Page 184 of Elven Shadow

“You’ll end up proving me right in record time anyway,” he continued. “And at the rate you’re going, you’ll run Shade right into the ground at the same time. Maybe even sooner. Won’t be too hard for you to pick up where Aldous left off. You’ve already proven yourself frighteningly competent at fucking everything up.”

This fucking asshole.

“So, hey.” With a nonchalant shrug, Maxwell stepped into a pair of someone else’s cargo pants. “You wanna be left alone from here on out? You got it. I’m just the shifter at your service, Roth-Da’al, and when you crash and burn and take the rest of us down with you, I’ll get to say I told you so.”

“Do you ever stop spewing bullshit?” she snapped.

Maxwell turned away from the clothesline to widen his eyes at her as if she were some intriguing but not particularly relevant bit of entertainment in front of him.

Then the last of her self-control dissipated, and she hissed, charging toward him. “And who the fuck do you think you are anyway? Because I can tell you one thing for sure, wolf.You’renot in command here, and I amso fucking tiredof your pushback.”

Eyeing her with the same level of emotionless apathy as every other time she never got a reaction out of him, Maxwell calmly slid his arms through the sleeves of a borrowed button-down shirt and said nothing.

That only infuriated her more.

“I don’t give a shitwhatyou think about me or whether or not you trust me,” Rebecca snarled. “I needyouto back the off. I’m the one running things now. I’m the one calling the shots.”

She only realized she was bearing down on him step by step when his eyes flashed once as he took a small step back, then he turned away from her to peruse more of the clotheslines.

But now she couldn’t stop herself.

“And while we’re here, Hannigan, I canpromiseyou won’t find whatever it is about me you think you’re looking for. You’re not the only one who’s tried, and you won’t be the only one who fails. So leave it the fuck alone, quit screwing with my shit, and learn how to follow fucking orders! Like turning around to face your commander when she’s speaking toyou—”

Maxwell whirled around and took a lunging step toward her, as if he’d been waiting for the moment when he finally pushed her to her limits and she lost control of herself.

Maybe even the moment she attacked him, provoked or otherwise, because then he’d have something concrete to hang over her head.

His snarling growl wasn’t in annoyance or frustration this time but as a direct challenge.

Then they were standing toe to toe, practically on top of one another, but neither of them moved.

Rebecca glared up into those silver eyes flashing with a brilliant, strobing flare that probably excelled at intimidating others. One corner of his lip twitched to bear a sliver of his teeth in the darkness, and she waited for the shifter to make his move.

If he did, she’d put him down.

If he did, she wouldn’t have a choice.

The strongest blaze of contradictory urges ran through her the next second, which only made knowing what to do that much harder.

She wanted to conjure her spear and run it straight through Maxwell Hannigan to get rid of him for good. And at the same time, just as strongly, she wanted to rip those stolen clothes right back off him again because she preferredthatversion of him so much more—

Wait.What?

Dammit. She couldn’t keep thinking this shit around him. This had to stop.

There it was again—that goddamn tingling across her skin, even while he loomed over her with a furious, snarling challenge.

The challenge she’d risen to so she could finally start acting like the boss Shade had made her.

He didn’t have to like it. But if this was going to work out, he needed to back the fuck down.

Whether or not the wolf in him would allow it was a different matter altogether.

He growled again, his anger-heavy breath only slightly slower than hers while they stared each other down. Then Maxwell snorted and finally broke the tension.

“Did you have a point?” he asked, leaning ever so slightly closer while that Blood-cursed tingle across her flesh intensified into a burning rush that almost made her forget her own name.

Almost.

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