Page 24 of Elven Shadow

Hector’s expression remained ever unseen and therefore unreadable.

Maxwell, on the other hand, lifted a hand to his face in a lazy attempt to hide the yawn splitting his jaws open wide.

No way in hell that wasn’t fake.

Then he shrugged. “You’re probably right. But Aldous is in his office, so I guess we’ll never know.”

Confused murmurs filled the air again. It was one thing to make outrageous accusations like Hector had, but it was another thing entirely to heavily imply the nurúzhe was full of shit.

Points for Maxwell, then.

“Is that so?” Hector murmured, his voice rattling softly now like a pile of dead leaves blown across dry dirt.

“I don’t know about you,” Maxwell replied with a shrug, “but personally, I’ve got no reason to make shit up.”

With a slow sigh, Hector lightly slapped his gloved hands down on his thighs and pushed himself to his feet in one swift, fluid motion like water swirling down a drain. “Well then, I guess he’ll be wanting to see me.”

This time, Rebecca just couldn’t help herself.

She barked out a laugh before calling out from her spot on the couch, “Right. Because whatever the hell you do is so important, he wants nothing to do with it.”

Both Maxwell and Hector—as far as she could tell from the disturbing swing of the nurúzhe’s glowing black eyes—turned their gazes onto her as if noticing for the first time that she existed.

“Hmm.” That was all Hector offered in response before he slowly made his way across the common room toward Maxwell and the narrow hallway leading toward the boss’s office.

“Not so fast,” Maxwell growled. For the first time, he added a very clear warning to his words, all of it directed entirely at Hector. “He didn’t say shit aboutyou.”

The creepy-ass nurúzhe stopped in his tracks, which was a fantastic sight.

Rebecca hadn’t been sure the guy had enough of a soul to be surprised by anything.

“Then what the fuckdidhe say?” Hector hissed.

Maxwell stared at the black oval within the nurúzhe’s hood, then his silver eyes shifted across the room toward Rebecca. “Apparently, he wants the elf.”

For the second time in under two minutes, Rebecca found herself the target of almost two-dozen gazes fixed on her from every location around the room. It took her another moment to realize why everyone stared at her again, and it wasn’t because of her witty quips this time.

Shewas the elf.

The only elf in Shade.

She shifted on the couch to get a better look at Maxwell standing there in the hallway with his arms folded, his silver eyes fixed on her, expressing zero emotion whatsoever.

Her smirk faded, and she sighed through her nose.

Fuck.

7

Aldoushadn’t said more than four words directly to Rebecca since she’d signed on with this little outfit after successfully completing Shade’s initiation. Even those four had been underwhelming: “Congratulations, you didn’t die.”

She’d listened to him enjoying the sound of his own voice more times than she could count. But none of those monologues had been directed at her, either.

So what the hell could he possibly need to tell her that required sending his pet wolf out to fetch her to his office?

Letting the stares of the other magicals roll off her back, Rebecca stood languidly from the couch and took a late -night stroll toward Maxwell waiting at the mouth of the hallway.

The only gaze on her that made her feel something beyond wry amusement belonged to Hector. It could have been her imagination, but she thought she felt that energy-sucking, black-glowing gaze of his boring into her now that the boss had called for her instead of him.

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