Outcast Box Set

by Emilia Hartley

  Eventually, Sydney sank into a chair and propped one foot on the edge of the seat. This was not what she’d expected finding when she woke up. On the one hand, she was relieved to have found one of the missing persons, perhaps not well, but alive and whole. The woman slept as if she hadn’t closed her eyes in weeks.

  Perhaps she hadn’t. Sydney wondered where Trisha had been kept and when she would get answers from the woman. Trisha was going to be the key to finding the other missing people.

  “Do you think…”

  He looked up from Trisha’s hair. A sliver of gold swirled in his dark eyes, the supernatural part of him still strong and present. She chewed her cheek, unsure of everything that’d happened since she woke. Finally, she shook her head and covered her face with her hands.

  “You were about to ask a question.” Jax’s voice rumbled through her. It touched parts she hadn’t felt in years.

  A sneer passed across her face before she let her hands fall. “Do you think her being… whatever you called it had anything to do with her disappearance?”

  He licked his lips and looked down at the woman again. His fingers tightened on her. Was it a connection they’d shared? The reason Jax had come all the way to the Blue Ridge mountains from New York? Or, was it simply a part of whatever they were? An urge to protect much the way she felt the need to protect her town?

  “There’s no way to tell until she decides to speak to us. I don’t know anything about her or her past, but I do know the lives of shifters can go from great to awful in the blink of an eye.”

  “Anyone’s life can do that,” she told him, memories rising from the depths of her soul. She shoved them back down and focused on the present.

  “You’re right. I would say they do so in different ways, but I guess there’s a number of ways to be awful.”

  She swallowed. The air in the room grew heavy. It was thick and weighed down on her chest. Beyond Jax and the mattress, there was a sliding glass door that looked out over the view of the mountains beyond.

  Sydney lurched from her chair toward the sliding glass door. She muttered a quick excuse me and slid the door shut behind her. The fresh, mountain air kissed her too warm face. Things had become twisted and confusing in a matter of moments. Sydney still wondered if she should check herself into a hospital and have someone look into her mental health. She’d seen it. There was no denying what she’d seen, but had her eyes deceived her?

  The glass door opened and Jax appeared beside her. He took up most of the space on the small balcony, leaving little room for her to back away from him. She knew she should have put more space between them. He was still a suspect, still hiding things from her, but when he was this close, she wanted to lean in and drown in his scent.

  Her brows furrowed. She leaned back against the balcony railing and looked up at the massive man. Her gun was still strapped to her hip, but she wondered if there was enough room between them for her to get to it. Would he be able to stop her before she grabbed it? The strange thing was, even though she’d seen something dangerous, she didn’t feel fear. She wasn’t concerned around him, and it troubled her.

  Turning her head away from him, she sucked in a breath of mountain air, determined to clear her head of his scent.

  “There should be an Alpha in town,” Jax began. Upon seeing her confusion, he went on. “An Alpha is a leader, someone who protects and takes care of their pack.”

  She nodded as if she understood. “Damn fine job this Alpha is doing if three of his people disappeared.”

  Jax snorted. “Agreed.”

  “Should we wait for Trisha to wake up and ask her?”

  “I don’t think she’s going to wake for a while. Her body is healing from whatever they put her through. I don’t see any physical wounds or smell too much blood, so it must be something else. If you want to find whoever took her, we can’t wait the hours it might take for her to wake.” Jax looked down at her. His eyes burned, and the fire licked across her skin as they dragged down her cheeks, neck, and across the neck of her shirt. “If you drive me around town, I should be able to sniff out the pack center. It will reek of animals.”

  She nodded, unable to speak. Her mind was muddled. Her skin ached for her to close the space between them as if their bodies gravitated toward one another. The reason stated she should call the station and get back-up to search the mountains. A team could comb through the hills and valleys in a matter of hours. She should call an ambulance to look over Trisha.

  Nonetheless, she leaned toward Jax’s plan. If this had to do with whatever they were, shifters he’d said, then she felt the need to keep it quiet. Trisha might not want to talk to anyone about the side of her life no one knew about. That was her secret and Sydney wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

  “Sure,” she said, finally. “We’ll try it your way. If it gives us nothing, we come back and try to wake her.”

  It was a fine compromise between her instincts, the ones screaming for her to listen to Jax, and the regulations that had been hammered into her mind. A growl slipped up her throat, frustration that she couldn’t find a balance between the two. She wanted to leap onto the bed and shake Trisha awake, to demand answers from her, and hunt down the people who’d hurt her. Yet, she knew that wouldn’t help anyone.

  Hell, Sydney wondered if the woman might attack her if she woke her too soon. Trapped in the place she could have been, her mind tortured and broken, with the strength of an animal, Trisha could easily hurt her.

  “Let’s go” Jax opened the door. “The faster we get onto the road, the faster we get to the bottom of this.”

  Sydney licked her lips, hesitating before the door as if leaving the balcony space might dissolve the moment. “What stake do you have in this? You don’t know Trisha or me. Why would you want to help either of us?”

  Jax’s jaw tightened. She saw it, the nearly imperceptible twitch of muscle beneath the scruff growing on his chin. He said nothing, only turning and slipping through the door. What was his angle, she wondered?

  Her hands moved to her hips, a reflexive defensive motion she couldn’t help. Jax seemed nice. Her body certainly had strong opinions about the tall and dark-skinned man made of muscle and smolder. Yet, she needed to keep her head on her shoulders. This was a case, one that would cost lives if she wasn’t careful.

  They’d managed to get one back, by chance if anything, and now Sydney was hungry for more. She was ready to get to the bottom of this and put cuffs on some wrists.

  Jax led her outside, already moving toward her SUV. She paused, her face warming.

  “Uh, just a minute,” she said, jogging toward the SUV. “Let me start it and turn off the music. It’s, uh, a bit loud.”

  He raised a brow and her stomach flipped. Jax had his hands stuffed in his pockets, one shoulder higher than the other. Sydney realized it had been a long time since she’d laid with anyone. That was it. That explained her reaction to him.

  It was an itch she could scratch later, most certainly not with Jax.

  “I don’t mind music.” He jerked the door open as she turned over the engine.

  K-Pop blared to life, filling the SUV from front to back. It pounded and crooned. Her cheeks warmed, and she moved to turn the volume down.

  “No, don’t turn it off. I don’t mind it.” He lifted himself into the passenger seat. “It’s… catchy.”

  Chapter Five

  She was an enigma to him. Jax sat in the passenger seat of her SUV, listening to the unfamiliar words of a K-Pop band. It pounded through his seat and rattled his brain while he watched her. Sydney’s cheeks were flushed, pink as she chewed on her lower lip.

  Despite everything that had happened, Jax felt a smile cross his face. The ghosts that floated around him like he was the center of their universe disappeared in her presence. His spine relaxed, allowing him to melt into the seat. Even the silence felt comfortable. He should have been on his guard around the cop, but she had a strange effect on him.

&nbs
p; He wanted to stay in her aura forever. He wanted to hide near her, like a dog that leaned against her hip. What was this, he wondered? Was this a thread of fate? Or, was he simply lonely since he left the Pack behind?

  Turning away from the pull he felt toward the woman beside him, he looked out the open window. The air was cool, not yet bearing the oppressive heat of summer, but he needed it open if he was going to track down the Alpha.

  They wound through town, the SUV slowly creeping around corners and down side streets in Fangway. The air smelled of wet earth and dogs, but he couldn’t find the overwhelming scent of a pack center. The Alpha’s house should smell like the whole pack, having the members in and out the doors constantly. Their scents would linger and sink into the place until it morphed into its own smell.

  Still, minutes passed. Streets passed. The SUV crept outside of town and wound down narrow roads in the valley, but there was nothing. Here and there he caught the faded scent of a shifter, as if they lived in one another’s presence, yet didn’t seek each other out like a pack might.

  His stomach churned with an uneasy feeling. “Can I see your files again?”

  She hesitated. Everything he knew about police procedure had been learned through various television shows, and though everyone knew they weren’t to be trusted, Jax figured sharing case information with a civilian was still a no-no.

  “You don’t have to…” Jax began when Sydney reached for the files tucked between her seat and the console, tossing them into his lap.

  “I’ve been on this case for weeks and haven’t had a lead since I started. If you can help me close this, you can have whatever you want.”

  Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, but he couldn’t help the mischief that awoke inside him. “Anything? I could imagine quite a few things I’d like from you.”

  Her head snapped up, and her cheeks darkened further.

  Something twisted inside him at the sight of her wide eyes and red cheeks. He wanted to see her lips part, wanted to watch her brows furrow with the force of orgasm. So, he plowed forward.

  “As long as it involves you, and little else, I’m happy with my prize.”

  She licked her lips, her surprise turning into a sly smile. She didn’t look away from the road but went on. “You think you deserve an awful lot if you’re trying to win me as a prize. What makes you think you deserve this?”

  “You did say anything,” he reminded her. “And I’m sure I can make it pleasurable for the both of us.”

  When he thought her cheeks couldn’t get any redder, it began to spread down her neck and chest. He followed the creep of embarrassment along her skin and felt a strange hunger awaken in him. There was enough room in the back of the SUV for him to take her. The shocks would just have to deal it.

  “So,” he teased. “Is this a deal?”

  He watched her swallow, following the elegant bob of her throat and wishing he could run his tongue across the sensitive skin. She glanced at him, gears working behind her eyes. The ways he sized him up, the desire echoed in her gaze ignited a fierce fire inside him. The wolf howled in his ears.

  “One night,” she stipulated. “You get one night and no guarantee of… sex. You have to woo me, make me, um, want it.”

  “That’s a deal.”

  He turned toward the open window, hiding his smile behind his hand. She rose to meet his challenge, and it only made him want to reach out to her for more. He wanted to pull her into his body, all the while wondering if she would fit into him like she’d been meant for him.

  Jax watched the Vancourt brothers find mates, one after the other like a row of dominoes. At first, Jax had been furious when Archer returned, and Joanna had fallen with him again. Jax had thought the end of the engagement had meant the end of them, but it seemed the thread between them had never been severed, only stretched thin.

  Jax knew he should have acted sooner, but the ghosts haunting him had kept him away from Joanna. He didn’t deserve her. Not after he’d failed her so grievously. Hell, he didn’t deserve the feisty woman in the SUV with him. Jax’s smile slipped. The humor and joy he felt were leeched away by the cold breath of ghosts hanging over his shoulder.

  He let out a ragged breath. What was he doing? Flirting with a cop? Sure, he could help with the investigation, help a few souls in reparation for his failures, but he wasn’t here to find a mate or even a booty call. How could he ever think he deserved such a thing?

  He opened the files in his lap, reading over the names and studying faces. The clerk in the lobby had said the missing people were all outsiders. He looked at Trisha’s file first, trying to find where she’d come from.

  As he suspected, she’d come from a small town in Wisconsin. Last he’d heard, there was a colony of fox shifters there, a family that mostly kept to themselves. Trisha must have had a disagreement with the colony and left to start a new life. Maybe she’d wanted to marry outside the colony. Maybe she’d wanted more than just a Wisconsin life.

  He flipped to the other missing people. After Trisha disappeared, a young man by the name of Theo Mortensen went missing. He had a small social circle, attached to no one outside of town and friends with very few in town. Before living in Fangway, Virginia, he lived in Louisiana. Jax couldn’t remember the shifters there, but he was certain there had to be a mixed pack, much like the one he’d left, outside New Orleans.

  After Theo, Veronica Longely, the mayor’s new girlfriend, went missing. People suspected she had been after his money and took off when she realized there was little to be had in a small mountain town, but Jax recognized her face.

  His heart flipped.

  “I can’t be certain about the first two, but Veronica Longely isn’t Veronica. Her real name is Becca. She...” His throat closed around the truth. Becca had escaped Killian’s reign, slipping out of the Pack and disappearing. For the longest time, Jax suspected Killian murdered her. He thought the monstrous shifter had plucked her out of the Pack, abused, and killed her like a toy.

  She’d escaped. She’d survived.

  “She what?”

  He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the lump in it. “She was part of my old Pack.”

  “Sounds like everyone is leaving your Pack. Must not be the greatest place.”

  “Two can hardly be considered everyone,” he argued even though he knew she was right. It hadn’t been a safe place, but it was now. Cohen would keep them safe in the ways Jax never could.

  Sensing his frustration, she pressed her lips together and let the silence stretch between them. Gone was the flirtatious conversation and unspoken desire. It’d died ungraciously. Probably for the best, he thought.

  He didn’t want to mess up her life, too. As much as he wanted to explore the connection between them, he knew he didn’t deserve it. If he leaned into her, if he tried to open the doors he’d closed the mess that he was would spill into her life and she didn’t deserve that.

  “I think all your missing people are shifters, but I don’t know if they were part of any pack,” Jax said, changing the subject.

  “What do you mean? I thought your people lived in groups. Are you backtracking and telling me they don’t?”

  “It’s hard to explain. Humans live in families, and sometimes they strike out on their own. It could be for any number of reasons. There could be irreparable differences or simply a sense of adventure. No one is confined to any one definition of living.”

  She let out a sigh. “Alright, so there’s no… What? Alpha? There’s no Alpha we can approach and talk to. What now?”

  He clenched his jaw. “I’m not sure. We could go back and talk to Trisha, but I’m not sure she’ll have much to say.”

  He knew, from experience, that when some of the more submissive creatures faced times of hardship and cruelty that it could break their minds. Whatever happened to Trisha could have fractured her mind. The pieces of memory connected to where she’d been and who took her might be lost forever. They couldn’t rely o
n Trisha’s account alone.

  It seemed they were stuck at the beginning, even though it felt like they’d made a break. He glanced back at Sydney. Her fingers were white on the steering wheel again. They drove in endless loops around town like she expected him to pick up a new scent.

  There was nothing, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  “Does Trisha have any family?”

  “She does, a boyfriend and a son.”

  “She’ll be safest with them. It will heal her mind to be surrounded by those she loves.”

  Sydney groaned. “We’ll have to do it as quietly as possible. I can’t have the media falling on us right now. I’ve got nothing to tell them and Trisha… well, I doubt she’d handle being bombarded by small-town journalists and news casters.”

  The sun inched toward the horizon. Sydney turned the van back toward the mountain Lodge. Jax wanted to linger in her presence a while longer, but he knew he couldn’t keep her for himself. She was a human woman, soft and weak in the world of shifters. Even if there was some sort of bond between them, he couldn’t guarantee her safety. He couldn’t handle the loss of her when he screwed up again.

  Chapter Six

  Sydney laid down alone while the wind whistled outside her window. It howled, like the lonely call of a wolf. Was Jax out there, running wild through the world? Was his wolf heart screaming with loneliness now that his song wove through the air on its own? Did it ache for the melody of other songs?

  Trisha was home with her family. They’d brought her back with little fuss, telling her to take some time to recuperate. It bought Sydney time as well. She was sure she would get into trouble with her boss for not sharing Trisha’s reappearance, but since she had nothing else to give him, Sydney would rather take the reprimand.

  She tossed and turned, the sheets rustling against her skin. She felt each brush of fabric and imagined they were Jax’s fingers. It was a strange thought that overtook her mind and set her body ablaze. She imagined him running his fingers down her legs, along the inside of her thighs, and up her waist. She imagined the sensation of his touch beneath her breasts, his kiss near her belly button.