Page 129 of Elven Crown

It was much harder than it should have been.

Now Maxwell looked likehewas the one lying in this bed with a wooden stake poking out of him.

“All right, Hannigan,” Zida called from the other side of the room. “You’ve done your due diligence. You brought her to me. Now I need you to get out.”

“I’ll stay,” he declared, which only confused Rebecca that much more.

The healer’s skills were well-known and greatly appreciated, not to mention highly valued. Every member of Shade had seen her results with countless other operatives coming in and out of this infirmary.

It wasn’t likeZida’seffectiveness had been put on a trial basis until she could prove herself capable of handling something like this.

But the shifter sure looked like that was what he thought. Like he was afraid Rebecca would slip off into oblivion forever if he left her side or so much as took his eyes off her.

What was he so damn worried about?

She hadn’t thought it possible for him to look this worried about anything.

Maxwell stared at her wound, grimacing, the muscles of his jaw clenching over and over as he stood there in some kind of frozen indecision. “Zida…”

“That’s my name,” the healer replied. “And I told you to leave.”

“You can help her, can’t you?”

By the Blood. Hehadto have been hit by something during the explosion. That was the only explanation for the way he was acting now.

“Huh.” Zida scoffed. “Is that why you came here? Bust down my door just so you could questionmyexpertise? Because let me tell you, judging by the last however many decades I’ve been healing Shade operatives—back tofullhealth, I might add—I was under the impression that I know what the Blue Hells I’m doing.”

“I have to be sure,” Maxwell muttered.

“Uh-huh, yeah.” The healer dismissed him with a toss of her hand. “Trust me, I’m not all that eager for another change in leadership just yet, either, okay? But for me to domyjob, I need you to leave. I’m going to the back for a few more supplies, so you’ve got…two minutes. Not a second longer. Deal with it.”

The door at the rear of the infirmary squealed open and shut again, and then it was just Rebecca lying blood-soaked on the bed and Maxwell hovering over her, his silver eyes slowly pulsing with an intensely dark light.

If she’d known he would react like this, she might have worked a little harder to deny his help to the infirmary. This was getting a little ridiculous.

No matter how much blood she’d admittedly lost already, when Rebecca healed herself, none of it would make a difference.

She couldn’t heal herself if the shifter didn’t quit hovering at her side like some overly protective guard dog.

Dammit, if he’d left when Zida told him to, Rebecca would be alone right now. Two minutes tops, and her gut problems would be over.

But no, Maxwell had stayed, forcing her to lie here like any other wood-skewered invalid and endure that doleful look on the shifter’s face, like he thought he was about to lose something important.

At that thought, Rebecca closed her eyes and forced herself to think of anything else. Currently, not very many alternatives came to mind.

“Knox?”

The gentleness in his voice made her open her eyes.

“I can stay,” he added.

What he didn’t say was “if she wanted him to”, but for some strange reason with no logical validity to it, that had been implied.

Rebecca tried to clear her throat, but it was impossibly dry now.

“You got me here,” she said, her voice hoarse and barely audible. “That’s enough. I’ll be fine. Really.”

“You hear that?” Zida shouted from the other side of the closed door. “She’ll be fine!”

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