Maximus

His heart sounded like a drum as it thudded against his ribcage with increasing frequency. The farther Haley got away from him, the tighter wound he became. His nerves were fraying as he watched Reashallow touch her, and his soul bled from the wounds she’d been forced to inflict.

There’d been no time for her to tell him her plan. All he could do was trust her, and go along with her actions, playing whatever she needed him to. It didn’t matter how deep her words cut—and there was no doubt that they’d been sharp enough to reach his arteries—all that mattered was doing whatever he could to keep her safe. He would bleed literally or figuratively, spilling all of his blood, allowing his soul to be shredded and torn. Anything she needed he would give her, in this moment and forever more.

“So, how should we do this?” Reashallow asked blandly, the barrel of his gun moving from Maximus to Gavin and down the line of his brothers before making its way back to him. “Do you want to take the cowards’ way out, or will you all be gentlemen and slit the ladies’ throats yourselves?”

Maximus extended his arms wide to keep his brothers back as they moved forward slightly. He could tell they were confused by Haley’s actions, but he needed them to trust her. Whatever she was up to though, she’d better act soon, or else there would be no other choice.

“At least allow them to say their goodbyes,” he growled, ensuring he didn’t look at Haley when he said it.

A mocking smile replaced the stone-faced neutrality that he’d mostly worn until that point. “I suppose we can do that. But make it quick, I’m getting dreadfully bored. If it gets any worse, I might be forced to shoot someone.”

Maximus stiffened. Not at Reashallow’s words, but at what he’d seen out of the corner of his eye as he very carefully didn’t look in her direction. “The women are no threat to you,” he said, changing his tactics. “Let them go.”

“Oh, now you start to plead for their lives,” Reashallow said in annoyance. “No, I think we’ve stood around here just long enough.”

Maximus straightened. “You know what, I think you’re right.”

Reashallow swung his gun back to point at him. “Don’t get any ideas. I’ll blow your head off before you make it two steps.”

His face began to turn up, from neutral into a smile, and from a smile into a grin. “I doubt that.”

Reashallow’s eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch.

Maximus beamed.

“I’m not sure what’s gotten into you, Maximus, but I assure you, the three of us will gun you down where you stand. Your women,” he paused, his face turning up into a sneer, freezing Maximus’s blood as he did the one thing he didn’t want him to do, and looked over his shoulder at Haley. “What the—”

Maximus was already moving. His legs propelled him across the space in the blink of an eye. There was no time to waste. Reashallow began to spin, pulling his gun around as he reacted to the sight of Haley standing upright, arms extended to either side, six inches of steel in either hand as she stabbed home a pair of tranquilizer darts into the gunmen.

“You traitorous bitch!” Reashallow roared, completing his turn.

Haley’s eyes went wide and she tried to move out of the way. She was too slow though, he knew it. Reashallow was an excellent marksman. His shot would be on target. Unless someone could stop him. Maximus bellowed a challenge, but the leader of the Institute ignored him, bringing his gun up to point at Haley.

She screamed, her hands going over her face. Maximus jumped. Reashallow’s finger wrapped around the trigger. He laughed, knowing his shot was going to go home.

Maximus hit him at the same instant the gun went off. The noise was deafeningly loud, the pistol obviously of heavier caliber than most. Reashallow cried out as the much larger shifter took him at the waist. The pair went down, bouncing and rolling across the pavement of the parking lot. Reashallow’s hand hit against something and the gun went skittering away.

Maximus tried to stop the momentum, but Reashallow was quicker than he seemed, and managed to land on top of Maximus, slamming the shifter’s head into the concrete.

“Ow,” Maximus groaned woozily from the impact, his vision blurred. He tried to get up. It wouldn’t be hard to stop Reashallow. One blow would do it. Summoning up all the control he could get, he flung a fist at the human.

Reashallow saw it coming from a mile away and ducked under it. Then he drew a wickedly curved knife from somewhere and laid it across Maximus throat.

“Move and I will open you up so deep even you won’t recover.” His voice become harder than ice. “Trust me, I have plenty of practice knowing what it takes to kill your kind.”

Maximus struggled, but the blade pressed tighter, biting into his skin. He couldn’t even twist his head to see if Haley had survived now that his vision was clearing. His peripheral vision wasn’t picking up a body though, which he hoped was a good thing.

“Drop your guns!” Reashallow shouted, “and stay back!”

The rest of his family must have been trying to close. “I see any of you move, I slit his throat. Got it?”

There was a slow clattering as one gun after another slowly fell onto the pavement. Maximus frowned. There was something weird about it. The noises were evenly spaced apart, he realized. A measured beat between each clang as metal hit asphalt. It almost sounded like...footsteps? His eyes narrowed and he saw the realization dawning in Reashallow.

But it was too late.

Haley appeared over the top of Reashallow, her arm driving another dart deep into the man’s neck. He twitched, and the blade split Maximus’s skin. Warm blood flowed down his neck and he could smell the iron tang, but the pressure lessened.

Reashallow groaned once, and fell over.

“Maximus?” Haley cried, falling to her knees at his side, her hands pushing down on his neck, trying to stem the flow of blood.

His eyes opened wide and he pushed her hands away.

“No, no stop it,” she said frantically. “You have to let me stop the bleeding. I know it hurts, but you’re bleeding.”

Maximus’s eyes began to bulge and again he pushed her arms away.

“Dammit, I’m not letting you die!” she shouted at him, finding her grip on his neck once more.

“Haley,” he said, knocking her aside a bit more forcefully. She fell back, and he felt bad, but it had to be done. His lungs rose and fell heavily.

“You want to die?”

He shook his head. “What?” he rasped through his sore throat. “No. You were choking me! I couldn’t breathe.”

Her face froze, then she uttered the softest, littlest “Oh,” that he’d ever heard.

“It didn’t cut that deep,” he said, already feeling the flow of blood begin to slow. “It just looks bad. Like a head wound. They bleed like nobody’s business.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Hush,” he said. “It’s okay. It’s very much okay.” He fell back against the pavement as relief washed through his body, wiping out much of his energy reserves, taking with it stress he didn’t realize he’d been wearing. “It’s going to be okay,” he repeated wearily. Then he stiffened. “Are you okay? He shot you.”

Haley brushed him off. “He missed, thanks to your bravery,” she said, kissing him softly.

“My bravery? No no. You’re the brave, quick-thinking one who saved us all,” he said. “I’m mad as hell at you for taking such a risk, but there’s no denying that you saved the day.”

“I think you’ll get over it,” Haley said with a wink.

Maximus nodded. He knew when to pick a fight, and went not to. This was one of those times. The others approached, even Kean, who was holding his shoulder and looking like he was in a decent amount of pain.

“You look terrible,” Kean said, his face splitting into a grin.

“You look alive,” Maximus said with palpable relief.

“Yeah. It was a struggle, but I knew if I died that Madison would hunt me down and make my life miserable. It was easier to stay alive.”

His mate elbowed him gently on his unhurt side. “Damn right it’s easier to stay alive.”

“You know, I find it kind of amazing that we all made it out alive,” Gavin said thoughtfully. “Really, it should never have happened that way.”

“We got lucky,” Maximus agreed, sitting up, his neck having stopped bleeding. It would be a few more hours before the cut disappeared, but for now it was healed enough to move. “Extremely lucky,” he repeated, surveying the dead and unconscious around him.

“What do we do with him?” Kassian asked, indicating Reashallow.

“Good question,” Maximus said, looking up at Haley. The meaning behind his glance was clear: he would do whatever she wished. He’d made his desires to simply kill Reashallow and be done with it every clear. Haley knew that, and knew his fears that if they instead turned him over to the police, that he’d manage to avoid any sort of jail time and come after both the brothers and the rest of their kind once more, this time with a vengeance. Love trumped hate, however, and he was willing to let the man live if his mate demanded it of him.

“I…” Haley looked away.

He watched her shoulders rise and fall stiffly. Clearly the decision was weighing heavily on her. She knew what he wanted, and acknowledged that his fears were of a high probability of coming true. But she abhorred killing. Maximus grew angry at himself. Why did he go and put his mate into such a position? She didn’t deserve to have the final say in this man’s life. That was cruel of him.

Then an idea struck.

“Maybe we do neither,” he said, starting slowly, but speaking faster as the idea morphed and turned into something solid and feasible.

“What do you mean?” Haley asked, spinning around, immediately latching on to the possibility that there could be another way out.

“We want to go home,” he said honestly. “It’s been months since we’ve been back in Cadia. Friends, family, they need to know we’re still alive and unharmed. But…” he said, beginning to smile. “We can’t go home without having shown that we’ve done something that indicates we’re going to become something more like upstanding citizens.”

Several of the women snorted.

“Hey,” he said with a smile. “I never said model citizens. But just…more restrained, than we were before. We want to be welcome there. Forever. I think each of us understands what will be asked of us to make that a reality.”

The women sobered, nodding in agreement with his statement, while his brothers all looked thoughtful, processing his words.

“So what does that have to do with him?” Pierce asked, holding Mila tight to his side.

“Like I said. We need something to show that we want to be a part of their society. What more could they ask for than the leader of the Institute? All we do is agree that he’s to remain locked up for the rest of his life. That will be torture enough for him. That way, no killing, but he also doesn’t stand a chance of ever getting free.”

“I like it,” Haley pronounced almost immediately. “Let’s do it.”

The others nodded their agreements.

“Okay. So we’ll make him just disappear then,” Maximus said, climbing to his feet. “Any objections to keeping him knocked out during the drive back?”

The others shook their heads. “Okay, well, let’s get a move on then. First stop, a convenience store for some water and food for the Kronum shifters and to replenish ourselves. Then we’ll head on home.”

The brothers all looked around at each other, smiles blossoming on their faces.

Home.

Maximus wasn’t sure if it was somewhere he would stay. That was something he and Haley were going to have to work out between themselves. He doubted she would want to give up her life and isolate herself amongst shifters. But he had an idea on how they could amalgamate their two worlds. It would take some doing, begging to the right people and proving he’d reformed himself. But if it made Haley happy, he would do it.