Free Coalition of the Damned - 03 by Heath Stallcup

eyelashes.
    “No,” he deadpanned.
    “But why not? Surely you have no animosity towards me…do you, Maxwell?” she purred again. She had searched every inch of the common areas of his domicile and realized, the man lived as a monk. There wasn’t a single thing in his home worthy of comment.
    “I’ll ask you one more time, Tasha. What do you want?” He crossed his massive arms across his chest and stared her down.
    “Wouldn’t you at least like to meet your granddaughter?” she asked, using her hands to present Nadia who beamed up at him.
    “Nice to meet you,” he said. “There’s the door.” He turned to open it when Nadia stood.
    “Mother! This isn’t working,” she whispered through clenched teeth.
    “What isn’t working?” Maxwell barked.
    “Whatever it is that she’s trying to do,” Nadia tried to e xplain. “And I don’t understand her behavior. This isn’t like her.” Nadia gave her mother a sideways look then turned back to Maxwell. “Grandfather, we’ve come—”
    “Maxwell,” he all but growled.
    Nadia instinctively took a half step back. “Excuse me?” She didn’t understand why he snapped at her.
    “I’ve only just met you. You never bounced on my knee. I didn’t watch you grow up. I never changed a diaper or had you spit up on my shirt,” he explained. “I didn’t even know that you existed until you walked in my door.” Nadia stood open-mouthed and blinked at him, unable to grasp his animosity. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m just Maxwell.”
    She inhaled a stuttering breath and steadied herself. It became obvious to her that family meant little to this man. Appealing to that side of him would do her no good. She turned and looked at her mother who had tears forming in her eyes and she turned away from the both of them, unable to look her daughter in the face.
    “Very well then, Maxwell…we came here to seek your aid,” she began. “We are on a quest most dire in circumstance and…”
    “Who the hell talks this way?” he interrupted her.
    Once again Nadia was shocked silent. “I am sorry?”
    “Seriously? Who speaks this way? Is this some kind of joke?” he asked Natashia.
    Nadia looked at her mother and she saw a tear escape her mother’s eye and run down her cheek. Natashia quickly wiped it away. “It was her father’s idea to have her trained classically, thank you,” Natashia answered without looking at him, her voice trying desperately to reflect some semblance of dignity.
    Maxwell nodded, a sneer across his face. He snorted. “I should have known.”
    “What is that supposed to mean?” Nadia asked.
    “Your father,” Maxwell stated, “if there’s a decision to be made, he’ll choose the wrong path.”
    Nadia’s anger flared and she stood to her full height and squared her shoulders. She barely met him mid chest, and she wouldn’t weigh a third of what her grandfather weighed, but nobody would speak that way about her father in her presence!
    “You will hold your tongue when you speak of my father or I’ll remove it, sir!” she huffed. Her breathing and heart rate had increased and she felt her wolf starting to stir. “I’ll have you know that my father is a Lycan of the First Order and both an honorable man and a warrior wolf. I will not stand idly by and listen to any man speak ill of him, not whilst breath still flows through me nor my heart still beats!”
    Natashia jumped up from the couch and grabbed Nadia by the shoulders to pull her back away from Maxwell. “Nadia! Please! Remember, darling, you are with child!”
    “So?!” she cried out, struggling against her mother’s hands.
    “If you allow yourself to change this early, you could lose the baby. There are things we must do before the shift to pr eserve the pregnancy.”
    Nadia trembled with anger as she stared up into her grandf ather’s eyes. She knew that her eyes had already shifted to amber and she fought the urge to shift and tear him limb from limb, but she