Page 98 of Elven Shadow

Always on the lookout, always thinking about who might see her and how careful she had to be at every goddamn waking moment—even when she’d thought she might be dying again, she’d been more concerned about who might find her here with a weapon of ancient power from the old world that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

But there was no one else here.

A wry chuckle escaped her, and she pushed herself back up to her knees, then to her feet, and took another deep breath.

A little paranoia never hurt anyone, right?

That had to be what this was. Pure paranoia. The pressure of always being on the run—and now being under an unexplained attack—finally getting to her.

When she forced an experimental cough, the rattling wheeze in her lungs was gone. For now.

What had that first homunculus done to her body? A mystery for another time, admittedly. If she wasn’t dead or dying, she still had other priorities right now. Most of which could only be tended to in the building’s sublevels and the underground parking garage where she was supposed to have made an appearance by now.

It couldn’t have been more than…what? Ten minutes? Fifteen, tops.

Her first step forward wobbled and sent her faltering in a staggering shuffle before she righted herself and seized control of her limbs again.

Something really fucking bad.Thatwas what happened when a Bloodshadow Elf consumed the essence of whatever combination of magic and dark alchemy had created these homunculi in the first place.

That was all it took to convince her she’d have a hell of a personal problem to deal with sooner rather than later. But first, before anything else, she had to get down to the garage.

If the others were gearing up to fight back against…whoever was behind this attack, she had to be seenwith them.

More importantly, she had to make sureMaxwellsaw her with everyone else.

Or he’d be the first to point a finger at Shade’s only elf who hadn’t told anyone a single goddamn thing about herself in six months.

When all this was over, she could spend her spare time digging into the side effects of accidentally eating non-living magic.

Fighting off another round of hacking coughs, Rebecca pushed herself down the last bit of hallway and finally reached the staircase down to the garage.

Even from the top landing, she picked up the low susurrus of muttering voices echoing up toward her, made all the louder by bouncing off all the concrete and up a tightly enclosed stairwell. None of the echoing conversations carried intelligible words, but it sure did sound like a whole lot of magicals had made it down there safely enough.

So far so good.

As she hobbled her way down, growing clouds of smoke and dust filtered up from the bottom of the staircase. Rebecca paused to scan her body for injuries she might not have noticed in all the excitement.

No,shewasn’t on fire, at least.

Why the hell was it so hard to just keep putting one foot in front of the other?

It shouldn’t have been.

There was no blood. No unfelt slashes or cuts. Nothing remotely broken or grotesquely twisted.

Just the outline of a handprint on her left wrist where the first homunculus had grabbed her.

Not a red handprint, either, like a burn or a rash or marks occasionally left behind by a good slap.

No, this one only stood out against her pale skin because of the grayish-blue tint slowly seeping into the shape of that handprint, like the darkening underbelly of a dead fish.

It was pretty fucking hard not to notice.

A quick, experimental roll and stretch of her wrist, however, confirmed she was still in control of her movement. For now. Who knew what that creature’s touch would do to her own flesh the longer she waited to address it?

Itwouldhave to keep waiting, though. Biggest emergencies first. That had been her experience with Shade too, especially when life here had been one emergency after the other with Aldous calling the shots.

Rebecca sure as shit wouldn’t let the changeling drive them into another damn hole tonight. Not during an attack like this. Not ever again, if the rest ofthe task force ever pulled their shit together and figured out a way to get rid of him thatdidn’tinvolve putting Rebecca in the spotlight.

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