Page 155 of Elven Crown

No one answered him. The necessity of signaling anyone after something like that didn’t exist.

“Do we followthatsound,” Whit asked.

“Knox?” Maxwell pivoted to face the team and meet Rebecca’s gaze.

Was he asking for permission or just her opinion?

Not that it would have made a difference at this point.

“Yeah,” she said firmly and offered a curt nod. “I’d say that’s exactly where we need to go.”

The shifter returned her nod before spinning again to face the direction from which that awful bellow had originated.

“Breach formation,” he barked. “We’re moving in.”

Every operative fell into position behind their Head of Security, who had trained each of them in one way or another during previous field missions.

Field missions in which chaos and anarchy and physical threats on their lives had been all but assured under Aldous’s leadership.

They moved in tandem across the park, almost as if they were a single being of one mind and one mind alone.

Plus Rowan.

He was smart enough to have figured out where to place himself within the team’s new tactical formation as they hurried toward the sound, but of course he didn’t care enough to do so.

Instead, he fell in line directly beside Rebecca, his magitek rifle swinging carelessly at his side in one hand, aiming without direction or caution at the dirt and overgrown weeds with every step. “You know, thereisone thing I just can’t quite figure out.”

He needed to stop talking.

Rebecca wanted to tell him to shut up and focus on the mission. But speaking to him now, after what they’d just heard and whatever they were about to walk into, felt more like recklessly encouraging him, no matter what she said.

Rowan didn’t seem to care about that, either. “If this really is such a big deal for you guys, getting these kidnapped magicals back or whatever, why don’t you just track them yourself?Seriously, that would save everyone a whole bunch of time, then you and I can get back to whatreallymatters.”

“Thisdoesmatter,” she hissed, scanning the darkness as they advanced and trying so hard not to lose her cool on him now. “A lot.”

“Yeah, youhaveto say that though, don’t you? Thon-Da’al and everything.” He leaned toward her and dropped his voice into a whisper. “You can’t convince me you don’t care about how much time we’re wasting so you can play your little games with these people. We have way more important things to get back to, and you know it.”

“The only thingyou and Ihave to do is complete this mission before going back to headquarters and moving on.”

“Come on. If I haven’t made it clear enough since I found you, that’s probably on me. So I’ll just spell it out. I’m not buying the act,Kilda’ari. Not one bit of it. So you can stop pretending.”

That was the most aggravating of all, even more than his attempts to bring his own personal business to the forefront right now while they were on mission, trying to save lives. But that was Rowan.

He genuinely believed everything Rebecca did now as Shade’s commander was a complete act through and through. That she didn’t truly care about Shade or its members and was going through the motions until something better came along.

Clearly, Rowan had convinced himself that he was it.

It might have started that way, Rebecca joining Shade and signing on with a privatized task force that couldn’t have been any further from success and efficiency than it had been when she’d shown up six months ago.

But a lot had changed in those six months. A lot had changed in the last few weeks alone. Until this moment, she hadn’t given herself the opportunity to consider what Shade meant to hernow. What it had become and, in turn, whatshehad become with and because of it.

“We’re here now,” she replied and left it at that.

The team passed another small collection of outbuildings clustered together before an open field stretching toward another cluster of buildings in the distance.

One by one, they cleared each outbuilding and the surrounding area, which turned out to be the remains of a brick-and-mortar snack stand beside two separate buildings of gendered restrooms. Then Maxwell led them on.

“Wellthatwas a missed opportunity.” Rowan sidled up beside Rebecca again, still acting oblivious to the concerned glances the others shot his way. Including an intensely dubious stink-eye from Maxwell before they’d made it halfway across the open field.

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