20. Max
MAX
I settled into the grinding routine of a first-year cadet’s training: strength enhancement, weapons work, hand-to-hand combat, and lectures on field tactics. Three meals a day. A dry cot. Waking to a bell instead of an overseer’s boot. It all whipped me into decent shape faster than I’d expected.
I hadn’t thought I’d miss Aelindor so much, but my mind kept replaying the way he’d looked at me, like I meant something to him. Caspian and his easy grin drifted through my thoughts too. I didn’t want to admit it, but even Drakken’s absence left a hollow space behind my ribs.
I kept my ears open, hoping to catch word of their return. The wyvern attack—and what it revealed about the enemy’s breeding experiments—had rattled the command structure badly enough that three of the four heirs had ventured out personally. The threat hung over us like a dark cloud.
I’d pieced together their roles by now. Aelindor oversaw the Zodiac Covenant’s general operations.
The big picture. The long game. Nikolai handled diplomacy and ran intelligence.
Caspian did tracking, reconnaissance, and kept an eye on the border outposts.
And Drakken was the general—training, recruiting, leading the war effort.
Nikolai was still on base, but I hadn’t seen him. As the sole heir in the fortress, he’d be buried beneath the workload of four heirs. His domain was the main compound; mine was the academy side. Different worlds separated by courtyards, regions, and a chain of command.
Aelindor had left me with a cliffhanger: the offer of private training, dangling like bait I’d already swallowed, hook and all.
I spent my days guessing what the heirs would teach me.
Combat? Magic? Manners? The suspense was gnawing at me.
And just the prospect of spending time with all of them, except the dragon, sent phantom wings fluttering in my stomach.
By the fifth day, restlessness had settled into a constant hum beneath my skin. No news. No heirs. Nothing but drills and silence.
After evening training, I made my way to the Sanguine Tower. The wards parted for me easily, the spell’s recognition keyed to whatever signature Nikolai had imprinted on my presence. The lift carried me to the penthouse in silence.
Steam filled the marble room. I scrubbed myself clean, soaked until the heat had loosened every knotted muscle, and climbed out. Padding to the full-length mirror, I swiped the condensation away with one hand .
My reflection stared back like a stranger.
My face was no longer angular and gaunt but filled in.
Cheekbones high and defined. The hollows beneath them were gone.
My skin held warmth now, a flush of health instead of the ashen pallor of a miner who hadn’t seen real sunlight in years.
My lips were soft and full, no longer cracked and peeling.
My eyes—midnight dark, fringed by thick lashes—brimmed with life.
The beautiful version of me should have been a relief. It wasn’t.
Guilt and anxiety twisted through my gut. I was playing soldier—breathing clean air, eating three meals a day, bathing in a prince’s penthouse—while my sister was hungry and cold. While the miners suffered under the overseers.
Would the guards punish the miners because of my escape? Would they take it out on my tiny sister because her “brother” had run?
It was killing me to know that it wasn’t time to go back. I had to be strong enough, trained enough, resourceful enough to actually succeed—instead of dying in the attempt, or worse, getting my sister killed like I had when I’d left Rogue to rot in the Scorched Wastes.
I tore my gaze from the mirror. I couldn’t stand looking at myself.
My pulse spiked in my neck. Someone had entered the penthouse. The vampire prince’s power flared like a match striking in a dark room.
I was still getting used to this ability—sensing magical signatures. The ambient hum of the fortress’s population was like the distant sound of surf. But the heirs’ magic lit up like stars in the night sky, each one distinct and impossible to ignore.
My blood raced. Nerves and anticipation wound through me.
With Nikolai’s presence came the smell of food drifting through the bathroom door. My stomach answered with a growl. I dried off quickly, cinched the chest-bind into place, pulled on a set of soft men’s casual wear, and opened the bathroom door.
Nikolai leaned against the back of a loveseat, one ankle crossed over the other, watching the bathroom door like he’d been counting the seconds.
He was still in uniform—oxblood was the vampires’ signature color, with twin gold stripes at the collar and shoulder boards marking his rank as heir and general.
The Sagittarius crest caught the low light.
He’d been working hard. I could see tension in his shoulders, the slight crease between his dark brows.
But fatigue did nothing to diminish him.
If anything, it stripped away the polished veneer and left the raw architecture beneath, hard angles and clean lines, the aristocratic nose, those crimson eyes that tracked me with dark fascination.
As if he saw something he’d been waiting for, and finding it better than he’d imagined.
“Aren’t you looking fetching, Max?” he purred.
Heat crept up my neck, but I was pleased that I no longer reeked.
“Thank you. Food and a bath can work wonders, sir.”
“Of course.” He smiled and tilted his chin toward the dining table. “Go eat, Max. ”
The table was set with several covered plates. I lifted the lids and my mouth went liquid. Seared steak. Coconut cauliflower rice. Greens with garlic bread. And at the end: fresh chunks of mango and two slices of cheesecake.
In the mine, protein was a rumor. Bread was always stale. As a cadet, I ate regular mess: sandwiches, corn, beans, potatoes, but never steak. Never fruit this fresh.
I ate every bite. But this time, I paced myself. Used a knife and fork instead of my hands. Chewed with my mouth closed. Set my utensils down between bites the way I’d learned from Thane and other officers.
Nikolai watched me from the loveseat, and I didn’t mind. Not like last time, when I’d been half-feral with starvation and he’d had the decency to leave the room. Now I wanted him to see that I was civilized. That the miner could learn. That I had potential beyond swinging a pickaxe.
The cheesecake nearly made me moan, but I contained it.
“How are you settling in?” Nikolai asked, crossing to pour himself a glass from a crystal decanter. Wine or blood, I still couldn’t tell.
“Everything’s fine.” I wiped my fingers on a napkin and looked up from the last slice of mango. “I’m catching up.”
I didn’t mention the empty seats at my table in the mess hall. The whispered “warlock” that followed me like a bad scent. No one had attacked me, but shunning was its own kind of bloodless war .
Nikolai studied me over the rim of his glass. He said nothing for a moment, reading whatever I wasn’t saying.
“Anything else you need?”
“I have everything I need, sir. Thank you.”
A pause. Then, softer: “You can call me Nikolai when we’re alone.”
My pulse stuttered. I busied myself with the last bite of mango. “When are the others coming back?”
His lips curved. “Miss them?”
“No!” I winced at my own volume. “Everyone’s concerned about the next attack. Prince Aelindor said there’d be more coming.”
The teasing vanished from his face. For a second, something grim surfaced behind those crimson eyes, the look of a commander carrying intelligence he couldn’t share. Then it was gone.
“They’ll be back soon, but I don’t know when.” He took a slow sip from his glass. “And you’ll be protected, Max. I’ll make sure of it.”
“I don’t need to be protected.” I set my fork down harder than intended. “I’m a cadet. I’m training for battle.”
He looked at me, heat kindling in his gaze. “You’ve got the makings of a good soldier. But just being a soldier would waste your talent.”
My pulse kicked harder. The demon leaned in to listen.
I rose to clear the plates. His hand on my wrist stopped me.
“Leave it.” His voice was firm. “Don’t waste time on that.”
I hesitated, plates in hand, before setting them down. I wiped my palms on my trousers, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands.
“I should probably get going.”
“Stay,” he said softly, yet the word landed with weight. “Things have been hectic, but I’m taking a break this evening. I haven’t seen you in days.”
Longing and need bloomed in me, making my knees go weak. And that was the problem. Something happened to me around them. I didn’t understand it and liked it even less.
It wasn’t just Nikolai. Or Aelindor. Or Caspian. It was all of them.
My blood heated for each one in different ways. Even Drakken, who I didn’t even like, whose hostility should have killed any attraction dead. Yet my body responded to him too. The pull was there, like a tide answering the moon.
Back in the mine, I hadn’t been attracted to anyone. I’d thought I’d end up with Rogue eventually, once we settled somewhere safe—not from desire, but from steady friendship.
That had seemed like enough. But these four heirs turned me into someone I didn’t recognize and couldn’t control. I couldn’t even blame the demon this time.
And how was I supposed to handle all four of them when one alone could undo me?
No one would accept a woman who wanted all of them.
That wasn’t how the world worked. That wasn’t how anything worked.
If the heirs ever found out about this, about my treacherous heart and body, they’d discard me faster than a bad smell.
Had I no shame anymore?
Or was I just wired wrong?
“You okay, Max?” Nikolai asked, his eyes glinting with amusement. “You look like you bit into a lemon by mistake.”
“It’s not that.” I bit my bottom lip, then released it when I remembered how the vampire prince watched my mouth. I didn’t need to cross that line. “Uh—do you have a knife I could use to cut my hair, sir?”
Nikolai gave my hair a considering look. It had grown in the days since I’d arrived—no longer the messy crop of a miner, but edging toward a length that would soften my jaw, frame my face in ways that made the disguise harder to hold.
“I’d like it longer,” he said. The words carried something unspoken, a preference for the woman he knew I was. “But in your case, short is the way to go, for now. And I’ll cut it for you.”
I blinked. “But you’re a prince.”
I sat on a stool facing the windows in the drawing room. Nikolai stood close. I could feel the cool aura of his body. Vampires ran colder than humans, and the proximity raised goosebumps along my arms.
His fingers threaded into my hair. The first touch sent a shiver down my spine. His knuckles grazed the shell of my ear as he measured the length, and electric currents raced through nerve endings I’d never known existed.
The scissors whispered. Dark hair fell in soft crescents onto my shoulders and the floor.
Behind me, Nikolai’s breathing had changed. Slower. Heavier. Neither of us spoke. The silence held everything we weren’t saying.
When he finished, he took my hand, cool fingers curving around my warm ones, and led me to the full-length mirror.
We looked good together.
He stood just an inch taller than me, close enough that I barely had to tilt my chin to meet his eyes. Even that small difference felt like a novelty. His pale, sharp features and ash-blond hair contrasted with my midnight eyes and flushed cheeks.
“Look at you, Max.” His voice was soft, the words tasting like sugar apples on my tongue. “You’re a rare beauty.”
I tried not to read too much into his admiring expression. Instead, I focused on my haircut, short at the sides, slightly longer on top, maintaining the masculine silhouette I needed while somehow looking intentional rather than desperate.
“Where did you learn to cut hair?” I asked. “Aren’t you an heir?”
“We’re not as spoiled as you think.” A wry smile touched his lips. “None of us, except maybe Caspian. We weren’t born to peaceful times, Max.”
A flicker of sorrow crossed his face, chased by old rage that was banked but not extinguished. He might’ve been thinking of his parents. The White Witch had orphaned three of the four heirs.
And now, all I wanted was to comfort him. As much as I could.
I studied the vampire prince in the mirror. Hunger pulsed in him—for me, or for my blood. His crimson eyes had darkened, the effort of veiling it visible. His hands stayed deliberately at his sides instead of reaching for me.
“It’s time to offer you my blood, Your Highness,” I said. “A deal is a deal.”