Page 11 of Elven Lies

Nothingdidhappen, she told herself.Remember that.

“It’s a key,” she repeated, and now even her voice sounded like her own again.

Maxwell cleared his throat one more time. “To what?”

He sounded like himself again too, albeit just a little less certain and self-important than normal.

Rebecca turned back toward her desk to scan the wooden floor beneath it where she’d first felt that soft, solid weight toppling onto her shoe during the meeting. “I think it fell out of one of the drawers.”

Then she looked up at her Head of Security and lifted the key toward him between her fingers, as if such a tiny thing were a shield to protect her from getting lost in his gaze.

In all of him…

Maxwell’s jaw muscles worked furiously as he glanced at the key, then shook his head and turned away. “Never seen it before.”

“We can save that one for later, then,” she said, and pocketed the key to let it travel right alongside the two stone figurines nestled in her jacket pocket.

Then real life and the present returned, as if time had frozen for longer than she cared to admit and had now just started up again.

“Right now, our priority is getting Nyx safely back home,” she said.

“Agreed.” He’d turned slightly away from her, not quite facing the office door. It seemed he was actively trying not to look at her, even when he added, “Both of us.”

He just wasn’t going to let this go, was he?

No matter what Rebecca said, her Head of Security would come up with another valid response for why hehadto join her, why he couldn’t let her meet with Harkennr alone. Fighting him on this would only use up the energy she’d already decided to pour into rescuing Nyx.

She had to relent.

“Fine. You’re coming with me.”

Maxwell turned halfway back toward her, as though he also didn’t want to get sucked up into whatever sticky web they’d been weaving around each other, with no idea what it was or how to stop it.

“ButIcall the shots,” Rebecca added. “And I need your word that you won’t shift whenever you feel like it or go on the offensive at the drop of a hat. Not until I give the word to do so. Deal?”

His scowl had returned, already transforming him once again into the stoic, brooding, disapproving Head of Security she almost thought she preferred, because it was vastly less uncomfortable than whatever had just happened between them.

Or whatever hadalmosthappened.

“I don’t like those terms,” he grumbled.

“Of course you don’t. But they’re the only ones you’re gonna get.”

He pressed his lips tightly together, jaw muscles once again fiercely at work, before he finally huffed out a sigh through his nose and nodded. “Fine. Deal.”

“Great.” Rebecca hurried past him toward the door, afraid that if she moved any slower, she’d be caught up in him all over again. “Then let’s go.”

The relief of putting him behind her was like a breath of fresh air, though the lingering warmth of his presence and the shiver-inducing tingle flaring up across the back of her neck and shoulders as he took off after her felt far more like a liability than it ever had before.

If they couldn’t control thisthing, they would just have to deal with it and hope it didn’t kick up again with terrible and deadly timing once they made it to Harkennr’s base.

If it did, Nyx would be in a lot more trouble than she was now.

So would Maxwell and Rebecca.

4

From the moment Rebecca and Maxwell left Shade headquarters, she’d had a terrible feeling about this.

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