Page 35 of Elven Shadow

The only problem was the one tiny detail of Aldous’s ultimatum being her soon-to-be-assigned constant shadow, whoever the hell they turned out to be.

She couldn’t do what she needed to do to find the Darkspawn somewhere in the city if someone was always there with her looking over her shoulder. Whether that someone was determined to report everything back to Aldous or eventually decided to keep their mouth shut about it wouldn’t matter.

Because to do what she did, Rebecca had to pull out a few tricks no one knew about. Certain types of inherent magicnoonecould ever know about.

Otherwise, whoever discovered these secrets she’d managed to hide for so long would instantly know exactly who and what she was.

That kind of knowledge in Aldous’s head? That would get the entire organization killed. Every last Shade member. No surrenders, no peacemaking, no questions. And if one person knew who she was, that shit would spread like wildfire across the city, and then the only magicals she despised more than a complete moron like Aldous Corriger would finally find her.

They would hunt her down, undo all her years of hard work and dedication to making a life for herself as an effective nobody. If that happened, Rebecca would be better off dead at that point anyway.

No way in hell would she let any of that happen.

She just had to figure out exactly how to weasel her way through the loopholes on this one, because what Aldous hadn’t explicitly said made this far more complicated on top of everything else.

His analogy about buyer's remorse had been pretty shitty, but the sentiment had still made itself clear.

Meaning once you were a part of Shade, you were always a part of Shade. Backing out, escaping, leaving an organization like this behind just wasn’t an option.

Unless you preferred spending the rest of eternity six feet under.

Rebecca couldn’t envision herself dying for this organization, no matter the circumstances.

Now she stood in the center of multiple options, all of which ended in death or worse if she didn’t execute her next moves perfectly andwithoutbeing caught.

She’d always appreciated a challenge, but this was a special kind of screwed.

How fun.

9

Survivingon her own when she’d had no one else to worry about—or even in mixed company comprising much smaller groups than Shade—had been the top priority for as long as Rebecca could remember.

That hadn’t changed just because Aldous was too pig-headed to realize he’d singled out the wrong elf.

Now he’d just backed her into a corner, and Rebecca would have to get really damn serious about every move she made from here on out. Deadly serious, even, if it came to that.

It wouldn’t be the first time, though she’d hoped to avoid a little longer what she knew she’d now have to do.

When she reached the end of the narrow hall on the ground floor, the noises of the common room beyond filtered toward her—murmuring voices, scraping chairs moving across the floor as people shifted around, a few terse chuckles in response to something not particularly funny.

Rebecca stopped without warning and spun around to find Maxwell still right there behind her, close on her heels.

The shifter stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening as he seemed to realize his normal shifter instincts hadn’t predicted this next close encounter. But he quickly recovered and simply resumed his dubious scowl fixed on her once again.

At least he didn’t share his commander’s disgusting smirk. A decent smile every now and then wouldn’t kill the guy, would it?

Rebecca liked that mental image, despite how little she’d actually seen Maxwell smile at all.

“Seeing as you’re still here,” she said, looking him pointedly over from head to toe, silently admitting that he definitely cut up a much more impressive image than anything Aldous could produce, “any chance he told you ahead of time who this so-called shadow’s supposed to be?”

Maxwell stared at her like she’d grown an extra head, which was odd coming from a guy who changed the full physical makeup of his own body on a regular basis. “He doesn’t tell me everything.”

“Oh, come on.” Rebecca rolled her eyes before fixing him with that deadpan stare she usually reserved for moments when shedidn’twant to be dragged into a conversation. Now, though, it felt like the best way to further drag the shifter into this one. “Don’t tell me he doesn’t talk to you. You’re his right-hand wolf.”

His brief flash of a grimace confirmed she’d struck a nerve. Despite how quickly he covered it up afterwards, it had still provided an opening there.

Rebecca could get her hooks into that, at the very least, if she had to.

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