20. Chapter 20
20
B eneath the vicious intensity of Maxwell’s stare—and with her body heat rising dangerously by the minute—Rebecca knew she only had one option.
She needed to nip this in the bud. Now. Before the shifter took the route she had almost taken herself and decided to fill in with blanks on his own about everything he didn’t know.
And the list of things Maxwell Hannigan didn’t know was vastly longer than the list of what Rebecca hadn’t yet managed to work out for herself—Shade’s enemies, including the real identity of at least three different factions; where Rowan was; and what he’d been cooking up since his sudden and unexplained absence from Shade.
Not to mention the shifter’s true intentions for trying to get close to her, especially now that fucking tattoo had entered the picture.
If she didn’t address at least some of this with Maxwell now, recent history had already taught her this same conversation would inevitably rear up at the worst possible time. It would only become a dangerous and even deadly inconvenience if she had to deal with it on top of whatever other new threat or emergency came their way.
And she knew it would. That was life with Shade.
So she turned fully toward Maxwell, ignoring all the other commotion of a task force returned to their regular and updated surveillance assignments.
Now that she faced him head-on, though, what Rebecca felt billowing off her Head of Security in heated waves clarified into something unexpectedly different.
He wasn’t just staring at her in curiosity or trying to overwhelm her attention until she was forced to turn pay attention to him.
Maxwell glared at her with all the promised danger and threat of confrontation the shifter normally reserved for others.
Others like Rowan Blackmoon, but not Rebecca.
Never quite like this.
On top of that, now that they faced each other, what she’d thought she’d felt from him became infinitely more complicated in the span of a single second.
There was still suspicion there, yes, but the threads of deeper anger, distrust, and confusion flavored it differently—combined with the unending longing underlying damn near everything they did, growing stronger with every decreasing inch of distance between them.
The intensity of Maxwell’s tumultuous emotions nearly bowled Rebecca over.
She couldn’t tell if she hid it well enough or not, with her senses so skewed by Maxwell’s closeness and the fact that it felt like he wanted to either kiss her or kill her.
“What?” she snapped. It wasn’t the best way to start a conversation, but his juxtaposing emotions and the war she felt waging inside him instantly piqued her defenses.
The shifter didn’t even blink.
“What is it, Hannigan?” she tried again. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’ve…caught me off guard. The additional notice about Blackmoon.”
Well at least he hadn’t started with an accusation, but that didn’t make this conversation any easier.
His scowl darkened. “Why didn’t you mention it before?”
“It wasn’t relevant before,” Rebecca blurted. “Now it is, and now everyone knows about it. Excuse me.”
She broke away from him, not entirely sure where she was headed or how she would try to cover up that lack of direction, but she had to leave him.
This was a terrible idea. They couldn’t have this conversation. She couldn’t trust him not to use whatever answers she gave him against her somewhere down the line.
It was too much.
A sharp pain bloomed across her back as she tried to leave him, but a second later, the pain eased beneath the immediate pleasure of that dark hold drawing her closer.
Then Maxwell appeared at her side again, dipping his head toward her ear while she walked aimlessly across the common room.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” he growled.
Rebecca pushed herself to keep moving, no matter what. “Well then please, Hannigan, say what you mean. Right now, I don’t have the time to play Guess What the Shifter Meant every time we exchange more than two words.”
Yikes.
This prickliness wasn’t part of the plan, but Rebecca didn’t do well under pressure.
Not this kind of pressure from Maxwell Hannigan while he tried to corner her, pursuing his own personal mission to get what he wanted out of her.
Not that she had much prior experience, but her automatic response for so long had been to immediately build walls and push everyone else away.
Then another feeling that didn’t belong to her crashed through her mind and her body. She knew, simply from the energy exchanged between them, what Maxwell wanted.
He was intent on discovering why she’d kept that information about Rowan from him for as long as she had.
It wasn’t just a hunch. The knowledge came from Maxwell, through everything their damn connection siphoned into her like air through a ventilation system.
Only this one didn’t give her fresh air but the intensely suffocating feeling that he simply wasn’t going to stop.
Not this time. Maybe not ever.
She knew what he wanted from her. She’d known for a long time.
What she didn’t know was where that tattoo had come from, who Maxwell had aligned himself with to work against her, and how little she could afford to truly trust him because she didn’t know a damn thing about him.
Without filling in those blanks, she couldn’t let herself give in to the dark pull drawing her closer, tugging at her core, tempting her body with the sizzling heat of possibility and desire and surrender growing ever stronger between them.
Maybe even strong enough to one day overpower Rebecca completely, if she didn’t get a hold of herself.
Even while she crossed the common room, those sensations followed her closely, always at her side, behind her, in front of her, surrounding her from every possible direction and shooting through her like a fatal wound.
She could not let this happen. No matter how strongly the energy of her connection with Maxwell washed over her every time she nodded at an operative as she passed them, or stopped to answer another’s quick question before directing them to the appropriate member of the Security team, or when she played Roth-Da’al on autopilot and told one of the newest members to bring their findings up to her office before the end of the day.
Rebecca moved across the common room in a haze, time slowing like her entire life was nothing more than a dream.
Like she moved through the slow, syrupy thickness of reality, and only the intensifying pull toward Maxwell—always there at her side, always tempting her toward more—was the only true reality.
She couldn’t get rid of him while maintaining her composure as Roth-Da’al, and she couldn’t bring herself to make an exception.
Rebecca couldn’t do anything anymore without that constant temptation jerking her around while her Head of Security remained at her side, instigating all of it, and no one else in the whole damn compound had any idea what was happening.
No one else could do a thing about it.
Then, without remembering exactly how she’d gotten there, or how many people she’d spoken to along the way, or what exactly she might have ordered or suggested, Rebecca walked down the hallway leading to the rear stairwell up to the second floor.
Shade members occasionally walked past, briefly greeting her and Maxwell while their focus remained on doing their part to help Shade formulate its next plan against the oncoming threat.
The next time the hallway was clear, leaving Rebecca and Maxwell entirely alone, the shifter was instantly at her side again, his breath hot and deliciously threatening against her ear, tickling the side of her face.
“You opened a brand-new door with that performance about Blackmoon,” he growled.
Performance? That was his takeaway?
She stared straight ahead, maintaining a consistent pace down the hall and pretending she didn’t feel every movement, every glance, every breath.
He clung to her side as if they’d been physically sewn together.
“I open a lot of doors,” she said.
“And you revealed a lot more information than anyone else previously had. Enough to convince most people of your open transparency in full. But there’s more to that story, isn’t there?”
His final question reverberated in her ear, the dark intent in his voice sending a shudder of both pleasure and denial rippling across her neck and down her back.
He was really pulling out all the stops to work her now, wasn’t he?
Because there was more to the story, and now, apparently, they both knew it.
“I’m sure Blackmoon would agree with you,” she replied, still refusing to look at the shifter. “But we can’t afford to wait around for him until he hands us the rest of that story, so I made an executive decision.”
“Without the courtesy of telling me anything about it beforehand,” he snarled. “You haven’t once mentioned or even alluded to Blackmoon since the night he disappeared, and now you make the decision to brand him a defector and place him at the top of our high-priority threat list, on your own, with everything else we’re juggling right now.”
“We?” She stopped and whirled to face him, trying her damnedest to ignore the flare of longing coursing through her, as if their connection was just as determined to overpower her personal autonomy as Maxwell was to make her talk. “ We aren’t juggling anything, Hannigan. I’m making call after call every single day, doing my best and hoping it’s the right thing for all of us, because at the end of the day, I’m the only one who can .”
His silver eyes flashed dangerously when he elicited another growl, this one unmistakably directed at her. His flaring nostrils and the muscles of his clenching jaw worked furiously while he loomed over her like that would be enough of a threat.
The shifter clearly fought to retain control of himself, to not lash out the way his instincts or his anger or this damn cord of energy and need and oblivion pulsed between them like an overpowered magitek weapon.
They squared off like that for another interminable moment, glaring at each other, both of them breathing heavily in their agitation and the effort of resisting the overwhelming temptation to exchange words for actions.
Actions Rebecca was certain would directly contradict their current argument.
Actions that would only pull them closer together when more distance was what they absolutely needed if either of them were to keep a clear head.
If clear heads were even possible anymore.
With a burst of searing agony cutting through her chest and head as the result of her defiance, Rebecca finally tore herself away from him. Somehow, despite the growing power of their connection desperately working against her to haul her back, she continued down the hall, picking up the pace as much as the pain of that separation would allow.
She wished she could have broken into a run to escape him altogether.
And, as always, Maxwell was at her side, matching her pace, growling and making her face blaze with heat the longer he glowered at her.
Would she ever get away from this?
“Hey, Knox!” Jay called after emerging from an intersecting hallway up ahead. “Do you want all written reports sent up to you first? Or are we supposed to take that to Security or council members first?”
The question didn’t sink in until she’d almost reached him and somehow pulled herself out of the intense concentration it took just to make her legs move forward one after the other.
“Does that report contain immediate details of the crime factions in this city or other possible attacks?” she asked, the words sliding out of her mouth like sludge, as if someone else were making her speak.
Jay looked back and forth between Rebecca and Maxwell, then glanced at the printed report in his hand and shrugged. “Not immediate. Just a write-up of yesterday’s recon across Englewood.”
“That can go straight to Whit,” Maxwell cut in with a firm nod. “He’s still processing daily reports.”
“Oh.” Jay clearly tried to act nonchalant about the conversation, though he failed to effectively hide his confusion as his gaze flickered back and forth between Head of Security and Roth-Da’al. “Yeah. Good to know. Thanks.”
The guy darted past them down the hall, as if the worst threat wasn’t somewhere beyond the compound or somewhere else in Chicago but right here in this corridor with his superiors.
Unable to fully process the conversation or even remember what she’d said, Rebecca picked up the pace again, moving as quickly as she dared.
All the while, the strength of that mesmerizingly dark pull tugged her eternally back toward the shifter.
Just before they reached the base of the back stairwell, Maxwell dropped another surprise in her lap.
“If I didn’t know better,” he growled, “I’d say your latest declaration regarding Blackmoon is about a lot more than simply protecting Shade.”
Rebecca hissed out a sigh, all her attention now focused solely on making it to the base of the stairs before she could address whatever came after that.
“Well maybe you don’t know better,” she snapped.
“I’d even go so far as to say this decision isn’t solely a tactical response to his disappearance. Not at the same time that all our contractors and contacts start dropping all over the city. This is personal, isn’t it? For you .”
“Every fucking decision of every fucking day is personal for me, Hannigan!” Rebecca snapped as she charged up the stairs and wondered how long ago she’d begun the climb. “ I’m the one who has to deal with the fallout, whether I deserve it or not. Now please, I have a lot more of those decisions to sift through in the next twenty-four hours, hopefully before even more of our operatives are cornered and beaten to a pulp before we find them in the nick of time. I can’t talk about this right now.”
Her footsteps echoed madly up the stairwell, almost as if there were two of her storming toward the promise of just a little peace at the top.
The shifter’s steps hardly ever made a sound, and only when he wanted them to.
Rebecca couldn’t tell anymore what he wanted. It was all getting so jumbled in her head, in her body, the line between his thoughts, emotions, desires and her own growing thinner by the second. If it hadn’t already disappeared completely.
For fuck’s sake, this felt like trying to get rid of Rowan every chance he took to rattle her cage and change her mind about coming home with him.
What the hell made Maxwell think her response to him would be any different?
And what exactly did he think he was going to whittle out of her, anyway? Especially like this ?
Now she couldn’t even tell what she felt anymore—what was hers, what was Maxwell’s, what only existed because of this damn thing between them. The un-severable cord. The third presence growing stronger every time they were alone.
Rebecca was furious that she had to deal with all of it at the same time. There was fear there too, riding the guilt of what she still blamed herself for not being able to accomplish—not being able to figure out the danger in time before dozens, maybe even hundreds, of magical civilians in Chicago were slaughtered simply for having anything to do with her task force.
And then, beneath all of it, rode a furious, constantly morphing wave of suspicion like she hadn’t felt in decades.
She didn’t know who to trust anymore, or where to turn for accurate opinions and advice, for the truth that wasn’t wrapped up in ulterior motives and secret alliances and the threat of making the wrong choice that might devastate not only her place in this world but her place in Shade. Devastate all of Shade itself.
That she didn’t have anyone, not really, and she had already called her own council far more times in the last several weeks than she had originally planned when she’d first pulled that council together.
And still, there was Maxwell, always just behind her, practically chasing her up the stairs like a predator chasing prey.
She couldn’t get to her office fast enough.
“Roth-Da’al!” he called as she reached her office door.
Something in his voice had changed, but she was too overwhelmed now to pinpoint what it was.
“I understand exactly what’s at stake and exactly what we don’t have time for, given our present circumstances,” he said.
Rebecca reached out in front of her. Her fingers closed around the cool brass doorknob waiting to turn and open at her command.
“But I need you to look me in the eye and tell me what’s going on with Blackmoon,” Maxwell pressed. “I need to know everything you know about—”
“Rowan Blackmoon is out of the picture,” Rebecca spat, unable to stop from turning back to face him, though her fingers still gripped the doorknob like it was her last and only lifeline. “That’s all there is. Nothing’s going on. He joined up, he became one of us, he fucked around with the entire system and everything Shade’s trying to accomplish, and then he threw in the towel when his master plan stopped working and the situation no longer suited him. He’s gone! There’s nothing else to talk about !”
The force of her erupting outburst startled even her as it echoed back toward her in the hallway. Then it seemed she’d lost the ability to move it all.
Her heart thundered in her chest, the heat blazing through her at an unbearable intensity.
And beneath it all, she felt Maxwell stopped in the hallway, standing there behind her as she stood in front of her office door, maybe even as frozen in his surprise and helplessness as she was now.
Fuck this. Fuck their connection. Fuck the guilt overwhelming her from her inability to put all her suspicions aside and have a real conversation with the shifter hovering behind her, mere inches away.
She shouldn’t have to explain herself to anyone, not even Maxwell Hannigan.
He wouldn’t believe a single word of the truth, anyway. It was all too impossible.
And even if he did believe her, he would only judge her for it, just like everyone else who knew the truth.
Everyone else she’d left behind forever…
She couldn’t trust him. Not the way she wanted to. The shifter was marked by the Bloodshadow Court in one way or another. No denying it. No misunderstanding there.
Until Rebecca figured out what the hell that rune meant, who put it there, what it represented, and what it revealed about Maxwell’s true allegiances, she couldn’t do any of this.
Ripping herself away from him in that moment—forcing herself to twist the doorknob and open her office door—was more agonizing, more physically debilitating than any other moment of separation from him.
Rebecca wasn’t a stranger to pain or to pushing herself through it.
The act brought stinging tears to her eyes while all the breath squeezed from her lungs. Her head swam with the sudden onset of a pounding ache that dug in behind her eyes and shot all the way down into her core.
No matter how much it hurt to pull away from him, how much it felt like a physical wounding, she couldn’t do this right now.
He wanted more from her than she could ever give, and Rebecca’s only duty to anyone, including herself, was focusing on the task at hand now. On the multitude of threats Shade faced from every direction.
On trying to take them down at the very core so her task force wouldn’t have to suffer through any further consequences of a terrible leader’s even worse decisions.
Once, not too long ago, Rebecca would have put Maxwell above all of it. She had, the night she’d broken all her own rules to use her magic out in the open and save his life.
But that was gone now. There was too much at stake, and putting this thing with Maxwell first was more likely to ruin them sooner rather than later.
She finished fully turning the doorknob, hauled her office door open, and prayed to any gods of either world who might be listening that this would be the end of it.