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Chapter Four
Maxim
Icrouch down next to one of the enforcers sprawled on my sister’s kitchen floor, noting the light floral scent rising from his heavily snoring body.
Drugged, I’m guessing.
I’m not sure with what, but there isn’t a mark on him or any of the other men, so that must be what happened.
My sister and my fiancée drugged their bodyguards, left their Alpha a threatening, treasonous note, and thought they could waltz out of this tower without me lifting a finger to stop them.
They couldn’t be more wrong, and when I get my hands on them…
I stand, my fingers curling into fists at my sides.
Diana is going back to the nursery where little girls who don’t know how to control themselves belong, and Willow isn’t leaving my sight again. I’ll lock her in the consort’s quarters under a triple guard—after making sure her rooms are cleared of any object she could use to cause trouble. She will have no phone, no pens, no eating utensils, not so much as a sheet of paper she could use to give herself a paper cut.
I will keep her safely imprisoned until our son or daughter is born and then…
I drag a hand through my hair with a soft curse.
I don’t fucking know what I’ll do with my lying, conniving, beautiful, brilliant, headstrong, infuriating mate then, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I already have enough on my fucking plate right now trying to stop the annihilation of my pack.
Before I can tumble any deeper down that stress wormhole, the medics arrive to take the guards away on stretchers.
I’m locking up and preparing to sprint down to the enforcer offices to put eyes on the security camera feeds—Willow and Diana are still in the tower, there’s no doubt in my mind—when Hermione calls my name from down the hall.
“Maxim, hurry,” she says, stopping in the middle of the carpet and motioning for me to follow her with an urgent circle of her arm. “They just left the building, but if we hurry, we can catch them.”
“What?” I ask, already running toward her. “How the hell did they get out? We have guards at—”
“I think they stowed away on one of the garbage trucks,” Hermione cuts in as she falls in beside me, both of us racing for the elevators. “Or at least Diana did. I picked up a read on the tracking device you put on her phone about a block from the tower, moving fast toward uptown. She must have been too far underground to get service before.”
I curse. “But we don’t know if Willow’s with her?”
“No,” Hermione says, punching the down button and tapping her foot impatiently as we wait for an elevator car to arrive. “But I’d say it’s a safe bet. Willow spent her entire life in the Parallel. She doesn’t know her way around Human Side or have any allies here. I doubt she’d make a break for it without help.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I mutter, my pulse leaping as the elevator dings and the doors slide open. The car is empty—thank the stars—so I’m not forced to hurl any pack members into the hallway as I dart inside and use my ring to override the controls, sending us on a non-stop trip to the ground floor. “She’s probably very upset with me this morning.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Hermione mutters as she steps inside.
I cut a sharp look her way. “Need to get something off your chest, second?”
“No, sir,” Hermione says as the doors slide closed. Her jaw muscle throbs under her skin for a beat before she adds, “but I heard what happened. Sophia can’t keep her mouth shut to save her life. You should have told me to send a female guard who also isn’t a gossip. Though at least Sophia has medic training, so she was able to assure Willow the drugs you gave her won’t have any long-lasting negative side-effects. But now…everyone knows how little respect you have for your future mate. You could have at least tried to spare her dignity.”
“I did what I had to do to protect our people and the future of the shifter world,” I snap. “Sadly, Willow’s dignity—and my dignity, for that matter—has to come second to that.”
“I get it, but you shouldn’t have drugged her,” she says, her gaze fixed on the elevator’s control panel. “You shouldn’t have taken her free will away, Maxim. That’s a violation, any way you cut it, and I…” She trails off and I struggle to breathe, her words hitting me like a fist to the gut. “I never thought…”
“I didn’t violate her,” I say roughly, forcing the words out. “I didn’t, Hermione. I swear to you. I wouldn’t do that. She’s attracted to me. She told me as much herself. And we’d been together—intimately—before. Not…like that, but close. And it was completely consensual.”
Hermione turns her head, her disappointed eyes meeting mine. “But it wasn’t consensual last night, Maxim. It couldn’t be, because you drugged her, and I’m guessing you used a fairy powder, right? Which means you put your own safety at risk again, too. What happens if they come after you for buying that shit?”
“I used a trusted source,” I mutter, feeling worse with every passing second and knowing the sinking feeling in my stomach has little to do with the elevator lurching to a stop.
I was so angry last night—angry at Willow for lying to me about being a virgin and angry with myself for being a fool—that it was easy to push all the moral confusion I’d felt before away.
But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have serious doubts about whether to pull the trigger on my plan. I didn’t want to hurt Willow, but there was so much at stake, and she was refusing to see that trying to conceive a child was the only way to keep our people safe.
