Page 25 of Elven Shadow

So she looked over her shoulder at him as she passed and winked.

Hector growled and folded his arms. His fingers encased in those black leather gloves tapped against his opposite arm.

Then Rebecca knew she’d felt the heavy weight of his gaze, because a second later, she also distinctly noticed its absence.

No one said a word until Maxwell finally pushed himself away from the wall and turned with a blank expression to lead her down the narrow hall.

Only when she entered that hallway behind him did the low murmur of surprised comments and whispered conjectures rise again in the common room.

Let them think whatever they wanted. Hell, let them say whatever they wanted.

As long as Rebecca did nothing to correct their misconceptions, none of them would ever come anywhere close to pinning down the truth about her.

Which, at this point, was the number-one reason she still kept her mouth shut—if not theonlyreason.

Asking questions, though? Well, that was fair game for anyone.

“What’s this about, then?” she asked, staring at the back of Maxwell’s short-cropped auburn hair, and his wide-set shoulders locked with stiff movement as he all but marched her toward whatever this shit was supposed to be.

No, he didn’t reply.

She could’ve guessed that would happen.

“All right,” she continued. “You wanna leave that up to the big guy to explain. I get it. I just hope you haven’t been talking about me too much behind my back. Don’t wanna give him the wrong impression, right?”

“I don’t think you need any help with that,” he grumbled without slowing or turning around.

“Hey, hespeaks.” Rebecca spread her arms and grinned as if he could see her. Which, knowing what she did of shifters, probably wasn’t that far from the truth. “Though now I’m curious what exactly you mean by that.”

For now, apparently, Maxwell was a one-sentence conversationalist. Even if he’d said nothing more only to get her to shut up, he’d still given away plenty with that one sentence.

No surprise there, either. Rebecca had clearly done something to get the boss’s attention.

If she were being escorted to anyone else’s office, she might have expected a gruff show of appreciation for getting the Shade team out of their last pickle with zero casualties. Maybe even a thank you for not leaving behind the massive changeling dickhead who’d screwed the mission for them in the first place.

That second part was admittedly a long shot, but Rebecca was open to all possibilities.

However, she didn’t remember hearing Aldous thank anyone for anything in the last six months, and she had even less reason to believe that was why he’d called her to his office now.

No, whatever this was, a pat on the back would be noticeably lacking.

Nothing she hadn’t seen before.

Certainly not worse than what she’d left behind so many years ago and preferred to leave behind her forever, if possible.

After leading her up two brief flights of stairs leading them in a rough half-circle to the second story, Maxwell stopped in front of the only door onthis side of the second floor and knocked with all the authority and discipline of a good Head of Security.

“Enter,” Aldous called.

The shifter opened the door, swung it into the office, then stepped aside for Rebecca to pass him and enter, his hands clasped behind his back and his feet planted firmly, shoulder-width apart. The whole time, he stared straight ahead at the far end of the office and didn’t once look at her as she stepped through.

Rebecca stared openly at him, though, itching to break his diligent concentration on nothing at all.

Somehow, she had a feeling it would take more than a stare to make the guy crack. Especially now that they had both presented themselves to Maxwell’s direct superior.

She fought back a snort when she fully entered Aldous’s office.

Yeah, the shifter was definitely ex-military.

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