The other younger-looking hybrid cleared his throat. “Anyone going to introduce us?”
Maximus gestured to the man. “Selena, this is Decimus. The other guy is Zephyrus.”
Decimus winked. “Nice to meet you.”
Selena almost laughed. There was something about a man that large doing a playful wink that seemed ridiculous. Fortunately, Zephyrus didn’t wink. He offered her a polite nod before returning to stuffing ammo in the pockets of a vest.
Maximus stepped in front of Selena and glared at Decimus. The other hybrid looked away, a chagrined look on his face. She cocked her head confused and then smiled. Warmth spread through her. It was nice to be wanted enough for men to fight over her. She would hang on to that fantasy until someone corrected her otherwise.
“Is this going to be enough guys?” she asked. “I know you’re hybrids and all, but only six people?”
Cornelius snorted. “We’ve got twelve, woman.”
“Be nice, Cornelius,” Decimus said.
Maximus grunted. His stern look made Cornelius turn away. “He’s right, Selena. We’ve got a team of twelve here. The others are in different rooms getting ready.” He inclined his head toward large black garment bags hanging in the closet. “We’ll put our go gear in there, and take it to the cars before finishing up readying on site, but twelve hybrids is more than enough to take down whatever little shithole facility they’ve got hidden in that forest.”
Selena stood and walked closer to one of the laptops. The drone feed didn’t show anything out of the ordinary.
“And you’re sure they’re not going to run? They’ve probably got underground tunnels or something, right?”
CJ cleared his throat. “We’ve swept drones over that place, and there’s no activity, but we also spotted a couple of new-looking cameras. They might have expanded some of the old Army underground tunnels in the area. The question is what they’ve done with those.”
“Not enough,” rumbled Zephyrus with a nod.
Tiberius grinned. “Exactly. No way those Corps bastards are getting away this time.”
“Not that I necessarily approve of the idea,” Selena began, “but have you thought about just dropping a bunch of big bombs on them now that you know where they are?”
Cornelius snickered. “Does it look like we brought a bunch of bombs?”
“Well, no.” Selena ran her tongue inside her cheek. “But don’t you have like grenades or other stuff that blows up?”
Decimus held up what looked like a small gray putty tube. “C-4? Yeah, we’ve got that.”
Maximus gave her a quizzical look. Selena grimaced and went back to her chair. She was an unemployed production assistant, not an expert on forest warfare. The hybrids probably thought she was an idiot for asking.
“It’s a good idea,” Maximus said. “Especially since they aren’t prepping external defenses.”
Cornelius stepped forward. “Wait one—”
Maximus silenced him with a finger before refocusing on Selena. “But we need to be sure, and we don’t want a lot of collateral damage. We can’t guarantee there’s no captive Vestals with them, and we can’t guarantee we won’t start a fire. Sometimes overwhelming force isn’t the solution, even when it seems like the easiest one.”
Selena’s stomach twisted. “Captive Vestals? Of course. I should have thought of that. I read in the news about how those gangsters who were working with the Horatius Group were holding Vestals. It only makes sense the Corps would do the same thing.”
She’d been such an idiot. When Maximus described the Phoenix Corps, she’d let herself believe this was all about revenge, but of course he’d want his chance to find his Vestal. She’d talked him into sex, but that didn’t mean they had a relationship. Just because she loved him didn’t mean he loved her.
Her heart exploded into a gallop. She loved him. It didn’t make sense. She barely knew him. How had she let herself fall in love with him already?
Yes, he was a wonderful, brave man who was passionate about protecting his people and considerate of her. He’d made sure to protect her and respect her opinion, but that couldn’t be enough to fall in love with him. That was insane.
The situation must have overwhelmed her. That could be the only explanation. It wasn’t like she was his Vestal. Even if he was different from the Luna hybrids, there would be something. He would have known. She might not understand a lot about how bonding worked, but that much seemed obvious.
Maximus crouched by her. “What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing.” Selena looked down in her hands in her lap. “It’s just overwhelming. Meeting not one hybrid but a bunch. Some evil bad guys hiding in the forest. Losing my job.” She let out a strangled laugh. “And that last one actually seems like it’s not that important.”
“I can imagine.” He looked over his shoulder and nodded to Tiberius. “Make sure all the teams are ready to go. We’ll move out in an hour.”
“I’ll go check on the others now.” Tiberius headed to the door.
Maximus smiled at Selena. “As for you, you’ll stay here and keep safe.” He leaned forward and parted her lips with his tongue.
She gasped into the kiss, though it wasn’t the commanding, passionate overwhelming experience of earlier. It was gentle, sweet, as if he knew what she was thinking and trying to remind her she was important. She dared to hope that was true.
Maximus pulled away and stood, heading over toward one of the vests. Selena sat there, blinking, her breathing shallow, not noticing anything at first but then realizing something was wrong. Every other hybrid in the room was staring at her.
“Get back to work,” Maximus barked. “We don’t have much time until the raid.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sitting in the car next to Tiberius, Maximus stared at the blobs of color in the drone feed on his laptop. An occasional red and orange small shape would move through, an animal, but he was more interested in the slight differentials near the center of the feed, a large rectangular shape that edged toward light orange before bleeding into the more uniform greens and blues of the background. He’d already
