Page 32 of Elven Prince

If everything was fine, why did the sight of a transport trailer parked in the garage with the door hanging wide open fill her with such an overwhelming sense of impending disaster?

It was difficult to admit, but she already had the answer.

In just under the last two months since she’d become Shade’s commander, the task force had really started to come into their own as a cohesive unit and an efficiently operating organization.

They’d stayed on top of their field missions and operations. They’d fallen into a rhythm of maintaining daily ops at Headquarters. They’d honed their schedule of necessary tasks—incoming deliveries, supply shipments, and standard operating procedure—to something resembling a science. Or at least a precise art.

Excluding the night one transport convoy was ambushed, three operatives were kidnapped, and Nyx popped back to Headquarters, bloody and beaten and half-unconscious, Rebecca hadn’t received a single complaint.

Even about emergency pit stops.

She wouldn’t quite call Shade a well-oiled machine—not yet—but they were damn close.

An empty semi in the parking garage with its door open, keys in the ignition, and no sign of its assigned driver just didn’t make sense.

What was she missing?

“Archie!”

Rebecca turned toward the stairwell emitting an echoing slap of urgent footsteps and more yelling from the operative hurrying down to the garage.

“Don’t pull this shit on me now, man! Iknowyou can hear me. Archie!”

A bobbing shadow appeared on the bottom landing, shrinking with every step.

“Dammit, man. I don’t know what’s taking you so long, but I didnotsign up to be the old man’s punching bag. You hear me? Listen, if you got a problem with the shipment,yougo tell him about it. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna kill me the next time he sees me. And lemme tell ya, that old guy iswaystronger than he…”

Jay had already taken several steps across the garage, distracted by his rant. He stopped when he saw both Rebecca and Titus down there with him, watching his entrance in silent amusement.

“Oh.” He looked quickly back and forth between them, then peered across the otherwise empty garage. “Either of you seen Archie?”

Rebecca stepped away from the open cab. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“Dude probably just held it too long on the drive back,” Titus added with a shrug.

Jay shook his head. “Well he hasn’t come upstairs. Trust me, I would know. I’ve been waiting for him in the hall for the last half hour.”

The dwarf’s blue eyes darted around the garage again before settling back on Titus towering over him a few feet away. His expression darkened. “What the hell are youwearing?”

“What, this old thing?” With his free hand, Titus reached up to stroke the dark-brown bear pelt still draped across his shoulders—which now looked more like a shawl that wasalmostthe right size. “Pretty awesome, right?”

Rebecca had stopped paying attention to them. Her initial gut feeling had kicked all her instincts into overdrive, convincing her now that somethingwasincredibly wrong here. She still didn’t know what, but she intended to find out.

Hopefully before the shit really did hit the fan. Whatever that turned out to be.

She left the semi’s cab and walked the length of the trailer.

“Boss?” Titus called after her.

When she turned around the back of the eighteen-wheeler to face the rear door, she grabbed the giant padlock and jiggled it back and forth.

Still locked up tight.

A bolt of yellow light streaking from her finger and straight into the padlock’s keyhole—a simple, basic lock spell in reverse—popped the metal bar right open with a heavy metallic clink.

Nothing exploded. No other magic responded to her own.

Everything still seemed safe and normal.

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