Page 137 of Elven Crown

This issue no longer concerned her.

That should have been perfectly clear, but Rowan was still as stubborn as ever.

“Get moving,” she told him. “Time to go. Out the door.”

“You call this a conversation?”

Rolling her eyes, she grabbed his arm and jerked him toward the door, then switched to pushing and shoving him step by step when he wouldn’t leave on his own.

“I don’t have these conversations anymore,” she snarled. “I don’t have to listen to them. I’m not accepting an audience, and I don’t take requests. Whatever you thought you were going to get out of cornering me like this and rubbing my face in it, you’ll just have to live with disappointment.”

As he stumbled forward beneath her every shove, Rowan chuckled. “You’re serious.”

“It only took you nearly a week of constant rejections to figure that one out? Good work. We’re done.”

“Rebecca, this isn’t a game—”

“You aresoright. So start takingmeseriously. Thanks for stopping by anyway. Don’t do it again.”

They reached the door, and she grabbed the doorknob to open it for him on the way out.

She only got the door open three inches before Rowan slammed a hand against the wood. The door banged shut again with an echo of finality.

Rebecca spun around and stared at him, equal parts impressed and exasperated by his steadfastness.

When her glare didn’t cow him, she hissed and drew back her hand.

If she had to bring it to a physical fight and throw the Blackmoon Elf out with her own bare hands, so be it.

No one else could have caught her next swinging blow the way he did.

Rowan’s hand clamped down around her wrist, quick as lightning, and now he stood between her and the door, intent on either physically fighting her or just standing there without a word until she got so annoyed with him that she finally broke the silence.

Not that she was trying to hurt him, anyway. She’d made it easy for him to catch her like this. Maybe on purpose. Maybe unconsciously.

Or maybe because his presence here in Chicago, in Shade’s headquarters compound, inher room, had caught her so off guard, she couldn’t help it.

She would never let herself willingly hurt Rowan, anyway.

And they both knew it.

As soon as he caught her wrist, though, the tenderness in his grip and behind his luminous hazel eyes was nothing like thecarefree jokester who’d been driving her toward madness over the last several days.

Thiswas the Rowan Blackmoon behind the elf he chose to let others see. The man Rebecca had almost given everything for—in a different lifetime, in a different world, with different secrets and different promises and different rules.

Before she’d come to understand that the only person for whom she could ever make true, meaningful sacrifices was herself.

The twinge of regret and bitter nostalgia for what might once have been between them filled her in the next space between breaths.

But she had to release that feeling. The grief and what sometimes felt like longing, if she ever gave herself enough time to dwell on it.

She didn’t anymore.

Rebecca had made her choice a long time ago. She had chosen her own destiny, and whatever might have been between her and Rowan—whatever there once was—was over now. It had been over since the moment she’d turned toward Earth.

As soon as she remembered that, who she was now andwhatshe was now—the responsibilities and the pressures and the dangers—came flooding back in again all at once.

She jerked her wrist out of Rowan’s grasp, not hard but just enough to show him it was intentional.

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