Page 153 of Elven Shadow

Definitely not good. This would only get worse the longer she waited to get out of here.

And the longer Maxwell stuck on her like her own personal bodyguard, the less time she had.

Maxwell followed her without a word through headquarters, adjusting his pace to match hers so he remained four feet behind her at all times. All without saying a word.

When she paused in the entryway leading from the hall into the common room, Maxwell also paused, and then it felt necessary to say something.

“You really don’t have to do this.”

No response.

When she turned around to face him head on, he gazed down at her with zero expression, hands still clasped behind his back. gazing down at her with no expression whatsoever.

It was too easy to imagine him breaking into a little smirk at her growing frustration.

“Okay, seriously,” she tried again. “What is this? Are you my personal bodyguard now?”

“If that’s how you want to think of it.”

“I don’t want to think of it at all, actually. Feel free to go do your job somewhere else.”

“This is my job.” Now he wouldn’t even look at her but busied himself scanning the common room on the other side of the doorway, as if they had just entered enemy territory and he was intent on protecting her from unforeseen threats.

Right now, the only threat to Rebecca inside the walls of this compound was the shifter standing in front of her.

“Again, I don’t need—”

“The established protocol dictates a security escort for the acting Roth-Da’al when taking part in activities beyond the scope of—”

“Oh my god, justdon’t.” The tender ache that had been banging around inside her skull since she’d gained consciousness in the infirmary now remindedher of its existence. Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose. “I understand protocol. Trust me. You know what? I’d love to see the documents that spell this all out for you.”

Maxwell’s silver eyes darted toward her face, and he puffed out a breath through his nose. “That can be arranged.”

She studied him a moment longer, her right eye twitching beneath the building pressure in her head, then finally gave up trying. “Great. You should get on that, then.”

Then she surged forward into the common room, fighting against all her better judgment to just do what she had to do, no matter what Maxwell’s plans were.

With every passing second, however, the shifter’s plans grew clearer and clearer.

Rebecca’s Head of Security intended to shadow her every step, to stay right behind her no matter where she went, to insert himself into every interaction and conversation and attempt to move through her day like she wasn’t desperately walking the line between saving herself and falling into the dark oblivion of the poison writhing through her veins.

Maxwell had finally found his opportunity to tighten the grasp of his suspicion around her at every step, and Rebecca soon realized he wasn’t going to let her go.

Not until it was too late.

38

Maxwell Hannigan was about to be the death of her.

Literally.

All without ever even knowing his constant surveillance of Rebecca’s normal everyday activities only helped the homunculus poison already well on its way to killing her.

At first, she’d thought his constant hovering over her shoulder was just his way of getting his point across—that he was always watching; that even as commander, she wouldn’t get away with anything without him knowing about it; that he would do whatever it took to protect this task force, even if it meant a grueling day of shadowing her every move just for the message to sink in.

Why else would the shifter attach himself to her like this in every way but the physical?

Under normal circumstances, it would have been highly obnoxious.

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