What Does It Take to Impress a Monster Hunter Who’s Seen Everything?

Dr. Maxim os Storm hunts all kinds of evil things. He is the other protagonist and POV character in the trilogy, and all three books end with Maxim POV scenes. Maxim looks thirty-something but he’s actually seventy, with the jaded perspective to match. Even the prospect of becoming king of his people fills him with dread rather than excitement.

Two Ways of Feeling

Maxim’s POV works differently from Chloe’s. Chloe is fairly open about expressing her feelings, to herself and to the reader, but she doesn’t always understand what she’s feeling.

Maxim understands his own feelings much more clearly than Chloe does. For instance, he realizes he’s attracted to her a long time before she figures out she’s attracted to him, and that’s not just because she’s a very good-looking woman and he’s a “not quite handsome” man.   

However, he’s much more guarded in expressing his feelings, both to her and to the reader. This contrast between the two characters is the engine of their slow-burn romance, which drives steadily forward even as Chloe and Maxim face down monsters, political intrigue and impossible choices.

Seventy Years of Emotional Scars

In his long life, Maxim’s been burned emotionally several times, starting with the death of his parents and continuing with some minor romantic disappointments and one major one, involving a noblewoman he rescued from a monster. He’s been chosen by the elders to become the king of his people, but the crown carries the weight of more responsibility than he wants to bear.

 As a result, Maxim is somewhat less than excited by his first meeting with Chloe. It’s not quite “oh, great, here’s our beautiful damsel in distress who’s going to get herself into all kinds of trouble,” but it’s not far off from that.

He does recognize and respect the courage that she shows in traveling to the Old World by herself. He knows what her carrying a knife and wearing men’s clothes said about her. But he’s also very relieved that she’s not going to the same town that had initially summoned him for a monster hunt. 

Why Threatening Him With a Knife Didn’t Help 

Readers who’ve read Wolf’s Trail know that Chloe pulls a knife on Maxim early in their acquaintance. She’s injured, confused, and furious about the werewolf attack that knocked her unconscious.

Maxim’s reaction? He stops her from stabbing him and moves on with his work.

It’s not that he doesn’t understand her anger. He even respects the cultural context that drives her response. But since she didn’t actually manage to hurt him, the incident simply isn’t important to him. He’s faced far worse threats than an injured woman with a knife.

This is what makes Maxim different from the machismo-driven men of Chloe’s homeland. He doesn’t need to defend his honor or prove his dominance. He just needs to do his job: protect people from monsters.

The Pivot Scene

What changes his mind about her is a scene we get from her POV, so we don’t see inside his heart at that point. She tells him that she wants to help him hunt down the vicious werewolf who injured her the night before. 

She went at Maxim with a knife earlier, when she was confused and in pain, but now that she’s had time to think it all through, she’s pointing her anger in the right direction, and more importantly, she’s willing to learn. 

This is the kind of thing Maxim respects. Not the dramatic gesture of pulling out a knife, but the courage to say: “I don’t know how all this works but I want to find out. What can I do to stop this thing?”

He’s always treated her respectfully, by his lights, but in that moment, he begins to see her as an equal. His attraction to her, which he had regarded as uncomfortable and somewhat unhelpful, starts to deepen into something more. 

Fire and Ice

Chloe is warm, direct and impulsive. She doesn’t always understand her heart but she wears it on her sleeve anyway.

Maxim understands his own heart only too well, and he guards it by hiding it. He’s reserved where she’s candid, analytical where she’s impulsive, and he can seem cold to people who don’t understand him.

What makes these two unlikely allies a powerful team is their shared code: for the innocent, protection. For the forces of evil, war to the knife.

Neither of them has time for dramatic declarations or bedroom scenes when there are monsters to hunt and people to save. They fall in love while fighting side by side, and that partnership makes all the difference.

Want to meet Maxim? Start with Wolf’s Trail, where a reluctant king meets a rancher’s daughter who refuses to be just another damsel in distress.

Read the Hunter Healer King Trilogy today!