Landon rushed forward to charge Max, but I turned before he reached us and stopped him, pleading silently with my eyes.
“Oh, and Quinn?”
Max’s use of my name in the middle of Camelot Courtyard didn’t surprise me, but I still hated it.
I turned to face him. With an impassive expression and a smirk on his face, I had no doubt I wasn’t going to like what came next. But I needed to hear it.
“What I told you the first night, it’s still true.” He flicked his gaze down the path of doors, his demeanor bored as if dealing with a whiny child. “Crybabies don’t belong here, and if I have to train you for the next week,” he scoffed, pinning me with his gaze. “I don’t want to be trapped with one.”
He pushed past us and walked away.
Landon came up beside me to pull me into his arms while I followed Max’s departure from Camelot Courtyard.
At least, he hadn’t gone back to Vivian’s room.
That inspired some hope.
Meeting Landon’s worried stare, I said stubbornly, “It’s fine. I know he didn’t mean it.”
“Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”
Nodding into his chest, I gave him the truth. “It did, but it just means I need to be more strategic about how I approach him. I can get under his skin just fine, but an open courtyard where everyone can hear us? What was I expecting?”
“A sign, maybe? Some type of clue he’s still in there?”
“Yeah, and I feel like he’s trying to tell me something, but I can’t figure out what it is. I don’t know if I’m grasping at straws or not.” I released a heavy breath. “Much to what Iassumewill be your displeasure, I’m not sure Max wantsmeas much as I thought he did.”
He hugged me again. “Well, then he’s a fucking idiot.”
I soaked up the feel of him like a sponge, taking it in and holding onto it tightly. “Yeah, it’s his loss.”
But the resolute tone in my voice belied the gnawing feeling in my gut. One thing I knew about Max Dread: If he could get out of Camelot Court bullshit, he would. Unless the consequences for not going along with things were too great.
With everything he’d been saying to me about leaving, he had to believe there was danger. Whether it was actually for me, just in general, or for him, I wasn’t sure. But the need to confirm what was going on—if a threat was being held over his head—and to find a way around it, wouldn’t abate.
It was nowpriority number one.
“I take it you don’t want me to kill him?” Landon offered with a lopsided smile, the words lacking heat and meant to give me a way to deflect.
“Unfortunately, no.” I smiled back weakly, turning over what he’d said before storming away in my mind. “Because he may have just told me he’s protectingme.”
Chapter Ten
Izzy wasn’t in the room when we went inside. Landon set my stuff by the foot of the bed as I took off my crossbody and set it on the dresser.
“If everything Max told me during our time together was a lie, he had the chance to get rid of me.”
“What do you mean?”
“We crossed some lines.” I frowned, needing to rip the Band-Aid off. “We’d been holding back from certain things because of the statute. But if Percy voted in favor of it, then Vivian was in the clear either way. So, if Max had been playing the long game, manipulating me to eventually do all this with her, he could’ve cleared an obstacle from his darling V’s path. He could’ve tried, at least. But he didn’t.”
“Okay…”
“More than that, he specifically saidafter The Questhe planned to do that. Totake what was his.It didn’t register at the time, but he had it in his head. Me needing to stay a virgin. Not him wanting it. Before that, the idea of you and me sleeping together had come up, and he got weird about it.”
“Like, he got jealous?”
“No, it wasn’t jealousy, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.”
