Max had become an overworked zombie exactly the way he had predicted he would the second Damian put him under direct command.
Back during the rebellion, being a Shadow had meant hard work too, but it had been a different kind of hard. Missions, blood, running on too little sleep, making impossible decisions in the span of a breath You either came back alive or you didn't. It was simple.
This was worse.
This was schedules and noble houses and official seals and ten people arguing over ceremony routes, like the empire would collapse if a duke stood three feet too far to the left.
Max would have preferred getting stabbed.
It had started with George keeping his word.
Max had been formally adopted into House Claymore and named heir, all of it done properly, signed, sealed, and witnessed. Damian himself had signed the recognition. Just like that, Max went from being a man George had used when it was convenient to being the future head of Claymore.
It should have felt like victory.
