Page 156 of Elven Shadow

“So Zida approved that much of it all at once?”

Granted, a dozen vials was quite a lot, but Zida had already admitted she didn’t know what to do to heal Rebecca’s worsening wounds or alleviate the effects of the homunculus poison. And she’d put the vials here, for crying out loud.

Rebecca took a deep breath. “Yes, as a matter of fact. And I’ll have you know, this stuff is… Wait.”

She dropped the used vial into the open center drawer with a tinkle of glass and paused. “Have you been going through my desk?”

Maxwell didn’t skip a beat. “I smelled it the second we stepped into the room.”

“Um…in the drawer, or me?”

“Both.” Still, his inflection never changed.

Apparently, Rebecca now smelled like magical drug abuseandillness. Wasn’t that just one hell of a compliment.

“Well let’s just agree that what you do or don’t smell on me is none of your business.” She leaned back in the desk chair, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply through her nose, silently thanking Zida for thinking preemptively. Even if the old woman had only done it in an attempt to alleviate the annoyance of Rebecca constantly asking for more.

“I can’t help but notice,” Maxwell said, breaking the silence yet again. “Whatever it is, it’s not anything I recognize. What’s going on with you?”

Rebecca snorted. “That, Max, is quite the loaded question right now.”

“What are the vials for?” he amended.

She cracked open one eye to see that yes, he was still staring at her from across the office, and yes, she fully believed he would keep doing that until she answered him.

“That’s also none of your business,” she said. “But it’s real sweet to know you care.”

He pressed his lips together and sighed before looking her over again, though he didn’t give any indication of being either frustrated by her silence or insulted that she wasn’t ready to spill her guts to him about every little problem.

Especially when he’d made his own not-so-veiled threats against her privacy and peace of mind.

Smart wolf.

She could easily laugh off his concern and pretend like this wasn’t a big deal, sure. Maxwell had no idea what was wrong with her.

Hell, Rebecca didn’t even know what was wrong with her, but she did know that until she caught a break from his constant vigilance, Zida’s vials were as much of a lifeline as she was going to get.

Which simply reminded her of the need tofindsomething that could break that constant vigilance so Rebecca could make it out of this building in one peace and purge from her body what nothing in anyone else’s possession could.

“All right, Max,” she said, leaning back again and crossing one leg over the other. “This looks like our chance to set the record straight. Is there anything commander-worthy in here that needs my attention? Like high-priority stuff. Let’s get to work.”

Maxwell raised his eyebrows at her, looking a little surprised that she’d asked about work instead of sitting around like someone who hadn’t wanted this job in the first place. His surprise, however, wasn’t enough to keep him from responding to her request.

He took off across the office toward the large bookcase against the wall to Rebecca’s right, taking his sweet time searching through the various notebooks and binders and stacks of paper there before hauling out the thickest three-ring binder she’d ever seen. It had to have been six inches, if not more.

When he returned to the desk, he dropped the binder onto it with a muffled thump, spewing a thin layer of dust in all directions.

Rebecca made a mental note to find out who was responsible for cleaning up here. There was a good chance “protocol” had dictated for years that the commander saw to the daily upkeep and care of his or her own office. In which case, she’d get to work changing that.

Just as soon as she got her failing body under control.

She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward in the chair, squinting at the enormous binder. “What’s this?”

“Top priority intel.” Maxwell stepped away and clasped his hands behind his back again.

“Seriously?”

He lifted one shoulder in a blasé shrug and cocked his head.

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