Page 195 of Elven Crown

If only he knew…

She could never let him know.

No matter how hard she tried to stop it, their conversation swirled through her mind as the team made their quick but cautious way back across the abandoned park toward their waiting vehicle.

And while they loaded everything up into the van.

And while the doors slammed shut, everyone took their seats, then Maxwell started the engine without a word to take them home.

It was impossible not to keep thinking about it as she sat in the front passenger seat beside him, forcing herself not to look at him but feeling every sidelong glance, every questioning look, every sharp inhale as he prepared to say something but never did.

Worst of all was the realization of what she’d truly felt in the moment Maxwell had told her to stay away from Rowan. The change in that buzzing, tingling pull, the brief transformation lasting only as long as his pained words, where the beckoning lure toward him that had only grown stronger since that first night she’d felt it.

The night Shade had overthrown their previous commander.

He’d told her to stay away from Rowan, like a desperate command of its own, and in that moment, the sensation his presence always produced had shifted into a fleeting but no less powerful energetic zap of something else that had almost been…painful.

Like a quick, electric jolt, or the first instant slice from a paper cut that faded seconds later into a dull background ache until it was either healed or forgotten or both.

But now that she’d remembered it, Rebecca couldn’t forget about it. This was something she didn’t even know how to heal or if it evencouldbe healed.

Rebecca had only felt something like that once before. Similar, but not the same. A flicker of energetic and magical pain inflicted upon another, like an added bonus to the words, when she’d been chided as a child for breaking rules she hadn’t yet grown to fully understand.

It didn’t make any sense that she would feel the same thing from Maxwell’s words and his warning. Shifters didn’t have their own inherent magic. Not in this world or any other.

Not the kind of magic that could elicit a physical response like that.

So then what the hell was this thing? When had it gotten there? Why was it growing, and what did she have to do to make it stop?

And how long could she keep this up, trying to ignore it and pretending like it didn’t exist, without knowing what it really was?

How long before it became one more major problem, an immediate threat she just didn’t know how to solve?

How long before it cost Rebecca something she couldn’t afford to lose?

50

When Maxwell finally pulled the vehicle into the parking garage at Shade headquarters and there was only one person standing there waiting for them, Rebecca’s gut clenched into knots again.

It was Zida.

The old healer’s dubious scowl never changed as she glowered at the team hopping out of the van to unload the supplies they’d gathered from their fallen enemy.

The first thing running through Rebecca’s mind was that Zida was here to share with them some horrible news of what had happened in their absence.

That had become something of a theme during Rebecca’s short time as commander—some form of bad news every time she returned to headquarters.

But then she had to remind herself this was only part of the healer’s job.

Zida always knew when mission teams were expected to return, so she could be onsite to tend to sustained injuries and the operatives who required her skill sets the most.

None of Rebecca’s team were in dire need of the healer, which was also a fairly new development since she’d taken over.

Burke had regained consciousness on the ride back, and now he wobbled out of the van, scowling and slapping away anyone who tried to support him after his ordeal.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, swatting away Whit’s outstretched hand. “Dammit, look at me. I’m awake. I’m alive. I can walk.”

“You were strapped to a magitek torture bomb,” Diego added with a smirk.

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