Page 28 of Elven Shadow

Herteam? Please. As if the guy hadn’t been right there with them the whole fucking time.

Rebecca kept her hand on her hip, meeting Aldous’s gaze with a silent, unamused challenge within her own, and waited for the real kicker of this impromptu meeting to reveal itself.

“I hearyou’rethe one who destroyed it.”

And there it was.

This guy just didn’t know when to stop talking or when to cut his losses. Now that he stood so brazenly close to her without even bothering to hide his wandering gaze along her body, Rebecca’s attempts tonotlaugh in his face felt a lot easier.

Keeping her mouth shut the way she wanted, however, was now a little trickier.

“You don’t need to thank me,” she told him. “It just had to be done.”

His eyes widened slightly, then the changeling let out a derisive snort. “You misunderstand me. I didn’t call you in here to thank you.”

“But you should have,” Rebecca quipped. “If that weapon had gotten off its second shot, none of us would be here right now.”

“A risk every member of Shade willingly takes when accepting any mission. As far as I’m concerned, your orders never included wiping out your target acquisition.”

More of thisyourbullshit, like the guy had absolutely nothing to do with the apartment building or chasing Edwardo down or completely failing to draw the griybreki and his gang into a useful conversation.

Like they’dplanned.

Hell, even a useful battle would’ve been better than what they’d actually experienced tonight. If Rebecca’s team had only needed to hold off one enemy’s attack, the outcome would have been completely different.

Which this sneering dipshit knew full well.

“I’m not interested in excuses,” Aldous snarled through his slimy smile.

Rebecca’s stare on him didn’t waver. “In that case, you’re welcome.”

A quick flash of surprise flickered across the changeling’s glowing green eyes. Then his upper lip twitched, and his smirk returned as he leaned even closer. “Now’s the part where you tell me how the fuck you managed to destroy it.”

With a sigh, she quirked her lips and pretended to actually think about it. “Probably the same way you managed to leave a giant crater in the parking lot. I have a feeling the use of my magic was a little more intentional. But what do I know, right?”

When the guy bared his teeth at her, Rebecca gave up trying to figure out if that was supposed to be a snarl or a smile. Then she barely stopped herselffrom asking if he needed to put a timeout on this conversation so he could take a quick trip to the bathroom instead.

“We have a problem on our hands.” Aldous continued forward before stepping around her in a slow circle, eyeing every inch of her in the process.

Rolling her eyes, she turned slowly with him to keep this idiot in front of her at all times. His tactics just weren’t working.

Unlike Maxwell—still standing beside the closed office door, rigid and silent and scowling—Rebecca didn’t have the kind of a military training that had ingrained in her the discipline of not moving a muscle when addressed by a superior, alleged or otherwise.

Plenty of other things had been drilled into her, sure, but that was totally different.

Aldous’s sneer returned when he finally realized he wasn’t getting a free pass to walk behind her during this meeting. Then he stopped trying to circle her faster than she could turn to keep him in her view before he shamelessly stepped toward her again. “I don’t have my weapon. Edwardo is still alive and kicking. Your mission failed to produceanyof the desired results.”

What a revelation.

“Hey,” Rebecca said, not once taking her eyes off him. “Sometimes, shit happens.”

“And I’m not happy about any of it,” he snapped. “You really stepped in it this time, you know that? I wanted that weapon in my hands and at my disposal. That’s impossible now because of you.”

She pressed her lips together and almost grunted at the effort of not bursting out laughing when she replied with a simple statement. “Real hairy fucking pickle, huh?”

“But don’t worry. I’m sure we can figure out a way for you to make it right.” He looked her over from head to toe, then ran the tip of his tongue along the edge of his upper teeth. “To…make it up to me.”

Oh, no fucking way.

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