Page 34 of Elven Lies

“Seriously?” Leonard looked back and forth between them, his expression wavering between concern for his superiors and overflowing relief and gratitude. “Are you guys okay?”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Yep.”

“I mean, did Zida take a look at you too?” Leonard blurted. “Listen, I know you two wouldn’t exactly say anything about it if you got hurt, but maybe you should still let her—”

“No lasting damage was done,” Maxwell said, shaking his head. “Not anything the healer could help with, anyway.”

Zida scoffed and folded her arms as she leaned away from him with a dubious glare.

Leonard looked even more terrified until Rebecca flashed him a reassuring smile and set a hand on his shoulder. “We’re fine, Leonard. I mean it. What matters is we got her back in one piece, and she’ll pull through this. Just watch.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do,” he murmured, gazing down at Nyx’s sleeping face with so much tenderness, Rebecca was only that much more convinced of something existing between these two. Something which, by the looks of it, she might not ever understand or experience herself.

And that was fine. Nyx’s and Leonard’s business was theirs.

“On one condition,” Zida added, thrusting a crooked finger in the air. “I don’t wanna hear a damn peep out of you while I’m working unless she stops breathing or wakes up. You understand?”

“If that’s how I stay here with her? Easiest thing in the world.” Leonard grabbed the closest chair, set it beside the bed, and sank into it as he picked up one of Nyx’s limp hands to hold it in his own. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Puffing out a sigh, Zida returned her attention to Rebecca and Maxwell. “Anything else while you’re here? I’ve got work to do.”

“Nothing that needs your immediate attention,” Rebecca said. “How long do you think you’ll need to make sure she’s good to go with a little rest?”

“Alittle? Huh. Not likely. If she’ll let me, I’ll keep her here for a week. Butapparently, long periods of observation don’t go over very well in this place these days…” The healer’s eyes narrowed at Rebecca, filled with condemnation.

Rebecca wasn’t going to live down manufacturing her own early release from the infirmary either, was she?

“But that wasn’t your question,” Zida snapped. “This one? I’d say give me an hour, ninety minutes tops, and I’ll have a better idea where things stand. Honestly, I don’t think I’m gonna find much, but I’ll look anyway.”

“Great. Thank you.” Rebecca caught Maxwell’s eye next and subtly nodded toward the door as an invitation for him to join her outside the infirmary. “When you’re finished with Nyx, Zida, I’ll be upstairs. There are a few things I want run by you before anything else.”

“Yeah, yeah. The Roth-Da’al beckons, and we all come crawling forward. Ain’t that the way of it? I’ll be there. Now get out of here before I start throwing things. This room was built for peopleinbeds, not standing around all crammed together like sardines in a can. You know where the door is.”

Despite the healer’s curtness—beyond rude by anyone’s standards except Shade’s—a knowing smile still bloomed at the corners of Zida’s wrinkled, puckered lips when she caught Rebecca’s gaze. Then it disappeared, and the old woman bustled around her infirmary to prepare for more tests on Nyx while Leonard sat beside the bed, holding the katari’s hand and smiling like he’d just won the lottery.

“Now what?” Maxwell asked as they both headed for the door.

“Get word to everybody who sat in on the briefing this morning. It’s no fun for anyone, I know, but I think another meeting is best for now.”

“Hmm.” Maxwell looked her up and down, then leaned toward her so close, his body heat washed over her with another wave of that tingling pressure, which seemed to have returned again from nowhere and all at once.

Rebecca knew it had been there all along, but now that more pressing issues had been dealt with, she once again lacked the necessary distractions to tune it out.

The renewed sensation locked her in place. She still didn’t know what the hell to do with it and could only stand there, gazing up into his silver eyes, until Maxwell dipped his head so close to her ear that the heat of his breath against her cheek sent a rippling shudder down the side of her neck and goosebumps prickling up and down her arms.

“For once, Roth-Da’al,” he murmured, “you and I arecompletelyin agreement.”

Some smartass remark bubbled at the tip of her tongue, but by the time it formed, Maxwell had already stepped past her, pushed through the infirmary door, and disappeared down the hall.

Leaving her standing there alone, alone and breathless, her knees on the verge of buckling, until the unexplained pull of everything that made Maxwell Hannigan reaching out to Rebecca’s core diminished into a manageable intensity once again.

Now that thisthingbetween them had seized her full attention again, it was even more of a miracle that she and Maxwell had maintained control of themselves as well as they had for as long as they had in Harkennr’s private basement.

“Knox?”

She turned around.

Leonard cleared his throat and offered a sheepish smile, his neck twisted awkwardly so he could keep holding Nyx’s hand in his chair while also looking over his shoulder at the Roth-Da’al. “I know I was in the last meeting and everything, but if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll sit this one out. I’m staying right here with Nyx.”

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