Page 67 of Wild Wolf

“Max,” Rosalie said in a warning tone, something in the way she spoke to him saying she knew him already. “Let us go.”

“Dad said…” Max shook his head, staring at me, then looking to Tiberius. “Some crazy shit, that’s what he said.”

“He is your brother,” Tiberius growled. “And until I work out what to do with him, he will need an escort.”

“Oo la la,” I sang. “What does that mean?”

Tiberius shoved Max toward me, his mouth moving as he murmured some spell and his hands flicked as he cast it quickly. A glowing white cuff appeared around my right wrist and Max’s left and I felt the sudden need to stay with him no matter what.

“You cannot go anywhere without Max,” Tiberius announced. “And Max, you will have to stay with Sin until I summon you.”

“What?” he balked. “You can’t do that.”

“I already have,” Tiberius said firmly, then marched to a desk and yanked a drawer open. He took out a pouch of stardust and tossed it to Rosalie. “Go wherever you need to go. And do not get yourselves caught while I figure out how to handle this.” He twisted his hand again and I felt the anti-stardust wards fall around us, allowing us to leave.

“We won’t come back,” Rosalie swore.

“You might not. But Sin won’t have a choice,” Tiberius said and I smiled big at him. Aw, he missed me already.

“See you soon, Dad,” I purred, then I leapt on Max, kissing his cheek, and he shoved me back in alarm. “You and me are going to be best, best friends by the time he summons us.”

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Filling in one of the most powerful Fae in the country about our less than legal enterprises and the pure carnage which had led us to this point had been something of a force of will. I knew Max least of the former Heirs - though perhaps that was for the best as I had slept with two of the others and him being Sin’s brother could have been a whole lot more awkward if he’d been a part of that particular night of debauchery. But it also meant that it was a hell of a lot more difficult for me to guess how he might react to some of the more illegal details of our journey to this place, so I’d focused as much as possible on the heinous crimes Vard was responsible for.

To his credit, Max had listened patiently, looking every bit the well-groomed politician he’d been raised to become as he took in each fact, weighed and measured it and seemed to take notes despite not actually putting pen to paper or anything of the sort. But I got the feeling there wasn’t a single piece of the story which he hadn’t taken in in its entirety.

“So, obviously now there are two things left to achieve,” Max said once we’d finished regaling him with the details where we sat clustered around my Aunt Bianca’s dining table, a silencing bubble keeping the story between myself, Ethan, Roary, Cain, Sin and Max alone. I hadn’t even wanted Hastings here for it because I knew there were parts of this that he not only didn’t know but which would likely end up further scarring his more delicate mind if he was forced to endure the full details of them. He’d been distracted easily enough in the company of the pack after I’d reminded them once again of how gallantly he’d saved my life.

“Which are?” I asked, leaning back in my chair while Ethan and Roary leaned forward on either side of me, tension spiking around us as we awaited this assessment.

“We need to get Roary’s Lion back then kill Vard, Benjamin Acrux and any other motherfucker who knows about this shit. Every piece of research, every scrap of evidence that anyone ever did about Order extraction and exchanging needs to be eliminated. The idea of this getting out into the hands of any evil bastard who might want to take advantage of it is completely unacceptable.”

The entire room seemed to exhale, tension sweeping out the open windows and billowing away across the vineyards beyond as if snatched on the hands of the wind itself.

Ethan grinned darkly, leaning back and slinging his arm around my chair while Roary sagged forward in what was clearly a mixture of relief and fear. Because we might all be agreed on the fact that we had to reclaim his Lion, but we were all too aware that returning it to him might not be simple - if it was even possible at all.

“Can you get the FIB off of our backs, brother?” Sin asked from where he was sitting on the counter beside the window, his feet in the sink, three lemons bobbing about his ankles in the water he’d run to soak them in. His new pet Crow-thing was fluttering about in there too taking a bath.

Max tensed at the fraternal pet name, glancing at Sin and then back to me like he didn’t even know where to begin unearthing that can of worms. Hell, I didn’t know either. He was a grown man who had thought himself to have no brothers until a few hours ago but was now being told that not only did he have one, but that he had an older brother, the ramifications of which would have been truly world-shattering a few chaotic years ago, but now…

Well, between the way Solaria was currently being ruled and the fact that I couldn’t think of a single person less suited to leadership on a grand scale than Sin Wilder, I wasn’t sure it made a difference at all. At least not in the wider sense of the word. But for the two of them? Sin had been alone his entire life, abandoned by his mother, hating and resenting both her and whatever stranger had sired him, only to find out that the man who shared his blood never would have given him up had he known about him and that his mother too had been robbed of the chance to love and raise him – or even remember him while she lived. Not only that, but the woman responsible for tearing him away from the family he should have rightfully claimed was long past the point of revenge, her life having been thoroughly destroyed in the events of the war which had played out while he was incarcerated far beneath the ground.

Max blew out a low breath. “Let me make some calls. I can lay a false trail, have the FIB hunting the four of you elsewhere. Everyone thinks you’re dead already anyway,” he added, bobbing his chin at Cain who blinked in surprise.

“Dead?” he questioned.

“Sure,” Max said. “You and that Jack Hastings guy I saw chasing a couple of Wolves up the stairs when I arrived. The FIB spoke out about it last night claiming the likelihood was that the two of you had been murdered once you were no longer needed as hostages for the escape. It’s the most likely scenario I suppose – I doubt they’d ever guess that you’d actually fallen for an inmate and helped her esca-”

“I didn’t help with shit,” Cain growled. “I just…couldn’t let her die.”

I met his ruinous gaze while that declaration sat between us all like a bloody heart laid bare on the table, an offering if ever he’d give one.

“And I’m grateful for that,” Roary said roughly.

Max cleared his throat then swept a hand over his face. “This is fucking messy,” he grunted.

“Messy is my favourite flavour, little bro,” Sin put in and I snorted.

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