Page 5 of Elven Crown

She didn’t dare look directly at that camera. That would only make this entire encounter more suspicious, not to mention Maxwell would have one more thing to toss onto his growing pileof reasons not to let Rebecca handle complicated situations on her own.

But if Rebecca could get a message to Rowan, undetected by video or audio feed, she might still have a chance of clearing this whole thing up before it got too big for her to handle.

“I asked you why you’re here,” she repeated, raising her eyebrows at Rowan.

He scoffed and resumed swinging his legs back and forth beneath the table. “Oh come on. Elf to elf, right? You knowexactlywhy I’m here.”

The way he said it and his sharpening grin as the words spilled from his mouth made her want to punch him in the face again.

Here he was, in holding, in the custody of an underground magical task force who took their business incredibly seriously, especially now that Aldous had been removed from the equation, having a face-to-face chat with the organization’s commander. Andstill, he continued to act like everything was one big joke, one infinite amusement, the rules of which didn’t apply to him simply because he considered himself too smart to acknowledge them.

And he still refused to answer her questions.

“Well?” He chuckled again and tilted his head, watching her every move.

Rebecca took several slow steps forward, as if she were moving in with the sole intention of interrogating the elf man using whatever personalized tactics and techniques she might have hidden up her sleeve.

“I’m thinking you have an issue with upfront honesty,” she said. “Not to mention giving direct answers.”

“Oh, you’re justthinkingthat, huh?”

She stopped two feet in front of the table, having specifically placed herself directly between the prisoner and the securitycamera. Now, the only thing the recorded shot would pick up was a clear view of Rowan and nothing but Rebecca’s back.

What she was about to do, no one else could see, but it was the only viable solution at the moment—the only one that wouldn’t make things infinitely worse for both of them.

“So you bypassed this compound’s security,” she said, spreading her arms, “and immediately let yourself get caught. I think you did all this on purpose.”

Then she folded her arms, keeping her right hand free and centered in front of her chest.

Rowan laughed again and gripped the edge of the table on either side of him before leaning forward. “Of course I did it on purpose. And then I spent the whole time asking foryou. Took you long enough to show up, by the way. It’s not exactly a warm welcome.”

“What do you want with Shade?”

The casual carelessness in his shrug infuriated her more than she’d expected before he rolled his eyes. “Didn’t realize there was anything to want. Honestly, I was just going down the list of leads, and the next one in line led me here. I wasn’t sure this was the place, but here you are…”

“And it didn’t occur to announce yourself first?” she asked. “Or even to knock?”

Rowan snorted. “It rarely does. But tell me, what areyoudoing?Roth-Da’al? In a place like this? I’m surprised,Kilda’ari.”

Kilda’ari.

The intimate nickname whisked Rebecca back to her old life, days spent within the Bloodshadow Court, fighting, training, strengthening her magic, being used and honed and tortured…

It all came back in an overwhelming rush, which would have disgusted her and sent her storming out of the room if she also hadn’t been staring Rowan in the eyes at that moment.

Looking at him now, hearing that name for her on his lips, sent a wave of heartbreaking familiarity and bitter nostalgia rushing through her at the same time. That combination battled the disgust and rage brought up by the memory of her past life.

And still, somehow, he’d turned the topic of conversation back to her.

By the Blood, it had been so long since they’d seen each other, since she’d even thought of Rowan. Now here he was, right in front of her.

In centuries, he hadn’t changed one bit.

Neither had she. Not where it was visible on the outside, anyway.

Then it occurred to her that if Rowan used that pet name for her here and now, he intended to take their conversation into deeply serious waters any second now. He didn’t give two shits if anyone was watching them or listening in on their conversation.

He didn’t care about anything in this world, because he hadn’t lifted a finger to make it his own.

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