Page 78 of Elven Crown

Maxwell’s jaw muscles clenched over and over, visibly working in the dim light of the Port of Chicago’s exterior lamps. Rebecca waited for him to give her some sort of sign, whether acknowledging his desire to be left alone or her willingness to engage when he offered her nothing.

But when he didn’t do or say anything, her curiosity overwhelmed her remaining patience.

“Can I help you over here?” she asked.

The heavy whisper of a body dragging across the asphalt was the only response she got. Then Maxwell released the dead griybreki’s gangly green arm, and the body thumped down at the edge of the pile alongside all the others. “You can do whatever you want.”

That didn’t technically answer her question, but he hadn’t told her to leave him alone, either. Maybe if she committed to helping him in this task, he might eventually open up. Possibly.

They worked together in silence for several minutes, gathering up the remaining dead griybreki and leaving none behind for humans to find in the morning. Once they had all the bodies in one place, Maxwell switched his focus to tossing each corpse over the edge of the dock and into the water, one by one.

Despite their webbed hands and feet and their amphibious appearance, tossing griybreki into any body of water produced the same physical effects as tossing a human body into a vat of hydrochloric acid.

The heavy splashes of griybreki bodies hitting the water joined the rest of the team’s laughter in the night air. When Rebecca and Maxwell were over halfway through the pile, she figured it couldn’t hurt to try again.

She flung another body over the side of the dock, watched it bubble and hiss for a second before sinking too far beneath the surface to keep watching, then dusted off her hands, as if handling these corpses had left her with something to dust off them.

“I’d say that was a hell of a success,” she said and folded her arms.

“Hardly.” Maxwell lifted the next body by one limp wrist and heaved it over the side, as if the creature weighed nothing at all.

The ensuing splash was larger than Rebecca had expected, and she took several steps away from the edge to avoid the spraying backsplash. “Then maybe you can tell me what I missed. Because this turned out exactly the way we wanted it to.”

“Big-picture success,” he said with a shrug as he turned back toward the body pile. “Sure, we got what we wanted, but I fail to see how the definition of success includes screwing around and treating the mission like one big joke.”

When another round of laughter broke out among the rest of the team, Maxwell froze, growled deeply, and bared his teeth at the light reflecting off the rippling water. “Or a damn stage. That’s the exactoppositeof what we need.”

Wow, he really did despise Rowan after the elf’s performance tonight.

It didn’t help that he’d suspected Shade’s new elf from the beginning. While witnessing the shifter’s distaste for Rowan herself, Rebecca couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something else at play here. Something else affecting Maxwell’s current sentiments.

Something she felt compelled to dig up, with no rational explanation for the urge.

“Everyone copes differently,” she said. “I wasn’t the best either when I first joined. But he’ll learn. We all do, eventually.”

“I wouldn’t hedge your bets just yet if I were you,” Maxwell growled.

“He took down the griybreki manning that laser. Which would’ve put us in a pretty tight spot otherwise.” Rebecca cast a quick glance toward Rowan and the others, all of whom looked focused on and invested in cleaning up their latest battlefield. “At least he’s gotten more involved.”

“Sure.” Maxwell kept working, still without looking at her, as if the conversation had never happened.

Was that all she was going to get out of him?

It wasn’t enough.

Rebecca’s inexplicable desire to get to the root of her Head of Security’s personal issues battled with a growing disbelief in the realization that it sounded like she was trying todefendRowan right now. “Look, I get that he’s a pain in the ass. I’ve seen it too. And he clearly doesn’t know when to drop something and just let it be. But he did—”

“With all due respect, Thon-Da’al,” Maxwell interrupted, his voice low and thick with the tension of maintaining his composure, “I would prefer to discuss this later in a formal debriefing.”

Then he paused beside the dwindling pile of corpses and added, “When I can guarantee I’m more…in control of myself.”

She watched him intently, waiting for him to look at her until it became crystal-clear that was exactly what he refused to do.

Maxwell’s jaw clenched and unclenched mercilessly as he stared at the water, hands balled into fists. It didn’t look like he meant to pull himself out of that tension anytime soon.

In fact, Rebecca decided he looked like he was fighting himself—or his own natural reactions—to discussing Rowan at all. Then she noticed the water blinking with the reflection of his glowing silver eyes she couldn’t see and realized what he was trying to tell her.

Maxwell didn’t think he could control himself if they kept up this discussion. That only confirmed her suspicions of how much he resented Rowan having joined their ranks.

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