Savage Prince by Alison Aimes

32

“Tess, go back to bed.” Maxheim pushed back his chair, his expression hard and foreboding.

But she refused to be silent any longer.

With a glance toward the other Alpha in the room, she gathered her courage and charged deeper into the room. “You’ve put me off long enough.”

Maxheim growled low.

She tightened her robe and stood her ground. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

“We’re out of time.” Damien barreled into the room.

With a gasp, Tess staggered back.

Maxheim moved to block her with his body, but his focus was all on his brother. “What’s happened?”

“Prendel, Kuril, and a whole host of other angry Council members and their armies are headed this way.”

“Including the Sartins.” Alexi rushed in next. “They’re still bent out of shape about the prime omega contract and looking for a way to regain some face.”

“Hells.” Maxheim slammed his fist into his palm, his horns snapping straight. “Not now. What’s changed?”

“Someone told them we have the individual responsible for the Brotherhood deaths at the auctions,” answered Alexi. “And that it’s an omega.”

“Fucking hells.” Maxheim’s roar shook the room.

“And,” Damien added, “since they didn’t hear it from us, they’re not too convinced by our efforts to insist Tess is not the killer. They’re demanding something more concrete to prove her innocence or they’re taking her.”

Nikolai’s comms beeped. “It’s Prendel.” He smashed his finger down on his comms. “Come into our territory, and we’ll consider it an act of aggression.”

Tess couldn’t see the Alpha on the other side of the comms from her position, but his buzzing, robotic-like voice came through loud and clear. “You should not have kept the assassin from us.”

Maxheim forged forward until he was standing by Nikolai’s side. “The individual behind the recent attacks on the Brotherhood is a male and the same one who came after us before.” He skillfully avoided her part. “He’s the one to blame. He’s the one we all want. Not the omega.”

“Prove it or we’ll take her. Blood for blood.”

“You can’t have her.” Maxheim snarled into the comms. “She’s my fated mate.”

A long pause.

“Unfortunate.” The Brotherhood Council member’s delivery remained eerily wooden, “But it does not matter either way. An example must be made.”

“Not on our watch.”

“There doesn’t need to be war. We have no interest in anyone but the omega. We still value our financial and security alliances with the Skolov family despite this misjudgment. Redress this error now by giving her up, and all will be forgotten.”

Her heart beat fast in her chest.

“However,” continued the Council head, “should you refuse to give her up, we will be forced to reconsider our alliance. No one stands against the Brotherhood, especially one of their own.” He paused. “Think of the consequences for the rest of the Skolov line.”

Nikolai growled low. “Did you just threaten my son?”

“We are Brotherhood. We should be standing together during this time of crisis.”

“Who told you about her?” Maxheim pushed.

“It does not matter.”

“It does to me.” Maxheim’s comms beeped. “It’s Byrel’s number,” he whispered to his brothers. “I’ll take it after we finish with Prendel.”

Tess crept closer.

“You’re making a big mistake coming here, Prendel.” Nikolai returned his attention to the Council male. “We’ve just had a major breakthrough regarding the identity of the main culprit trying to take down the Brotherhood, and if you or your armies set one clawed foot in our territory, you will never fucking know who he is.”

The Skolov head disconnected the call.

They’d had a major breakthrough? Was that the news Maxheim had wanted to keep from her?

“Well done.” Her Alpha looked pleased. “That should hold them off for at least a little while.”

“Hopefully long enough that we can somehow turn my bullshit into reality,” observed Nikolai.

Oh, gods. She’d really hoped he hadn’t been telling tales.

Maxheim’s comms buzzed again.

He answered with a growl. “Byrel, you bastard, you better not have been the one to turn Tess into the Council.”

“Of course, I didn’t.” Rav’s worried voice reached her through the comms. Even after all he’d done, the familiarity of it weaved through her, comforting in its own way. “But I heard he did. That’s why I’m calling. I warned you. I told you he was ruthless and not to be trusted and would do whatever it took.”

“Yes, but you didn’t tell me who I was dealing with.”

“And lose my bargaining power?”

“Who are you talking about?” She couldn’t keep the question inside any longer.

“Tessie? Is that you?” Rav couldn’t see her from where she stood. “If you can hear me, you know the only option left is for you to come to me and we’ll slip away. It’s the only way to keep you and the Skolovs safe. You can’t go up against the whole rest of the Brotherhood and win.”

“Convenient,” sneered Maxheim.

The tension in the room thickened.

“Did you tell her what I said?” Rav addressed Maxheim once more. “Did you give Tessie my message?”

Message? Her eyebrows skyrocketed to her forehead. She thought of the comms in her cloak. The one she’d never used.

She wondered what Maxheim had kept from her too.

“You don’t speak to her.” Her Alpha didn’t even look her way, but she sensed the ripple of guilt through his bond. “You don’t even think of her. I answer for her, and I am telling you what I did before. It doesn’t matter what you offer up, I’m not giving her to you.”

“Then you’re a fool and you’ll all die, including Tessie.” Rav paused. “I’m leaving, with or without her. The heat has gotten too great, and I can’t dodge the Council, you, and my ex-employer much longer. Unlike you, I’m not going to sit around and wait for death to come find me.”

That was Rav, sneaky and enterprising to the end. And willing to cut out to save his skin.

But he was also their best hope of salvaging this situation.

“Rav,” she grabbed Maxheim’s wrist and, using the element of surprise, turned his comms to her. Desperate, she spoke fast. “If I come, you have to tell them all you know.”

They’d all been so focused on the comms, they hadn’t been paying attention as she’d tucked the blanket around her and glided down the platform steps to ease up to Maxheim’s side.

They hadn’t heard her approach until it was too late. Or maybe Maxheim was just used to her staying where she was put.

But no longer.

“If you promise this,” she told Rav, “we’ll make the trade.”

“No!” Maxheim jerked the screen away, the look on his face one of fury and betrayal.

But she felt the same.

“Tessie!” Rav’s smug voice sounded through the comms. “I knew you’d never choose your own safety and cushy comfort over the lives of Lottie, Betta, and Flora, or those twins.”

Maxheim’s finger smashed down on the comms, cutting off the call.

Her heart turned over.

She stared at Maxheim. “What did Rav mean?”

Maxheim’s scowl deepened, but he didn’t answer. He only glowered in silent challenge.

“What was Rav talking about?” This time she screamed the words. “You can’t keep shutting me out.”

He studied her for another long moment. So long, she thought he wouldn’t answer.

At her back, the stares of his brothers seared into her skin. They knew. She sensed their pity.

It only made her more furious. “Tell me.”

In the end, Maxheim must have decided a part of her already knew because he finally said, “he threatened to kill your omega friends if I didn’t turn you over.”

She sucked down a sharp breath. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“What good would it have done?”

“What . . . good?” She was having trouble processing it all. Her mind tried to catch up with the foolish organ inside her chest that was bleeding anew.

She’d let him put her off so many times.

“What else aren’t you telling me?”

He paused, looked at his brothers, and for an instant, she was certain he was going to continue to refuse her an answer.

But he didn’t. “I only just discovered the identity of the individual behind the death squad, the one who killed the omegas and is hunting you now.”

She braced herself.

“It’s Caden Hawke. I found records of payments. The bastard might pretend to be a loyal Federation soldier toiling under Commander Anderson, but Blondie does a lot of moonlighting, namely as a killer for the same employer Byrel used to work for—and it’s no wonder he was pushing so hard to get you to trust him, he wants to use you as bait to bring down Byrel.”

After all she’d been through, she wasn’t surprised. After so much betrayal and lies, what was a little more?

“I see.”

Maxheim’s scowl deepened. “Tess—”

She cut him off. “I’m not going to fall apart, Maxheim. I’ve always been stronger than that. Even if you refuse to see it.”

He growled low. “I never thought of you as weak.”

His brothers’ gazes bounced between the two of them, but none of them uttered a word.

But she was done allowing Maxheim to protect her at the cost of all else.

She knew it was done out of love, but there was no way their love would last if it came at the destruction of everything else they cared about.

“That’s not how it feels.” She told him. “It’s not just the omegas I care about that are at risk. It’s your family too. The Council is on its way, and time has run out. You have to trade me to Byrel or Hawke. I can’t remain here.”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“We have no choice.” She took a breath and moved toward her Alpha. “You tried, and I will always be grateful for that. I will always be grateful, too, for the life you’ve given me and all the beauty you’ve shown me, but I think we both know we were always living on borrowed time.” Her voice broke. “I love you with a ferocity I would never have thought possible, but I won’t be the reason everything you love gets destroyed. And I won’t let you be the reason I break my promise to the omegas I vowed to look out for above even my own skin.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Everyone but Tess, clear the room.”

Damien and Alexi exchanged a glance. “Maybe we should stay and—”

“Out. Now!”

With a sigh, his brothers left.

Until it was just her and Maxheim, and a seething unease in the air.