Page 57 of Elven Shadow

His words were a taunt, a challenge, and a dark promise all at once. Rebecca felt the heat radiating off his body, the electric tension she couldn’t deny but so badly wanted to as it pulled them together—even when her instincts screamed at her to pull away.

Rebecca rooted herself to the spot, her jaw tightening, and forced herself not to look at him. She wouldn't let him see how much he got under her skin. Definitely not now.

“Back off, Hannigan,” she muttered, her voice low and steady despite the rapid beat of her pulse. “I don’t need your encouragement.”

Then she found herself staring at the tail end of Leonard’s leather trench coat disappearing through the rippling window of light in the library wall, joined by a crimson flash of Diego’s exit right behind him.

“Wait a minute,” she called after them. “Hey!”

But it was too late.

Shit.

And now she couldn’t even redirect her frustration to aim it back at Maxwell, because he’d left her too.

He’d marched right off after dropping that fun little threat-bomb in her ear.

When she turned slowly around, barely holding her shit together because now he’dreallygotten in her way, she found the top of Maxwell’s head floating casually down the aisles of bookshelves. The murmur of low voices once again filled the library as he chatted with his security team in tones Rebecca couldn’t hear.

Like they hadn’t had that fantastically bitter exchange, each testing the other’s unknown limits.

Like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Like Maxwell Hannigan hadn’t just added one giant dollop of trouble and headache on top of her already heaping plate of it.

Plus having just cost her the opportunity to clear up one poignantly distressing misunderstanding between her, Leonard, and Diego. Those two seemed to think Rebecca was all-in for whatever plan they’d concocted, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Not when she had no idea what her role in that plan entailed, but something told her it wouldn’t mesh all that well with her personal goals.

Namely staying out of everyone else’s business, lying low, and not givinganyonea reason to look too closely.

When it came to Maxwell, she’d apparently failed on all counts.

Then he disappeared among the bookshelves—a dark shadow slipping out of reach, and a new unease settled in Rebecca’s bones.

He had information she didn’t, and if she didn’t figure it out soon, that dangerous knowledge of his could mean the difference between survival and disaster.

14

Rebecca’s heels clicked sharply across the library floor, her forced calm a brittle mask over the fury boiling inside her. She was done playing nice. Done pretending Maxwell’s shadow didn’t press against her every nerve.

Could she have taken the emergency exit through the magical wall-portal? Sure. But that wasn’t the point.

The point now was that she wanted Maxwell to see her on her way out. She wanted him to get a good look at how much hehadn’trattled her, even when what she meant to show him was a complete lie.

Especially when it was a lie.

She felt his gaze on her even now—an unrelenting pressure. The shifter thought he could corner her, could read her, but if Maxwell wanted to play games, he was in for a nasty surprise.

Rebecca could play games. She was done playing byhisrules.

Which was, unfortunately, just one more dangerous tightrope she’d have to walk with all the others until the tension within Shade blew over.

Until this insurgent rebellion either fizzled out with a dying gasp, or they succeeded and forced Aldous out of command for good.

She risked tossing a scathing glare across the library in Maxwell’s direction when she stalked past him and his security team on her way to the exit.

As if he’d always known she’d come this way, the shifter looked up from an open book in one of his guys’ hands to meet her gaze. Just a casual lift of his chin, but the mockery in it was palpable.

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