Chapter 52
MAXIM POV
“I’m here. Sorry, I went to find Tessa,” keeping my new favourite name for her to myself. The royal family, minus Hazel, is stood about glumly.
“Oh,” Luna Sabina offers. Her voice is all calm, her face serene again.
Alpha Hale grunts, adjusting his thick gold plated chain. “There’s going to be discontent. People don’t like to see the truth pointed out to them. So I want you sticking around.”
Remy looks at me, mortification plain across his face. Am I meant to babysit a man larger than myself? A rhan who has passed all the infantry training already?
“Where did Hazel go?” I check only for Luna Sabrina to shoot me a warning look. Shit. I’m not just babysitting Permy, I’m juggling a messed–up family. And I don’t even want to. I want to be with her.
“She wants some space. Let’s get out of here,” Luna Sabrina says, her hand reaching for its usual space, alongside Alpha Hale’s forearm, where he has always led and guided her. But he flinches away. She tries to pretend she just intended to stroke him in comfort.
“Come on,” Remy grunts. I follow, walking by his side.
“Pretty sure you’re meant to be behind me,” he snaps as we stride down the dark tunnel back to the packhouse.
“Pretty sure I can’t protect you from ten paces behind,” I grumble.
“Pretty sure I don’t need you to guard me anyway.”
“Agreed. But if we appear as friends, it is less obvious the Alpha has chosen me to be your glorified babysitter.”
Remy looks at me, his eyes narrowing. “Friends?”
“Or whatever,” I shrug, climbing the steep stairs, looking forward to fresh air and space. It is in these moments fooling around with Princess Hazel feels like a monumental fuck–up.
“I don’t know why Hazel still likes you. After everything you did.”
My jaw clenched tightly. I wouldn’t talk like this to Alpha Hale, but fuck. “I didn’t hurt her. I didn’t break her heart. We had a good time and it ended. Hazel is a big girl. She knows what she’s doing. You know how it goes.”
“No. Because unlike you and my sister I respect the Goddess. I’ll be Alpha one day, I can’t go rutting every pretty girl who bats her eyes at me.”
“Well that’s very gentlemanly of you, lucky for me I’m just a nobody.”
“Not anymore,” Remy reminds me. “You need to watch out for the Wardens now. They’ll pick over you like vultures. Wanting you to join a side.”
“Aren’t they all on the Alpha’s side?”
“Don’t be a prick Maxim.”
We emerge out into the evening. Made darker by the ominous gray clouds. Remy turns and it looks like I’m heading to eat with him. What a lovely little date this will be. What I want to do is find Silas and Kai. Check how they are doing. I noticed Silas’s little glances at Irene here and there, but put it down to pitying her position.
“Well that side–picking shit didn’t exactly work out for Donlon did it?”
“You liked him though?”
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Before all this happened? Yeah I thought the world of him. Marshall always chawed me out, Donlon always taveit the say that has brow my feel the years in a nutshell”
“Same, Remy added, a small sigh escaping. “But you know, when my father let
me
look at the minutes of his meetings, the opposita was happen
“Well he told me to reject Tessa,” grimacing at the memory, “He told me he was trying to get the Alpha to see me in a better light_fucke
“He told my father I needed to be flogged. By Marshall. In public. To make me humble.”
My eyes widen just as we step into the bustling hall. Everyone pauses. It’s only for a second but it’s a quick reminder that it is not normat to wander about with a royal pricne dressed in bright white. “What the hell?”
“Yeah. But he was telling me every day how much I disappointed my father. Donlon swore he was putting in the good word for me. Devious little facker. He should have gone just overboard for that. Then what he did to my mother, it would have died with him,” his tone hushed by the swelling crowd.
We eat in silence. But I think we’ll be okay. We won’t ever be friends but we’ve been damaged the same way. Neither of us trust any man. There is an understanding. It is swifty becoming clear in the dining hall, Remy might actually need someone watching his back. The usual cliques and groups are muttering in darker tones. Remy eats silently. Quickly.
“You know what. I’m done. Going to head back.”
Speedily finishing my own plate, I spy Silas and Kai, staring at my black shirted chest. No doubt making jokes about how i must have stolen it.
“Where do I find you tomorrow?” I ask Remy as he prepares to climb the tower steps. “Otherwise it looks like I’m trying to fucking date you. Knocking on doors asking if you’re allowed to come out?”
Remy rolls his eyes. “Come to my mothers parlour. I’ll get my father to enable a mind link. It’s time I started having my own anyway. This can be the
start.”
“Fun,” I remark drily. Having a mindlink established is meant to feel like being hit by lightning. I use that phrase to describe how it feels when Tess bites me. Hopefully achieving the ability to receive silent communications from the Prince won’t leave me on the verge of exploding in my pants like when Tess’s soul connects to mine, for a brief, heart–stopping few seconds.
I don’t care that it’s not a real mate bite. Something fucking happens to me every time her teeth sink into my flesh that’s otherworldly.
Walking back, I stare up at the sky. The dark clouds and ominous and miserable. A perfect match for my black shirt and mood.
Away from the royal tower, but no doubt being watched by nosey wardens from all angles I lean against the black wall of the packhouse and close my
eyes.
Tess wants to leave. And I’ve got to be okay wtih it.
I get it. What she thought she had here is broken. She’s an outsider, it wouldn’t take much to shatter her trust in the system.
Whereas I know the outside world is worse. There is nothing for an exile. Nothing in the industrial zone I ran from. Ravenbow, for better or worse, is my
home.
More than anything, I want her to live. Well, to be accurate I want her to live a merry lie with me. I could make her happy. She is grieving now, but the smile will return. The gorgeous, beautiful woman I quietly, secretly hold every single night is on the brink of trusting me with her heart.
So I’m going to have to hope she sees the love behind helping her leave.
In the past, those abandoning their posts by heading over the mountains to exile have been caught pretty swiftly. Easily traced scents, predictable pat limited hiding places.
Her orange scent, as beautiful as it is, is going to be a bastard to conceal.
Heaving myself away from the wall I mooch along the gravel path lost in thought. A thought springs. Luna Sabrina’s scent vanished the night I saw her. Had Donlon put something else into his concoction?
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Chapter 52
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Fuck, I need to befriend a Healer. I’ve only got bitter ex–girlfriends who would happily sell me out. But then, her escape will be linked back to me when they can’t trace her. I’ll be implicated. Death awaits.
Maybe there is another way. There has to be another way.
Only to have my train of thought broken by bumping into Silas.
“Hey. Sorry. I’ve been meaning to catch up with you.” Silas roughly shoves my chest. I stumble backwards. “What the fuck?”
His long hair hanging past his shoulders, my friend has never resembled a lion more with the snarl across his face. “Nice shirt. How much did it cost you?”
Kai stands next to him. His babyface twisted up in anger. And Briggs. The big ape, hiding behind soft shaggy black locks, is a man who. Tess thinks considers a lovable lump, I think he’s a potential nutjob.
But right now, the three of them glare at me with pure outrage. Silas growls, “Did you give them Irene?”
“Hang on! No! Of course that’s not what happened. She was my friend too.”
Silas just stares at me, unmoving. “No, you weren’t friends.”
“Fine she was more Tessa’s friend, but I would never have seen her hurt like that!”
“We all know how badly you wanted that promotion,” Silas says shaking his head.
“Tell us then,” Kai snaps. “Tell us just what you did to make today the day?”
“You know! can’t go into it. I never asked for this!”
Kai continues. “You were hanging on to your position by a thread and now, you’ve leapfrogged everyone else in a blue shirt?”
“It’s just what it is. Alpha Hale made the decision on the spot.”
“Did you sell out Irene?” Silas growls out again.
“No! I reported Isaac for hurting her. To Princess Hazel. Nothing more.”
“Did you sell out Donlon then?” Kai interrupts. I’m getting annoyed now.
“Why, you missing him and his batshit promises?”
“He cared about us!” Kai shouts into the howling wind.
“No he didn’t! Alpha Hale was right, he used us all!”
My temper is beginning to fray. My fists are curled, my stance tense. The night is drawing in, a storm brewing above our heads. This is bullshit. What happened to Luna Sabrina can never be public knowledge. Donlon’s death needs to just disappear down the channel of time and be forgotten about as swiftly as possible.
“So it must have been climbing back into Hazel’s bed that got you the recommendation?” Briggs suggests like the whinging little bitch he is. Without hesitation I swing for him, my fist taking out his jaw with a satisfying crunch. “Fuck you!”
“Fuck me? You deserve nothing!” Briggs slurs back, before I launch another at him. A fistfight unfurls. It is soon clear I’m fighting three against one. Kai and Silas are not on my side. In their eyes I must have sold out Irene. Or sold out the beloved Warden who shaped us into the men we are today.
Either way, they’re determined to beat the hell out of me.
A black shirt is costing me everything, including my bone structure. Punches rain down and despite my best efforts I’m soon on the floor taking kicks from every angle. My nose takes one mighty crack.
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Briggs‘ boots carry the most heft, make the most painful impact. While Silas’s face is screwed up in sorrow, Kai youthful, edgy cheekbones exude confused anger. Briggs is one of outright hate. He hates me. He hates that Tess is mine. His boot lifts up, ready to finish me for good.
But then I smell orange. I look around, and attempt to shift into wolf form. But Briggs lands another blow sending me flat onto my back. Before he can stamp down on my chest three thudding sounds. Briggs makes a gurgling noise and falls to the floor, Shining brass handles sticking out of his right shoulder, thigh and calf.
“MAXIM!” Tess and Allette scream together, the pair pushing Kai and Silas away. Her soft hands hold my face just as the wooziness takes over.
