Why couldn’t he feel her? Panic whispered words he refused to hear. His aunt wouldn’t have harmed her. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps she was unconscious. He wouldn’t entertain any other reason as he trod down on the accelerator, slinging gravel in his wake. Breathing deep, quieting his aura, he tried again, letting his senses float free to catch the scent of his mate.
Charlotte . . .
Her response hit sudden and hard, a mind-blanking jab to the temple that knocked sight and breath from him.
Max!
As his hands and mind slackened, the vehicle veered sharply, nearly bouncing off the narrow two-track, its low-slung belly scraping up stones and clods of grass before he regained control.
The connection ended, but it was enough. As he wiped the trickle of blood from his nose, a relieved smile flashed. She was alive, and he’d have her back. Soon.
Max held tight to that as the past suddenly rose before him. The small house still stood, faded, patched, and now wearily crumbling within the protective circle of a listing iron fence. There was no welcoming driveway, just a rutted path along which Marie and her young son had once dragged a body wrapped in their living room rug to the swamp that swallowed the evidence of Max’s first kill. That night revealed the truth of what he was. Not human. Not normal. Something else, something . . . more.
No movement stirred those faded curtains that had long cloaked their secrets within his childhood home. The rusty gate groaned but allowed him entry to both past and hopefully future.
– – –
Genevieve Savorie entered the sad little shack where her nephew had been raised, eager to finally put her plans in motion. Fear didn’t necessitate the presence of one of her best men behind her, holding a powerful lantern as well as a silver-loaded handgun. One couldn’t be too careful with the likes of Max Savoie, even if he’d promised surrender.
Green eyes gleamed from the shadows as her sister’s chair creaked to and fro. When he didn’t speak, she smiled and goaded, “How do you think this ends, Nephew?”
A flash of his toothy smile. “With one of us leaving. I can’t afford to let that be you.”
His confidence, even under circumstances he couldn’t survive, should have prompted another chuckle, but her throat suddenly dried. “Really? How very ambitious of you considering this little hovel is surrounded by my men.”
“I’m not afraid of you or your men. But you should be very worried.”
She grabbed the lantern from her underling, thrusting it forward so an aura of light surrounded him where he sat calmly rocking in that dilapidated chair. His rumpled black hair, weathered face that featured his mother’s green eyes and father’s sly smile, wearing a white dress shirt open at the neck and cuffs, tucked into loose jeans. And those damn red tennis shoes.
Genevieve Savorie squared up to her impressive height, svelte figure draped in a Dior ensemble of the same pearl grey as the tasteful orbs around her neck and in her ears. The likeness to her sister faded as a malicious smile spread. Her stare flashed a glittery silver. “How amusing that you still think you have a say in what happens here. This city you adore is about to be mine. All these unworthy lives you protect are going to bend or be broken. The freedom you boast of is an illusion.”
Max chuckled, earning her suspicious scowl. “You’re the one who is deluding herself. My people aren’t going to become your slaves. They’re done wearing collars and doing tricks for the amusement of their supposed betters.”
His relaxed pose unnerved her into snapping, “Why is that?”
“Because I know the truth.”
Though the room’s air lay heavy and stale, a chill swept over her skin. “What truth is that?”
“Who we are and how we came to be. A line that leads to the one who should lead, and that, dear aunt, is not you.”
Her lip curled back. Pleasantry fell away. “Give me the letters your dear neighbor died to protect.”
Max struggled to conceal the pain of that coldly delivered fact. The only memory of kindness from his past was gone, leaving nothing to hold him to this place. Reaching into the leather coat he’d hung on the back of the chair, he withdrew an envelope, letting her snatch it from his hand before turning away to consume its contents. He watched as her shoulders stiffened.
“What is this?” Genevieve snarled, head jerking from side to side as she followed the flow