Table of Contents
Copyright
Title
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Author's Note from Madison
Author's Note from Willow
Also By
Madison Stevens Author Bio
Willow Hazel Author Bio
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents depicted in this work are of the author’s imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locations, or events is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2020 Madison Stevens and Willow Hazel
No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.
Cover designed by Najla Qamber Designs
Maximus (Luna Lodge: Alpha Squad #1)
by
Madison Stevens and Willow Hazel
Freedom isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.
Escaping from the clutches of an evil organization didn’t mean peace and quiet for Maximus. The hybrid supersoldier has spent his time hunting those seeking to exploit and imprison his kind. He has little hope for the future as a final manipulation might leave him unable to find his destined mate. The only thing left is to throw himself into the mission.
Hope is where you find it.
Selena’s big plans to turbocharge her production assistant career backfire spectacularly when some local bureaucrats in Hawaii decide to make her simple attempt to get permits painful. Desperate to keep her job, she digs into their reluctance and stumbles into something far more sinister.
It’s time to make a choice.
When Maximus and Selena cross paths, he’s instantly drawn to her, but attraction isn’t the same thing as her being his destined mate. There’s little time to consider romance when bullets start flying. Now they’ll both have to put their lives on the line against a dangerous and ruthless enemy.
Chapter One
Maximus adjusted his sunglasses before stepping out of the convenience store and into the parking lot. It was barely illuminated by a single flickering light pole in the far corner. The darkness was welcome. It could serve as a part of his disguise.
He had meant to put in contacts to conceal his amber-colored eyes marking him as a hybrid before his trip into town, but it’d slipped his mind.
Sloppy. He couldn’t afford sloppiness. Things weren’t safe for him and his men, not yet. The happy reports on the news about hybrids being free of their past captors didn’t reflect the dangerous reality of secret groups still hunting them.
Quiet whimpering reached his ears. It wasn’t that close. From what he could tell, the source was across the parking lot, around the corner, and down a nearby alleyway. If he had normal human hearing, he might not have even noticed.
“Keep quiet, or this knife’s gonna go in your throat,” whispered someone from around the corner. “Now give me your purse, bitch. I’m getting really tired of holding this knife. My hand may twitch. Wouldn’t want something bad to happen.”
Maximus sighed. He should walk away. He told his men all the time to keep a low profile and that people knowing about hybrids wasn’t the same thing as their kind being safe. The news might have changed from depicting them as ruthless woman-kidnapping feral genetically engineered wolfmen to heroic super-soldiers, but that didn’t mean that everyone trusted them.
Some people were waiting for a chance when the hybrids got distracted. At that time, those humans would attempt to reclaim what they considered their property. Maximus’s group lacked the numbers of the now famous Luna Lodge hybrids, and even those hybrids retreated to their own secret island for safety.
The primary organization responsible for the creation and enslavement of his group of hybrids, the Phoenix Corps, hadn’t been destroyed, not completely. All it took was money and dedication to keep a sick cause going.
That brought him back to the moment. Walking away from the mugging would be the smart move. Humans preyed on humans all the time. That wasn’t his responsibility. Hybrids might have superhuman abilities, but they weren’t superheroes.
Maximus grunted and jogged through the parking lot and around the corner. Screw safety. Screw smart moves. There was no way he was going to leave a woman in trouble.
No, he wasn’t a human. He was better.
He turned the corner, unsurprised at the sight of a lanky thug holding a switchblade to the neck of a woman pinned against a wall. Tears ran down her reddened cheeks, with a thin cut marring her left one.
“Let her go,” Maximus growled. He reached over and grabbed a 2x4 lying in a stack near the wall. Shooting the man would be easier, but leaving a dead body would attract more attention than he wanted.
The thug’s head jerked toward him and his eyes narrowed. The man might be tall for a human, but Maximus made him look short. Maximus’s size might just convince the thug to run. That would be convenient.
“Get the fuck out of here,” the thug barked. “Unless you want some of this?” He waved the knife. “You ain’t nothing but a bigger target, asshole. You think I’m afraid of you?”
“The real question you should be asking is if you want some of this?” Maximus broke the board over his knee and tossed the pieces to the ground. He could take the man easily, but the best battle strategy was always to win without fighting. No fighting meant no risk. “I don’t like your face. How about I volunteer to rearrange it for you?”
The thug threw the woman to the ground. She landed with a yelp of pain. He raised his knife with a wide grin.
“It don’t matter how big you are, asshole,” the thug shouted. “I hope you like the hospital.”
Maximus raised his hand and gestured for the man to come at him. “I know a good doctor. She makes house calls.”
“Nah, not that. You won’t make it to the hospital. You want to be a hero? Maybe they’ll give you a medal at your funeral.”
The thug charged. His movements were untrained, clumsy. Maximus didn’t bother to dodge. He waited for the man to arrive before snagging the thug’s wrist and bending it back. The thug howled in pain, his knife clattering to the ground. Pathetic after all the threats.
Maximus punched the man once. The thug’s head jerked back.
The hybrid grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him like it was nothing. “You might think everyone out there are sheep for you to prey on,” he growled. “But you have to remember there’s always a bigger wolf.”
He tossed the man into the wall without using his full strength. A few broken bones would help the bastard reconsider his life choices and not bring the FBI to investigate who took him down, let alone any hybrid enemies. The thug fell to the ground, groaning and bloodied.
Maximus looked at the woman before inclining his head toward the store. “Get in t
here and call the cops. He’s not getting up anytime soon.”
The woman nodded quickly, her eyes full of gratitude. “T-thank you, whoever you are.”
“Just go.” Maximus stuck his hands in his pockets and headed back toward the parking lot. “I’m not sticking around. I’ve got a little island trip planned for tomorrow.”
* * *
Maximus took in a deep, slow breath, a stethoscope cold against his chest. He didn’t dislike Rachel, the main doctor helping out the hybrids of Isla Luna, but that didn’t translate into liking medical examinations.
Rachel didn’t bother to ask him about the small cuts on his knuckles. She probably figured it was just more hybrids getting worked up and challenging each other like she saw daily on the island. He didn’t want or care to explain the fight.
She moved the stethoscope to a different part of his bare chest, her brow knitted in concern.
Maximus almost laughed despite the situation. The doctors he’d dealt with in the past never faked concern. The main emotions he associated with doctors were annoyance or fascination. He was nothing more than a lab rat to them.
No. Not a lab rat. A carefully crafted weapon. He was a slave of the Phoenix Corps and their allies. He was a genetically engineered hybrid created to serve as a killer, as all the hybrids on Isla Luna had been, but Maximus and his fellow hybrids hadn’t been created in the same way nor trained with the Luna hybrids. Maximus and his brothers also didn’t get the closure of the Luna hybrids.
The latter found their freedom after years of being hounded by the shadowy Horatius Group. They had exposed and destroyed their enemy, root and branch. Now they had their own island home, safe from any humans who might target them like when they lived in their old home, Luna Lodge. They didn’t have to live in constant fear of another attack from the monsters of the Group or manipulated townspeople.
While the Luna hybrids saved and welcomed Maximus and his men, it was hard not to feel like an outsider, especially when Maximus and some of his hybrid brothers in recent months had begun displaying one other key difference from others of their kind. That reason was behind his visit to the doctor today.
Rachel stepped away with an apologetic look. “Okay, try your best to see if you can pick up on the scent.” She patted her chest. “My scent.”
Maximus inhaled deeply through his nose, his heightened sense of smell revolting at the harsh scent of chemicals seeping throughout the examination room and the coppery hints of blood in a nearby biohazard container. Rachel’s scent was distinct, and if he needed to track her through the woods, he could with ease, but there was one thing he wasn’t smelling, something special he’d been able to smell about her and many women like her until recently.
“Well?” Rachel asked, looking hopeful.
Maximus ran a hand through his dark hair. “There’s nothing wrong with my nose. I can smell everything in here, including you, but not your Vestal scent. You smell like any other normal woman to me.”
As a Vestal, Rachel was the destined mate of a hybrid, in her case, Marius, one of the Luna Lodge hybrids. Although every Vestal was compatible with only one hybrid, others would react to their special scent and know their true nature. But Maximus’s nose told him nothing more than Rachel was a human woman. It betrayed him.
He growled and clenched his hand into a fist. “It’s not all of us.”
Rachel nodded slowly. “That’s a good thing. Since the twelve of you affected all showed your initial symptoms around the same time, we have no reason to suspect that any of the others will be affected. You have some different biomarkers present in your blood, too. And we haven’t seen any sign in the others. Unless they’ve been lying to me and telling you something different, they can still smell Vestals.”
“Good for them,” Maximus said. “I’m glad to know the rest of them are fine, even if the rest of Alpha Squad is going down.”
Rachel rolled her eyes, her mouth contorting into a frown. “You’re not going down, Maximus. You just have messed-up noses. You make it sound like you’re going to drop dead tomorrow.”
Many hybrids didn’t care for Rachel’s acerbic bedside manner, but Maximus didn’t mind a doctor who told him the blunt truth. This time though, he doubted she was. Or, at least, she didn’t appreciate the full scope of their problem.
It didn’t matter. Maximus didn’t need anyone’s pity nor did his men.
“If we can’t pick up the Vestal scent, then we’ll never find our Vestals,” he said with a shake of his head. “That means there’s no future for the core of Alpha Squad. I’m not trying to ignore what the Luna hybrids have done for us. Without them we’d still be stuck in some dark cell or lab, but we’re cousins more than brothers, and this might just be the beginning. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of that possibility.”
Rachel pulled back and folded her arms with a frown. “The beginning of what?”
“Maybe those bastards wanted a different type of hybrid than Titus and his guys. Something not as mindless as Glycons, but who they could control in a different way.”
“Control how exactly? I’m not following you.”
Maximus patted his heart. “How do we know they didn’t set us up to die after a few years away from them? It’d cut down on revolts, right? They could have set things up so we need a special chemical or something.”
Rachel sighed, the sound infused with deep annoyance. “There’s nothing indicating any health problems other than your inability to pick up on Vestal’s scents. If you’re supposed to be falling apart, I’d think we’d notice something else. You hybrids are special, but you’re not magic.”
“But there are differences between us and the Luna hybrids.” Maximus frowned. “You can’t deny that. You’ve told me that yourself, and I’m not talking about the Vestal scents.”
“Yes, but those genetic differences have always been there.” Rachel ran a hand through her dark brown hair. “The problem is there is still so much we don’t understand about hybrids, let alone different types. Even with all the files we’ve managed to get from the Horatius Group over the years, it’s not enough.”
Maximus gave her a thoughtful look. “In other words, you don’t know what’s going on, and you can’t help us.”
Rachel wrinkled her nose in irritation. “These things take time. Good, reliable science always does.”
“We’ve already been spending too much time on Isla Luna.” Maximus frowned. “If you’re wrong and this thing can spread, it’ll be dangerous. Plenty of hybrids here haven’t found their Vestals yet. I’m thinking it might be best if all twelve of the affected hybrids cut ties with the rest of you. I’ve already told this to the rest of my men who aren’t affected.”
Rachel snapped her fingers. “Oh, I’ve got it. I know what’s happening. It’s so obvious now.”
“You do?” Maximus’s brow lifted.
She smirked. “Yes, you’re mutating into a most dangerous creature, the wild drama queen.”
Maximus burst out laughing, the built-up irritation flowing out with the sound.
“There are worse things,” he said after calming down.
“Not many.” Rachel sighed. “There’s no evidence this is the result of an infection, and your bodies aren’t showing any signs of infection anyway. You don’t have to cut off your ties with the other hybrids. We’ll get it figured out. We just need time. And it might be the only significant difference between you Alpha Squad guys and the rest of the hybrids is a lack of ability to smell Vestals.”
Maximus stared at her. “Then we’ll never find our own mates,” he murmured. “That’s not a small thing.”
Rachel opened her mouth, a defiant expression on her face. She looked away. “I’m not going to feed you some line about how most people don’t smell out their mates. It’d be crap hypocrisy for me as a Vestal with a bonded hybrid to say something like that, but whatever weird things were done to create you, we can undo them. You were created using science, which means we can solve this
problem using science.”
Maximus hopped off the exam table and stood at his full height. The large hybrid towered over the doctor. All hybrids were larger than humans to begin with, and he was tall for his kind.
“We might have to face the truth,” Maximus said. “The core of Alpha Squad’s destiny might lie elsewhere, just like Rem and the hybrids he took with him to Eagle Ridge. It’s probably safer for hybrids to be all spread out anyway.”
Rachel snorted. “If you ask me, it makes a lot more sense if you all stick together.”
Maximus scratched his small beard before grabbing his shirt from the table. “Sometimes destiny doesn’t always make sense.”
* * *
Two days later, Maximus sat in a comfortable chair in a back office rather than on an examination table. The room itself was sparse with only the desk, chair, a laptop, and a couple of filing cabinets. The only thing special about it was the fact it was hidden underground in a base that appeared to be a normal mansion from the surface.
A dark-haired tanned man stood in front of him. His large size and amber eyes made it clear he wasn’t a human, but a hybrid, like Maximus, but not just any hybrid. He was Titus, the leader of Isla Luna.
Maximus was surprised when Titus contacted him for a direct visit. Since their retreat from the United States, the Luna hybrids left their island only in small numbers and for short times, and it tended to be only those without mates. Rem, leader of the other major group of hybrids, had retreated to the Pacific Northwest and now controlled a town. It was only the Alpha Squad hybrids who still often walked among normal humans in their cities, even if hidden.
“You were just dying for a tour to see if I’d updated the place?” Maximus asked.
Titus shook his head. “Sol and I were meeting with the government, and I figured I’d stop by, because the government passed on something you might care about. It might change your thoughts on some things.”
Maximus: #1 (Luna Lodge: Alpha Squad) Page 1