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R ebecca hadn’t been this consistently furious for this uninterrupted length of time in so very long, and now, that rage ate at her until she could no longer think straight.
Not just rage, though. Unbidden visions pummeled her minute after minute.
Of laying waste to this entire compound of shifters. Taking them down with her Bloodshadow magic in seconds flat. Wiping those fake fucking smiles right off their faces.
Every time a child scowled in Maxwell’s direction or another adult shifter glanced Rebecca’s way with a poignant, achingly clear refusal to acknowledge Maxwell at all, her fury billowed up all over again.
During the last several hours, she’d hoped to check in with the rest of her task force, make sure everyone had what they needed. But just when she thought the coast was clear, one of her own operatives would visibly point her out to the shifters asking whatever question involved Shade’s Roth-Da’al, making it perfectly clear exactly who stood beside Maxwell at the edge of the back yard.
The shifters’ reactionary spurn toward him before going right back to pretending like everything was fine rooted her to the spot time and again.
She would stay right where she was, thank you very much. Beside Maxwell Hannigan. Glaring daggers through any individual who caught her attention while Shade’s so-called hosts showed the shifter beside her even less than the minimum respect.
They showed him nothing. He didn’t even exist.
If anyone had treated her this way, she would have found it offensive, and she would have been right. For some reason, though, watching such passive mistreatment of Maxwell made it so much worse.
Because she understood how important this was to him—if not entirely the sacrifice he’d made to bring them here—and he deserved so much more.
She owed him so much more than this.
After the second straight hour of witnessing so much disrespect—feeling the mortifying humiliation and shame radiating from him the entire time—the idea of leaving him here while she mingled like everyone else became an impossibility.
The longer this went on, the more convinced she was that leaving Maxwell on his own was the worst possible thing she could have done for him.
And that she might never see him again, otherwise.
Not an ounce of his pent-up turmoil, the regret and self-loathing and disgrace flowing from him into her in a constant stream of debilitating agony, let up even the slightest bit, until she just couldn’t fucking take it anymore.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” she snarled, fully intending to abandon the log they’d migrated to at the side of the yard leap to her feet. What she might have done after that, she couldn’t have said.
But she stopped when she realized someone was already upon them.
The woman from the house, who’d stood beside the gray-haired man Rebecca could only assume was the pack’s Alpha.
With a warm smile, the woman stopped in front of the log, looking every bit the kind, warm, hospitably welcoming woman of the house and carrying a single paper plate of food in one hand.
Rebecca forced herself to stay seated on the log, glaring at the woman, her muscles taut and tensed, ready to spring at the slightest provocation.
Any other time, she would have thought part of these reactions came to her from Maxwell through their connection. But right now, this defiant rage was all hers.
Apparently, he was incapable of it for himself.
“Rebecca Knox?” the woman asked, poignantly holding Rebecca’s gaze and looking nowhere else.
Rebecca swallowed the urge to scream and gritted out, “Yeah.”
“Your people tell me you’re the leader of this…rebel force. Correct?” The woman spoke with a gentle underlying authority, her voice steady and inviting.
Rebecca would have believed it was genuine, like the rest of her task force seemed to believe, if that genuineness had extended to all of them.
Clearly, Shade’s Roth-Da’al was the only one who recognized the fact that it didn’t.
“You heard right,” she replied stonily.
How long would this woman stand here, trying to engage in conversation, before she realized this personal visit was entirely unwelcome?
“My name is Annie,” the woman said, extending the plate of food. “And this is for you.”
Rebecca shook her head. “That’s not necessary. And I’m really not hungry.”
Annie didn’t retract the plate. “Your people will be well fed while under our roof. You are all under our protection now, and pack law applies to everyone. Even guests. Here, our leaders are the first to eat.”
She wanted to slap the plate up into this woman’s face, but Maxwell’s sharply growing discomfort urged her to remain civil. So she fought against every instinct to put this woman in her place and did nothing.
For him.
Plus, she had a feeling she needed to accept that plate, though the thought of food right now made her stomach churn. Nothing about this place fostered a healthy appetite, no matter how much a decent meal might have helped.
But she’d lost all desire to play nice, especially when Annie was still the only shifter here who’d dared approach her while she remained so close at Maxwell’s side.
What were the chances of getting her entire task force kicked out of here because their Roth-Da’al had stubbornly refused the pack’s hospitality? Pretty fucking high, she guessed.
With a heavy sigh, she reached for the plate, all but snatching it from Annie’s extended hand, then set it in her lap.
That wasn’t enough for Annie. Of course it wasn’t.
The woman stayed right there, practically hovering over Rebecca with a silent patience that made one thing very clear. She intended to stay, just like this, until Shade’s leader accepted this ceremonial shifter offering of a home-cooked meal as it was given.
She wanted to watch Rebecca eat it.
The overpowering odors of the dish wafted up toward her—all the same thick spices around stewing vegetables she’d smelled at the front door. Then Rebecca looked down to find a large portion of braised meat amidst well-cooked and spiced carrots, potatoes, leeks, onions, and peppers, with a clear plastic fork off to the side.
Pack law, huh?
In a way, this one wasn’t all that different from the old-world laws of hosting guests and ensuring peace—the way she’d broken bread with Kordus Harkennr and later with Rowan.
Rebecca had to do this now, didn’t she? Right in front of Maxwell while Annie stood over her and watched.
Fighting to keep her hand from trembling with rage and indignation, Rebecca grabbed the fork, stabbed it into a tender piece of meat, and shoved into her mouth the only bite she was willing to take.
By the Blood, it was delicious.
A single bite, exploding with flavor and nourishment, and she became painfully aware again of just how hungry she really was. How long it had been since she’d had a good meal. How much stronger and more prepared her physical body would become after a solid meal like this.
It made her sick all over again while her mouth simultaneously watered and she yearned to wolf down every last bite. Maybe even to ask for more.
But she wouldn’t.
When she glanced back up at Annie, the woman’s smile grew, as if Rebecca had just gushed with the highest praise, that everything was just perfect, this entire situation working out so unbelievably well.
It was all a lie.
Everything was not okay. Not until Maxwell was released from the grip of this constant disrespect rendering him invisible and obsolete.
“Here.” Rebecca turned slightly toward him and offered him the plate. “It’s actually pretty good.”
His and Annie’s reacted instantly and violently.
Maxwell practically cowered away from the plate, his boots grinding in the dirt as he shifted his entire body away from her on the log and bowed his head, averting his gaze.
“ No ,” Annie hissed, reaching toward the plate as if Rebecca had just tried to pick up a rattlesnake by the tail.
But then the woman pulled herself back together, straightening again and lowering her arm at her side.
“That’s for you ,” she said, dipping her head, gray eyes flashing with a warning burst of silver light. “It doesn’t matter how great your people’s need, and I’ll only say this once. If you’re not the only one eating from that plate, we will turn you out. All of you.”
Was she fucking serious?
Glaring up at her, Rebecca made a point of lowering the plate to her lap again and said nothing.
If she moved at all, if she so much as breathed, she didn’t think she could stop herself from shoving her Bloodshadow spear straight through Annie’s belly, and then where would they be?
After another brief moment, Annie’s warm smile returned. The fervent warning in her demeanor and expression and behind her eyes disappeared, replaced by the same glowing, hospitable joy she’d worn like a mask when she’d first approached.
She offered Rebecca a nod of satisfaction, then spun around and walked with a slow, determined confidence toward the center of the yard and the gathering taking place now. Shade members and pack shifters having themselves a grand time now that a hearty, home-cooked meal had been served.
To everyone else.
That just made her furious all over again.
Whatever was going on here, there was clearly no loophole for receiving Maxwell with the same treatment as everyone else. Or any treatment at all.
What the hell was this?
She turned toward him and found the shifter still turned away from her, his body facing the opposite direction, head still bowed so low, his chin nearly touched his chest. Almost as if he’d fallen asleep sitting up on this log.
“I’m gonna need an explanation for what just happened,” she murmured. “Because that was total bullshit.”
With a heavy sigh, Maxwell turned slightly back toward her, his jeans rustling and snagging on the log’s bark. He lifted his head only enough to make himself heard. “Breaking pack law here, even as a guest, is one of the greatest insults possible. She was not bluffing. They will retract the offer if you do anything like that again. Try to ignore any concern for me while we’re here.”
Then he nodded with a weak jerk of his head toward their operatives scattered around the yard, with heaping servings of food on paper plates in their hands. “ They cannot afford to be turned out again.”
She knew he was right. If Shade couldn’t catch a break when they needed it most—and they certainly needed it—they wouldn’t last much longer. Honestly, they’d fall apart.
But that still didn’t cover the finer details of this situation that made no sense at all.
No, she couldn’t just put aside her concern for him like it was a damn outfit she could fold up and tuck neatly into a drawer for later.
“So you’re just not gonna eat it all?” she asked. “For a whole week ?”
He still refused to look at her when he muttered, “I’ll be fine.”
Now his voice lacked every last sliver of its usual confidence or growling surety.
Rebecca scoffed. “I don’t care how good you are at what you do. You still need fuel like all the rest of us.”
“A shadow needs nothing.”
He even sounded completely broken.
She knew, even before he turned away from her again, that this brief moment of interaction was over. Simply uttering those words had cost him more of himself than she could fully understand.
And now, he’d clammed up again even more fiercely than before, his jaw muscles clenching as he donned that stoney mask of apathy again and tried to act like none of this affected him.
He even tried to shield himself from her through their connection. She felt his emotions stiffening, growing rigid. His desperate attempts not to think or feel anything so his discomfort wouldn’t demand her attention.
So it wouldn’t lead her to make another horrible mistake and get them all thrown out of here the way she almost had.
Rebecca couldn’t stop staring at him, even when he refused to acknowledge her. Almost as if giving her the same treatment every other shifter here had given him.
She wasn’t buying any of it.
Now she had even more to sink her teeth into and ruminate on, refusing to leave his side.
“A shadow requires nothing.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean, anyway?
Some kind of shifter thing, clearly.
Rebecca’s first foray into the shifter world did nothing to broaden her mind, understanding, or acceptance of a race she’d hardly given a second thought to until Maxwell.
The wrongness of this place, the way they treated him that had rendered him nearly broken… It would take a lot more than an offered plate of food to figure it all out.
So what was really going on here under the surface? Why would Maxwell subject himself to this, accepting defeat from the moment they’d arrived, without even the will to consider fighting it?
What had these shifters done to him?
It felt like she sat beside him on the log, staring at his rigidly stoic profile, for an eternity before any patience she might have had for this fucked-up mystery evaporated.
“That’s it.” She slapped both thighs enough to make them sting just as much as her hands and surged off the log to her feet. Then she tossed the paper plate aside and didn’t bother to see if it had landed upright in the short grass beside her.
Blinking heavily, as if waking from a deep sleep plagued by nightmares, Maxwell didn’t quite look at her, horror etched across his features. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going for a walk,” Rebecca hissed. “And you’re coming with me.”
His eyebrows drew together in pain and defeat. Nothing like the darkening scowl with which she’d grown so familiar. This was reluctance on his face, more shame and fear and failure. The frown of a proud shifter instantly broken by setting foot on a piece of farmland in fucking Sparta, Illinois.
Not if she had anything to do with it.
She whirled toward him, her bare feet whispering across the grass, and snatched up a fistful of the front of his shirt before bending down in his face.
Maxwell’s eyes widened as he met her gaze and finally didn’t look away.
“I can’t force you to move without making a scene and causing serious damage to both of us,” she snarled. “But I swear on the fucking Shadowed Seat, Hannigan, if you don’t get up and walk with me right now, I’ll break every fucking pack law in this place and get us all thrown out. Move your ass.”
So that was all it took, huh? The threat of violence and physical harm and not cowering before this stupid pack-law shit? Fine. At least he took her seriously, his eyes flashing silver with a renewed light that had all but died behind them. His breath quickened as they stared at each other, her fist clenched around the front of his shirt.
Then Maxwell growled, low and subdued and soft, but at least it fucking sounded like him again.
Rebecca held his gaze a moment longer, to be sure he knew she was deadly serious. Then she released his shirt and stormed off across the side of the yard, cutting a straight path toward the woods lining the river along the back of the property.
It took a few seconds, while she gritted her teeth against the sharp, breathtaking pain of walking away from him. But then that pain eased and released, and the tingling warmth of the shifter’s presence as he finally stood and followed her, his long stride bringing him ever closer, finally returned.
Good. She’d made him that promise, and she’d meant every word of it.
The last thing she wanted was to cause a scene and risk any more of Shade’s safety than she already had, especially here, where they’d found sanctuary that would actually provide relief.
But she’d had more than enough of this shifter-law bullshit for both of them.
At least there wasn’t a law prohibiting Maxwell from following her into the trees…
And if this private walk with him through the woods didn’t snap him out of it the way she hoped?
Then Rebecca might have just lost, forever, the Maxwell Hannigan she knew.
The Maxwell she needed .