Chapter 13 #2
The next attack comes from two directions at once. I block one strike, take another to the shoulder, spin away from a third. Fighting on instinct, letting my body do what it's been trained to do while my mind races for solutions.
Julian's team should be here by now. The emergency signal should have triggered the moment I was surrounded. Where are they? Where is my backup?
The bald one sees me glance toward the street. His smile widens.
"Looking for your friends?" He laughs. "They're a little busy right now. Konstantin sent a welcoming party for them, too."
How did they know about Julian's team? How did they know any of this?
A kick catches me in the back, sends me stumbling forward into a fist that connects with my jaw hard enough to blur my vision.
No. Not like this.
I plant my feet, channel everything into one massive strike that catches the nearest attacker in the chest. I feel his ribs give way under my fist, feel the shock travel up my arm, hear his grunt of surprise and pain as he folds.
Three down. Three left. But I'm slowing now, the damage accumulating faster than I can compensate.
The bald one comes at me again, and this time I can't dodge fast enough.
His fist catches my wounded side, and the pain is so intense that my vision goes white for a second.
I hit the ground hard, asphalt scraping my palms, and I'm rolling before I can think, pure instinct saving me from the boot that comes down where my head was.
I get my feet under me, but barely. My left arm isn't working right, something grinding in my shoulder that shouldn't be grinding. Blood is dripping into my eye from a cut I don't remember getting.
Three of them left. All of them fresh. All of them between me and any escape.
"Enough," the bald one says. "You've made your point. Now stop making this harder than it needs to be."
I spit blood onto the pavement. "I'm just getting started."
It's a lie. We both know it's a lie. But I'll die before I kneel to Konstantin's people. I'll die standing, fighting, proving that I'm not the vulnerability they think I am.
I'll die like a warrior.
The bald one sighs. "Have it your way."
They come at me together this time, coordinated, no gaps to exploit. I take one more down with a strike to the knee that shatters bone, but then they're on me, too many hands grabbing, too much weight bearing down.
I fight. God, I fight. Every dirty trick I learned in the underground. Every technique Maximus and Marcellus drilled into me. I break fingers, gouge eyes, bite down on an arm until I taste someone else's blood.
But there are still two of them, and I can barely stand. The bald one has my throat now, lifting me off the ground with casual strength, and his smile has turned ugly.
"Konstantin wanted you alive," he says. "But he didn't say anything about undamaged."
His fist draws back, and I brace for impact.
The blow never lands.
One moment he's there, solid and sneering and triumphant. The next, he's simply gone, ripped away from me with such force that I collapse to the ground, my legs unable to hold me.
I hear screaming. Not mine. Someone else, high and terrified, cut short by a sound like wet fabric tearing.
I blink blood out of my eyes and try to make sense of what I'm seeing.
Maximus.
He's not fighting. Fighting implies effort, contest, some question about the outcome. What he's doing is executing. The remaining attacker doesn't even have time to raise his hands before Maximus tears his throat out with his bare fingers.
The silence that follows is absolute.
Maximus stands in the middle of the carnage, surrounded by bodies, his chest heaving with unnecessary breaths. Blood covers his hands, his shirt, his face. His eyes are black, completely black, and there's nothing human left in his expression.
For the first time since I became a vampire, I understand why humans are afraid of us.
Then his gaze finds me, crumpled on the ground, and something shifts. The blackness recedes. The monster retreats. What's left is something almost worse: naked terror.
"Celeste."
He's beside me before I can blink, hands hovering over my injuries like he's afraid to touch me, afraid of causing more damage. The contrast between the violence of a moment ago and the gentleness now makes my head spin.
"I'm okay," I manage.
"You're not okay. You're bleeding. Your shoulder is dislocated. You have at least three broken ribs, possibly more." His voice is ragged, barely controlled. "I should have been here sooner. I should have…"
"Maximus."
He stops. Looks at me. Really looks at me, past the blood and the bruises, to something underneath.
"I'm alive," I say. "That's what matters."
For a long moment, he doesn't speak. His hand comes up to cup my face, impossibly gentle, his thumb brushing blood from my cheekbone. The touch sends warmth through me despite everything, despite the pain, despite the corpses on the pavement around us.
"I thought I'd lost you," he whispers, and his voice cracks on the words. "I was monitoring the feed, and I heard them surround you and I…" He stops, swallows.
"What about Julian's team?"
"Coming. I passed them on the way. I couldn't wait."
He couldn't wait. The man who plans everything, controls everything, calculates every variable. He couldn't wait.
Something in my chest cracks open at that. Something that has nothing to do with broken ribs.
"Can you stand?" he asks.
"I don't know."
"I'm going to lift you. It's going to hurt."
"Everything hurts. A little more won't make a difference."
He slides one arm under my knees, the other behind my back, and lifts me as if I weigh nothing. The movement jars my shoulder, and I can't stop the gasp of pain that escapes. His arms tighten around me in response, pulling me closer to his chest.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs against my hair. "I'm so sorry."
I let my head rest against his shoulder, breathing through the pain, surrounded by his scent and his strength and the steady rhythm of movement as he carries me away from the carnage. For this one moment, I let myself feel safe. Protected. Cared for.
Julian and his team meet us halfway back to the compound. I'm dimly aware of their shocked expressions, of hushed voices discussing what happened, of someone offering to take me from Maximus so he can deal with the aftermath.
"No." His voice is ice. "I've got her."
No one argues.
He carries me through the compound entrance, past guards who stare and servants who scatter, all the way to the medical wing. Dr. Dalton is already waiting, alerted somehow, with equipment prepared and assistants standing by.
"Set her down here," Dalton says, gesturing to the examination table.
Maximus doesn't move.
"Maximus." Dalton's voice is gentle but firm. "I need to examine her. I can't do that while you're holding her."
For a moment, I think he's going to refuse. His arms tighten around me, his jaw clenching with something that looks like pain. Then, slowly, carefully, he lowers me onto the table.
His hand doesn't leave mine.
"Three broken ribs," Dalton says after a quick examination. "Dislocated shoulder. Multiple lacerations, none life-threatening. Significant blood loss, but vampire healing is already working on the worst of it." He looks at Maximus. "She needs rest and blood. She'll be fine in a few days."
"Fine." Maximus's voice is hollow. "She'll be fine."
"I'll need to set the shoulder," Dalton continues. "It's going to hurt."
"Do it," I say.
Dalton positions himself, and Maximus moves to block my view. "Look at me," he says quietly. "Just look at me."
I look at him. At the blood still drying on his face, at the fear still lingering in his eyes, at the way his hand grips mine like I'm the only thing keeping him anchored.
Dalton moves. My shoulder screams. I don't look away from Maximus's face.
"Done," Dalton says. "I'll get blood and bandages. She should rest."
He leaves, and it's just the two of us. Maximus and I, in the harsh light of the medical wing, surrounded by the antiseptic smell of healing.
His free hand comes up to brush hair from my face. The gesture is tender, reverent, completely at odds with the violence I witnessed less than an hour ago.
"You're shaking," I say.
He looks down at his hands like he's never seen them before. They're still covered in blood, and yes, they're trembling.
"I killed them." His voice is strange, distant. "I didn't try to capture them. Didn't question them. I just... saw you on the ground, and I killed them."
"Maximus…"
"I haven't lost control like that in centuries." He meets my eyes, and what I see there isn't the cold strategist or the vampire lord. It's fear. Raw, undisguised fear. "The thought of losing you…"
He stops. Swallows hard.
"I can't," he says quietly. "I can't lose you."
He's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough with something I can't name.
"Because the thought of losing you was worse than any tactical consideration." He looks down at our joined hands. "I've spent centuries learning to sacrifice anyone and anything for the greater good. And the moment I heard them close in on you, none of it mattered. Just you. Getting to you."
I want to reach for him. Want to let this moment be what it feels like, a confession, a turning point, the beginning of something real.
But something the bald vampire said keeps echoing.
"They knew about Julian's team," I say slowly. "How is that possible?"
Maximus's jaw tightens. "Konstantin has informants. We're still trying to determine..."
"But it was a routine donor meet. That's what you told me.
" I watch his face, pieces clicking together.
"Except you've been avoiding me for days. And then suddenly, you’re sending a team as backup when you didn’t before.
You told me to 'be careful' with more weight than a routine mission should need. "
He doesn't answer.
"And there was a strategy meeting yesterday that I wasn't invited to. Elena mentioned it by accident." I watch something shift in his expression. Something that looks like dread. "What was discussed at that meeting, Maximus?"
"The situation required..."
"What situation? You told me it was routine."
Silence.
Somewhere down the hall, footsteps pass and fade. I wait.
"It wasn't routine," he finally says. His voice is barely a whisper. "We had intelligence that Konstantin's people were watching you. Looking for an opportunity."
The words take a moment to land.
"You knew they might come for me tonight."
He closes his eyes. "Yes."
"And you sent me anyway."
"I had teams positioned."
"You sent me anyway. Without telling me." My voice cracks. "I was bait."
He doesn't deny it.
"We had backup in position."
"Not close enough. Not fast enough." I pull my hand from his, and the loss of contact feels like tearing. "You used me."
"I was trying to…"
"What? Protect the network? Gain tactical advantage?" I push myself up despite the pain, needing distance, needing to not be touching him. "Did you even consider telling me the truth?"
"If you knew, your reactions wouldn't have been genuine. They might have suspected."
"So you let me walk in blind. Let me think it was routine. Let me…" My voice breaks, and I hate myself for it. "I trusted you."
The words hit him like physical blows. I watch his face crumble, watch the walls he's been rebuilding since we left the street finally give way.
"Celeste."
"No." I hold up a hand, and he stops. "I can't do this right now. I can't look at you and reconcile the person who just killed six vampires to save me with the person who put me in danger in the first place."
"I will spend the rest of my existence making this right."
"I don't know if you can."
The words hang between us, heavy and final. His face is a landscape of devastation, guilt, and grief, and something that looks like his heart breaking in real time.
Good, some petty part of me thinks. Let him feel it.
But another part, the part that remembers how gently he touched my face, how his voice cracked when he said he thought he'd lost me, that part wants to take the words back. Wants to reach for him. Wants to pretend I don't know what I know.
I don't reach for him.
"Leave," I say quietly. "Please."
For a moment, I think he'll argue. The Maximus I've come to know doesn't accept dismissal, doesn't cede ground, doesn't give up control.
But this Maximus, the one covered in blood and stripped of defenses, just nods.
"I'll send Dalton back in," he says.
He stands. He walks to the door. He pauses with his hand on the frame, his back to me, every line of his body speaking of words he wants to say and can't.
Then he's gone.
I sit alone in the medical wing, surrounded by the smell of blood and antiseptic, and I allow myself to feel.