Page 31 of Elven Prince

Titus made quick work of hauling both enormous treasure-filled storage totes out of the trunk, hoisting them onto one shoulder again before he and Rebecca made their way across the garage toward the stairwell.

She couldn’t stop looking back at the semi.

“If Archie already finished his run, where’s the unloading crew?”

Titus didn’t skip a beat. “Maybe he went up to grab ’em.”

Once they passed the side of the vehicle and Rebecca shot another curious look over her shoulder at the semi, the already darkening pit in her stomach clenched tighter in apprehension.

Viewing this side of the truck instinctively felt like some kind of clue.

To what, she had no idea.

The driver’s-side door hung wide open, no sign of movement in the cab or of Archie in the garage.

“Hey, Archie!” she called, her voice reverberating across the garage. “You need an extra hand back there?”

No answer. Not even the rummaging thumps and rustles of cargo moving around in the back of the trailer that normally came with returning supply runs.

“Driver? You there?”

The garage remained silent but for Rebecca and Titus’s footsteps across the cement. She stopped to scrutinize the open driver’s-side door and what little she could see inside the cab from here.

Titus noticed her absence a few giant, lumbering steps later and stopped to turn around. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, boss. I bet he had to make an emergency pit stop or something, you know?”

“Is that a frequent issue for him?” Rebecca couldn’t take her eyes off the semi.

“How the hell shouldIknow?” His booming voice dropped in discomfort. “Never really thought about asking.”

“It’d be weird if you did,” she muttered absently.

Titus snorted. “You’re tellin’ me.”

His explanations were all logical and perfectly valid. As far as he was concerned, his Roth-Da’al was making a big deal out of nothing.

But the terrible feeling steadily sinking in Rebecca’s gut since she’d pulled back into the garage wouldn’t let up.

In fact, it only grew worse.

So she broke away from Titus and approached the front of the eighteen-wheeler instead, moving cautiously and hoping her instincts were off. That after everything Shade had faced in the last few months alone, her senses were hypervigilant and overreactive.

That this was nothing.

It didn’t feel like nothing.

“What you doin’now?” Titus called after her from the base of the stairwell.

“If Archie needs a few extra hands, it can’t hurt to help him get started.”

It was the only believable excuse she could come up with.

No, Titus’s nonchalant reasoning hadn’t convinced her one bit.

She peered through the open driver’s-side door and into the cab, scrutinizing every aspect in search of any details more suspicious-looking than the others.

Relatively clean cab. A few loose receipts resting in the passenger seat. Coffee mug in the center console’s cup holder. Keys still dangling from the ignition, the engine already cut.

Everything looked perfectly normal, which only tugged at her instincts that much more forcefully.

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