Max
The Fae woman stood close to Aelindor, closer than necessary, her head tilted toward him, her voice dropping to a low murmur that carried the intimacy of two people who shared a language not meant for anyone else.
My superior hearing caught every word, but the demon wasn’t translating. It sat back and let me hear the melody without the meaning.
I said nothing, holding to my rule of non-engagement, even though I was dying to know what passed between Aelindor and his lady friend.
Jealousy struck without warning, dead center, like an iron-tipped arrow piercing deep and twisting between my ribs. I hadn’t expected it. It nearly bent me double, even sitting cross-legged on the grass.
I’d lectured my fellow cadets about staying cool when another woman came for their man. And here I was, going territorial over a male who wasn’t even mine. A man with a world that predated me by centuries, a world that had always come with women like her in it.
A sour taste coated my tongue.
Aelindor wasn’t mine. He’d had a life before me. They all had—every heir, long before I came into the picture. The Fae woman was simply a reminder of what I already knew and kept forgetting: they were all out of my league.
Nonsense, the demon scolded. We’re their equal. It’s your alpha nature to defend what’s yours. Ours.
It was getting bolder, announcing its possessiveness over the heirs openly now, and that sent another shot of alarm through me. I’d do everything in my power to prevent the full possession, so it would never get the chance to sink its claws into any of the princes.
The demon let out a low chuckle, then a sigh at my silent vow.
The Fae female is revealing a secret about you, it continued. Something you’ve been carrying without knowing you carried it. And now the Fae prince is concerned. He won’t see you the same way again.
My heart slammed against my ribs. Survival instinct rose behind my sternum, old and animal, and now it screamed: Run. Fast. Don’t look back.
I dug my nails into the earth and grounded myself. Survival instinct wasn’t the only thing keeping me together. The unyielding loyalty I carried toward the heirs, toward the Zodiac Covenant, anchored me just as deeply. I was Max Morning, and I didn’t break when things got hard.
I refused to take the demon’s bait. Once I let it through that door, there was no closing it again. Whatever secret it held about me, learning it at the demon’s price wasn’t an option. I’d sooner take myself to the bitter end than hand over my soul.
I have no interest in your soul, Max, it taunted. You’re already mine.
I shoved it down and buried its voice.
Across the clearing, Aelindor murmured something in the ancient Fae tongue to his companion, his gaze cutting briefly in my direction. His face was unreadable, carved from something cold and deliberate. Then they turned together and made to leave.
I was already on my feet, and I didn’t remember standing.
My teeth sank into my inner lip. The sting helped. It kept me present, kept me from shaking.
Then, as if just remembering who he’d left behind, Aelindor turned back. The shift was instant, his openness vanishing, his warmth guarded.
I kept my face blank as I met his eyes. Whatever he’d just learned, I’d deal with the fallout. I wouldn’t let my own insecurity undo me, not while my heart was quietly cracking and anxiety coiled through my ribs like a second skeleton.
Holding myself together under pressure was practically my primary skill set.
“Something came up, Max.” Aelindor’s tone was careful. His eyes had always carried affection for me. Now a sliver of ice replaced it. “We’ll have to end the session here.”
“Of course, sir.” The formality snapped into place automatically, the way it always did when the ground shifted and I needed something solid to stand on. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Straight spine. Hands loose at my sides. The version of me that didn’t need anything from anyone.
He didn’t correct me this time. Didn’t tell me to call him Aelindor—not in front of her. Whoever she was, she was close to him, important to him. That much was obvious.
“Frost will arrange your continued training,” Aelindor said. “He’ll explain the details.” A pause—brief, weighted. “This isn’t finished, Max.”
I let the breath out slowly through my nose. The training was continuing. Whatever Aelindor had just learned about me hadn’t been enough to pull the mission off the table—Missy’s extraction was still on.
“Of course, sir.”
Aelindor left with the Fae woman. I didn’t watch them go. I fixed my gaze on the lake instead, on the wind moving across its silver surface in quiet ripples and then going still.
Frost’s footsteps came up behind me.
“We’ll go for a ride before your next session,” he said. “Tour the northwest territory first, then Elenmoor.”
He didn’t want me distracting Aelindor and his companion. The ride was his way of handling it.
“Thank you, Major,” I said.
Frost drove me through the western sector, and I filed away everything I saw.
Fae territory.
The encampment sprawled along the northwestern forest edge—structures of stone and living wood that looked grown rather than built. Fae warriors moved between the buildings with the quiet precision of soldiers who had been drilling for centuries.
“Each heir commands his own force,” Frost said, navigating along a packed-earth road that wound between the outbuildings.
“Prince Aelindor leads Fae and mages, primarily. The northwest perimeter is ours.” He gestured east as we came around a curve.
“The vampire army holds the northeast. Shifters in the southeast. Drakken’s hybrids at the south gate. ”
I’d known the outline of it—any cadet who’d paid attention during orientation knew the outline—but seeing the scale from the ground was something else entirely.
Four separate armies sharing one fortress.
Four separate command structures operating as a single body, forged into alliance by the four heirs and held together by their loyalty to each other.
We passed the officer buildings near the northern watchtower, a long row of barracks stretching behind them. Frost turned south and looped back toward the western edge of the compound.
“From this point on, you won’t be attending regular classes,” he said. “Prince Aelindor’s orders. Extensive training, structured around you specifically.”
I kept my eyes forward. No complaints. Rigorous preparation was exactly what I needed—every hour I got stronger was an hour closer to walking into the Haven and walking back out with Missy.
I held on to that. I didn’t let myself examine the cold that had crawled up my spine when Aelindor’s expression shifted.
Frost pulled up in front of Elenmoor, which from this angle looked less like a private home and more like a government mansion. The western wing ran long and low, tall windows catching the light. The eastern wing disappeared behind ancient trees.
He walked me through the first floor: a dining hall with a long oak table that could seat twenty, a room walled floor-to-ceiling with more books than I’d seen outside the academy library, a map room papered with charts of all four territories.
At the end of the corridor, Frost opened a door into a smaller dining room—round table for four, upholstered chairs, south-facing windows letting in the quiet of late morning. A credenza held coffee, tea, sandwiches, fruit.
“Help yourself, Max,” Frost said.
I didn’t need to be told twice. Coffee first—the good kind, rich and dark. Two cucumber sandwiches. I carried them to the table and sat.
“Sorry you got stuck with me, Major. I know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your morning.”
“Just try not to make my life more difficult than it already is,” he joked and settled into the other chair with a mug of tea. “I won’t always escort you. You’ll know your way around soon enough.”
“Of course, Major.”
I ate. The sandwich was good.
I thought about the Fae woman’s voice in the old tongue. The way she’d gazed up at Aelindor. The way his face had changed at her whisper. The shape and weight of a secret carried by someone who didn’t know they were carrying it.
But I wasn’t built for spiraling. The mine had trained that out of me—process what you can, file the rest, move on. Something had shifted and I didn’t know what. I’d find out, or I wouldn’t. Either way, there was nothing to be done about it now.
The walls I’d let come down over the past weeks—the ones the heirs had been quietly dismantling, meal by meal, every hand offered, every time one of them had looked at me like I was worth the cost—I felt them going back up. Not all the way. But enough.
I wasn’t here for romance. I was here because I needed a safe home for my little sister, and now she was somewhere inside the Haven, and I was the only person who was going to get her out.
Everything else came second.