The sun was starting to set again. She should have been on her way to the station to finish her paperwork. Cordelia had been arrested with Nora’s help. Theo was laying low in Rhylan’s Lodge room, under Rhylan’s watchful eye. He didn’t seem to mind having the raccoon shifter for the most part.
Sydney had been slightly surprised to find a raccoon shifter. To her, it was an odd shape to take, but who was she to question someone’s beast?
“Syd?”
Her heart jumped into her mouth. She staggered forward, as if afraid she’d heard things.
Jax’s eyes cracked open. He coughed and swallowed before shoving himself into a sitting position. He grimaced, the healing most likely not finished. Sydney crawled onto the bed, folding herself around his body. He closed his arms around her and hugged her tight. Another cough shook its way through him. Worry tightened her chest.
“What the hell happened?” he croaked, voice hoarse from sleep.
“Well, you abandoned your mission and left Rhylan alone in the barn. And you ran to my rescue.”
He smiled, soft and sweet as he reached for her. His hand ran down her shoulder. She ached to feel it on her skin, but she would have to leave the jacket on for now. If she took it off, she would never leave the room.
“Luckily for you, Rhylan was an emergency room doctor before he was attacked.” Lucky for her, too.
Rhylan had directed them all out of the house. He’d taken Jax from her arms and promised he would be safe. She had to take Cordelia to the station after she’d been cuffed. If she didn’t, she would lose her job. If she didn’t follow Rhylan, she’d been afraid she’d lose her mate.
Even though everything in her had begged her to stay by Jax’s side, Rhylan’s promise had pushed her down the right path.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” he groaned. “Wait, Rhylan is a doctor? What kind of doctor has the name Rhylan?”
She let out a choked laugh. It fought its way through her sob and came out strangled. “You got shot in the head with silver, and that’s what you ask?”
She hugged him close. He pulled her even tighter as if they could melt together and never find themselves apart again. He let out a sigh, one that shook through him and made him feel deflated in her arms. The healing process would take a while. Not as long as if he’d been human, but it would take longer than they’d both like.
“This isn’t over,” he whispered into her skin. “Cordelia wasn’t the only hunter. They have more shifters. We can’t get all of them. Not if it ends like this each time.”
“We’ll save them,” Sydney declared.
His fingers drifted beneath her jacket, in search of bare skin. They found her arm, warm and soft. She let her eyes drift closed and leaned into his touch. A small groan escaped her lips. She should have backed away, should have closed her jacket, but she didn’t.
Their love-making was soft and tender. She stayed on top, careful of his wounds and aching body. Tears dripped down her cheeks, relief that he was still alive. The rocking of her hips was slow and luxurious as if she might drown in him for the rest of her life. She would happily linger there forever.
Just as they finished, and she collapsed onto the bed beside him, there was a pounding on the door.
“I can’t deal with this raccoon in my Lodge room any longer. He’s destroying everything. Absolutely everything!”
Jax laughed. The sound vibrated through her body. “You’re a doctor. You can afford it!”
RHYLAN
Emilia Hartley
Chapter One
Thalia clutched the folded sheets close to her chest while her supervisor went off about a mis-tucked bed. Her mind was elsewhere, though. She cared little about tucking perfect corners or emptying mini-fridges. Not when her brother was still missing.
All her life, he’d been the force that she relied on. He was a massive man. Other men looked at him and thought twice about messing with her. Since he’d disappeared, there’d been moments she wanted to share with him only to realize he wasn’t there. It was like walking on uneven legs, each step in this new world a jolting reminder that she was alone.
Sighing, she straightened, turning to peer out the sliding glass doors that faced the field behind the lodge. Her eyes roved over the towering treetops, evergreen peaks reaching to scrape the sky like fingers. Beyond that, the Blueridge mountains rolled over the land, majestic and unwavering. Somewhere in those mountains, her brother waited.
She just knew it.
“Why can’t you do a simple task correctly? Are you even listening to me?”
Thalia’s attention snapped back to the supervisor, a severe looking woman with beady eyes. Her cheeks were red, and her lips pressed into a thin line. All Thalia could do was nod. It wasn’t like she’d been listening.
“Oh, um, you’re right. I’ll try harder next time.” Her fingers tightened on the sheets. Thalia pulled in a breath, held it.
She really did need to straighten up. This job working as a maid for the Sunrise Peak Lodge was what enabled her to stay in Fangway and search for her brother. Without it, without this income, she was on her way back home.
The thought made her throat tighten and her breathing difficult. She couldn’t go home. Not yet. Not without her brother.
Slowly, she let out the breath she’d been holding. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. Her supervisor eyed her suspiciously, as if she were looking for a reason to fire Thalia. In the end, the supervisor only jerked her head toward the next room and told her to get on with it.
Thalia didn’t dare speak. She ducked her head and pushed past the supervisor. Footsteps behind her told her the supervisor moved on. The tension between her shoulder blades relaxed, and she swiped the card that gave her access to all the rooms, shouldering the door open just as it beeped.
“Oh, hello.” A bronze skinned man stood on the other side of the bed, water glistening on his muscled frame. One hand gripped the towel that lazily clung to his hips, threatening to fall away altogether.
Thalia’s spine went ramrod straight. Her cheeks warmed. “I didn’t know. I didn’t knock. I’m so sorry.”
She spun away from the room, face burning with embarrassment. Why hadn’t she knocked? Why wasn’t she thinking?
“Hey!” he shouted after her. “Wait a moment!”
Before Thalia could duck out of the room, a hand touched her shoulder. It was gentle, at first. She didn’t turn around to face him, but she hung her head.
“Sir, I’m very sorry for my intrusion. Please don’t tell my supervisor.” She hated the desperation that made her voice crack. It was weak, and she hated what she’d become.
Her time in Fangway, each moment this close yet so far from finding her brother, had worn her down. Her days were filled with cheap noodle cups and dirty lodge rooms, leaving her drained. She needed to find him, soon.
Thalia dared a glance at the bronze skinned man. His brown eyes were wide and earnest, and maybe even a little surprised. His nostrils flared, startling Thalia. Her stomach flipped. Could it be? Another shifter? No, there was no pack in this little town. She’d searched high and low for an Alpha to help her, but came up with nothing. This man wasn’t a shifter.
“Look, sir. I already said I’m sorry. I’ll come back when you’re not here and change your sheets. If there’s nothing else I can do for you, I need to move on to my next room. They time me, you know.”
He said nothing, seemingly dumbstruck.
Thalia swallowed the growl that crept into her throat. It was rude to growl at guests, even if they were stupid and wasting her time. She yanked her shoulder out from beneath his grasp and moved on to the next room, reminding herself to knock this time.
“Hey! Wait!” He jogged along the porch to catch up to her.
Her jaw clenched. What did she have to do to make him go away? She rolled her eyes and glared at him until she remembered he was mostly naked. The towel bounced and dipped as he moved, threatening to fly away in th
e mountain wind. It made her cheeks flush and her stomach flutter.
It made her hate herself. This was not only a guest, but an annoying one at that, crawling into her thoughts and pulling them toward himself. He shouldn’t have this kind effect on her. Her eyes shouldn’t be drawn to the V carved into his lower abdomen by muscle. She shouldn’t find herself stealing glances at the shape of his hands or wondering what they would feel like on her hips as he pulled her close.
She shook her head, dispelling the daydream that had claimed her mind.
“Sir, I need to get back to work.”
“I just want to talk,” he said, sauntering closer.
She inched away from him, the card in her hand. She was moments away from swiping it and ducking into the next room just to hide from him.
“I don’t meet…” His voice lowered. “It’s not every day that I meet another shifter.”
Her heart stuttered. Her head shot up and the card slipped from her fingers. Cautious, she scented the air. He did, indeed, smell like fur and wilderness. It was an almost intoxicating scent. How long had she been away from family? How much did her animal ache for the touch of another?
Her brows slammed together, and she bent to retrieve the fallen key-card. This wasn’t a distraction she could afford to have. Thalia had already wasted too much time on her mission. She was sure it was almost up. “That doesn’t mean I owe you anything.”
She swiped the key card, shoving the door open.
The man lunged forward, catching her. He spun her so that her back was pressed against the door frame. She let out a soft snarl, her body betraying her mind as it pulled her closer to the mostly naked man.
“Is there any way we can talk later? There’s a bar in the lounge. Maybe I could buy you a drink.” The shifter leaned in, taking up her space.
Her wolf rebelled, reminded of what waited for them back home. She did not want to trade one selfish and arrogant shifter for another.
“If you don’t get your hands off me I will rip them off and blame the mountain lions.” Her voice was dead flat. He was a threat to her mission. She could see that now. She didn’t know what he was doing in Fangway or what he wanted from her, but the longer she let him hover, the further her mission drifted away.
“A drink. That’s all I’m asking.”
She was sick of this. He pressed and pulled her. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. So, she leaned into him with a false smile His brows rose in pleasant surprise. A smile touched the corners of his mouth. He was a pretty man, all gleaming skin and finely carved lines.
But, she had no time for him.
Her knee jerked into his groin. His pretty face twisted in pain and he doubled over. While he struggled with the pain, she slipped into the empty Lodge room and shut the door behind her.
Her heart hammered a furious beat. What had she just done? She leaned against the door, her head falling back as she offered up a prayer that no one had seen.
***
Rhylan nursed his hurt pride.
And his aching groin.
He clutched the nearby wall, still cringing as the pain receded. The shifter woman had disappeared into the Lodge room and there was no way for him to follow like the beast inside him demanded.
If anything, he deserved what she’d done. The maid had made it clear she wasn’t interested. So, he lifted his head, swallowed his pride, and hobbled back to his Lodge room. The woman’s scent still drifted through the air. She smelled unlike anything he’d ever known. It had been intoxicating and alluring, pulling him along behind her by an invisible cord. He’d been unable to deny it, unable to think straight.
Pausing before his own door, he glanced toward the room she’d disappeared into. He wanted to see her again. He craved it, a feeling that bothered him. He should have been able to shake his head and dispel her from his mind, but she gripped him tight, scowl and all.
But, he couldn’t stand on his doorstep in nothing more than a towel all day. He shoved the door open and went in search of clothing. His phone sat on the edge of the bed, flashing with missed calls. His stomach dropped, hands suddenly fumbling with the shirt he’d picked up.
One of these days he was going to have to call them back. He was going to have to offer them some sort of explanation. But, how did he explain to his family, to his co-workers, that he’d been attacked by a rabid shifter while on the job and he was now struggling with the fact that he, too, was now a shifter. There was a creature lurking inside of him with a voice and urges all its own. He didn’t understand how to balance his life, how to deal with the sudden sharpening of his senses, or the urges that drove him.
Like the urge to stalk the maid that had accidentally burst into his room. The beast had told him to drop his towel. Drop it and watch her drool with need. But, he hadn’t. It was unkind to flash innocent women like that. He’d managed to shove the beast back and silence it’s strange voice.
After tugging a shirt over his head, Rhylan dropped onto the bed. He grabbed his phone and sifted through the missed calls and messages. His mother wanted to know where he’d gone. She worried far more than she needed to. What could he tell her? That he’d been transformed into a powerful supernatural beast? He was sure she’d still love him all the same, but it wasn’t a subject he was prepared to bring up.
His boss wanted to know when he could expect Rhylan back in the ER. His stomach turned when he thought of all that blood and anguish. The beast writhed inside him. It howled at the thought, flashing sharp teeth in its desire to fight.
To protect.
The phone dropped to the bed and bounced away as he slapped his hands over his face. They dragged over skin while he fought back the beast. He’d been able to save Jax, putting aside the beast’s response to blood, but he was worried he wouldn’t be able to in the Emergency Room. It would be too much. There would be pain and anguish in the air, setting the beast on edge. He wouldn’t be able to control the creature when blood erupted, when a patient’s scream split the air.
His chest burned. His body ached with the fight. The creature told him to let go of it all. It told him their only concern was the shifter woman who’d escaped them. He sighed and let his hands fall away.
Rhylan’s life was gone, slipping out from between his fingers with each passing second. What it’d been it would never be again. He didn’t know what it would become. All he could do was drag out this time, this limbo he’d sentenced himself to.
Someone pounded on his door. His heart leapt, thinking for a moment that it was the pretty shifter maid. It sank back where it belonged when he caught Jax’s scent. Rhylan rolled off the bed, straightening his hair and tucking his tumultuous emotions back where they belonged before answering the door.
The big, black man leaned against the support beam outside. His mate, Sydney, a local cop who’d been attacked and changed recently, paced near the tailgate of her SUV. She needed to shift again, Rhylan realized. The woman had far too much energy. He didn’t even change as much as she did when he was first changed.
That or…
“What’s wrong now?” Rhylan whispered.
Jax’s lips pressed into a thin line as he glanced back at his mate. “Cordelia posted bail this morning.”
Nora slid out of the SUV, her red hair flowing like the flames of her barely suppressed fury as she slammed the door behind her. She pounded the ground with each step, fury rolling off her in waves. If she’d been a shifter, she would have been a force of nature. No one quite understood why she was on their side. No one other than Sydney quite trusted her.
After what Rhylan had seen in that barn, he wasn’t about to give the red-head any of his trust. He’d helped Jax and Sydney rescue some of the shifters her family had kidnapped, freeing them from the cages that were slowly killing them. Nora’s family swore to wipe the shifters from the face of the earth. Her own mother used them like batteries for her magic, draining them soul by soul. The place had been a graveyard. Unlike the blood-strewn chaos of an emergenc
y room, the barn had been filled with a quiet resignation. It’d been as if Death itself waited at the front gate and everyone had come to terms with it.
All but one shifter.
The beast
He’d heard the creature’s howls. They still haunted his dreams some nights. It was a sound unlike anything he’d heard before, one that defied the presence of Death in the barn. It was that howl that promised vengeance upon Death.
“You there?” Jax snapped his fingers in front of Rhylan’s face.
He shook his head and flashed a wide smile to hide the memory. Jax had been there, too. He’d heard the howls. How did they not haunt him? How did the whole experience not haunt him? They’d only rescued one shifter, Theo. There’d been so many more trapped there. They’d failed them all.
Was it the part of Rhylan that’d become a doctor that demanded he rescue the rest? Was there some sort of savior complex lurking beneath his skin? Or, was it the need to be a good person?
“I’m fine,” he managed to say.
The smell of the female shifter drifted back to him. His head spun when the door opened, and she appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were wide, strands of dark hair drifting about her pink cheeks. Her feet inched back as if she might slam the door shut.
Rhylan didn’t move. He didn’t dare break the moment, trying to take in as much of her as possible. Her chocolate eyes scanned the people milling about, drifting over Jax and Sydney. Her nostrils twitched.
The maid slowly closed the door behind her, eyes dragging across the shifters until she finally broke away and dropped her head. Rhylan wanted to run up to her, but his body also remembered the pain of what she’d done at the same time. The throb burst through his lower abdomen and made his stomach churn.
“What are we going to do about Cordelia?” Rhylan whispered, his eyes still on the shifter woman slinking away from them.
Outcast Box Set Page 56