He’d ditched his bloody shirt and at least wiped himself off.
Max stared at his chest and stomach, looking for the bullet wound, but other than a few smears of drying blood and a scabbed-over splotch of bruised and angry red flesh, he looked unharmed.
Quinn handed over a steaming cup of tea, before carefully sinking down next to Max with his own cup. His expression pinched with discomfort, which was somehow reassuring.
At least Max hadn’t imagined the last hour in some psychotic break. He might have been stressing over finals, but not that badly.
Quinn gave him a faint smile. “By tomorrow I’ll be good as new.” He cleared his throat and glanced at Caius before ducking his head. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have been taken down by a single bullet. It caught me by surprise.”
Max frowned at him, about to tell him it wasn’t his fault and he was lucky to be alive, but Caius sighed and reached out, pressing his hand against the side of Quinn’s neck.
“You’re both safe. That’s all that matters. You’re lucky they were regular bullets.”
Quinn shuddered and closed his eyes, leaning into Caius’ touch as the tension seemed to melt out of him.
“So, what’s the plan?” Lukas asked, glowering at Quinn’s stomach before reaching over to wipe away the missed blood. Once satisfied, he got up to toss the cloth in the kitchen sink.
“There’s not much we can do right now,” Caius said, nudging Max’s cup until he got the hint and took a sip.
Belatedly, he realized he was sitting in Caius’ lap and tried to slide off, but Caius kept him locked in place with a soft, warning growl that somehow went straight to his dick.
“We don’t have the numbers to declare war. Unless the police tie the dead men to Savino, we have no recourse.”
When Caius flexed his fingers, Max caught the way they shifted from human nails to dark claws and back again. A quick glance at Lukas showed the same, both of them clenching and unclenching their fists as if they wanted to strangle someone. Even Quinn, who was pale where he slumped into the sofa, looked furious. That was new. Max wasn’t sure he’d ever had someone genuinely worried about his safety before. Ironically, surrounded by three pissed-off shifters was the safest he’d ever felt.
“The security cameras should at least show they attacked first,” Quinn said.
Max groaned and buried his face against Caius’ chest. “Fuck, they’re gonna know it was me. They’re gonna kick me out, and I’ll never finish my degree.”
“They’re not going to kick you out,” Caius growled.
Max was sure Caius fully believed he could threaten the university into letting Max stay if they tried anything, but he wasn’t so sure.
“You are part of our pack. You’re protected against discrimination even if you’re not a shifter.”
Max scrubbed at his face and took another sip of tea. “I think you need to give me a crash course in Pack 101.”
“Sure,” Quinn said, “but maybe tomorrow.”
“Yes,” said Caius, standing with Max still in his arms. “You need a shower and rest.”
Max huffed. “I’m fine. Quinn is the one who got shot.”
“You smell like ash and Quinn’s blood.”
He winced. “Fine,” he muttered, sipping more of his tea rather than trying to tell Caius he could climb the damn stairs by himself. If he were being honest, it was kind of nice being fussed over. And when Caius pulled him into bed after his shower, he was certainly not saying no.
Chapter 15
QUINN’S WOUNDwas completely gone by morning thanks to his shifter healing, though he’d never healed so quickly before. He’d been shot in the leg once. It’d taken two days for the wound to heal, and he’d been tender there for a week. He was sure it had something to do with binding Max, but whether it was simply from having a mage bound to him, or because Max was so powerful, or because the three of them had bound him, he had no idea.
Not that he was complaining about a boost to his abilities. Honestly, some of the best things about being a shifter were the enhanced senses and healing. He’d seen men die in battle from a GSW to the chest or stomach. Sometimes he wondered how humanity had survived to become the dominant species when it took them months to heal a broken bone, or a single virus could wipe out a fifth of the world’s population in the same amount of time.
Not that the population couldn’t do with a bit of trimming. Magic could only do so much to curb the damage people were doing to the planet.
Fuck, he was grim today. He decided to blame it on Lukas and his weird mood the last couple of days. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought Lukas was jealous, but Lukas had never shown any interest in him. Certainly not like he had Rían. If anything, he was probably jealous over Max.
Quinn was starting to think Lukas had a thing for mages.
