Page 117 of Elven Crown

But if the shifter wanted to keep holding grudges for something that had changed the course of Shade’s history, and that was on him.

Rebecca laughed off his comment and addressed everyone again. “Hannigan’s right. We don’t have any more of those, but we’ve got the other stuff Eduardo’s been trying to offload to other black-market clients.

“As far as our intel goes, I’m pretty sure these weapons in front of you now were supposed to end up in Maryland, but now they’re here, and I’m hoping the rest of you will be a little more grateful for that than our Head of Security seems to be at the moment.”

The tension Maxwell had created with his snide comment shattered beneath a raucous round of laughter from the rest of Shade’s operatives.

Whether he’d meant his comment as a joke, Rebecca’s certainly was.

It was entirely worth it just to see the wide-eyed surprise on the shifter’s face when he shot her a sidelong look. As if he couldn’t believe anyone would dare to make him the butt of any joke.

Aww…was this his first time?

Unable to stop herself, Rebecca shot the shifter a quick wink, which only made him look that much more confused as the others’ laughter continued.

He averted his gaze and cleared his throat, and it was all she could do not to laugh with everyone else.

But she’d made her point.

If her Head of Security was going to call out her faults in front of the entire task force, she had no problem responding in kind.

“Great,” she continued with a chuckle and clapped her hands together to recapture everyone’s attention. “Let’s get these crates open and take a look at what we’re working with.”

Maxwell must have been grateful as hell for the switch of focus. He immediately gestured toward his security team to get them opening the various weapons crates stacked around the gym. Those they couldn’t open were broken into swiftly and efficiently.

Then Rebecca made her rounds for a real-time inventory, paired with an explanation of each weapon’s specs and what made them different from the weapons comprising the current catalog of Shade’s armory.

They had revolvers, semi-automatic and automatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, tactical crossbows, and something that looked like a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun but with its own mount.

The last crate she inspected contained nothing but magitek rounds for each class of newly acquired weapon, which gave her an idea. She called up Leonard, Diego, Nyx, and Titus so each of them could offer a quick demonstration for the rest of the class, complete with an explanation of how they’d seen these weapons in action.

Rebecca gave them the green light to fire a few test rounds at the wooden targets erected around the room.

The members of her small team were happy to oblige, and with every demonstration of firing each new weapon, the palpable excitement and eager anticipation in the gym heightened into a visceral enthusiasm just waiting to be unleashed.

Seeing these weapons in action in a controlled environment instead of during combat engagement in the field gave Rebecca the opportunity she hadn’t previously had to consider each weapon and its implications. The cache they’d intercepted was admittedly impressive.

Magitek weaponry had come a drastically long way since she’d first stepped foot on Earth, she’d been watching the evolution of its advancement over centuries.

These weapons were top-of-the-line, no doubt about it. Recognizing this made her wonder at the mastermind behind such advancements.

Something told her Eduardo’s griybreki forces didn’t quite have the mental capacity for inventing or even manufacturing stuff like this. Which now made finding the manufacturer of these new weapons just another item she could file away on her mental to-do list.

Once they’d performed a demonstration with every type of weapon in their new cache, Rebecca didn’t have to read the room to know every member of this task force was itching to get their hands on one and try it out for themselves.

“Okay, now that you’ve seen what these babies can do,” she called out, “listen up! I want everyone armed, and by the end of the day, I expect every operative in this building to know how to handle each new model like you’ve been training with them your whole life.”

“By the end of the day?” Maxwell murmured beside her.

She shot him a coy smile. “They can handle it. It’s just gonna be a long day.”

He snorted and shook his head but didn’t correct her or add to her newest order.

“And in case anyone has any bright ideas,” Rebecca added, “the first person to get knocked on their ass because they started screwing around with loaded magitek gets aprize.”

The dozens of murmured side conversations came to a halt while every pair of eyes turned back toward Shade’s Thon-Da’al.

Rebecca could see their minds working furiously to figure out whether she was joking or merely implementing a poorly dressed-up threat.

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