Page 194 of Elven Crown

But if they were feeling the same thing, that meant he wanted to go to her the way some deeply buried thing inside her wanted her to go to him. To reach out. To finally accept and grab a hold.

Neither of them moved.

Was that because this was all in her head?

Or was he fighting the same pull to go to her now the way she fought it with every ounce of strength she had left?

“Whatever you—” Maxwell stopped himself, swallowed thickly, and now looked like opening his mouth and speaking to her was the most agonizing thing he’d ever done. “Whatever youmay think you know, that elf is no good for you. Stay away from him. Or I’ll have to do something about it myself.”

It was a ridiculous thing for him to say, given the situation. It was a ridiculous thing to hear, like the shifter thought he had some kind of possession over her. That he had any say in who she did or didn’t stay away from. That he had any power whatsoever to even involve himself in a decision like that, which was hers and hers alone.

Rebecca knew all of this rationally. She could still think with perfect clarity, but his words and the way he said them—as a threat and a promise, as a vow not just to her but to this flaring electric thing between them that almost seemed to have a life of its own—made her face flush hot.

Her insides squirmed with a dark and giddy excitement bordering on glee.

On pride. On pleasure. On longing for more…

When she swallowed, Rebecca forced those ridiculous thoughts right back down to the depths of her mind, because it was the next best thing to getting rid of them completely, and she couldn’t get rid of them. She’d already tried.

But she could pretend.

“Noted, Hannigan,” she told him flatly. “Thank you.”

It was as curt and devoid of emotion or connection as her brusque nod of disconnected professionalism and dismissal as she ended the conversation.

She had to.

If she stayed here any longer, hidden backstage with the shifter who aggravated her more than almost anyone else she’d known on Earth and who held the record for so quickly and easily getting under her skin, she couldn’t be held responsible for what happened next.

She didn’t even let herself think about what that might be. Her cheeks flushed hot again, racing to the tips of her pointed ears.That tingling warmth rushed through her from head to toe and the physical, not-unpleasant weight of Maxwell’s gaze on her followed her out until she finally slipped past the curtain.

It remained on her even after that too as she crossed the stage and marched down the stairs to rejoin their team. The urge to look back at him made her slow for only a moment, but she denied it and kept moving.

Then she made sure that was the only time she paused, no matter how deeply and insanely she was called to look at him again. To return to him. To figure out what the hell this thing was that distracted her and controlled her and filled her with ancestors only knew what at all the wrong moments.

While the team finished collecting their gear and weapons confiscated from their dead enemies, Rebecca refused to look at her Head of Security again. Even when she felt him watching her. Even when, no matter where he moved around the building, she felt his presence like a physical tug at her core.

The lure at the end of an invisible, irresistible line connecting them everywhere he went.

She felt it every time he glanced her way. She felt it every time he breathed. She thought she could hear it until she realized how insane that was and convinced herself she was blowing the whole thing out of proportion.

Rebecca had mastered the finer points of lies and deception a long time ago, at a very young age. Even then, the only person she consistently failed to deceive now was herself.

It didn’t help that she couldn’t stop thinking about Maxwell’s final warning and how certain he’d been that Rowan specifically was no good for her.

As if the shifter knew what was and wasn’t good, what she did and didn’t need.

As if he had any authority whatsoever to tell her to stay away from Rowan and not the other way around.

Was that all because he finally suspected a private relationship between her and the Blackmoon elf? That he’d read the signs correctly and had stumbled upon the truth?

Or was Maxwell Hannigan…jealous?

Was he threatened by another elf on the task force, because the only other elf within Shade had risen through the ranks to supersede his authority?

Or was he threatened by the fact that he was no longer the only one to demand Rebecca’s attention and get under her skin?

By the Blood, if he only knew how differently she felt about him and Rowan.

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