Page 27 of Elven Shadow

All work and no play. The shifter and the changeling.

Rebecca couldn’t wait to see what made the guy think so highly of himself this time.

Aldous drummed his fingers on the back of his throne again, then gently rested his hand there as he emerged the rest of the way from behind the furniture to face her head-on, with nothing else between them. “And tonight, I noticed you.”

Go figure. The guy was still trying to be clever. It might have worked if they’d just met each other for the first time tonight, but saying he’d noticed hernow, after six months of Rebecca running with Shade, wasn’t all that impressive.

Neither was the sight of him standing next to his chair.

The fact that he was on his feet again definitely made a statement after he’d taken such an enormous hit to the back of the head during their mission—the hit and ensuing fall that were both big enough and heavy enough to knock him out cold and leave a huge crater behind in the asphalt.

The linen suit with which he’d replaced the tattered remains of his light-gray sports jacket and slacks looked even worse on him.

That combined with the scratches across his face and the wrapped bandage poorly hidden by the sleeve of his linen suit jacket, plus the beginnings of a black eye he hadn’t bothered to cover with a tweak to his human illusion, completed the ridiculousness of his look tonight.

If he’d been going for Benefic Leader and Murderer, his aim was way off.

This looked more like Creepy-Ass Cult Leader.

Rebecca would have loved to comment on it, but she just couldn’t stop staring.

Apparently, Aldous took her silence as curiosity or intense interest or both. He offered a half-hearted shrug and failed to hide his wince when the movement struck one of his several new wounds.

Zida had done her job well in bringing Shade’s commander back to full consciousness, but that healing had stopped there. Whether it was from Aldous’s impatience or because he thought the proof of his injuries made him look more badass was anyone’s guess.

“And do you know why I noticed you tonight?” The slimiest kind of smirk spread across his lips.

Rebecca couldn’t help but notice that where the bloated, spit-flecked lips of his last-minute monster shift had been—the image of which had been hard enough to get out of her head without looking directly at the imbecile to whomthose lips belonged—there was now a new, quickly healing cut, with the guy’s regular green flesh showing through around the edges.

She almost couldn’t stop staring until she realized he was waiting for an actual response.

She had to saysomething.

He wanted her to tell him whyhe’dnoticedher?

“We were out on the same mission tonight,” she said. “That might’ve had something to do with it.”

Then again, maybe the question had been rhetorical.

Aldous stepped away from his chair to walk slowly toward her, as if he thought this whole show on his part would be an effective intimidation tool as he just kept talking. “This last mission report was interesting, to say the least. And if I weren’t so open-minded, I might even call it frustrating. Because as I understand it, the weapon I designated for retrieval tonight wasn’t actually retrieved.”

No shit.

Was that really his main concern right now?

She offered a casual nod in response. “Good to see someone filled in the missing details for you.”

“What’smissing, elf, is that weapon.” Aldous continued toward her, slowly placing one foot down in front of the other, like he thought he’d mastered the art of a good prowl. As he moved, he looked her over from head to toe, his green-eyed gaze lingering on select body parts—a look that never went unnoticed by any woman ever when she found herself on the receiving end of it.

Rebecca was no exception.

A truth to which the changeling seemed particularly oblivious.

“But it isn’t just about not having completed this mission,” he continued, drawing ever closer. “The weapon isn’tgone. It’s notbeyondmygrasp. It’s not even still with the enemy.”

He stopped two feet in front of her and blinked quickly in a poorly masked attempt to work through what was probably a nasty wave of vertigo after the giant concussion he’d given himself. Then he looked her up and down again, his tongue poking out like a grotesque little worm from between his lips.

“According to the mission report,” he added, “the weapon your team was supposed to retrieve tonight ended up being entirely destroyed.”

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