Page 79 of Elven Crown

And he thought heneededto be in control of himself.

Just one more side to her shifter Head of Security she hadn’t seen yet. Or maybe she just hadn’t considered the possibility that Maxwell Hannigan also battled with keeping himself in check. His abilities. His power. His anger.

Her desire to reassure him, to remind him of how well things had turned out tonight, especially after all Shade’s failures with Aldous, was both odd and impossible to ignore.

So Rebecca stepped toward him again, meaning only to encourage him.

Somehow, it felt absolutely necessary.

“Hey, the important thing is we did well tonight.”

Maxwell stiffened even more at her approach, which she noticed a split second before the unbelievable strength of thattingling warmth and the incredible pull it had on her—urging her closer, challenging her, begging her—flared up between them with full force.

If Rebecca had been alone, she would have tried her best to ignore the sensation, just like every other time she’d felt it so far. But she wasn’t alone.

Which was why she saw, with perfect clarity, the physical reaction of Maxwell’s body too—the tightening of his muscles and clenching of his jaw; the soft, hesitant inhale; the hesitant confusion warring with the urge to pull away.

She recognized it instantly.

What she saw in him looked like what she felt every time they were in the same room together. Every time they got even remotely close like this.

Whatwasthis? And why, of all the magicals in Chicago—all the magicals on Earth or Xahar’áhsh—did Rebecca apparently share this odd sensation with Maxwell Hannigan?

The feeling had grown so overwhelmingly strong now, breathing felt like a chore. Like a physical choice Rebecca had to keep making over and over again, or her body would fail to continue doing what it had never needed her permission or her conscious awareness to do.

There was no doubt in her mind that Maxwell could feel this too. Whatever this was. Before she could properly assess the appropriateness of the time and place for bringing it up in conversation, though, she was already asking him.

“You feel that, right?”

His breath hitched, then he let it out slowly but didn’t reply.

When he finally looked at her for the first time since she’d joined him at the edge of the docks, it was the look of someone only now being seen for the first time. Like a being born invisible, who’d spent their whole life believing they would neverbe found until the moment someone finally looked them in the eye and notthroughthem.

But Maxwell wasn’t invisible. She was pretty sure he never had been.

That look, though, made her want to reach out to him again. This time, the urge was too strong to ignore. If he felt it too, then maybe there was something else they were supposed to know about each other. About themselves.

His silver eyes glowed brighter in the darkness, and his lips parted to provide an answer.

On the other side of Rebecca, someone else let out a heavy sigh, shattering the moment.

“You mean that cool night breeze?” Rowan asked and sighed again. “Oh yeah. Ifeelit.”

Maxwell’s mouth snapped shut, then he stooped to pick up another griybreki corpse and threw it in the river.

Rebecca turned to scowl at Rowan, who returned her stare with wide, faux-innocent eyes and a flickering smirk. “Did you need something?”

“Just wondering if there’s anything else that needs to be done around here,” he replied cheerily, then spread his arms and winked. “Put me to work, boss.”

Rebecca fought the urge to tell him exactly how he could be of use by shoving him off the docks. But that type of punishment hardly fit the crime of acting clueless, even when Rowan Blackmoon was anything but.

Maxwell beat her to it.

The shifter hefted another griybreki corpse off the dwindling pile of only a remaining few, hauled it with him toward Rowan, and tossed the body at Rowan’s chest with a noncommittal grunt.

Rowan caught the cargo reflexively and gaped at the shifter.

“There you go,” Maxwell said, then immediately turned to resume his own cleanup duties.

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