Page 164 of Elven Crown

Rowan widened his eyes at the shifter’s sudden appearance but jerked his weapon out of Maxwell’s hand. And, like a moron, he took aim again. “I saw one of them. I can take him down.”

“You can hold your fucking fire,” Maxwell spat. Then he moved again in the blink of an eye, and when Rowan stumbled away from him, the shifter now had complete possession of both their augmented weapons. “That’s the only thing you’ll be doing right now.”

Rowan glowered at him and gestured sharply into the darkness toward where the lone enemy had disappeared. “So we’re just letting them get away from us for fun? If that’s your master plan—”

“The decision’s already been made, elf! You’re here to follow orders, not to do whatever you want now that you finally have a weapon in your hands.” Maxwell took one lunging step toward Rowan again, who stiffened in response, though he neither backed away nor removed his scathing glare from the shifter’s face.

He did little when Maxwell shoved the magitek rifle roughly against the elf’s chest with another vicious snarl that would have subdued anyone else. Rowan merely lifted his hands to accept the weapon unexpectedly returned to him.

Then Maxwell spun away and trudged back toward the team. “Keep moving.”

Rowan stared after him, then easily found Rebecca’s gaze in the darkness.

As soon as he did, he widened his eyes at her, pursed his lips, and mimed blowing his own head off with his very real, fully engaged firearm.

Rebecca signaled to him with a quick series of hand gestures only he could see:“Just do what he says.”

Then she turned to fall in line with the team’s resumed formation behind Maxwell.

Rowan’s dark, dangerously carefree laughter rose behind her, but she didn’t have to check to know he’d also stepped in to bring up the rear.

If he kept this up any longer, their captured operatives would be dead.

Soon after, they found themselves walking along the cracked, mostly overgrown lanes of a narrow road leading toward the next grouping of buildings up ahead. For the first time since they’d entered the park, the high chain-link fence was visible again, emerging from the surrounding wooded area before narrowing in to enclose the long strip of old road the way they traveled.

That had probably been to reassure visitors they were heading in the right direction toward the opposite side of the park. Still, Rebecca couldn’t help but compare it to the narrow run of a livestock enclosure funneling terrified animals straight into the slaughterhouse.

With no other sign of pursuit or surveillance and no other noises ricocheting across the park from either the source of that awful, trembling roar or continued shrieks from their captured operatives, this narrow road almost felt like a break. The onslaught of dangerous threats and unavoidable combat might have paused, but the team kept a quick and consistent pace toward their next destination.

Up ahead, Maxwell signaled everyone to keep moving before he fell back and waited for Rebecca.

She didn’t slow down either when he fell into step beside her, both of them still searching the darkness and maintaining a ready grip on their weapons.

As if they’d known it would happen again, the team didn’t stop the next time the growing bellow shot through the air for a fourth time, now much louder and significantly closer.

The ensuing screams rose much sooner than last time to join the off-putting roar. Two of them now in a series of increasingly pained wails before everything cut off all at once.

As if someone had opened a soundproof door to let out a five-second preview of the horrible things taking place on the other side.

When it finally stopped, Rebecca felt the tingling brush of Maxwell’s gaze on her face, like an exploratory tickle this time, even before he decided to speak.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

What a conversation-starter.

Rebecca bit her tongue and focused instead on answering the question. “I’m fine. I just wanna find them and get them out of here so we can all put this to bed.”

He nodded, the glow from his silver eyes flickering in the dark as he continuously scanned their surroundings. But he hadn’t joined her for a chat just to ask how she was doing. She knew that much.

Something else was coming.

“I want to order the elf to fall back and wait for us with the vehicle,” he said.

And there it was, offered as tersely and matter-of-factly as if she’d asked about it.

“He’s come this far,” she said. “We can’t afford the distraction of trying to call him off at this point. Plus, I think he’ll come in handy when it counts.”

“I don’t trust him,” Maxwell added, lowering his voice. “You need to be careful with that one.”

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