The Aberrants Box Set (Books 1-5)

by Sarah J. Stone

  “I think I might need a couple stitches…” He wheezed.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. I’m sure at least one of these guys has some first aid training.” Then again… maybe not. Often times, Shifters healed so quickly that there wasn’t much medical intervention needed beyond some sterilization to make sure germs weren’t buried below the skin and trapped within the body. Sepsis was a nasty thing, after all, even to those blessed with animal spirits.

  “Hey, shouldn’t you be fighting?”

  “The Hunters can handle the rest. Come on, I’m getting you away from here.”

  “I… I don’t think it’s good to move me right now.”

  He was right. Blood was gushing up generously from his wound. If she wanted to take him anywhere, she needed something to stop the bleeding. Or at least slow it.

  Thinking quickly, she took off her shirt, pressing it firmly over the wound. David winced, but there weren’t any organs for her to shove back into his body, so that was a positive.

  “Can you hold this here, babe?”

  “I… I think so.”

  Although they were shaking, his tanned hands pressed the synthetic fabric to his middle. Carefully, Jaelle slid her own arms under him, lifting him up. It wasn’t that his weight was particularly hard to manage, but he was much taller than her and she didn’t want to jostle him about.

  Somehow, she managed without losing her balance, and slowly made her way away from the fight. Occasionally, she glanced behind her to make sure she was safe, and sure enough, the Hunters were wiping the floor with what little remained of La Fuerza.

  After getting far enough ahead, she changed their direction, heading back toward the cars that hadn’t been involved in a gang-fight. It was slow progress, and mildly excruciating -more for David than for her, of course.

  To his credit, the farmhand didn’t mutter even one complaint. Sure, he occasionally let out a groan when she miss-stepped, or nearly rolled her ankle on a stump, but not a single word escaped from his lips. Lips that were increasingly losing color, which worried her to no end.

  But he would be fine. David had lived through being gored by a bull and run over by a tractor when he stole his dad’s whisky and went joy riding in one of his uncle’s fields. David was a good person, and that meant that he would get through this and be back to his grinning, loving self in no time…

  Right?

  Chapter Ten: Having a Cake and Eating it, Too

  Jaelle didn’t pay much attention to how long it took the Hunters to get back from the fray. Instead she was busy focusing on keeping David hydrated and tending to his wounds.

  She had him laid out on one of the mattresses in Bradley’s jeep, first aid kits and other supplies strewn around them. At first, she had been too terrified to give him anything, lest she cause some sort of terrible infection or complication due to some sort of abdominal perforation, but after a few moments of sniffing, she couldn’t detect any sort of rupture.

  She guessed she was lucky that stomach acid, gall bladder bile, and even waste from intestines all had very distinct scents. She made sure to constantly keep those in the back of her head so should one of those organs decide to take a nosedive, she could identify it immediately. Granted, she had no idea how to really stop those problems once they arose, but she hopefully wouldn’t have to deal with that.

  “Get the wounded in one of the truck beds. We’ll make sure everyone’s all set before we keep going.” Bradley’s voice was hard as they approached, full of masculinity and command. It was easy to see why he was their leader, but she wasn’t exactly in the mood to appreciate that.

  But the moment he crouched next to her, his voice softened and he was back to that charming guy who tried to hit on her back in Braywire. “Hey, we okay over here?”

  “Peachy,” David wheezed, smiling rather wanly at the both of them.

  “Glad to see your sense of humor wasn’t damaged. What’s the verdict, Jaelle?”

  “He’s got a belly wound, but I don’t think any organs have been pierced. Also, a bite in his shoulder, but I haven’t given it attention yet as its definitely not a priority.”

  “Actually, we should probably take care of that right away. Here, let me help while you keep working on his middle.”

  “It’s fine,” David said, waving the leader away. “Jaelle knows what she’s talking about.”

  “For a Shifter, yeah,” Bradley said, grabbing a first air kit and walking around to the shoulder in question. “But you’re not a Shifter.” He pulled out some rubbing alcohol and offered David a roll of gauze. “Humans are very susceptible to fight-bite. We’ve got a host of germs in our mouths – especially in half-shift – and they can cause a very nasty infection.”

  “Oh, I, uh, I didn’t know that.”

  “No worries. I figured you probably didn’t have much of a chance to learn human first aid growing up. I pick stuff up here and there considering my line of work.” He pushed the gauze toward David again. “This is for you to bite down on. This bite’s pretty deep and this alcohol is going to sting.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Bradley shrugged. “Suit yourself, but I smell blood in your mouth so that means you already either bit your tongue once, or took a nice punch to the teeth that made your gums very unhappy. Might do you some good to baby them, as manly as I’m sure you are.”

  David was silent a moment before acquiescing. “Fine. I probably shouldn’t be gritting them for a while.”

  “No, you definitely should not until you get a chance to give ‘em a rest. Open wide.”

  Her lover gave Jaelle a look, but she nodded encouragingly. As much as their might have been tensions between David and Bradley before, she was incredibly relieved that the bear Shifter was being so helpful now.

  “All right, I’m going to give you a count. Jaelle, I’ll need you to take your hands off his belly for a couple seconds.”

  She did as he asked, her eyes conveying him just how important the man on the mattress was to her. For her entire life, she had never really been close to anyone, and what few relationships she had were either complete lies or out of convenience. Even just a few months ago, she had only considered David a boy-toy. One of the many things in her life that was there to keep her from being bored, but she wouldn’t be heartbroken without him.

  But then… he had come after her. He had given up everything to jump face first into an impossible world and he had never once looked back. Then, after the fates had seen fit to separate them once more, he had found her again. Despite everything, he loved her. Truly loved her as no one had since her mother.

  He was the most important person in her entire world, and she needed Bradley to know that.

  “Ready?” the leader asked, placing a supportive hand at the top of David’s hand.

  “Ready.”

  “Good. One, tw-”

  Then he was pouring the alcohol over the wound. In the back of her mind, Jaelle knew exactly why: it prevented David from being overly tensed and creating more damage to his issues, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

  “What the hell!” he snapped, wincing away. But Bradley held him still until his body relaxed then reached into the first aid kit for something else. He pulled out what almost looked like a tampon packet, before opening it to reveal a medical-grade cotton bud.

  “Sorry about that. Old warrior trick. Promise I won’t do it again. I’m going to clean the wound a little more thoroughly now. This has a bit of a numbing agent, so that should kick in soon.”

  “Thanks for the warning. Get on with it.”

  “Yessir, whatever you say.” He didn’t seem to take offense at David’s short tone and gently swabbed at the wound with a long cotton swab that looked like it was pre-doused in iodine. Now that most of the painful portion was done, Jaelle concerned herself with cleaning the much larger wound under her shirt that has still pressed to his middle. If cat-scratch fever was a thing that humans had to worry about, she was sure t
hat coyote-scratch was even worse. Plus, if the gang was like any of the ruffians or ne’er-do-wells she had run into during her early years, they might have poisoned their claws.

  Speaking of claw-poison, she needed to mix up a charcoal drink for David to drink pre-emptively. He wasn’t going to like it, but hey, he would probably like being poisoned even less.

  It was only as she reached into the first aid kit, digging around for any sort of charcoal packet, that she remembered that David hadn’t been the only one to take a blow for the situation. “How’re your men?”

  “They’ll make it. We had a couple of GSWs, but nothing vital. For being such dangerous gangsters, it seems La Fuerza is absolute shit with any sort of firearm.”

  “Speaking of which,” Jaelle said, her eyes on his piece. “Why weren’t you guys discharging any bullets?”

  “Too crowded and too much of a chance of us shooting each other. Once anyone starts in close quarters combat, guns are a big no go, and since Dannon and David started out right in the middle of the fight, we didn’t want to risk hitting them or the truck or anything else that was important.”

  “Then why even have the guns in the first place? Isn’t ninety percent of Shifter fighting hand to hand?”

  “You’re not wrong, but that other ten percent could definitely mean death, so we keep them on us, just in case.”

  “I suppose it’s better to have them and not need them rather than to need them and not have them.”

  “Exactly.”

  The conversation lulled with only David’s restrained breathing and the sound of other Hunters tending to each other to fill the silence. Once more, Jaelle’s whole mind was encompassed with concern for David. The good thing was that he seemed to be leveling out. Sure, his skin color was much grayer than she would have liked, and the tips of his lips were tinged in blue, but she could hear that his heart was regulating its rhythm and the bleeding was stopping.

  She shuddered for a minute at the thought that eventually she would eventually have to peel away her shirt that would no doubt be very solidly sealed to David’s wound, but that was a matter to deal with when she game to it.

  “Those were all new recruits, by the way,” she said, trying to distract herself from her thoughts that were rushing into a million directions of what could happen.

  “What, how could you possibly know that?”

  She gave him a wide-eyed look. “You mean you couldn’t tell?”

  “Tell what?”

  “I… did you really not see it?”

  “See what? You’re cute and all, but this is getting pretty annoying.”

  “The tattoos. I spotted the same one on at least three different guys.”

  “Yeah, that’s the La Fuerza mark. I don’t see how that told you they were newbies, though.”

  “The ink was still fresh and their skin was healing.”

  Jaelle looked over his head to see Dannon approaching. He was a little battered, but no worse for wear. “You noticed, too?”

  “Yeah. Helped me know which direction to punch in once the truck was stopped.” His face turned to Bradley although his eyes did not. “Did you see that I drove?”

  It was hard not to smile at the childlike enthusiasm of the normally fairly serious blind man. “Yes, I saw that you drove.”

  “It was pretty amazing.”

  “Yes, yes it was.”

  “Interesting that it took me forty years to figure out I’m not half bad.”

  “Hey,” David groaned from the mattress. “I did a lot of the work, too, ya know.”

  “True, true.” He laughed lightly. “I like this human guy, Bradley. We should keep him around for a while.”

  “You are keeping me around for a while.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jaelle couldn’t help but look to Bradley for confirmation. Would David be okay? Was this all her fault?

  But the leader of the Hunters kept his expression decidedly neutral, which frustrated Jaelle to no end.

  “We’ll spend a couple more hours here, give our boys a chance to heal up, then we’ll be on our way again. Javi, help me get David into the back of my Jeep and stabilize him for a while, Jaelle, you’re riding shotgun with me.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” she answered, sliding her hand into David’s now that she had done all that she could for the moment. Bradley gave her a bit of a nod, then stood and crossed to tend to his other men. Jaelle watched him, feeling as much admiration for him as she did fear for David. Even after so much time being hunted by him and his kind, she could still appreciate how much he took care of his men and just generally wanted to protect people. It was too bad that he believed that she was a threat. Who knows, maybe they would have been friends.

  But if she wasn’t an Aberrant, they probably never would have met, so it was a moot point.

  “What’cha thinking about?” David asked, squeezing her palm gently in his cool hand.

  “Nothing,” she said, gently running her fingers to her hair. “Just rest for a bit.”

  “Whatever you say,” he responded cheekily before dutifully closing his eyes.

  Jaelle watched him, listening to his breathing regulate before she felt it was safe enough to turn her attention away from him. These men around her were obviously a family. Forged together through fire and flame and the heat of battle. And perhaps it was a little ridiculous, but she was beginning to feel like she almost maybe, sorta, kinda fit in with them.

  But on the other hand, she knew that if they caught the mad Aberrant and she survived the mission, she wouldn’t be getting a happily ever after like everyone else. She couldn’t allow herself to forget that, no matter how nice it was to run with a pack.

  Because to them, she was no more than a monster.

  *

  “Hey, you ready to go?”

  Jaelle roused herself from her half-sleep, rubbing her eye to see Bradley looking down at her, water and a breakfast far in hand. A quick glance around told her that the sun had moved across the side and it was nearing twilight. Everyone was packing up, leaving just her and David to get ready.

  David!

  Her heart leapt into her throat and she turned her senses to him. She was infinitely grateful when she heard the slow and steady beating of his heart. It seemed, although she had somehow fallen asleep while sitting beside him, that he wasn’t any worse for wear.

  “We’ll help carry him into the car.”

  “I can do it myself,” Jaelle objected, struggling to her feet. Her legs were not happy, the uncomfortable, itchy tingles of them falling asleep making her feel like ants were crawling all over her lower half.

  “I’m sure you can under normal circumstances, but you’ve been nearly a half-dozen different bodies today. You’ve earned the rest.”

  “I mean… you have a point.” Somewhat reluctantly, she stepped to the side and allowed Bradley and three of his men to pick the entire mattress up. She was comforted by the fact that they seemed to be extremely cautious as they went along, Javi even rushing forward to open the Jeep door for them.

  A few minutes later and he was safely nestled across the entire backseat, supplies packed into the space underneath the mattresses and seatbelts tied to the edges of the travel bedding. Of course, Jaelle still double-checked to make sure everything was all set, and Bradley didn’t protest. Once she was absolutely sure David wouldn’t be unduly jostled, she gave an affirmative look to Bradley and then they were all piling into their cars and pulling off.

  It was so strange to think that just this morning they all had been unwounded and hopeful. She had thought it would take at least a week before they caught up with the Aberrant enough to have any real showdown, and even then, she had been sure David would have been safely away from the action.

  Funny how that had happened.

  “Hey, you okay over there?”

  Jaelle jerked herself from her thoughts, her gaze having been trained out the window as soon as they had started driving along. “What
was that?”

  “You okay? You look like you’re having some deep thoughts over there.”

  “Oh, you know, just pondering the consequences of my actions, considering I’m an Aberrant running around with a pack of Hunters who are sworn to kill me and I’ve got a human lover traveling along with us.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  She let out a dry laugh. “Sounds complicated? That’s the understatement of the year.”

  “I find it’s better not to think about the details of a situation. Can get overwhelming.’

  “Not thinking about the details can get yourself killed real fast when you have ten people sworn to instigate your murder.”

  He gave the ever so imperceptible wince. “I don’t know if murder is the right word for it.”

  “What else would you call killing someone just for being born.”

  “Come on, let’s not have this argument right now.”

  “Why not? My boyfriend is unconscious in the backseat and I’m feeling cranky.”

  “Fair enough.” He took his eyes off the road for a second and affixed her with one of his intense stares. “What’s got you preaching about Aberrant equality all of a sudden? You didn’t when we first chased you down. In fact, you seemed almost—”

  “Resigned?” she interrupted. “That’s because I didn’t believe I deserved anything other than a life on the run. I thought I was being selfish by just wanting to exist, that it was a definite that I would eventually lose my mind and end up a mindless murderer.”

  Bradley was quiet for a long moment, and she watched his face carefully. He too seemed to be thinking some ‘complicated thoughts’. “And your opinion on that has changed?”

  “Yeah. I meant what I said when you guys finally caught me, and even what I said to the Elder.”

  “About that… how did you find out about those studies? Your Aberrant friend?”

  “Again, not really my friend, would appreciate if you stopped saying that.”

  “I mean, you can’t deny that he’s basically saved your skin twice. He obviously thinks he has at least some sort of connection with you, so why be defensive about it?”