Of Alliance and Rebellion by Micah Persell Page B

was not Max’s forte. That was more Luke’s area of expertise with his covert ops training. Max had never seen a man who could disappear by appearing ordinary the way Luke could—a stunning feat for a red-haired giant. The things people said in front of Luke because they forgot he was even there, if they’d noticed in the first place, were uncanny. And Luke’s interpretation of body language and voice patterns was almost a superpower in and of itself.
    Did the others know that Anahita was under orders from a mysterious other angel? He remembered that there appeared to be an angel-who-was-not-an-angel in their midst—Jayden. Surely he knew about this in-charge angel. Could Jayden be trusted?
    Max had to admit that if Jericho and Eli trusted him, then he was trustworthy. He’d found out that Eli and his “Impulse Mate,” as they were called, had a small, infant daughter named Genesis; Jericho and his Impulse Mate, Dahlia, had a baby on the way and a son named Gabriel. If they trusted the angel Jayden to be around their children, Max had no room to protest the guy’s trustworthiness.
    And, yet, it was not Jericho and Eli who Max wanted to take this new-angel information to first. Years of being cooped up with Luke and Oliver had built up a near-family feel between them all. He could not think of two different men he would want to have his back than them. But he also could not keep this from Jericho and Eli.
    Max shuffled around and began to leave the wing of the compound that housed the living quarters. As he passed through the main room with the—Holy God—
Trees
that had changed his life forever, he muttered a soft, “Come with me,” to Jericho and Eli where they stood talking. He continued through the room to the medical wing, Jericho and Eli in his wake, following him without question: a move he appreciated.
    He paused outside of the closed door of Oliver’s hospital-like room and squinted through the metal checkered pattern of the door window to see Luke sitting beside Oliver’s bedside, staring at the man’s slack face. Oliver was due to wake up in the next few hours, and he was always so disoriented when his eyes first opened. Now those eyes would be opening to a whole new environment. Max knew Oliver could not be alone today. He or Luke needed to be at his side at all times to reassure him when he awoke.
    Max sucked in a breath and opened the door, which emitted a soft click. Luke’s head snapped around, and he smiled easily at Max. It looked like he was partially forgiven for ...
playing
with the angel. But Max’s expression must have been grave, because Luke’s expression sobered.
    Luke’s brown eyes flicked over Max’s shoulder to where Jericho and Eli stood. “What’s wrong?” he asked, a small waver to his voice.
    That waver caught Max right in his gut, and he realized he hadn’t checked on Luke to see how he was handling all of the recent changes. He needed to step up his caretaking and stop focusing on the angel, who he needed to stay far, far away from anyway. He walked over to Luke’s side and squeezed the man’s shoulder before turning to the other two men.
    “Are you aware that an angel in some sort of position of power is ordering Anahita to kill Oliver, Luke, and me?”
    Eli and Jericho shared a loaded glance. “Kind of,” Jericho said.
    Max raised one eyebrow before he remembered to shake his hair into his face. He turned away from them slightly, showing them his left side and then saying, “Explain.”
    “Well, we know that she has a mission to kill you,” Eli said. “We just didn’t know she was under orders from an actual person.” Eli shook his head. “Angel,” he corrected. “I keep forgetting they’re not quite people.”
    Max’s jaw went slack. “How on earth can you forget they’re not
people
?” he asked.
    Jericho shrugged. “Jayden seems so normal to us now.”
    “Normal,” Max repeated. “The huge man with a robe and wings seems ‘normal.’” He