Maxen’s gaze drifted back to her, noted at once the stubborn tilt of her chin, the tension in her shoulders, the quiet tremor in her fingers that she probably thought no one noticed. She was shaken. But she was also determined. Brave. He didn’t have the heart to bluntly refuse. “I’ll think about it.”
Calliope’s gaze narrowed. “That’s not a no.”
“It’s not a yes either.”
She shrugged with a smile. “But it’s something.”
Maxen had the distinct impression she would make sure his consideration would become more than a mere something.
She winked at him.
God. Winked.
Something deep in his chest crumbled.
Even here, she wasn’t as safe as he wanted her to be. But damned if she wasn’t braver than most men he knew. And he was starting to think he might be the one in most danger.
Chapter Eighteen
Calliope blinked afterMaxen as the door leading to the back swung shut behind him. He hadn’t said a word to her before he left. He just gave her a long look, something unreadable flickering in those stormy, dark eyes and a strange connection that slipped away along with him.
Had she said something wrong?
She exhaled, quietly. Not a sigh, precisely. A mere... release.
Reaper leaned back in his chair like a man born to slouch and smirk. He gave the impression of supreme laziness, but she knew, with those sharp eyes, nothing about this man was truly at rest. He was a wolf acting the sheep. Lord. And he put kissing images in her head, and she quite resented him for that!
Shameless.
“Is it always like this?” she asked him.
Reaper quirked a brow. “Like what exactly?”
“Secrets. Shadowy schemes. Brooding.” Her gaze drifted to the exit again. “Silent storms.”
Dagger arched a brow. “That wasn’t a storm. That was Max being... Max.”
“Right.” She tilted her head. “And what, precisely, doesthatmean?” Max being Max could mean a million things.
Reaper grinned. “It means he broods better than the rest of us.Saint is close second, Knight the third.”
“Serpent comes close.”
Reaper nodded. “Butfrèrehas the full ‘smite-your-enemies-and-glower-while-doing-it’ look perfected.”
She had to agree there. “What was he like as a boy?” That, more than anything, piqued her curiosity. What kind of boy became a man like that?
“You should ask him that,” Dagger said simply.
Right. Of course.
It was easy to imagine Maxen as he was now—powerful, unreadable, impossible to ignore. But she couldn’t picture him with bright eyes and lanky legs. Couldn’t picture him with scabbed knees or laughing until he hiccupped.Hadhe ever laughed like that? Had anyone ever tucked him in at night, or made him hot milk when he was sick, or told him he was loved or adored?
She doubted it.
There was a hardness in him, a kind forged by hellfire and held together with sheer will. But under that was something bruised. Something buried. She had glimpsed it in the way he touched his brothers, in the rough tenderness he tried to hide. And last night, when he’d looked at her like she was something he wanted and didn’t know how to hold onto. Well, she might have very well imaginedthat, but still.
What had shaped him? What had hurt him?
