Page 158 of Elven Shadow

The file on Hector Faad was disappointingly thin, citing only the guy’s qualifications right up to passing his initiation into Shade and a list of his official missions though Rebecca never would have expected Aldous to file any kind of paperwork around any secret personal operations he’d sent Hector out to handle for him.

At the end was a brief summary of where Hector had come from before joining Shade, namely several years spent working with a small PI firm of three magicals based out of New England.

None of the information was particularly striking, nor did it provide much of anything about the guy Rebecca hadn’t already pieced together herself.

“Do you know anything about his other previous affiliations before Shade?” she asked. “Other than the PI firm in Boston.”

Maxwell folded his arms, his scowl returning like she’d just deeply insulted him with such a question. “Everything I know is in there. No more, no less. Hector was almost as hard to pin down as you are.”

With a flickering smile, Rebecca closed the file before looking up at him. “Interesting. Is that your way of saying you have a file on me too?”

An oddly dancing light shimmered in his silver eyes as he studied her face. Then it seemed Maxwell worked diligently to force his gaze away from hers before responding, “Not officially.”

Rebecca snorted. “Wonderful.”

She was about to ask how they might go about gathering more intel on the nurúzhe Maxwell had ended by punching a hole through the guy’s middle, but she didn’t get the chance.

A sharp knock wrapped on the office door.

Without hesitation, Maxwell pivoted and got back to work as the new commander’s personal Head of Security, personal bodyguard, and now, apparently, personal doorman.

Short of escaping out from under Maxwell’s constant gaze and the frustratingly distracting, tingling warmth washing over her practically every time the shifter moved, Rebecca would have loved to leverage her new status to dig into Hector’s past.

But she soon discovered the head of an organization like Shade had even less time to focus on one task with any level of efficiency, and that her time wasn’t really even her own anymore.

At the rate things were going, it might never be again.

That became especially clear when Maxwell opened the office door and immediately stiffened in high alert when he came face to face with what greeted him on the other side.

39

Rebecca’s stomach sank at the sight of Maxwell growing rigid as he held the door open only wide enough for him to see through into the hallway beyond.

He blocked her view of their newest visitor on purpose. She knew it.

Definitely not a good thing if even her Head of Security got caught off guard by someone inside the compound. Again.

She sat up straight in her office chair, eyes wide. “Who is it?”

Maxwell grumbled something unintelligible, then finally jerked the door open all the way to allow entrance. He didn’t look happy about it.

In stepped one of his security guys—an enormously muscular blackhorn who could’ve been a bodybuilder in another life. “Package for you, boss.”

“Who’s it from?” Maxwell grumbled behind him.

The blackhorn paused, looked back and forth between the shifter and Rebecca, then grimaced with a sheepish shrug.

“The other boss,” he said, nodding toward Rebecca.

She fought back a grin. Maxwell certainly hadn’t expectedthatchange so quickly, had he?

The shifter didn’t bat an eye at the apparent misunderstanding. “The question applies regardless.”

The blackhorn nodded, then studied the plain brown package in his arms.

Hedidn’t look suspicious or even concerned, but Maxwell’s darkening scowl aimed at the blackhorn’s back intensified Rebecca’s growing wariness as the blackhorn approached her desk.

“Doesn’t say where it’s from,” he replied. “But it’s addressed to ‘The New Roth-Da’al of Shade’.”

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