Page 71 of Maksym

“Yes. Her name is Maddie.”

I held up a hand. “No. Stop. Pause the supernatural soap opera for one second.”

Remy made a strangled sound.

I turned fully toward Maksym. “You’re fucking kidding me. You don’t sparkle, but people shift into wolves? So there is a whole Jacob situation?”

Taras looked briefly toward the ceiling as if requesting patience from whatever systems he trusted.

Remy laughed so hard she had to brace one hand on the table.

Maksym stared at me.

Not offended. Not quite confused. More like a man who had led armies, governed ancient bloodlines, and negotiated with creatures that wore human shapes as a courtesy, only to find himself entirely unprepared for a woman from Appalachia referencing popular paranormal romance as legal taxonomy.

“Jacob situation,” he repeated.

“Yes,” I said. “Wolves. Shifting. Abs. Territorial drama. I don’t know. I only absorbed the cultural bullet points. I was busy with law school.”

Remy had tears in her eyes. Actual tears. She wiped one away with the back of one elegant finger. “Lord, I have waited decades for a situation like this.”

“This is not a joke,” Maksym said.

“I assure you, I am not laughing because I think any of this is funny.” I put both hands over my face. “I am laughing because if I don’t, I may start screaming and never stop.”

“Vampires are real,” I muttered. “Witches are real. Werewolves are real. There is a Supernatural Council. I died. I drank blood from a vampire king’s wrist and had an orgasm about it. Now I may be defending a vampire prince in wolf court or monster Congress or whatever because he killed an Alpha rescuing a woman named Maddie. I have clearly gone insane. That is the cleanest explanation. Vanderbilt should revoke my degree posthumously.”

Cool fingers closed around my wrists. Firm. Not harsh. Maksym pulled my hands away from my face.

I should have jerked back. I did not. His grip was careful, but not tentative. There was something grounding in the strength of it, something that said the world might be absurd, but the hands holding mine were real enough to push against.

His amber eyes held mine.

“It is real,” he said. “All of it.”

“That is not better.”

“No.”

“I wanted you to lie a little.”

“I do not think you did.”

I glared at him.

He held my wrists a second longer, then turned my hands over and placed them palms down on the table in front of me. Like returning evidence to its proper position. Like saying: Here. Begin here. This much is solid.

“Nikolay needs a good lawyer,” he said.

I went still. The sentence entered differently from the rest.

Not as madness. Not as lore. Not as another revelation added to the pile already crushing the human framework of my mind.

Needs a good lawyer. That was a door. A familiar one.

My fingers pressed against the table.

“What happened?” I asked.