by Selena Scott
Her face blanched at his words and he grabbed her hands. “You throw words in my face to hurt me, rusalka. Of course I want to get married to you. I love you. I love your son. I am not his papa. But maybe I could be. But you have to let me in. You have to let me help you and love you and be there. All you have to do is let me be there.”
For a second, he thought she was going to crack, open her arms to him. But then something hardened in her eye and she pushed away from him. “You say it like it’s all so easy, Maxim. Like this is all such a good thing. But it’s not. You’re making me depend on you. You’re making it so that I need you. You think you’re protecting me. But all you’re doing is making me weaker.”
Now he was the one recoiling.
“And when shit falls apart, Maxim, it’s gonna be me and Linc. Just us again. Only then, I’ll be heartbroken. And I’ll have to pick up after myself. And all the things I’ve depended on you for, I’ll just have to relearn how to do them myself. And it’s not fair to my kid. It’s not fair to Linc to wreck myself over some guy.”
“Ivy,” he said, panic starting to race through him at the rock-hard look on her face, “I will never wreck you.”
“Yeah, Maxim.” She turned, took one step and then another out of his bedroom. “You will.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next afternoon, Ivy blazed right over the state line. Linc was dozing in the back seat, belted into his car seat. Boxes of their essentials spilled over each seat. She was glad that Linc had finally tired himself out enough to snooze. He’d cried and cried as they’d driven away from Spokane.
She had goodbye notes for all the Malashoviks sprawled out over the front seat. She’d send them whenever she got where she was going. She had one for each person except Maxim. Maxim, she’d have to call later tonight. Or else he was gonna worry. She didn’t want him to worry. He didn’t deserve to worry. But she couldn’t give him the opportunity to talk her out of it. And if she’d done the face-to-face thing, if he’d been able to lay a gentle hand on her, she knew she would have cracked, fallen apart and lost it all.
Last night had been hard enough. He’d driven her home after they’d slept together. Spent the night apart. He’d been so sweet. Walked her to the door, asked if she’d have dinner with him tomorrow after his shift. This wasn’t over, he’d told her. There was a way for both of them to get what they hoped for. They just had to find it together. She’d kissed him and gone inside. But she’d known even then that she wouldn’t even be in the same state come tomorrow.
She’d spent the morning packing their things and then she’d picked up Linc from Emin’s cabin. Thank God it had only been Glory there. Ivy was certain that Emin would have noticed all the boxes in her car. Glory just hugged her and Linc goodbye, grinned and tried to talk them into staying for lunch.
But she had to get out of there. Out of Spokane, away from that family, away from Maxim. They were like time bombs waiting to happen. She couldn’t risk loving them anymore than she already did. Now that Linc had control over his shift, well. There wasn’t a ton of reason to stay any longer. He could be a normal kid in anywhere USA. He didn’t need the Malashoviks for guidance anymore.
And as for Maxim. She realized now that there was no way to be with him without giving him everything. She could either protect herself or she could be with him. She couldn’t do both. He didn’t allow for middle ground. He wanted everything. He wanted her body and her heart and her life and her son.
That was the thought that almost had her pulling over to the side of the road. Jesus. He wanted Linc, too. He loved Linc. And Linc loved him.
Papa.
She couldn’t do that to Linc. She couldn’t let Maxim into their lives only to have to explain when he was gone. She couldn’t show him what a weak, shell of a woman she’d be when Maxim inevitably broke her heart. It was better this way. Clean break.
“Mama, why are you crying?” Linc asked sleepily from the back seat.
She quickly dashed her tears from her cheeks. “I’m a little sad, ace.”
“Because we left?”
“Yeah.”
He was quiet for a while, watching the sunset on the trees whiz past. She passed back a small bag of goldfish crackers and he munched a little.
“You’re sad to leave Maxim?” he asked.
She swallowed thickly. “Yeah.”
“Because you’re my Mama and he’s like a Papa.”
Ivy’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He’s not your Papa, ace. You just have a Mama.”
“Okay.” He was quiet again for a while. “But he’s kind of like a Papa.”
Ivy switched lanes, flipped down her visor. This was killing her. But she refused to ice out her own son. “How do you mean?”
“Well, he gives good hugs. And taught me to be a bear. And he smells good. And he makes you happy. And I feel better when he comes over.” Linc thought for a second, taking a tug on a juice box. “When Maxim comes over for dinner it feels like everybody is there. Our whole family.”
Ivy couldn’t feel her hands. She knew tears were racing down her cheeks. She knew exactly what Linc was talking about because Maxim made her feel that way, too. She quickly pulled over now. Stared out the windshield while her breaths came fast and hard.
Oh God.
Linc loved him. It was too late. Linc wanted Maxim to be his dad. Maxim wanted to be Linc’s dad. And - goddamn it - Ivy wanted him to be Linc’s dad. Yet here she was, three hours outside of Spokane, driving away from their family.
“Shit,” she murmured, leaning forward and resting her forehead on the steering wheel.
“Language, Mama.”
“Sorry, ace.”
“Why’d you say shit?” he asked, a little smile in his voice at saying the bad word.
“Because I made a mistake. We shouldn’t have left.”
Ivy checked traffic, merged through and immediately pulled a U-turn.
“Mama!” Linc called, flinging sideways in his car seat for a second. “Are we going back?”
“Yeah, baby. We’re going back.”
***
This was so dumb. He was a grown man, a firefighter no less, literally sweating over a bouquet of flowers. He held pink tulips in one hand and yellow daffodils in the other and had absolutely no idea what to choose.
There was no reason to be nervous! So, Ivy had been a little heated last night. So she was a little skittish. Things were moving fast for them. He needed to let her know that he wasn’t going anywhere. And first he needed to soften her up a little bit with some flowers. If he could ever figure out which ones he should fucking buy.
Hell. He didn’t know. And there was only one person who would. He dialed her number from memory.
“Hi, I’m driving so I can’t talk for long,” Ivy’s voice answered on the second ring. There was a strange lightness, a mild hysteria, a wonder in her tone. It had Maxim frowning at the phone. It wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d thought she’d be grumpy, distant, still building all those walls she seemed to love so much.
“Okay. Do you like pink or yellow?”
“For what?”
“Just pick.” He was irritated and wasn’t sure why. He’d really thought she’d be grumpy, but she sounded positively effervescent.
“Okay. Yellow.”
“Okay, I will pick you up in half hour for our dinner.”
“No, Maxim, I won’t be there.”
“What? Where are you?” he asked, frowning even harder as his stomach started a slow, steady tightening.
“We’re about an hour outside of Spokane, on 195. Linc and I are headed back in.”
Back in? He didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t know that they’d been heading out in the first place. “From where?”
She paused for a second, her glow dimming just a bit. “We, uh, left this afternoon. Packed up. I freaked out, Maxim. I don’t know what else to say, really. Everything was so much and Linc is too young to understand any of it. And there
was nowhere for you and I to go but to get more serious. And I just… I don’t know. I left.”
She was right. There was nothing to else to say. Nothing could make it past the bricks in his chest.
“Maxim? Did you hear that?”
“I heard.” He felt like he was talking through the roar of a forest fire.
“Okay, well make sure you really listen to this part, too. Because Linc and I were talking earlier, while we were driving. And we realized some good stuff. Well, I think he already knew it. But I realized it. And I can explain it all in a bit when we’re there. But I just want you to know that we’re coming back. To stay.”
“What did you realize?” he asked, his voice gruff and barely recognizable.
She paused. “Are you sure you want to hear it over the phone? You’re such a romantic, I thought I might light some candles for it.”
“Tell me.” He gripped the phone so hard he heard his case creak.
“Well, we were talking about why leaving was making us so sad. And both of us realized that we love you too much to leave you.”
A bomb went off in Maxim’s chest. He felt as if he were racing through time and space. He paused, viciously, almost like he couldn’t make himself ask the questions he so badly needed the answers to.
“Linc loves me.”
“Da,” she answered, imitating his accent.
“You love me.”
“Double da.”
Maxim let out a huge bark of relief, his chest swelling. Wow. He hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed to hear that. A weight he hadn’t known existed lifted right off of him. He felt a band around his heart just up and snap. There was no limit to how hard he’d love the two of them. No leash. No borders. She didn’t know it yet, but he’d just married her in his heart.
“You are coming home to me now.”
“Yeah, totally. Be there in an hour. Unless - shit.”
“What?”
“Looks like an accident or traffic or something. There’s cars holding up traffic ahead. Well. It’s completely stopped. So yeah. That’s a little anticlimactic. But at some point we’ll get home and you can come over.”
“Da. I’ll bring-”
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Something, uh, something is happening up where the cars are stopped. It looks like a military maneuver or something.” There was a note of panic in Ivy’s voice that had Maxim’s blood running dead cold. “It’s a barricade, not an accident. Men with guns. Oh, Jesus. They’re coming, God, I think they’re coming for us. No!”
“Ivy, what’s happening? Ivy!”
“No! LINC!”
Maxim heard glass breaking and the sound of Linc and Ivy screaming for one another before the line went dead.
Maxim had never before lost control of his bear. Not since he was three or four years old. But he almost shifted right then and there in the middle of the flower shop. He dialed Ivy again, got nothing but a busy tone. Sprinting outside and to his car, Maxim dialed his brothers. He dialed the people he knew would drop everything and come to him.
***
All in all, that had gone off without a hitch, Lana thought to herself as she pulled the truck onto the little back road she’d designated long before. It was the perfect escape route for them. Direct enough to their Cascades lab and well-traveled, but still fairly remote.
She was certain that the Malashoviks would be expecting them to go crashing through the woods, leaving signs all over the place, luring them right into an ambush. Which had been Sergei’s plan, of course. And maybe a good one. If not a little predictable.
He was nothing if not a little predictable, Lana thought, almost lovingly, as she looked over at him, unconscious in the front seat, twin lines of blood from his forehead and mouth trickling down. Except for how hard he’d fought her at the last second. That had genuinely surprised her. She’d thought it wouldn’t take more than a conk on the head to get him to go down. But she’d had to syringe him as well.
Which was extremely annoying because she’d intended to use that syringe on Linc and now she had to take him, fully cognizant, to the lab. No matter. That’s what the few remaining guards were for.
She’d dismissed the rest of the guards as soon as she’d subdued Sergei. The huge, noisy, traceable scene that he’d planned had easily dissolved into the wind as soon as he’d been unconscious and she’d sent everyone on their way. She’d wanted a discreet exit after all.
Sergei was going to be quite mad when he woke up. But maybe less so when she showed him their spoils. A fresh canvas. A little bear cub whom they could alter in absolutely any way they saw fit. The sky was the limit! Lana gripped the steering wheel in excitement.
She drove them down the dark road into the night, into the wilderness. It was just their armored truck and the one behind them, holding the guards. The little bear and his little, disposable Mama were less than ten feet behind her, locked in the back. She’d thought about tossing the mother in the woods for the wolves. But that was a loose end. And besides, the Malashoviks were loyal brutes. The mother would have to be avenged and yadda yadda, what a headache. She didn’t need that. She didn’t want that.
So instead, she decided to bring the woman. Maybe she could be used to convince the bear cub to undergo some of these experiments without fighting as much as the others had.
Drink the medicine, little bear, and your mama gets to keep her fingers.
Shift for me, bear cub, and I won’t slice your mama’s pretty face.
Lana felt like a kid on the first day of school. Everything stretched out before her in a river of never-ending possibility. She was finally unrestrained by Sergei, by the president’s orders for Navuka. She had put herself in the driver’s seat, literally and figuratively. Lana had never in her life felt such a thrill. Finally, her genius would be recognized.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ivy took a deep breath as she tried to stretch her cramping legs out in front of her. She thanked God for small blessings. First of all, that whoever these people were, they hadn’t split up her and Linc. And second of all, that she’d worn running shoes today. Because the first chance she got, she was taking her kid and sprinting into the wilderness.
They sat in the back of what basically seemed to be an off-road truck. The windows were blacked out, so the only light that the two of them could see by was from the cracks around the back doors.
Ivy felt the acrid taste of complete panic rising in her throat but she swallowed it back. She had Linc to think about.
“Listen, ace, you have to promise me that you won’t shift, okay? You can’t let them see you shift,” she whispered desperately to him.
“Why?”
“Because I think these are the people that were not so nice to Anton and Glory and they really like shifters. We want them to think that you’re not a shifter. That they got the wrong kid.”
“Okay.” Linc nodded solemnly. “That’s why it smells like Anton in here.”
“What?”
“I smell the chemicals that the bad guys used on Anton. Sometimes he smells like this. Maxim said it’s because it’s a part of him now, but that he’s not a bad guy, he’s a good guy.”
“Right.” Ivy tried to keep her voice calm but her heart was absolutely racing. She’d known that Navuka had tortured and experimented on Anton, but she hadn’t known that even a decade later he was still experiencing the effects of it. There was no chance in literal hell that Ivy was letting her kid go through this. Nope. She would set this truck on fire with herself still in it before she let that happen. She thought fast.
“Here’s the plan, ace. When this truck stops and they go to let us out, I’m gonna distract them. Your job, your only job, is to run as fast as you can into the woods, in your human form. You’re gonna run that way.” Ivy pointed back over her shoulder. “That’s where Spokane is. When you can’t smell these chemicals or any of these people anymore, you shift into your bear form. Okay? You’ll be faster
that way. You shift and you keep running until you smell any of the Malashoviks. And then you get safe and tell them what happened, okay?”
Linc looked at her, his eyes squinting up like they always did. “Okay, but I don’t need to wait until I smell them. If I’m a bear, then I can talk to them.”
“Oh my God! Ace! You’re a little genius. I totally forgot about that.” They could speak through one another’s minds when they were in bear form. Her mind raced as she started to recalculate her plan. “How far does it transmit? Never mind. We’re just gonna try it. Okay. We stick to the old plan, the one I just described. But first, you’re gonna shift, right now, as quietly as you can, and you’re gonna try to tell Maxim where we are in your head. It’s a long shot that he’s in bear form and even longer that he’ll be able to hear you at this distance, but we gotta try.”
***
Besides Ivy’s car, pulled over to the side of the road, there was nothing to mark a disturbance. In fact, an old trash bag had been taped over the broken windows of the car and the hood had been popped. It looked like any old junker abandoned by an owner.
Maxim and his brothers stayed hidden at the edge of the woods in their bear forms. Eyeing the scene. Or lack thereof.
Maxim swallowed back the roar that was gathering in his throat. He didn’t understand. He and his brothers had assembled in the woods less than ten minutes after he’d called them. They’d sprinted the distance down 195, looking for any sign of Ivy. Or of Navuka, which they were certain was the cause of all of it. But now, they get to her car and there’s no sign of where they’d gone?
“Why isn’t there a trail of any kind?” Danil asked. “This doesn’t make any sense. They’d absolutely leave a trail for us to follow to wherever they’re taking them. Wherever it is they have some big ambushing trap for us.”
