from him, to let him be a little boy again, but we still weren’t safe.

  “He will be.” His chest rose and fell and his pulse was strong. I picked him up and cradled him against my chest. “I don’t want him to see all these bodies. But I also don’t want to leave Eddie out here alone. The primal could kill him. I don’t suppose you can smell him coming this way, babe?”

  Casey answered. He was carrying Liv in his arms again. She was completely limp, but she was alive. “He’s walking toward us from the west. He’s injured, but I can hear his heartbeat. It’s strong.”

  Trent’s eyes widened. “You can hear that? I can barely smell anything but blood. There’s so much of it. Is Liv okay? What they did to her… It was horrible. I thought they’d killed her.”

  “I don’t know,” Casey admitted, holding her close. “She woke up for a moment but then I had to deal with some of the wolves. They were trying to run. They won’t be running anywhere now. I think I need to pay a visit to that pack. We might have missed some.”

  “It was all the males,” Gray said, taking Trent’s hand and sitting up. He groaned and seemed to test all his limbs to make sure they were working. “While they were resetting my back, I overheard them talking. They left the women and kids behind with the exception of the high priestess. It looks like most of the males of the pack are dead. What happens to the she-wolves and kids?”

  “Donovan will call Mac and have him deal with this,” Trent explained, helping Gray to his feet. Mac was the alpha, the head of the North American packs, and he held the wolf seat on the Council. He needed to be the one to deal with Lupus Solum, but I would be damned if he took Fen. I had to find a way to leave Fen out of the reports.

  “Kelsey,” Lee said, his voice hushed. “I think you should back off now.”

  A chill went across my skin. Even demon skin can get the chills. I looked up and the primal was back. He stood about fifty yards away from me, his eyes glowing in the darkness.

  Trent was suddenly at my side. “Kelsey, I want you to back away slowly. I don’t think he’ll hurt Fen.”

  “We don’t know that,” I said, readying myself for a fight. I could hear the primal growl, low in the back of his throat.

  He hadn’t meant to kill his wife, but it had happened. There was still blood dripping from his mouth. I couldn’t leave Fen there. Not even to save my life.

  “Get the boys out of here, Gray,” I said. “You’re not strong enough yet. I need to know Lee and Liv are safe. Trent, you might need to change.”

  I wished I could let him run, too, but I needed backup, and despite all
the pain he’d been through, he and Casey were the only ones who seemed capable of a fight. The trouble was, I didn’t want to kill this guy. He hadn’t meant to become a crazed monster who killed everything in his sight.

  But when he started to run at me, I knew I might not have a choice.

  I caught the sound of Lee’s shout as Gray picked him up. I didn’t look back. Gray would do what I asked. He would let me fight knowing he would do everything he could to take care of Lee and Fen.

  I ran at the primal, my demon arm coming out and ready to slash.

  And then the ground shook as Donovan landed in between us. Quinn had a gun in his hand as the king released him. He didn’t seem any worse for the wear of flying halfway across the country held up only by his partner. He quickly stepped aside, allowing the king to take control.

  “Get back, Kelsey,” Quinn said. “Where’s Lee?”

  “Papa!” Lee ran to his father.

  Donovan caught the primal as he rushed him. The King of all Vampire grabbed the scariest vampire I’d ever seen by the throat, and he struck hard and fast.

  Quinn took a long breath, his arm around his son. “It’s going to be okay now. Daniel will handle the vampire. Once he’s been properly turned, the primal will be in control. I take it the primal is actually our rabid wolf?”

  The king was performing a ritual almost no one who wasn’t a vampire ever got to see, but I had to turn away because we still had problems to solve. “Yes. The primal is the one who killed the witches. His name is Christopher Miller.”

  Quinn’s eyes closed briefly. “His poor wife. He had no idea, you know. Primals are particularly bad in the beginning. But Daniel should have felt his rising.”

  I explained about the spell. Trent promised Quinn a full report when we got home, but we needed to make sure our injured were all okay.

  “What do we want to do with her?” Gray asked. He pointed to a spot behind us.

  Meredith lay in the grass. I’d missed her because she was wearing all black and she’d fallen on the dark side of the cabin.