Page 32 of Elven Crown

Which meant now she could be this pissed off at him for having manipulated her into this exact situation she’d been trying to avoid. She should have known he’d waltz right in here to play her with something like this.

Now, because he’d passed The Striving, they were stuck together.

Once he’d noticed her heading toward him, Rowan’s smirk had remained all the way until the moment she stopped in front of him. A small shadow of dark circles under his eyes remained, and he looked a little paler than usual, but beyond that, he seemed more or less unharmed.

His experience tonight hadn’t changed his careless attitude in the slightest. That would have been a bonus.

Forcing herself to act the official part of the Roth-Da’al she was, Rebecca offered him a firm nod of acknowledgement filledwith all the decorum of someone in her position who had never before seen, met, or even heard of her organization’s newest initiated member.

“Congratulations, Blackmoon,” she said, her voice low and stiff beneath the effort of forcing down her anger. “You survived.”

Rowan’s smile flickered even wider beneath a confused frown. That expression could have been completely serious or just another one of his meaninglessly joking tics. “Why do you look so pissed off? Did I fail to meet your expectations?”

Holding his gaze might have been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, especially while every bone in her body screamed at her to turn around and run away and put all this behind her forever.

“Not at all,” she replied simply. “Welcome to Shade.”

When she thrust out her hand, Rowan laughed but took it anyway, and they shook.

“You’ll swear your oath first thing in the morning,” she added.

That dangerous, deadly, disarming grin of his returned as he chuckled again, his hazel eyes glinting beneath the gym’s overhead lights someone had switched on again. It could have been the lighting, of course, or simply Rebecca’s imagination, but the color seemed to return to his cheeks a lot more quickly now.

When he tried to pull away from their handshake, however—taking it as seriously as he took everything else, which was not at all—Rebecca refused to let him go.

Rowan’s smile disappeared. He tried one more time to subtly release her hand without letting anyone else see the struggle. But with such a diligently observant crowd watching their interaction, there wasn’t much he could do.

A deeper flush bloomed high in his cheekbones, barely noticeable to those who didn’t know where to look. But Rebecca did.

That was realization dawning on his face, and it momentarily changed his entire demeanor.

“Wait,” he murmured, tilting his head away from her as he held Rebecca’s gaze. “My oath? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Rebecca leaned toward him and raised her eyebrows. Now that she had his full attention, she could show him what a shitshow he’d just created for both of them. “It means I own your ass.”

Then she squeezed his hand just a little harder and a little tighter, feeling his knuckles grind together within her grasp.

Yes, she definitely wanted to make it painful for a few seconds—a warning she knew Rowan would understand, though he held her gaze and offered no other outward sign signal of pain or hesitation.

But he was getting the message.

Without another word, Rebecca released him, stepped aside, and marched across the other half of the training gym toward the double doors and the hallway beyond. The other magicals standing around Rowan stepped aside or backed away to give her room. No one tried to stop her.

Godammit, yes, it was official now. She had just initiated the elf—the one person in her entire life it had hurt her the most to stay away from for as long as she had—into the organization Rebecca now led.

Into the task force for which she was wholly responsible.

And she was the only one who also had to deal with the consequences of it.

12

While the common room exploded with cheers, applause, and congratulations twelve hours later for Rowan Blackmoon having officially sworn in as Shade’s newest member, the only thing Rebecca could think about was how much harder she’d have to work from here on out to keep her anger in check.

Otherwise, she would end up killing someone else within Shade’s headquarters compound, and it wouldn’t be in self-defense this time.

It took every bit of her willpower not to storm up to Rowan once again standing at the center of all the activity and celebratory energy, tell him she’d changed her mind, and throw him out onto the street.

It would have made her feel better, absolutely. Acting on that impulse, though, wasn’t an option.

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