Page 134 of Elven Shadow

Maxwell Hannigan could join the club. Rebecca didn’t approve of this, either.

She also didn’t imagine the shifter would be willing to stand up against the entire task force on her behalf to argue for selecting a different commander. He’d already made it perfectly clear he didn’t think she was capable enough to take any leadership position, and clearly, his suspicions had continued to be ignored by literally everyone else.

Wonderful.

She was vaguely aware of Zida’s presence somewhere close behind her, probably so the healer could leap into action and be at Rebecca’s side if her legs gave out. She almost turned to ask the old woman if right now counted as a ‘just in case’ scenario, but then louder shouts from across the common room caught her attention, and the opportunity disappeared.

“Make way! Coming through! Yeah, yeah, I get it. We’re all excited as shit. Move it!”

The knot of grumbling and shuffling around on the other side of the common room only added to the feeling of celebratory chaos before a thunderous voice blistered through all the noise. “Everybody step aside!”

The force of that voice practically shook the walls and the floor. The hubbub in the common room died down for a moment while the bodies packed into a space almost too small for the entire task force shuffled aside, shoving and jostling each other to make room.

Rebecca fought off another round of stupefying dizziness, cursing her rotten luck under her breath.

Shemight have spent the last two days unconscious in the infirmary, but it sure sounded like Titus had made a full recovery after his epic run-in with deadly defensive wards.

Two seconds later, the vuulbor’s enormous form came into view, his arms spread wide as he made a giant show of creating enough space within the chaos for those behind him to make their way through as well.

Those who had very specifically made up the team with whom Rebecca had worked most often and most closely over the last six months.

Behind Titus came Leonard, strutting self-importantly toward Rebecca as if this was finally his moment. Which, she supposed, it probably was. Themage probably hadn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to strut around anywhere like he owned the place.

Even if she hadn’t been on the verge of passing out again, Rebecca liked to think she would have let him have his moment anyway.

When the mage finally emerged from the parting crowd of smiling, laughing, cheering Shade members, he clapped a hand down onto Titus’s hulkingly muscular back. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

Then he caught sight of Rebecca and spread his arms wide, grinning from ear to ear and still wearing that stupid leather trench coat.

“Good to have you back, bud.” Diego emerged from the crowd next and nodded at Titus, then tugged the brim of his baseball cap farther down over his crimson eyes. “Nothing like a guyyoursize to get everyone’s attention, huh?”

Titus’s deep, booming laughter overpowered all the other noise, then Rebecca’s unofficial team finally reached her, all of them staring at her and looking way too happy in their own right to now call themselves Rebecca Knox’s devoted soldiers.

The guilt that had sparked inside her the moment she’d realized what had happened in her absence rooted down deep and curled its strangling hold around her chest.

If only they knew the truth.

But they never could. The truth would unravel everything, and Shade’s misplaced faith in their new Elven commander would be the least of it.

“You’re alive!” Leonard exclaimed. “Nowthatwas something I wasn’t sure we were gonna see.”

“But Zida kept telling us we’d just have to wait,” Diego added, his smile growing too. “Looks like the waiting finally paid off, though. For once.”

“Holy shit, Knox,” Titus added with another booming chuckle. “You look worse than I did.”

Rebecca responded with the first thing that came to mind simply because she didn’t have the strength to filter herself for appropriate thoughts to share out loud. “Yeah, but you should see the other guy…”

Fortunately, there was too much noise for that poorly timed joke to be heard by anyone else. But the three guys standing in front of her went instantly quiet as their faces fell.

Great. Already off to a fucking fantastic start.

Leonard pointed at her and opened his mouth to say something, but a flash of bright violet light erupted in front of him, followed by a soft pop. A second later, Nyx joined them in their little huddle in the entryway.

Leonard let out something resembling a shriek, then scowled at Titus and Diego sniggering at him.

Even Nyx gave the mage an odd look. “Whatisit with you today?”

Leonard gruffly cleared his throat. “There’s nothing with me at all. You just gotta give people a little warning before you do that, yeah? Or something.”

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