Page 82 of Elven Crown

Rebecca and Maxwell both turned toward the eighteen-wheeler they’d taken as their own to transport their new intercepted cargo.

While Titus climbed up into the front seat to get the truck started, Rowan headed for the cab’s front passenger-side door and made a giant show of waving animatedly across the docks at Maxwell—that same infuriating grin shining through the darkness.

Then he blew Maxwell a kiss.

Just to screw with them.

The shifter snarled as the tension returned to his body, drawing all his muscles taut. He grumbled somethingunintelligible and didn’t wait for Rebecca to climb into the front passenger seat.

Instead, he ignored both elves and stormed around the front of the van, slamming the rear door on Leonard, Diego, and Nyx in the back along the way.

When he jerked open the driver’s-side door and slumped behind the wheel, cranking the van’s engine like he might decide any minute to destroy it, the shifter’s tension had once again spread to everyone else around him.

Rebecca glanced into the rearview mirror for a quick look at Leonard, Diego, and Nyx settling down in the back. No one said a thing. They hardly even looked at each other, even when Maxwell shifted into drive and slammed his foot on the gas to take off from the docks with a jolting start.

Not being able to talk Maxwell down off whatever ledge of fury he’d reached felt like a major setback Rebecca still didn’t quite know how to handle.

She couldn’t make him feel differently about Rowan Blackmoon among their ranks, nor could she make Rowan take this task force seriously for however long he intended to stay with them.

She did know, however, that they’d avoided a physical fight so far because she’d been there with them every step of the way. As far as she knew, Rowan and Maxwell hadn’t been alone since the Blackmoon Elf’s arrival, and Rebecca had diffused the tense aggression bubbling between them practically every time they were in the same room.

She couldn’t do that forever, though. One of these days, Rowan and Maxwell would have to handle their issues on their own. When she imagined that happening, all she saw in her mind’s eye was a vision of Maxwell Hannigan and Rowan Blackmoon ripping each other to shreds every chance they got.

They’d almost achieved that tonight.

How much longer would they keep this up?

How much longer would Rowan keep screwing around with serious Shade business like it was all a game?

How long would Maxwell keep making himself a willing target for Rowan’s behavior?

She would have loved to know the answers, because what she did know hardly filled her with confidence.

The biggest problem was that she still didn’t know how to help either of them.

If Maxwell and Rowan couldn’t stop themselves from destroying each other, and it definitely looked like they were on the right track, Rebecca would have to step in in a whole new way. She didn’t want that either.

If she failed in that, if she failed to protect two of Shade’s most valuable members despite their differences, what kind of leader did that makeher?

No better than the kind of leader she’d refused to be before she gave up everything that had once made Rebecca Bloodshadow who she was.

As she thought about it on the tensely silent drive back to headquarters, she recognized another major difference between her old life within the Bloodshadow Court and her new life as Rebecca Knox.

She cared a hell of a lot more about damn near everything.

Which meant she also had a hell of a lot more to lose.

24

“I’ve got something to say, and no one’s going anywhere until I’ve said my piece! So everyone shut up and listen!”

Amidst the laughter and excited conversation dying down in the common room, Rebecca turned toward Leonard just like everyone else did. But unlike everyone else, she couldn’t ignore the growing sense of doom settling in over Shade.

Honestly, she was fairly certain she was the only one who could feel it, and she still hadn’t figured out why.

She wanted to join in the celebration. She should have been just as proud of what her team had accomplished tonight as the rest of the task force clearly was. The feeling brewing in her gut since they’d returned only grew stronger.

The feeling that everything in her life, which had already been balancing precariously on a knife’s edge for way too long, was about to crash down around her at any second, and she was powerless to stop it.

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