Page 36 of Elven Crown

“What?” Rowan’s eyes widened, the amusement gleaming within their hazel irises before he burst out laughing.

Maxwell wasn’t amused.

Rebecca wasn’t, either, but at least Rowan hadn’t started spilling his guts about her the way she’d thought he might. This whole thing was getting too ridiculous.

She appreciated Maxwell’s aggressive bodyguard style, probably for the first time that she could remember, but he still took the whole thing way too far. Now she just wanted him to put his stupid arm down.

“Oh, that’s toogood!” Rowan wiped a fake tear from the corner of his eye. “This whole act you’ve got going on, threatening to rip people’s arms off if they don’t do what you say? Are you kidding? Does this actually work?”

“You clearly don’t understand the difference between a warning and a threat,” Maxwell said.

Rowan’s laughing smile froze. While the expression remained, a hard coldness solidified in his eyes as he glared back at the shifter. “And I suppose you think you do.”

The air crackled with the tension between them, and Rebecca still wanted nothing to do with it. She had a feeling, though, that if she let these two square off like this any longer, something would burst wide open—whether it was secrets, or tempers, or skulls, maybe even all three.

“That’s enough,” she interjected, her voice held steady by her growing irritation when Rowan smirked like he’d just won something. “Both of you.”

Maxwell didn’t look at her when he lowered his arm and took a small step to the side, though she detected a hint of embarrassment along the edges of his scowl still firmly centered on Rowan’s face.

“Excellent. Thank you.” Rowan broke his staring contest with the shifter and swiveled his gaze onto Rebecca next. “Now, you told me we could talk after this whole oath-swearing business. So if I could just have a few minutes of your time—”

“You’ll get your opportunity once things settle down around here,” she said. “But I have larger priorities at the moment.”

He scoffed. “Like what?”

She had to ignore him before turning toward Maxwell, hating what she was about to say but recognizing it as the current best option if she wanted to keep a handle on her sanity. Maybe even the only option.

“For now, I think I’ll be taking my meals in the office until further notice.”

Maxwell started to nod, then froze with a flutter of his eyelids. That momentary confusion in his expression lasted no longerthan a second before he expertly concealed it again and clearly remembered how hewantedto respond.

With another dip of his head, Maxwell searched her gaze. “I’ll bring your meal up myself.”

“Thanks.”

Without sparing Rowan another glance, as if he were nothing more than a footnote to her day, Rebecca spun away from them both and marched out of the common room and down the hall.

This one would have led her straight back to the residential wing and her own private room a few doors down from Zida’s infirmary. But now her own room was off-limits for the moment, and she had to take the scenic route.

Maxwell’s surprise at her decision to take meals in the commander’s office on the second floor was the reaction she’d expected from him. She’d had the same reaction herself. Part of her couldn’t believe she’d caved and given that command.

When she’d realized only a few days ago that her position as Shade’s new commander was a permanent one, with no chance of slipping her way out of it, she’d promised herself she would be the exact opposite of Aldous Corriger.

That in and of itself was a decent start for any new commander and their chosen leadership policy. Not once had she considered taking meals in the office, removed from the rest of the task force for privacy. That was something Aldous had already been doing when she’d arrived.

Despite actively striving to be a better commander than the changeling—and he’d set the bar exceptionally low—she started to feel more like Aldous with every surprising new decision.

If she kept getting herself cornered into these tight situations that were nearly impossible to navigate, like trying to stay away from Rowan without raising the alarm about so many other things she had to keep hidden from the world, Rebecca mightend up more like the changeling she’d overthrown than she could afford.

The biggest problem there was learning to discern between the decisions that made her rise above Aldous’s vast shortcomings and crippling mistakes, and those that made her just like him.

But the time she had to figure it out was already dwindling.

13

The realization made her nauseous as Rebecca turned down another intersecting hallway toward the private rear stairwell up to the compound’s second floor.

The small comfort she took from the situation, what kept her from hating herself, was the knowledge that while she and Aldous had made similar decisions, they were for vastly different reasons.

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