Outcast BoxSet

by Emilia Hartley

Could she not be happy? Was it not allowed?

  Sydney spun around and let herself fall onto the couch. Her eyes caught on the ceiling and stayed there for a long moment, a breath escaping her as she deflated. Slowly, she brought her gaze back down to Nora.

  “A lot has changed.”

  Nora swallowed and nodded. More than Sydney knew.

  “We, uh, we shared coleslaw. We can have an honest conversation, right?”

  Nora laughed at Sydney’s marker for friendship and claimed the chair opposite her, as if they were therapist and patient. “I guess. We’re coworkers and ex-enemies, too, if that means anything.”

  Sydney laughed and rolled onto her side. Her eyes glittered with humor for a brief moment. “I’m not used to this, to having another voice in my head all the damn time. All the wolf wants to do is run and hump. I mean, I love both, but I wish the mutt would shut up long enough for me to think sometimes. You know?”

  No, she didn’t know.

  Sydney seemed to realize what she’d said and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m just blabbering. Tell me, how is Javier doing?”

  Nora looked away, hiding the pain that must have flooded her eyes. Were she and Sydney friends enough for her to confess everything that bothered her? Could she tell the woman that she feared her own mate didn’t truly love her? Could she confess that she wasn’t sure this would work?

  Nora hadn’t put a voice to any of these fears until now, but once she acknowledged them, more came tumbling after. The relationship the universe tried to arrange had been founded on rocky footing. One small slip and Nora would find herself falling in the wrong direction. She wanted to cling to Javier, to help him become a man she could love, but she didn’t know if he would love her in return.

  Her life had been filled with evil things. She’d done them in the name of good, but the older she got the more she realized how wrong she’d been. No one could ever forgive her for the things she’d done. Hell, she couldn’t even forgive herself. Lives had been lost, ruined, stolen. All by her hands.

  She didn’t deserve Javier. That was the truth of it. Her corruption had ruined him, too. The universe had brought them together, but her life had sucked him in and slowly destroyed the man he’d been.

  “Earth to Nora.”

  She winced. “Sorry. I fell down a mental rabbit hole.”

  “I noticed, and it didn’t look good. Are you alright? Do you need a drink? A good fuck?” Sydney slapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide. “I swear that was the wolf.”

  Nora’s laugh was surprisingly light. “I mean, we already fucked. Would it be that much better if we did it again?”

  Sydney’s shame turned to humor. “You should try it. Have it like coffee, hot and steamy every morning.”

  “You and Jax need to calm down or you’re going to break a bed a week.”

  “Pfft, you don’t know what you’re missing! I’d say it’s worth a bed a week.”

  Nora smiled and pulled her knees up to her chest. The girl talk wasn’t enough to erase the fears and emptiness Nora struggled with, but it helped take her mind off things. Her heart felt a small bit lighter for Sydney’s presence. She wished they could have been friends before this, that Nora could have found the strength to reach out beyond her mother’s reign and find connections outside the hunters.

  “How’s work going?” Nora asked, picking the fabric pills from the arm of her chair. “Any closer to the top?”

  She shrugged. “Getting your mom on the kidnapping charges did me wonders, but everyone still hates me for my old partner’s death.”

  “I’m sensing a theme,” Nora joked. “Ghosts everywhere we look. Ghosts of the true dead, ghosts of the past, ghosts of our regrets.”

  “Girl, you don’t have to be so dark. We’re supposed to eat a tub of ice-cream and paint our nails instead of dwelling on that kind of stuff.” The sarcasm in Sydney’s voice was all too apparent.

  Nora pushed herself from her solitary seat, grabbed the bowl of chocolate candies she kept on the coffee table, and climbed over Sydney’s legs. They might not know each other as well as they could have, but like Sydney said, they shared coleslaw. She passed the bowl of candies to Sydney and let the shifter place her legs over Nora’s lap.

  “Tell me more about your mysterious and sexy mate,” Nora prompted, grabbing a fistful of candy from the bowl and popping half them into her mouth.

  ***

  The scent trail was strong. They were close, he thought. Close enough to kill.

  Javier had gone about setting up the date like he’d promised Nora he would do, purchasing food and buying services for the perfect night, but it hadn’t been the only reason he’d gone out. Seeing her pain over the failed trade had cut him in half. He hadn’t expected to feel the way he had. Nora could still be lying, but her pain had been undeniable.

  Her pain was his pain. That was the way the universe had deemed it and he would have to live with it, feeling vicariously through her until he found his soul. He didn’t want her to ever feel like that again. The only way to make sure was to eradicate the source of her pain.

  Javier walked along the streets around the hardware store. Either one of the hunters worked there, or they frequented it enough to leave their scent on everything. He knew, either way, they would return.

  And, when they did, he would be waiting.

  He licked his lips, nearly tasting coppery blood on them. The beast smiled with satisfaction. Finally, they were going to get the revenge it craved. The hunter’s den would fall apart, one at a time, until Cordelia was left with nothing to stand on.

  She would be the hardest of them all, he knew. She held not only his soul, but Nora’s light magic. Both could be used against him in this war. The beast was not afraid, not like it should be. It wanted to take the witch head on, but Javier spoke with the voice of reason.

  If they tried to kill Cordelia like that, they might never know if Nora’s love was true. The beast cared not for love or affection. The thought should have saddened Javier. Love should have meant everything to the beast inside him. He clutched his chest and tried to force the creature to remember what love felt like.

  He closed his eyes and thought back to his sister’s wedding day, but no emotions rose. That day had been an empty parade of bodies.

  The sound of a bell snapped Javier from his thoughts and back into the present. The front door of the hardware store swung back and forth. Slowly, silently, Javier prowled forward. The scent in the air was unmistakable. Tobacco and fresh pine wood. One of the hunters was there.

  He crept along the aisles, peering over the shelves for a familiar face. He’d know them anywhere.

  A dark headed figure bobbed along the aisles. It would duck to grab something before rising, revealing a low pony tail. Javier knew the man’s name once but had long forgotten it. He hadn’t been one of the hunters to electrocute him and laugh, but he’d been a hunter all the same. Javier ducked and followed the figure.

  The man laid down his purchases on the counter, glancing over his shoulder with a scowl. Javier ducked behind the shelf. His heart raced. Not out of fear, but out of excitement. There, in his hands, was a chance to take down the first pin in Cordelia’s safety net.

  What would his father say about his hunting? The man had been a stout Alpha, the kind of man who kept everything around him carefully arranged. There’d been hierarchy and order in the pack, the family that no longer belonged to Javier. His father might have approved. Then again, he would have reminded Javier to keep it out of the public eye.

  It was his mother’s voice that wove its way into Javier’s mind. She was a small, Hispanic woman with a tongue made of pure fire. She would have cursed Javier up and down. He was supposed to be working on a date with his mate. His mother would have berated him and forced him to promise he’d return to Nora. Then, she would have chased him out of the house and onto his mission.

  Javier fell into step behind the hunter, his mind reeling. These were all things h
e knew but couldn’t feel. Emotions were distant, just out of his reach. He knew he should have followed something. There should have been a foundation that kept him steady, but he stood on nothing.

  The beast crouched inside him, watching the man’s bobbing ponytail. At his hip was a gun, and in his boot, Javier noticed, was the hilt of a knife. Both Javier could survive as long as they weren’t silver. Both, if he knew anything about these hunters, would undoubtedly be silver.

  He could almost hear his mother’s voice. She asked him if taking a life would be worth it. She wanted to know if he would think about the man’s death while he fed his mate strawberries later that night.

  Finally, Javier let out a ragged sigh.

  The man faltered and stopped, spinning around. His eyes flashed wide when he saw who stalked him. Javier stood where he was, hands in his pockets. In two, quick movements, he could have his hands around the man’s throat. His neck would snap before the hunter could grab the gun at his hip.

  Javier snapped out of his thoughts, and like a dream, it quickly faded. The hunter watched Javier with caution in his eyes. They flicked to take in the people around them. There were witnesses. Humans walked to their cars, back to their doors. No one needed to see the violence.

  “Good evening, sir,” the hunter said through clenched teeth. His eyes dipped to the bag hanging from Javier’s hand.

  The moment lingered, silence stretching between them while Javier tried to figure out his next move. Would he become like them, violent if it meant a means to an end? His first thought was of Nora. She sat home, alone, waiting for him to return for the date he’d promised. He was stronger, faster than the hunter, but the chance that he could fall then and there still gripped him.

  Nora would be alone.

  The thought made his stomach clench and his lips pull back from his teeth. “Evening, sir.”

  Javier forced his feet to stay where they were as he watched the hunter walk away. There would be another day, another chance to stop the hunters. Javier scratched the scruff growing along his chin. There would be another chance to kill them all.

  Chapter Six

  Nora’s guilt made her sink into the mattress. It pulled at her limbs, like pressing gravity. Even though there was a new emptiness inside her, she still wasn’t light enough to move from where she lay. While her time with Sydney had been distracting, it hadn’t erased Nora’s mistakes. She should have kept her mouth shut. She should have hidden her lack of magic from Javier. Now, she was useless to him.

  Nora was nothing more than cannon fodder in the coming fight. She remembered how she’d pulled a gun on Sydney the day the detective figured her out. Her hands had trembled unsteadily. If she was forced to use a gun again, would she miss? Would she hit someone she loved?

  The pack was quickly becoming her new family. She found safety with Sydney and Jax. Thalia still hated her, but Rhylan was always welcoming. She ached to truly become a part of their family, to draw on the connection to the pack as one of them. Again, she wondered what it would be like to become a shifter.

  It would drive another divide between Nora and the life she ached to leave behind. She wished she could run away. There was a wide-open world filled with towns and cities to be explored, a wide-open world that was far away from her mother and the other hunters. Her cousins hated her. More than once she’d opened hate mail from them, filled with foul things she never wanted to think about again.

  “Are you ready in there?” Javier asked from the other side of the door.

  Nora rolled off the bed, the best she could do while the guilt still gripped her. She hadn’t even begun changing. Javier had asked her on a date. It would be the first step in getting to know her mate, but she didn’t know if she deserved it.

  A dress was spread out on the opposite edge of the bed. It waited for Nora to pull it over her head. The dress was midnight blue. Nora knew it would cling to her sparse curves and flare over her lack of hips to give her shape. It was alluring and made her feel strong, but she wasn’t sure if she would feel strong that night.

  “Do you… Do you need help?”

  “No!” Nora spoke too quickly.

  Beyond the door, she heard Javier’s hesitation. This was supposed to be a nice night. It was supposed to ease the guilt and fear they both felt hovering over their heads. Yet, Nora thought she knew better. Neither would go away until her mother went away.

  In the end, Nora took her time pulling the dress over her head. She pulled a flat-iron through her hair and commanded it into a straight shape. Her red hair flowed over her shoulders. The neck of her dress dipped in a low U, revealing the freckles that were splattered over her chest and the strawberry shaped birthmark beneath her collarbone.

  When she opened the door, shoes hanging from her fingers, Javier stopped breathing. He went completely still as he took her in from head to toe.

  “We could stay in, instead. I can think of at least one thing I’d like to eat in.”

  Her cheeks burned. She found she couldn’t quite lift her gaze from the floor. Sex with Javier on the kitchen counter was the first time she’d had sex since her husband died. It shouldn’t have been so long, but that was the way things had gone.

  “You’re not backing out of this. You promised me dinner and a show.” Nora tried to push dominance into her voice. She wasn’t a shifter, but she could pretend to be strong while the world continually punched her in the face.

  It was a good metaphor, really. Twist after turn, she felt the ache of it all as if someone had punched her, and Nora knew what punches felt like after growing up with her male cousins. They fought hard and brutally.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” her mate said. There it was again, that glimmer. It was like she saw the ebb and flow of his soul, rising for moments like this.

  She stepped toward him, raising a hand to touch his cheek, and studied his eyes. She ached to see more, to see them glow with the force of the man he could be. Nora knew he could be strong and soft and passionate, if only he had his soul back.

  “We should get going,” Javier began. “It’s going to be a long night. It starts with drinks at the Lodge.”

  She raised a brow at him. The Lodge’s bar was nice, but it wasn’t an exciting date by any means. Nora pressed her lips together and held her complaints. She would wait and see what he had planned.

  If he planned boring dates like this, she would definitely need to get his soul back.

  ***

  Since they’d freed Javier from Cordelia’s silver cage, he and Nora had been living in a strange solitary confinement in the house she once shared with her husband. Neither of them seemed to want to leave and interact with the world outside. It was as if a darkness presided over them that they were afraid of passing on to others. It was only a mood, a fear that they would never finish what they’d started, and Javier wasn’t going to let it take them.

  It was time they interact with the outside world again. Javier knew he should see his sister. Thalia cared enough to cross the country and defy their father for him. While he felt little to nothing, there was a knowledge that he should be thankful. Nora, too, needed to get out. Her job at the police station waited for her, allowing her time for the family emergency she claimed over the phone. No longer did she have a family, or even her magic. If he could give her the support of a pack, he would know she was safe.

  Nora, on the other hand, didn’t seem thrilled about the idea of going to the Lodge bar. It stirred some kind of upset in him. It was faint, yet gnawing. Javier only wanted to make her happy. It irked him that his desire to bend over backwards for her was so strong. The fact that she’d traded her magic for his soul should have been enough to sway him into trusting her, but he still held back.

  She could be lying about the trade. Why else would she have brought it up so easily? The ploy was smart, a tether to pull him in and dull his guards. He glanced to the woman beside him and wondered if the bond, too, was a clever ploy planted by her mother. It would have been
a twisted and complicated plan, but he put nothing past Cordelia.

  “What?” Nora asked when she caught him watching her. On the other side of her, the world rushed past. Her truck roared around them.

  “Nothing.” He wasn’t about to tell her his fears. He wouldn’t let Cordelia win.

  The Lodge appeared through the trees ahead. It glowed in the night, the porch strung with tiny lights and the massive glass windows of the bar glowing in the night. Beyond it, the mountains lurked like dark sentinels.

  Even without his soul, Javier could tell why he’d come here. Fangway was beautiful. If it weren’t for the hunters squatting in the valleys, it would have had a massive pack. There was space to roam free, space no human would ever find them.

  He let himself imagine, only for a moment, presiding over such a pack. He didn’t need a hundred or more shifters answering to him like his father needed. Javier felt as though he would have been happy with only a handful of people.

  A family, he realized.

  It was a nice idea, but it was only that. The idea fluttered through his mind like an untethered bird. It was there and then gone. Nothing, no hunger or desire, held it in place long enough for him to care. He knew it should have made him ache. He should have felt the resounding echo of the emptiness, but instead he just reached for Nora’s hand.

  Touching her brought a flare of fire through him. He raised her hand to his lips and laid a gentle kiss there. Was this, too, a machination of Cordelia? Or, was it the truth of the universe?

  His mate.

  Nora tried to hold his gaze, to stretch the moment into something that mattered, but Javier shoved his door open. He wasn’t sure what he felt, if anything at all. The night greeted him, easier to understand than the bond that tied him to the human woman. It was cool against his skin. The skies opened above, infinite as the stars twinkled.

  Nora stood near the front of the truck. There was a look of indecisiveness on her face, pulling it downward. Javier cursed himself. Already, he was letting her down. He should have been trying. He could pretend, for one night, that Nora was honest. He could pretend, for the both of them, that he trusted her.