Page 187 of Elven Crown

“All right, hot shot. So then how do you explain what happened, huh?”

“Hey, don’t ask me. I’m just one of the guys who risked his life coming in to save your kidnapped ass.”

The laughter echoing around the auditorium, even while the team tried to reason out the cause of their victory, made everything Rebecca had risked for that victory feel entirely worth it.

They’d done it. The emergency rescue op was a success. No deaths, and only a few minor injuries, all things considered. And if the worst thing that came out of this mission tonight were a few inexplicable details of the how and why, she could live with that.

Honestly, it was more than she’d expected.

The sight of Rowan watching her the whole time as she crossed the auditorium to join them, however, his arms still folded and a knowing smirk tugging at his lips, dampened the satisfaction of victory.

He waited until she’d rejoined the team before making it even worse. “Maybe Knox has an idea. She was up above the fighting for a while.”

“There was plenty of fighting on the balcony,” she said. “Trust me.”

She’d meant it as a terse dismissal of his suggestion, but the rest of the team stopped what they were doing to watch her again, waiting for the explanation Rowan had all but promised them.

Still a pain in her ass.

With everyone’s eyes on her, Rebecca shrugged and went with the first thing that popped into her head. “I’m pretty sure the necromancer was responsible for all of it. Powering the casting circles and the bomb before going for the big guns with that last nasty spell that almost took us all out. I almost didn’t get to him in time. But as soon as I did, all the magic he’d been channeling collapsed on itself, and that was it. No more casting-circle traps, no more bomb, no more necromancer.”

“There you go,” Diego said as he turned toward the others, gesturing in Rebecca’s direction. “Take down the source, and everything else goes with it, just like that.”

A smile flickered across Shell’s lips. “Badass.”

“Really?” Rowan asked with a snort. “You sure that’s how that went down? Because when you left all the fighting down here, you were gone awhile. Doesn’t take that long to get rid of one little necromancer.”

Rebecca stopped and stared straight ahead, forcing herself not to clench her fists but unable to keep from gritting her teeth instead.

She really hated Rowan Blackman’s guts right now.

Was he seriously trying to expose her in front of everyone, just because he’d been a little frustrated? What did it even matter to him? They’d won.

With her next breath, she turned to face him, pulling up an instant mask of casual apathy at his thinly disguised interrogation, and clicked her tongue. “Yeah, well, he was a strong-as-shit necromancer.”

“But Knox is even stronger,” Shell added with a grin.

Then Titus’s unrestrained, bellowing laughter thundered through the auditorium again. His amusement and relief were contagious now, and in seconds, the rest of the team was laughing with him. They shouted a few hyped-up cheers for their commander before diving into reliving some of the battle’sbest moments now that the danger was over and their victory permanently claimed.

“All right,” Maxwell grumbled as he scanned the carnage littering the room. “Let’s get this shit cleaned up.”

“You want us to get rid of the bodies in an abandoned park?” Jay asked.

Shell huffed out a wry chuckle. “Isn’t this usually where people go tohidebodies?”

The shifter shook his head. “No, these assholes can rot here. But check them for anything that might tell us who they were working for, then grab the weapons and gear. We’re taking as much of it as we can carry.”

“What about…” Titus stuck a thumb over his shoulder toward the heap of junk the magitek bomb had become.

Maxwell didn’t even look at the device. “I never want to see that thing again in my life.”

A few operatives chuckled.

“Copy that, boss,” Titus said before ambling off with the others to start on their final tasks.

Rebecca couldn’t stop glaring at Rowan. He was making all of this so much harder than it had to be, true, but she hadn’t been too worried about it until now.

Because she couldn’t figure out why he’d tried so hard to undermine her tonight by questioning her explanations and trying to raise suspicions.

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