Page 21 of Elven Prince

What now?

She recovered her balance and her wits gracefully enough and scanned the mostly empty underground parking garage. Ready for anything.

It was only Titus.

He stood in the center, staring at her and unleashing more of his thunderous laughter as if it were the most natural sound in the world. For him, she supposed, it probably was.

“Not like you to be late to your own party,” he boomed through another chuckle as she headed toward him.

“Oh, is that what we’re calling this?Myparty.”

“Aren’t they all now, Roth-Da’al?” Titus spread his arms and stuck out one foot before attempting what would have looked like a graceful bow from anyone else. From him, it looked like he was about to bend over and re-tie a shoelace.

“Very funny,” she said flatly, then waved him forward with her toward one of the six vehicles currently in Shade’s possession.

Their mismatched fleet had doubled in size since the last time she’d needed a car, thanks to a streak of successful acquisitions from recent missions.

Rebecca headed for the sorriest looking tin can of the bunch—a decades-old Honda Civic that had seen better days but was still big enough to haul Titus around.

More importantly, it didn’t scream, “Look at me!” in public like the butter-yellow VW that had once been Shade’s only form of viable transportation on wheels.

“I figured we’d take the Honda today,” she said.

“Way ahead of you, boss.” With a jingling flourish, Titus produced a set of keys in his enormous hand and dangled them in front of her.

She looked up at him with a snort. “No one ever calledyouunprepared.”

“Not for a while.”

“You wanna drive?”

“Fuck no. I wouldn’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

Rebecca stopped to scrutinize him with a raised eyebrow. When Titus beamed down at her and said nothing, she snatched the keys out of his hand and let out a wry chuckle. “Fine by me. And hey. This place is in the middle of downtown. So you might wanna grab one of those—”

“Uh-huh.”

A bright flash of silver light caught the corner of her eye, and when she looked at him again, she almost didn’t believe what she saw.

The man standing beside her was entirely unrecognizable—bleach-blond hair nearly falling into a pair of bright, sparkling blue eyes, and a gleaming grin revealing teeth so unnaturally white and sparkly, it bordered on creepy.

He’d maintained Titus’s intimidating musculature, though it now looked far more natural and relative to his size.

If she hadn’t known it was Titus standing there beside her, she would have said a human had stumbled his way into Shade Headquarters.

That was the point.

“Damn.” She gave him another approving once over. “I’ve been waiting to see one of those in action. Impressive.”

“You think?” Titus spread his arms and looked himself over. “I dunno. Seems a little small to me…”

“Everything seems a little small to you.”

When the blond man threw his head back for another round of uproarious laughter, it was all Titus. No doubt about it.

A low, playful whistle echoed toward them from the other end of the garage, where Archie had just opened the cab door to one of Shade’s recently acquired eighteen-wheelers now reserved for supply runs.

“Looking good, Titus!” he shouted, wagging a thumbs-up in the air toward them. “Hardly recognize you.”

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