Page 31 of Elven Crown

With a wry chuckle and a crooked smile, he accepted the hand offered to help him up to his feet. Then the entire task force surged around him, tightening and knotting, everyone shoving their neighbors forward and closer to the elf at the center of it all.

Their newest initiate to have withstood Shade’s Striving and survived.

The echoing cheers and whistles and bellowing cries of victory echoed in all directions, pinging off the walls with laughter and quick, congratulatory back-slaps.

Rebecca puffed out a sigh and plopped back down into the chair behind her, her head spinning. Her gut churned so fiercely, she expected to grow dizzy beneath the weight of it.

Rowan had succeeded. He’d completed The Striving. He’d survived.

The relief engulfing her was more powerful than anything she’d felt in a long time.

She hadn’t killed him after all.

Only now, she had to deal with the consequences of Rowan successfully making it through The Striving—the final piece of Shade’s initiation.

Now she had to deal with the consequences of having given him the chance to prove himself and join their task force, which she’d wanted to avoid badly enough that she’d meddled with his trials.

But at least he wasn’t dead.

Rebecca didn’t have any other excuse for sending him away from Shade headquarters in Chicago or however far the reach of her position extended.

She couldn’t force him to leave her alone anymore.

Rowan would come after her relentlessly when this was all over. He would want to talk, and that was what she’d been trying to avoid this whole time.

Talking to Rowan Blackmoon, of all people, only meant getting pulled back into everything she’d left behind in her old life. She couldn’t risk that here, especially not with her and Maxwell still in the beginning stages of figuring out how the hell they were going to trust each other.

The thought of Maxwell made her turn toward him. The shifter was easy to find in the training gym.

Though she’d never tried, Rebecca was fairly certain she could have picked him out of any-sized crowd, anywhere, under any circumstances.

Maxwell clearly did not share the communal excitement and celebration fueling the rest of Shade’s shared mood. He scowled openly at Rowan, not bothering to hide his outward contempt for the elf man.

That would be another issue in the foreseeable future.

Rebecca was certain her Head of Security would accept Rowan’s victory, that The Striving had marked him worthy and, therefore, Maxwell would behave accordingly.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

Right now, it seemed he enjoyed Rowan’s acceptance just about as much as he’d enjoyed Rebecca’s on the night she’d survived The Striving herself.

There was no point in trying to hold off the inevitable any longer. Not after this.

She pushed herself to her feet again and made her way down the short steps off the dais, heading toward the jumbled knot of so many operatives all vying for a chance to congratulate Rowan in person, or introduce themselves, or leave their own personal bit of commentary on his performance tonight.

As Shade’s commander, she had a duty to officially swear him in, so to speak. That wouldn’t happen until later, but it would raise a few red flags if she didn’t at least acknowledge his victory before calling it a night.

When she’d almost reached the outer edges of the entire task force crowding around the elf, those closest noticed her approach right on cue. Rebecca didn’t have to say a thing or even gesture for her operatives to make way.

Intrinsically, they all knew where she was headed and why. Each person stepped aside at the perfect moment, silently clearing a path for their Roth-Da’al.

By the time she crossed into the center of the now defunct casting circle and stopped in front of Rowan, she was already scowling at him and found herself unable to stop.

The imminent danger had passed. There was no longer any threat of his accidental death at her hands. She’d realized that while making her way toward him.

Now Rebecca’s relief at finding him alive had solidified into a hot, churning mass of rage boiling in her gut, seething up her throat and shooting so painfully into her clenched jaw and behind her eyes that all she wanted to do was scream at him.

He was alive.

---