Outcast Box Set

by Emilia Hartley

  When he slid into the seat beside her, her jaw hung open. “Damn. How fast are you? That was like something out of a vampire movie…. Wait! Are vampires real, too?”

  Jax shrugged. “If they were, they’d live in a town called Fangway.”

  She mulled over his response. “Are you sure Fangway isn’t reserved for wolves?” There was a sly smile on her face, eyes dancing with mirth as she joked with him. Before he knew it, the mirth faded, and a hard wall went down over her face.

  He tried to tell himself that was fine. This wasn’t about making her love him. It was about making things right. Jax settled into his seat and turned to the window as if the blur of naked trees and green buds outside the glass pane could distract him from the woman sitting beside him.

  It wasn’t.

  His mind returned to her no matter what. He thought of the steely look on her face when the shadowed woman sentenced her to death. He felt anger rise through him, bright and violent as it tore through him. Sydney had been prepared to die. She’d accepted it to protect those she didn’t even know.

  Jax wished he was half the person she was.

  Chapter Ten

  They stood on Trisha’s doorstep, awkwardly leaning away from one another in case anyone mistook them for a couple. Jax glanced down at the blond woman beside him, quick and then away. Her shoulders tensed as they listened to the approach of footsteps behind the door.

  The man that opened it looked haggard. His eyes were pulled down by the dark circles beneath them, but he still offered them a bright smile and invited them inside.

  “What can I help you guys with today,” Trisha’s boyfriend asked. “We have this fancy espresso machine if you’re interested in coffee. I was just about to make myself one.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a coffee,” Jax said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  Sydney cast an annoyed glare in his direction as if he’d overstepped some imaginary line. He shrugged. The man offered coffee, and he took him up on it. He didn’t see what the problem was.

  “We didn’t come to have coffee,” Sydney began, her voice apprehensive. “Actually, we came to talk to Trisha. I mean, if that’s possible.”

  The man looked up from his coffee contraption to respond when his eyes passed them.

  “I can tell you whatever you need.” Trisha’s voice wavered until she grasped control of it. Everyone turned to watch her enter the room. Her auburn hair no longer had the blond highlights he’d seen in her photo and her skin was blotchy with red patches as if she’d scratched herself.

  Jax scented the air. Her stress hung in the air, sour and sharp. He wasn’t sure if they should be putting her through this, sudden regret punching him in the stomach. The urge to protect her overwhelmed him. He wanted to set her back into bed and tell her boyfriend they’d be back another day, but the shadow masked figures wouldn’t wait until another day.

  The boyfriend made two coffees and poured a plethora of steamed milk on top. Jax looked down at it as he shoved one cup toward him, slightly stunned at the sight of the frilly coffee in the tiny cup. What was he supposed to do with this?

  Slightly confused, he brought the little cup to his lips and tried to sip. His mouth was assaulted by the foamy milk until the bitter espresso slipped past it. Sydney watched him, hiding her laughing smile behind her lips as he set the cup down.

  “What? Do I have something on my face?” He could feel the line of milk foam sitting atop his lip.

  Sydney and Trisha laughed. The sound of their laughter warmed him, and brought his mind back to the time he’d spent with his old Pack. The memories of laughter and happiness sent pangs through his heart and his smile slipped. Trisha watched him with a look of commiseration as if she knew what he’d just felt.

  She didn’t ask why he left his pack and he didn’t ask the same of her. For a moment, silence reigned, then a small figure raced into the room. A shock of bright red hair covered his head and gold eyes glimmered as he was lifted into the air.

  “I’ll just, uh,” the boyfriend began, their son in his arms, and pointed toward the living room.

  Trisha nodded, sadness darkening her face for a second. They waited for her boyfriend and son to leave the kitchen before anyone spoke. “I take it you have questions.”

  Sydney nodded, solemn. “I’m sorry to have to make you relive this already, but it’s our best chance at finding whoever did this.”

  Trisha swallowed and nodded. She carefully kept her eyes downcast, glued to the countertop between them. “What do you need to know?”

  “Who took you? Where did they take you?” Sydney paused, as if she wasn’t sure if she was overstepping an imaginary line. “What did they do to you?”

  Trisha whimpered, her eyes darkening as the memories dragged her back in. Jax rounded the counter and pulled the woman into his arms again. He didn’t know if she was a submissive, but he knew his dominance was stronger than hers. He was a protector, and the fox inside her recognized that. It slowly realized they were safe.

  He met Sydney’s gaze over the woman’s auburn head. Her eyes flared with jealousy before agony passed across her face and she turned away. There was something between them, something that sparked without prompting. Jax wanted to reach out and grab it, to study it, but he couldn’t.

  Not yet.

  Instead, he settled for rubbing Trisha’s back until the woman could breathe normally again. He pulled away from her and grabbed a bar stool for her to fall onto.

  “I didn’t see their faces,” Trisha began. “They were either covered in a permanent shadow, or my vision was hazy. I think they drugged me, so they didn’t have use the shadow trick all the time. Still, their voices were familiar. Like, I’d run into them at the grocery store or the local Starbucks.”

  “Fangway is large enough to have its own Starbucks?” Jax asked, trying to break the tension.

  Trisha offered a tight-lipped smile, leaning toward him. The proximity allowed her to draw in a steady breath as if the air was clearer. He understood, though Sydney watched them with suspicious eyes. If he wasn’t wrong, he thought he also saw a small amount of jealousy, too.

  He studied the detective. Her chin was pointed like a pixie, her upturned nose adding to the look until he reached her eyes. They were strong and steady, the soft green in them speckled with tiny gold flakes. If she were a shifter, what kind of animal would lurk beneath her skin? A cougar? A feline with a ferocious roar? Or a lean wolf with a sad howl?

  “What is it?” Sydney asked. One brow rose, and the corners of her eyes softened with concern.

  Jax shook his head. He wasn’t about to tell her he’d gotten distracted by imagining she was a part of his world. He wouldn’t wish that kind of change on anyone. Sydney studied him, trying to peer beneath the layer of indifference he tried to place between them. He couldn’t allow himself to get attached to the human woman. It wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve that.

  Eventually, Sydney turned back to Trisha. “Alright, what I’m getting is that these people are locals. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Trisha opened her mouth to say otherwise, then her brows dropped, and her lips snapped shut. She settled for a shrug. “It was always dark. I didn’t see any faces.”

  Sydney nodded, her demeanor soft and open. “I understand. You don’t want to say anything and have it be wrong. That’s fair. How about we talk about what happened while you were there?”

  Trisha’s fingers curled against the countertop. Her eyes glistened with tears, with the strain of fighting back her beat. Jax reached out and placed a hand over hers. The touch helped her pull back. It probably helped that his beast was much larger than hers. It made her feel safe.

  “It was strange,” Trisha began, her voice hoarse as if she spoke with a hand clenched around her throat. Her hand rose like she could pull the hand away, but there was nothing there. “They spoke about me like I was the monster, but they were doing some sort of magic. I didn’t see their spells, but I could feel what it d
id. It drained me. It stole… from me.”

  Trisha looked down at her hands, as if to remind herself her own body was still there. What did the magic take from her if she was afraid parts of herself were missing?

  Jax felt a tear rip through his chest. The pain of realization rippled through him.

  Her soul.

  The magic the people used was fueled by parts of Trisha’s soul. Jax looked at her again, studied her more closely. At first, he thought the dark circles under her eyes and the tremble in her step was part of the recovery, but now he could see it for what it was. She was only part of the person she’d been.

  He shot up from his seat. His veins burned with fury as he stomped toward the door. He clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides, but it wasn’t enough. The wolf clawed to get free. It was going to hunt down the shadow masked people and make sure they never used their dark magics on shifters again.

  ***

  Sydney and Trisha watched Jax stomp through the door like a man on a mission. They shared a glance before Sydney felt a tug in her stomach. It yanked her off her seat and toward him. Concern made her stomach churn uneasily.

  Following his trail, she found him outside, pacing the dirt driveway. Her body begged her to move to him, put her hands on his arms, and drag his lips down to hers. A small voice said he would melt at her touch. The storm raging through him would fade and die after their lips met. But, she held her ground, nervous and uncomfortable with the voice in her mind.

  She pulled her arms to her chest, wrapping them around her as she watched Jax seethe with barely contained rage. Each time he passed, she saw his eyes become brighter. They swirled from brown to wolfish gold until they burned with molten metal. His lips curled back from his teeth, the gesture becoming more and more feral by the moment.

  “You realized something in there,” she announced, dragging the words out of her while she fought the demands of her body. “I need to know what you figured out so I can do my job.”

  Jax snarled.

  Her brows shot toward the sky. Her hands should have flinched, inching toward her gun. But, they didn’t. “Is that how you’re going to treat me?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he growled. His voice dug deep, all gravel and stone.

  Sydney straightened her spine, sucking her teeth. She felt fire rise through her throat. She wanted to tear into him, to make him bow and obey so she could make this all stop. There were lives at stake.

  But that was what upset him so much. Jax wanted the same thing. These were people he cared about. She could tell from the way he’d comforted Trisha while the woman was led back through the horror of her kidnapping. There’d been nothing sexual between them, despite the seething jealousy Sydney had felt. It’d been camaraderie.

  Sydney drew in a breath and forced her voice to be even and understanding. “I’m your partner in this. If you can tell me what you’ve learned, we can use it to find these people. We can bring justice and find the missing shifters. If you continue to act like an animal, we aren’t going to get anywhere.”

  Jax snarled, but the sound died halfway through. His shoulders fell, and she thought she caught a glimpse of glistening tears in his eyes before he spun away from her. His square jaw was tight. Beneath the thin fabric of his t-shirt, she could see the tension in his shoulders.

  Before she knew it, her feet closed the distance between them. Her hands hovered in the air, inches from the muscles of his back. She hesitated, wondering what she thought she was doing. After a moment, she let out a shuddering breath and reached for him. His back was hard beneath her hands, but she could feel the way he shook at her touch.

  His head fell back, and he leaned into her. Her hands ran down the length of his back, releasing the tension gripping him until she wound her arms around him and held him close. It felt right and as much as it scared her, she shoved the fear away. In that moment, all that mattered was keeping his wolf under wraps.

  “They took parts of her soul,” Jax said finally. His voice shook and strained against the words, as if he wished they weren’t true. Tears slipped down his cheeks to fall onto the fabric on his shoulder.

  Cold washed through her body. “How is that even possible?”

  “I have no idea, but what I do know is that I’m going to put a stop to it.”

  “Not without me.” She hugged him close. “I’m going to help you.”

  He pried her hands away from him and spun out of her grip. Her arms suddenly felt empty. She couldn’t understand why her chest ached without him. Slowly, her hands flexed and tightened into fists. Nails bit into her palms, sending tiny tongues of fire through her arms.

  “Don’t turn away from me!”

  Jax stopped and twisted toward her. His face was filled with a desperation she hadn’t expected. It dampened the fire she’d felt second ago and left her empty.

  “Do you want me to bring you along and watch you die as they siphon your soul from you to fuel their mission? Is that what you want, to give me more ghosts?”

  Cold slammed into her chest, but she ignored it. That was what she felt when she woke every morning to find she had to face another day with someone’s blood on her hands. A small growl rumbled through her throat.

  “This is my job. Who are you to tell me to stay away? Are you my Chief? My Husband? I didn’t think so. If you want to hunt them on your own, you’re welcome to do so. Just remember that I can’t stop searching for these people. They already tried to kill me once.”

  At the sound of the reminder, Jax groaned. He spun away, and his fist hit the side of her SUV. The vehicle lifted off the ground on one side before slamming back down into the earth. She opened her mouth to yell at him, but he didn’t even deserve her breath. She’d just tell the station that it happened while rescuing Trisha.

  She stood there and watched his shoulders heave with his breath, coming fast and heavy. He leaned against the side of the SUV, putting his head against the cool surface of it. Sydney shook her head and walked past him, yanking open the driver’s side door. Before she could get inside, his hand grasped her.

  He pulled her between him and the SUV. There was an immovable surface at her front and the SUV at her back. Her own breath grew shallow as she breathed in his intoxicating scent. His forehead touched hers. She grew still, like a rabbit in the presence of a predator.

  “I can’t get anyone else hurt,” he whispered. His hands fisted against the SUV like the idea of her pain caused him physical harm.

  Against her better judgement, she reached up. Her fingertips ran the length of his jaw, grazing the stubble growing along his cheeks. Her core throbbed for him. It begged him to slam her against the SUV. I craved the feel of his cock against her body, to know what it felt like inside her. Her whole body shook with need, screaming for Jax.

  “You can’t stop me,” she whispered and ducked out of his reach.

  Her legs wobbled beneath her. They were gelatin in his presence, wobbly and immaterial. She was able to throw herself into the driver’s seat and slam the door shut behind her. A blessed moment passed where she was able to fight back the throbbing need coursing through her body and regain control of her traitor knees.

  She was a detective, here to find the people kidnapping shifters off the streets. She wasn’t here to find herself a supernatural lover, to lose time in his arms. There were lives at stake. Yet her body seemed to argue with her every inch of the way. It was confusing, this war she waged. Would she find balance, or would she fall and lose everything she’d worked for?

  She couldn’t let that happen. One man, shifter or not, wasn’t going to walk into her life and force her to leave herself behind. This was what she wanted, to help people, to save them. She wasn’t going to fold before Jax and become a pliable damsel in his hands.

  Across the car, he opened his own door and jumped into the seat. His jaw was clenched again. She wanted to tell him he would ruin his teeth that way, but what did she know about shifters? For all she knew, he would fo
rever be perfect while her human body fell apart with time.

  Not for the first time, an errant thought whisked through her mind. She remembered the blood on her hands. It could have changed her. It could have made her like him. As much as she would have loved that kind of strength for her job, she knew it would be wrong to force it out of him. It would be wrong to become a monster.

  “Let’s go back to your house. Maybe I can pick up a scent or some other clue there.” Jax spoke through clenched teeth.

  She cast a sidelong glance in his direction. He looked the way she felt, fighting against his own body. What was wrong with them? If she hadn’t been in the middle of an important investigation, would they have fought against their bodies? Would things have been different between them?

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” She turned the key and directed the SUV back toward her house.

  Chapter Eleven

  The house looked as if nothing had happened the night before. The door wasn’t hanging off the hinge. There were no tracks of mud or blood leading through the house. At least, not until she reached her bedroom. The floor was painted with Jax’s blood.

  Regret flooded her and made her stomach burn. She hadn’t had anything to eat since the day before; her stomach had nothing to throw up as she recalled what happened the night before.

  “You almost died,” Jax whispered, staring at the floor with an ashen face.

  Sydney snorted. “Last I remembered, you were the one with a gunshot wound. Silver bullet, right? It seemed poisonous to your kind.”

  He gave her a sidelong look. She was picking up on clues about his kind as they worked together. He should know by now she wasn’t blind. Heck, it was her job to figure things out. He should know better.

  He shook his head. His concern was for her, not himself. Her lips pressed into a thin line. She wasn’t something to be protected. She wasn’t a fragile glass that would break if he touched her the wrong way. The idea that he needed to protect her made her angry.