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“No, I couldn’t have,” I agree, appreciating his understanding, but knowing we don’t have any more time to waste with small talk. Bane seems to have been alone, but there could be other members of his army nearby. “Let me give you our New York number and then we really have to go. I want to get to the hospital as soon as possible.”
“Right. Right, of course.” The man reaches for the pocket of the jean jacket he wears over his sweatpants and tee shirt, pulling out his cell. “I’ll type it into my notes.”
Maxim gives him the number, tells him to ask for Carrie in accounting, and then wraps an arm around my shoulders, leaning on me as we start for the car.
“Did he hurt your leg again, too?” I whisper in a rough voice, my throat raw from being sick.
“No, I’m playing it up so the guy will let us go,” he says. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re still bleeding from puncture wounds on your neck,” I say, tears rising in my eyes. “He almost killed you.”
“But he didn’t,” he says, squeezing my shoulder as we stop beside the car. “Because you saved my life again. You really have to stop that or I’m going to be in your debt forever.”
“No way,” I say, wrenching open the passenger’s side door with a rush of breath. “I’m never going to stop, but the sooner we can get back to something closer to normal, the better.” I make a show of holding onto Maxim’s arm and helping him into the car as I add, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. When Bane jumped on top of you… I thought my heart was going to punch a hole through my chest. How the hell did he find us so fast?”
“I have an idea, but we should drive first.” He nods subtly toward the ruined hotel room. “That guy is going to come down from the adrenaline rush and realize how strange this is pretty soon. We should be gone before that happens.”
“Right.” I stand as Maxim buckles his seat belt, lifting a hand to the man watching us from the shadows inside the room as I jog around to the driver’s side. “Thank you! And sorry again!”
He lifts a bewildered hand and says something I can’t quite make out, but that sounds like, “Its eyes look almost human.”
Almost human…
It’s an accurate description for Bane. Almost human, but not quite. Not enough to grant him compassion or empathy or any of the things he would need not to become a power-hungry psychopath.
But now…he’s dead.
“Why don’t I feel better?” I ask as we pick up speed, zooming down the abandoned country highway with nothing but our headlights on the road ahead of us. “He’s gone. I should be relieved. It’s over. Right?”
“That would be nice,” Maxim says, pushing up the sleeve on his sweatshirt. “But I don’t think so. Not yet. Maybe not even close.” He lifts his hand, making me gasp as he shifts just one finger into a sharp claw.
I swerve into the other lane before I recover and guide the car back onto my side of the road. “You can do that? Shift just…one part of yourself?”
“I can. I’m an extraordinary specimen,” he says dryly as he traces the claw over his muscled forearm. “You really are a lucky woman.”
“I really am,” I agree in an equally dry voice. “What are you—” I break off with a gagging sound as he digs his claw into his skin, slicing a half inch cut that immediately begins to bleed onto his jeans. A beat later, his fingers are all human again and he’s digging a tiny gray pellet from his torn flesh.
“Tracking device,” he says, holding it up between two fingers. “I thought I dreamt that part, but…guess not.” He sighs as he rolls the window down and tosses it out of the car. “Which means I nearly got us both killed.”
“No, you didn’t. Bane did,” I say, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder. “You were tortured, Maxim. It’s okay that you can’t remember everything that happened to you. And I feel partly responsible for how unprepared we were. I shouldn’t have worn you out the way I did. You were already weak and I—”
“Don’t you dare,” he says, capturing my hand and squeezing it tight in his. “Don’t apologize for that. That was the best sex of my life. If I’d died tonight, I would have at least died a happy man.”
I fight a smile.
This isn’t the time to smile, but I find I can’t help myself.
There’s still the hint of a grin in my voice as I ask, “Really? The best? Even better than with supermodel fairies with legs as long as my entire body who can tie themselves into pretzel shapes?”
“Way better. No one can hold a candle to you, little wolf.” He squeezes my hand. “My dick and I are yours. For life.”
My grin spreads. “Well, shit. All right. I guess I can find a way to put up with that.”
“You’re good to me. Benevolent some might say.”
I nod. “Charitable, even.”
“Absolutely,” he says. “The Mother Teresa of fucking.”
