Outcast Box Set

by Emilia Hartley

  Nora cried out, sure her neighbors could hear. She didn’t care. Let them hear the power of their soul-shaking sex. The thought that Javier had no soul slipped through her mind and out again. There was no room for it as the powerful orgasm built inside her. It grew and pulsed, sending small jolts of pleasure through her limbs. Small sounds escaped through her lips, unbidden and uncontrolled.

  “I like the sounds you make,” Javier growled. He thrust into her, hard.

  She cried out. The pulsing ball of pleasure in her core thumped when his cock met it. She feared it would burst and spill through her. Nora tried clamping around it, holding her breath and onto the feeling. She never wanted to let go of it.

  Javier’s hands drifted from the back of her head and down to her neck. He forced her to look him in the eye, a knowing smile on his lips as he gently coaxed the ball of pleasure into something greater than she’d felt before. His eyes glittered.

  Nora’s breath caught in her throat. Was that what she thought? Could it be?

  Before she could straighten her thoughts, Javier slammed once more into the ball of pleasure inside her. This time, the wall broke and it burst through her. It flooded her body, taking with it her limbs and making her toes curl. She spasmed in Javier’s arms, held tight while his own orgasm took him.

  She held him close, held him inside her as if keeping him where he was, hilt deep inside her, could hold to that fragment of his soul she’d seen. It’d been there. There was no way she could mistake it. Could she? She snaked her arms around the back of his neck and held him tight.

  Javier rested his forehead against her shoulder. “We should get you down from here and clean you up. We shouldn’t even have done this.”

  She shuddered, aftershocks rocking through her as he pulled out of her. It ran up her spine and spread through her like fingers of ice on a hot day. She opened her mouth to respond, but found no words, only shallow breaths. Her mate let his fingers drift down her neck, over her collarbone, and down her chest.

  Finally, she found her voice. “If you’re worried about kids, Walter and I tried for years with no success. I can’t have them.”

  There was a flicker of concern in Javier’s eyes before he pulled from her embrace entirely. The look glimmered and died. Suddenly, she felt bereft. All over again, she was being told her husband had died. She was alone in a dark world.

  Cold washed through her. It shoved away the last of her orgasm. Nora jumped off the counter and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “That’s good. We shouldn’t take chances with that right now.” Javier’s voice was matter of fact, distant as he removed himself from her. He turned his back on her and put space between them.

  Nora wanted to reach out, but her hands felt useless. She was empty again, acutely aware of the things she never had, of the things she no longer had. Learning that she and Walter couldn’t conceive had cut her in half. She’d had a wealth of magic, but nothing could help her carry a child. Now, she didn’t even have that magic.

  Nora was a fool to think anything would go as she wanted it. Her life was one stumble after another, her mate bond following the same path. Sometimes, she wondered if it was a remnant of a curse her mother placed on her father. The man had taken one look at the true Cordelia and run for the hills. Nora wished he’d waited just long enough for her to enter this world, so he could have taken her with him.

  “Are you alright?” There was a hitch in Javier’s voice that made her turn to look at him. He watched her with confusion.

  All Nora could do was shrug and grab her pants from the floor. She wanted to run to him, wrap herself in his arms, and feel the love she’d felt moments ago. Yet, when he pulled away from her, he did metaphorically as well. It was an arrow through her heart.

  Could she ever get his soul away from her mother? Would she have her mate, whole and perfect? It was all she wanted. It was what she craved.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered before scurrying away.

  Chapter Four

  Nora was busy. He’d made sure of it, asking for a lunch she probably wouldn’t find anywhere in Fangway. Finding tamales outside the west coast could be difficult. He knew from his own travels.

  After his huntress mate left in search of his request, he’d set out on his own mission. He strolled down the town streets, hands in his pockets as he studied every alley and window. It was a small town. The kind that grew out from a small gathering of people. There was a brick town hall in the center, surrounded by a busy square and what used to be family owned businesses.

  He knew his mark wouldn’t be here. She hid herself away in the mountains that loomed beyond the town. Using soul-magic, she’d hidden her valley from the town and any wanderers who might find themselves nearby. It was a useful trick, Javier acknowledged, but she could not hide herself when she was in town.

  She’d been in Fangway the day before to have brunch with her daughter. Before that, she’d come to town for her court appearances. He could smell the trail she’d left in the air. Javier tracked her, drawn as if she were his mate. Even though he knew it was because she carried his soul with her everywhere she went, it was unsettling. The idea of being bonded to the woman twisted his stomach.

  If Cordelia had her way, he would be nothing more than a glorified guard dog. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the scars his mate’s mother had burned into his skin. Of all the bonds, he’d been given one with the daughter of a monster. Nora had watched as her mother wound a silver choke collar around his neck. When he fought, spikes of the damned metal burrowed into his neck.

  It’s been Cordelia’s first move into making him her beast. After that, she’d found other ways to twist his soul. She delved into him and gripped the very thing that made him… him. She pulled it out and molded it in her hands until he was nothing more than a roaring beast. Without his soul, Javier was silenced. Gone were the howls of torment and pain. Gone were the growls of promised revenge.

  He wanted that back. He wanted the stinging bite of his own pain. Javier especially wanted the deep-seated desire for revenge that had driven him to live. That was what brought him to the streets of Fangway, tracking Cordelia’s scent around town. He memorized her every step so that he would know where she might be next time she returned.

  If Javier couldn’t find her in one place, he would find her in another. And, if he couldn’t find Cordelia, he would track down her hunters. The things they’d done while he’d been caged would have broken him had his soul been intact.

  Truthfully, a part of it had always rested in Cordelia’s hands. She’d caressed it at night, whispering to it when he tried to sleep. Her words had infiltrated his mind, his dreams, his being. No matter how hard he tried to shake Cordelia, she would always cling to him.

  The beast inside Javier rose. It looked at the world with empty eyes, seeing every moving being as prey. They did not know the power of what Javier was. They did not bow to him like the king he should be. Javier knew the beast’s voice was wrong, part of why he kept it shoved back, but he found himself agreeing with it.

  Javier crept down the streets of the unfamiliar town, wondering if he’d visited and forgotten. He committed each turn, each scent to memory, trying to compare it to the ones he’d memorized at the barn. The beast inside him hungered for the hunters who’d jabbed him with electric cow pokers.

  What would he do when he found them? The wolf wanted to eradicate them from the face of the earth, making it a safer place, but he knew Nora wouldn’t approve. He shouldn’t have thought about what she would want. Nora was the daughter of his tormentor. For all he knew, the bond that tugged him closer and closer to her was a lie meant to break him. Still, he leaned toward Nora’s approval as if it were some sort of moral compass in the place of his lost soul.

  Killing humans would make him just as bad as the hunters he wanted to hurt. Instead, Javier told himself he would chase them. He would teach them there were consequences to their actions.

  A familiar scent slappe
d him in the face. He paused. To his right was the window of a local hardware store. The scent was stronger the closer he came to the door. Anger flared through him, making his movements jerky. He threw open the door with a loud crash.

  Inside, all heads lifted to stare at him. The man at the front desk opened his mouth before thinking better of it. He shrank back as Javier stalked past. The scent was strong in there, but no matter how many aisles Javier prowled, he could not find the source of it.

  Finally, a woman approached him. She wore a smock and smelled of metal and plastic. “Can I help you find something?”

  His lip pulled back from his teeth. It had to have looked animal, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. The hunters had been here. They’d been nearby. He needed to find them, hurt them.

  The human woman’s bored look shifted into one of barely suppressed fear. Guilt roiled through him. It was faint, but present. Javier swallowed the growl that rumbled inside his chest and spun away from her.

  What was he doing? Was he nothing more than an animal?

  He reached inside himself, aching to grasp a soul that might have been able to tell him right from wrong, that might have made this easier. With or without it, he would find the hunters and stop them from hurting anyone ever again. He’d watched too many falter and fail under the roof of that barn to give up, but he didn’t want to become the monster Cordelia asked him to be.

  He wanted to be his own creature. He wanted to be strong for those who’d risked their lives to save not only him, but others from that barn. He owed the pack everything. What did he owe Nora? His heart tried to tell him one thing while the beast snarled another.

  If Nora knew where he was, she would tear into him. She wanted to do this together. There would be some shit about how they’d be stronger together, but she’d already proven that wasn’t true when she met with her mother without his knowledge. If she could sneak around behind his back, then he was allowed to do the same.

  He couldn’t help but wonder what his mate had been doing with her mother. Nora tried to tell his sister’s pack that she’d cut ties with her hunter family, but her actions told him otherwise. Arranging a secret meeting with one’s monstrous mother behind a mate’s back didn’t speak of trust. Not that he’d ever fully trusted her.

  He knew there was a pull between them. It made him care about her more than he should. It was that pull that made him decide to return to Cordelia’s care the first time he’d escaped. He knew that if he hadn’t returned, Cordelia would have turned her fury upon Nora, and the thought terrified him. Even without his soul, he’d seen the horror in it.

  Now, he wondered if it had been worth it at all. There was a part of him, only a whisper, that told him it was worth it. This whisper told him Nora would forever be on his side. She was only doing what she could to help him. Yet, the rest of Javier wasn’t convinced.

  As he prowled through the town, another familiar scent lit through the air. Hunger flitted through him. His mind wanted murder, revenge cold and simple. But, another part of him knew what he needed to do in that moment.

  Nora.

  The wolf inside him rose and pulled him toward her. It was a quiet beast, all instinct and fight without his soul. He missed its voice, the way it would speak to him. All he could do was follow its command and hunt down his mate.

  He found Nora sitting on a bench in the square. She stared blankly into the distance, not really seeing anything before her. He waved his hand before her and brought her back to the present.

  “You’re not alright,” he observed. Javier couldn’t help it. He glanced around in search of Cordelia. He expected the woman to be slipping away from another secret meeting, but her scent was faint. Days old.

  Nora licked her lips and shook her head.

  In her presence, his body screamed. It pulled him down toward her until he sat beside her, his thigh touching hers. The touch made the scream feel like his soul, even if he knew that to be impossible. Nora’s face was lined with internal pain. He wanted to brush the lines away one by one, with his thumbs, with his lips.

  “What’s wrong with you today, little enchantress?”

  She made a small sound in her throat. It was pained and troubled. Her hands curled in her lap, clenching until her knuckles were white.

  “I made a mistake,” she confessed.

  Javier wanted to lurch away from her. Betrayal surged, even if he didn’t know what she’d done. He forced himself to sit still while his mind reeled with possible explanations. It had all been a trick, perhaps? He’d never been freed at all? This was all an enchanted dream and he would soon wake back in hell?

  Javier was not ready for the words that Nora spoke next.

  “I traded a part of myself to get your soul back.”

  He crumbled. Everything he thought he was, everything he thought he knew, all crumbled into dust in his hands. His throat grew dry and words caught in his chest. He almost thought he felt something, a surge of love or something similar.

  Nora’s head fell back against the bench. She surveyed the cloudless skies above like she might find the strength to tell her part of this story up there. “That was what you saw me doing with her yesterday. I thought I could bargain with her. If I gave her what she always wanted, she would give up your soul.

  “At least, that was what I’d thought. Instead, she was a greedy bitch and took from me before I could say no. The blood you saw yesterday was me biting my own cheek when she took her time ripping my magic out of me.”

  His breath caught. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know how to move. All this time, he’d thought Nora lived on a thin line between the world she lived in and the bond between them. It hadn’t seemed like she would be pulled in his direction, no matter what she said. Blood ties were a strong thing.

  Yet, she’d done something brave and selfless…For him. Nora had cut herself in half with the hopes of making her mate whole. There were no words to thank her for what she tried to do. There weren’t words to comfort her, either. All he could do was sit in the silence they wrought together.

  It droned on, lasting a heartbeat, maybe four.

  “She took my magic and left without giving back your soul. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe how much of a fool I was.” Her eyes filled with tears. One escaped and slipped down her cheek. Once the first fell, more followed until she shook with the force of them.

  This explained her strange questions the day before. It explained the way she kept looking at her hands, as if there should have been something there and she’d found them empty. Instead, she’d found herself empty.

  What a pair they made now. Javier strutted around the world with no soul in his body, feeling only lust and bloodlust. Now, his mate had been carved into a fraction of herself. How were they supposed to make this bond work when neither of them felt whole?

  He pulled her into his chest. She sobbed into his shirt, but he didn’t care about it. All he could do was rub his hands up and down her back. Time passed while she sobbed. It meant nothing to either of them. There was nothing they could do in that moment. No enemies they could suddenly find and vanquish to make this all go away.

  Their hunt for the things they’d lost would be a slow and patient one. Now was not the moment to jump. So, what else could he do?

  “How about we get dinner tonight? Maybe even a movie and dinner? My treat.”

  She sniffled and looked up at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her nose was swollen. His shirt was drenched, but he didn’t care.

  “Did you—sniff—did you just ask me on a date?”

  A smile slipped over his lips. Nora looked up at him with wonder and a hint of a grin, making him realize his smile had reached his eyes.

  “I did. We should get you home and clean you up so that you’re presentable.”

  She laughed, half snorting because of how she’d cried moments ago. “You’re one to talk. Look at yourself.”

  Chapter Five

  Nora looked down at t
he screen of her phone. Her mother’s number flashed across it before fading into the background. It was just another line in the long list of missed calls since she’d left the hunters. Her cousins had called, too. Each one of them thought they could summon her back with a long speech about right and wrong.

  If only they understood how wrong they truly were. Most of them thought they were doing the right thing. One of them followed her mother for what he saw as fun, but Nora had never much liked him anyway. The rest, they thought shifters were a product of the devil and a natural hunter of humans.

  Nora snorted. How could they not see the devil for what it was? Her mother was like a witch of old, striking a deal with dark forces in exchange for power. If anyone was evil in this instance, it was Cordelia. Perhaps, Nora told herself, her mother had cast an enchantment over her cousins. It would explain why so many of them blindly followed her.

  Javier was out, setting up for their date. Nora was left caught in the web of her own mind. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t seem to be free of it. She wanted to forget about the horror she’d been a part of, the loss she’d had to suffer, but none of it would leave her be.

  Not until there was a knock at the door. Nora’s stomach flipped. Her mind reeled, wondering who might be on the other side. It could be her mother, come to finish what she started and rid herself of the daughter who failed her. It could be her cousins, here to drag her back to the farmhouse in the mountains.

  Instead, Nora opened to door to find Sydney standing on the other side. Her professional attire had been traded for a light sweater and leggings. She offered Nora a weak smile before Nora turned away and let her in.

  “When did you get a house? I’m assuming you didn’t buy it after we freed Javier.” Sydney mused as she made her way toward the couch in the living room.

  “Uh, no. I lived here with Walter before he died.” The words felt flat in her mouth.