The bike rumbled beside her, his feet stuck out for balance as he tried to convince her to get back on. She shook her head, determined to ignore him. When he wasn’t looking, she snuck glances at him. His hair was coming undone. It should have made him look unkempt or falling apart at the seams, but it only added to the roguish look.
She rolled her eyes, shoving aside her attraction. It was bad enough her fiancé treated her like she meant nothing. She didn’t need a man who treated her like she would break. The only man in her life who’d ever seen her for who she really was had been her brother. She looked toward the mountains, hoping more than anything that he was still alive. She couldn’t lose him.
She couldn’t lose the only person who’d ever believed in her.
“Look,” Rhylan shouted over the rumble of his bike. “I’m sorry for whatever I did.”
She scoffed. How could he not see what he’d done? How could he not understand that she was a person, more than capable of holding her own in this world? She ripped the jacket from her shoulders and tossed it at him before tugging at the hem of her shirt.
His eyes widened, confusion rippling into understanding. Her wolf pressed forward. It felt like flipping a coin, two sides of the same whole. She rolled her shoulders and shimmied out of her skirt. Her body bent into the shape of a wolf, black and gray. Moving felt like stretching long dormant muscles, sending a pulse of exhilaration through her body.
There was no way he was getting her back onto that bike. The date was officially over.
She paused, just long enough for him to shove her lost clothing into her small purse and hand it to her. She took it in her mouth, glad she didn’t have to thank him for the small gesture.
Thalia hoped she would never have to see him again. In the morning, she would look for new jobs. She had to. She couldn’t deal with this shifter or his pack.
She leapt off the road and into the forest. Running let all the tension, fear, and other emotions bleed from her muscles. It cleared her head and helped her see things as they were. All that mattered was finding her brother.
Chapter Five
Thalia sat at her rickety kitchen table in her underwear and crop top from the night before, a highlighter in her hand as she studied the Wanted ads spread out before her. The next shift started in a couple of hours, but she wanted to make a list of jobs to apply to after work.
There was no way she could stick around Rhylan or his pack for long. They were trouble and she knew it. Rhylan would only distract her from her mission.
The phone on the table buzzed. It was more expensive than anything she owned, paid for by her father with one caveat when she left. She had to answer it whenever he called. Her stomach sank.
To him, her brother had gone off and left them. He’d betrayed his family and that left no space for him upon his return. The only reason that she’d even gotten permission to search for him was because she agreed to marry the man her father chose for her. When she returned, the wedding her mother was currently planning would unfold and her autonomy would be ripped from her.
“Hi Dad,” she said into the phone.
“You don’t sound thrilled.”
She wasn’t, but it wasn’t like she could tell him that. She rubbed at her eyes, hand coming away with smudges of black make-up. “Sorry. I worked late last night. That’s all.”
He made a sound like he didn’t believe her. “Are you sure you aren’t just spending all your time out partying?”
Her lips curled. There was no way he could know about the date. It hadn’t even been her decision.
“Anyway, I’m calling to let you know that Miles is on his way to see you.”
Her body froze. Ice filled her veins. “Oh, no. You don’t have to send him all the way here.”
“It’s too late, sugar snap. He’s halfway there already.”
She pressed her eyes closed. The highlighter in her free hand cracked beneath the pressure of her grip. She dropped it, flinging it away from her. The last thing she wanted was her fiancé here.
What was with her and annoying men? First Miles was shoved at her, now she had to deal with blackmailing Rhylan. She felt like a magnet for disaster. At least, she knew that once she found her brother, there was only one disaster for her to look forward to.
“Are you there?”
“Yeah,” she croaked. “Yeah. I’m here. Look, Dad. I have to go get ready for work soon. Just have Miles call me when his plane lands.”
She looked around herself. Her stomach churned. Where she lived was so far removed from the life she’d lived that she was embarrassed for him to see it. Miles didn’t need to know she could barely make ends meet out here. He didn’t need to know that she slept on a mattress on the floor. It would only make things worse when she was finally tied to him.
He wouldn’t be her savior. She wouldn’t allow it.
She hung up and slammed the phone down before lurching from her seat to pick up the clothes she’d strewn about the place the night before. All the while, she thought about how she might run into Rhylan at work. She hated the butterflies that flitted through her chest at the thought of him.
She hated the way he made her feel when she thought about him.
She was so distracted by the new of her fiancé’s arrival and Rhylan’s confusing existence that she didn’t have time to straighten her hair. It hung wavy and wild in a long ponytail. Her eyes were still smudged with make-up from the night before, giving her a don’t screw with me look that she could have branded.
***
Rhylan leaned against the railing of his balcony. Somewhere in the woods below, Jax and Sydney ran. They’d invited him, but he’d chosen to nurse his coffee at the Lodge with the hopes of running into Thalia once again.
He’d screwed up. Like he kept doing.
When he chose to leave the ER, it wasn’t because he needed to find himself all over again. Rhylan knew who he was, but the new body he’d been given wasn’t cooperating. He kept making mistakes. In his line of work, mistakes cost lives and the weight of what he’d done had been unbearable.
The smell of blood and desperation. The scent of death, inches away. It all became too much, overwhelming in ways he’d never known before. His hands became unsteady when they’d once been precise. The sight of blood made him hungry in ways that turned his stomach.
Leaving for a sabbatical had been the only option at that point. Rhylan knew who he was, but he needed to find a way to strike balance between the man he wanted to be and the monster he’d become. He hadn’t thought himself ready until Jax needed him.
Watching his new friend slip closer to death had been enough to steady Rhylan’s hands. He’d been able to help Jax, making him think he might be ready to return to work. Then Thalia entered his life and he was slipping up all over again, making foolish mistakes that caused a rift to spread between them.
He wasn’t sure why it mattered so much that he make things right with her. All he knew was that he couldn’t leave things the way they were. So, he waited. He watched for her return only for the short chance to talk to her.
Was it strange to wait for her? Was it weird to peer out the window every time he caught a glimpse of movement? He was sure it was all very much out of the ordinary, but he couldn’t stop himself. The urge to see her again overwhelmed him. He thought about the fall of her dark hair over her shoulders, the sliver of skin he saw as she moved the night before. He thought about the fury that crouched in her muscles, about the black and gray wolf she’d shown him.
Something else nagged at the back of his mind. It felt akin to déjà vu, as if he’d seen her somewhere else before yet couldn’t quite place it. He was sure he’d remember if he’d seen her before. The feeling was only an echo of the obsession he was developing.
Rhylan moved through the Lodge room, shoving the front door open so that he could sink into a chair facing the parking lot. At least there he would not miss her.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Thalia groaned.
He shot up from the chair he’d just sat in. Thalia stood with her hands on her hips, the rack of cleaning supplies beside her. She glared up at him. He swallowed, wondering how to tell her he wasn’t stalking her when he kind of had been.
“Do you want your room cleaned?” Her voice was deadpan, unaffected by any emotion at all.
It pained him to hear it. He wanted to hear joy in her voice, humor, anything at all. This emptiness was his fault and he knew it.
“Yeah. I could use new sheets if you have any on hand.”
Thalia nodded and swiped her card at his door. When she pulled the supply rack into the room, he followed close by. She glared at him, annoyed at his presence. Rhylan fought for the right words, trying to arrange them in an order that wouldn’t wound her further.
“What are you doing after work?”
She was in the middle of yanking the sheets off his bed when she froze. Slowly, her head turned toward him. “Like hell am I going on another date with you.”
“No, that wasn’t what I was asking.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. With one sharp motion, she jerked the sheets off the bed and threw them into the bin beside her. She was angrier than when she’d run away from him the night before. Whatever was bothering her, it wasn’t his doing. At least, not his doing alone.
He dared to take a step closer to her, his heart twisting with a hope he couldn’t describe. Thalia was no one to him, a person he’d met by chance. Yet, he wanted to ease whatever pain was bothering her. He didn’t even know where to begin or if he was even the right guy to do so.
“I told you I might know where your brother is, and I meant it. It was wrong of me to leave you out of it.”
Her spine straightened, and her lips parted. Rhylan dared to take another step toward her. She was only an arm’s reach away. She smelled like pine and orange, as if the forest still clung to her from her run the night before. In fact, he saw the smudged eye make-up and wondered if she’d even bothered to shower.
He wanted to reach and touch her cheek, but shoved the desire back. It wasn’t his right.
“Are you sure about this?” Thalia asked with blatant suspicion.
He deserved that. Everything he did with Thalia from here on out was rebuilding his image with her. He’d started on the wrong foot and let it spiral so out of control that she might never trust him again. The desire for her trust was so overwhelming that he couldn’t ignore it.
“Yes. I’ll take you with me today.” He wished he was telling her the truth. He wished he could tell her that he could protect her in that den of death, but that was one promise he could not make.
After a long moment, Thalia nodded. She was too desperate for her brother’s safety to see past his lies. His heart sank at his own deception. What was it about this woman that drew him in?
“Meet me whenever you’re done working and I’ll show you where he might be.”
She licked her lips. They were plump, still pink from the night before. He wondered if they would taste like fruity candy if he bent to capture them. She seemed to still, like a rabbit in the headlights. He felt the crash, the contact coming. Hope had flushed her face and it pulled him toward her.
“Thalia!” a voice snapped outside.
They jumped apart. His heart thumped in his chest. He spun around to an older woman standing in the doorway. She glowered at Thalia before storming into the room and grabbing her by the arm.
“Hey, that’s not necessary!” he called out.
“Am I going to have to fire you? Do I have to call the cops for solicitation?”
Thalia jerked her arm from the woman’s grasp. “It’s not like that and you know it.” Thalia marched back for her supply rack and yanked it out of the room, the older woman watching her the entire time.
“I apologize for my employee’s advances,” the woman said with a bitter tone in her voice. She wasn’t apologizing, but warning him, too. She would call the cops on both of them if she thought he was soliciting her maids.
He rolled his eyes. A door slid open behind him, the sliding glass door of the balcony. Sydney stepped through, taking in the situation with knit brows. Jax appeared behind her, his hands on his mate’s hips as if he couldn’t bear being away from her for even a moment.
“What’s going on here?” Sydney asked, carefully.
“The woman thinks I’m buying sex from Thalia.” Rhylan spared no one’s sensibilities, not bothering to beat around the bush.
The woman’s cheeks darkened, and Sydney smothered a laugh.
“I didn’t know you were interested in those kinds of things,” Sydney teased Rhylan. Her gaze slid to Thalia, suddenly noting that she was not human. Her gaze slid back to Rhylan. There was a smirk on her lips that annoyed him. “I am the cops, ma’am. If it helps, I can assure you Rhylan is not the kind of man to procure the services of a woman in that way. Whatever you thought you saw was not the case.”
The pressure of Thalia’s gaze raked over him, the shifter studying him as if she’d never seen him before. Perhaps the validation from Sydney, a trusted local, had bought him brownie points. His gut twisted. He knew he was still lying to her, his plan in place to keep her away from that barn.
He wanted her trust, but he wanted her safety even more.
Chapter Six
The mountains spilled out before her. The forest rose and fell in valleys, rocks jutting from the earth while the wind whistled between them. Rhylan led her through it all, his tail held high in the air.
He was a beautiful wolf. His form was larger than hers by several hands, though nowhere near the monstrous size of her brother. As she followed Rhylan through the mountains, she entertained herself by wondering what it would be like to introduce the two of them. She didn’t think about what kind of situation her brother was trapped in or the pain he was enduring while she searched.
Instead, she played out scenes where the two of them met and fell in together. In her mind, they were fast friends. She wanted to believe Rhylan was helping her. Her heart leaned toward him, pulling her into him like he was the sun and she a planet begging for warmth. Perhaps she was begging for warmth. When was the last time someone had hugged her? The last time someone had said something kind with no expectations behind their words?
Rhylan was helping her find her brother. He had no stakes in this, no promises like sex or money that drove him to help her. It warmed her heart to think that he did it for her. The wolf looked at him and saw pack. The wolf’s mind was made, a connection forged without consent from Thalia herself. She could imagine anything she wanted, but she needed to remember not to lose herself in her day dreams.
The man she followed was exactly that: a man. People did nothing out of the kindness of their hearts. There was always an alternative reason. He might want something from her. He might be leading her into the same trap her brother had fallen into.
The thought filled her with cold. It made her fall back a few feet behind the wolf. Outside of his warmth, she was thankful for her own thick fur. It blanketed her against the harsh winds of the mountain that would have burned her human skin.
The only problem with this was that she had no voice. She could not ask Rhylan where he was leading her or how long it might take. So, she let the hours drag on. Thalia was starting to suspect Rhylan had led her in circles. He was tricking her into wasting her time. For what reason, she couldn’t fathom.
She stopped, feet digging into the earth.
Rhylan noticed he’d lost her and stopped, looking around for her. When he saw her, she pulled her lips back from her muzzle.
How dare he trick her like that? Who did he think he was, wasting her time?
She wanted to hurt him, to make him bleed for tricking her the way he had. Instead, she raised her head and turned around. Her heart ached. Her brother was still out there. He was still waiting. He had to be alive. She refused to consider any other option. She would have felt it if he’d died. Right?
Rhylan ignored her
snarl and chose to push ahead, splitting the green brush ahead to reveal a squat farmhouse. The scent on the air that blew through the part in the brush brought with it death and remorse, enough to make her stomach turn. She looked to Rhylan. Her gaze was questioning, but she felt she already knew the truth.
Her brother was down there, trapped in that small valley. He’d been there all along. How long had she walked through the mountain? He’d been so close, yet so far.
Then, Rhylan let the brush close and turned away. Her body flooded with cold fear. Rhylan had brought her all the way here. He’d walked her through the treacherous mountains, but he was going to turn his back on her and her brother. Thalia cursed herself for putting her faith in such a man.
Her wolf threw its head back and let out a baleful howl.
When would she find control? Over her life, over herself? It seemed everything she did was out of her control, led along by the hands of someone else. She was so used to the existence that she fell into Rhylan’s trap and let him fool her, too.
The sound of his footfalls was light as he raced to her. He nudged her with his muzzle, harder than she expected. The wolf narrowed its gaze at her, as if to tell her to shut up, before scanning the forest around them.
Overhead, a crow cawed with cackling delight. She cocked her head to look at the creature. It was the only sound around. The only creature that dared make a sound.
She looked back to Rhylan, confused and intrigued. But, that didn’t last long, her anger and indignation rising to shove back nay curiosity she might have felt. He’d tried to control her the way everyone else had.
The thought made her bare her teeth again. She spun away from him and ran. She wasn’t about to spend another moment in his presence. There were enough men in this world who wanted to control her life. There was only one man she cared about, and she was not leaving these mountains without him.
Outcast BoxSet Page 59