Rémi glanced past Max’s shoulder to Sera. “You want me to guard your dragonswan while you see to them?”
Max turned slightly to smile at the perturbed expression on her beautiful face. “Um… no.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “I think I’ll unleash her on them. She’s far more fierce than I am.”
Rémi came as close to a smile as the bear could. At least until his nephew Jake came out of the nursery with a small, sleepy toddler in his arms.
“Hey Uncle Rémi, you think it’s safe to grab some milk from the kitchen? I don’t want to wake my mom and we’re out. I tried to get Aubie to go back to sleep without it, but he’s not listening to me.”
Max didn’t miss the familiar deep pain that flashed across Rémi’s blue eyes at the sight of Jake and Aubert. They were the sons of his identical twin Quinn and his mate Becca – the bearswan Rémi was still desperately in love with and had wanted to be mated to. But the Fates had been even more unkind to him than they’d been to Max and Sera.
Masking the pain, Rémi brushed his hand over Aubert’s dark hair to soothe the fussing boy who wanted his milk. “I’ll get it. You two stay here where it’s safest.”
“Okay. I’ll go change him.” Jake headed back to the nursery while his little brother whined in protest.
“Aubie want milk!”
As they walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, toward the bar, they could hear the angry shouts that strangely reminded him of Aubert’s childish cries.
Rémi bit his lip as he mumbled under his breath at how much he wanted to fight. “Bust some ass for me, Max,” he said in a louder tone, before grabbing the milk and heading back toward his nephews.
As Max started for the swinging doors, Sera took his arm. “Run with me?”
He smiled at her unexpected offer. “Now you see my way of thinking?”
“I do.”
“My lady’s timing stinks.” Max took a moment to pull her into his arms and kiss her forehead. “Nothing would mean more to me. But I can’t do that to the Peltiers and my brother. Not after everything they’ve done for me over the years.”
“And that’s why I love and hate you.”
Snorting at her strange sense of humor, he released her and slid through the swinging door to see what was happening out in the bar.
Fang, Vane, Dev, Illarion, and the wolves and bears were in the bar, ready to war against every member of Seraphina’s tribe. Thankfully, the bar was still closed to humans or this would have been an even worse situation.
“I demand you hand over the Dragonbane! He attacked our patria, killed our members, and —”
“Cry to your mama, bitch, I don’t care.” Fang flipped the Arcadian wolf off.
“Fang!” Vane put himself between his brother and the other wolf. “Not helping!”
Dev laughed. “Maybe not, but he’s highly entertaining and helping lift my mood immensely.”
Samia smacked her husband in the stomach. “Stay out of this. If we wanted to blow the bar up, again, we’d have brought Rémi out here.”
Sera brushed past Max to address the group. “This isn’t about the Dragonbane. It’s about Nala’s pact with a demon.”
“Hold your tongue.” Nala glared at her.
“No. Not in this. I won’t watch you destroy my mate again.”
“Seraphina…”
But Sera wasn’t having any part of this. “I will renounce my allegiance to the tribe before I allow you to take him.” She pulled her sword from its sheath. “You want Maxis… you have to come through me.”
Illarion moved to stand at her back.
Completely stunned, Max was frozen to the spot. He honestly couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was it even real?
Sera was defending him?