67. Chapter 67 #2
I turn only for a second, but a second is enough. When I look back… Vex is gone.
“Damn it!” The battlefield swallows my shouts. But it doesn’t matter. The retreat has already started. Enemy forces are pulling back in every direction.
“Arwen, over here!”
I run to a panicked Atticus and into his embrace. Thank the universe he is safe.
“They’re saying Kael’s dead,” I say, gripping his face in my hands. “People are fleeing. We need to find Maddox and Brix.”
We sprint toward the last pocket of fighting, breaking cover only once—long enough to crouch behind a marble statue hedged in on both sides—before checking our weapons and pushing through the final stretch.
I find Maddox in the chaos, and something in my chest unclenches. He’s standing. He’s whole. The enemies remaining are badly outnumbered, and more are peeling off every minute, escaping into the dark at the edges of the estate.
The fight is ending.
His head snaps up, the bond humming between us like a plucked wire.
The tension locked in his shoulders dissolves as he closes the space between us in three strides, his boots crunching on gravel.
A hand, streaked with dirt and blood, comes up to cradle my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheekbone.
is mouth finds mine with the force of a man who has just cheated death—a raw, claiming thing that leaves my lips stinging.
“I’m never leaving your side again.” The intensity in his voice sends a prickle of unease through me. I know protective Maddox. He likely means ‘literally’ never leaving my side…
My voice dies in my throat as a flash of red over Maddox’s shoulder catches my attention. Amaya staggers onto the field, gun in hand, hair wild, clothes shredded.
“Is she crazy?” I mumble to Maddox as he turns. "She won’t make it ten feet before someone drops her."
“This isn’t over,” she screams in a raw voice, a crazy look in her eyes.
Before anyone can fire, I send my power straight into the earth at her feet. The ground disappears as she plummets into the hole with a choked cry.
Maddox tenses beside me, a storm gathering in his posture as he steps forward. My hand closes around his forearm, holding him back. “Look at her—she’s broken. And she might still be useful.”
He lets out a sharp breath through his nose, his gaze fixed on the hole in the ground as he weighs my words.
“Kael and Teeth are gone, but the others are still out there.”
“Wait—and Teeth?” he asks, turning back to me.
“He was hurting Holly,” I shoot back, my voice tightening.
“Fuck, I love you.” His arms wrap around my waist as he lifts me clear off the ground and crushes me against his chest.
The words hang in the air between us, and I bury my face in his shoulder, pretending not to hear.
He didn’t mean it like that—not really. It was just the heat of the moment. Right?
Atticus clears his throat from behind us. “What are we going to do with Amaya? If we take her prisoner, can’t your father just order her release?
“No,” Maddox responds. “He declared this battle an open war. We can kill and capture, and he can do nothing about it.”
My stomach twists as I remember him watching from the balcony.
“We’ll take her,” Maddox decides. We can hold her in the prison back in my territory. He calls Lucas over, who I’m relieved to see is fine, and tells him to have a team transfer Amaya.
“Send a couple of teams to Duval and Val, too. Pick off any enemy still fighting. Tell them I want a perimeter around this whole compound and a search.”
Lucas heads off on his orders as Maddox presses a comm into his ear. “Cleo, are you there?”
My eyes go wide as saucers as I hear her voice confirm. He smiles at me. “She’s been an enormous help.”
Of course she has. My friends are all badasses.
“Cleo, can you get a read on where the remaining siblings have escaped to?”
“On it.” She replies. “I’ll start the search.”
Warm, familiar hands grab my shoulders and spin me around.
“Brix!” The word tears out of me as I jump into his arms with relief. He lifts me off the ground, spinning.
“You’re okay?” he asks, voice rough.
“I can’t believe you came here.” I pull back just enough to look at him. “You, Holly, and Sly are getting the lecture of your lives when we get home.”
He just laughs and pulls me back in, squeezing me in a giant bear hug.
When I open my eyes, Maddox and Atticus have somehow landed on identical expressions of jealousy. Maddox’s hands tighten on his gun, and their eyes meet briefly, and nod like they’ve just agreed on something.
“Seriously?” I ask. “This is your common ground?” Brix clocks their expressions and stiffens. He lowers me to my feet and steps away, rubbing the back of his neck.
“My bad,” he mumbles.
“Maddox?” Cleo’s voice comes back over the comms, and everyone goes still.
“I found them. They’re regrouping in a warehouse one point three miles east.”
Maddox immediately starts moving towards his remaining men, checking his gear.
Then Cleo speaks again. “Wait.”
Something in her voice makes everyone stop. “I found something that might help.”
“What?” Maddox asks.
“There’s a fuel storage line that runs beneath the warehouse. It’s not far from you.”
Silence.
“If Holly ignites it, the entire structure will go up in flames.”
A cold dread coils in my gut. “They would all die?” Maddox asks, his voice low.
There’s a beat of hesitation before Cleo responds, voice shaky. “Yes, that’s likely.”
I grab the comm from his hand. “And everyone nearby?”
Maddox’s voice is grim. “Cleo, are there others in the area? Regular civilians?”
The silence that follows is heavy, filled only by the distant crackle of the comms. “Probably.”
The world seems to hold its breath. My eyes find the balcony where Councilor West was, a silent observer over the carnage. I already know what he would choose.
Burn them all.
Maddox’s jaw locks. I watch his mind turning—not in doubt, but in grim arithmetic. Eliminate the enemy now. Sacrifice the few innocents to protect our people tomorrow.
My gaze meets his. “You don’t have to become him,” I whisper.
His eyes flick toward me, dark and turbulent. “Arwen—”
“You don’t have to choose brutality every time the choice gets hard.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Burning them is what your father would do,” I say, voice low.
A muscle jumps in his jaw. I watch the war play out across his face—the cold efficiency he was raised with wrestling against something softer, something that hesitates at the cost.
His eyes shutter closed for a breath, and when they open, the hunger for a clean, brutal end is still there. He wants this over. Wants the certainty of safety for both myself and his people.
His gaze cuts to me, then toward the direction of the warehouse.
Then, up to the empty balcony where his father stood witness. The ghost of that approval—or condemnation—hanging in the air.
Slowly, he exhales, a ragged sound torn from deep in his chest, and raises the comm.
“No,” he says, voice thick with reluctance. “We’re not doing it.”
Maddox lowers his hand as pride swells hot behind my ribs. Despite years of conditioning, Maddox is nothing like his father.