Page 61 of Elven Prince

And once again, it had happened right under their noses.

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Dammit, this wasnotsupposed to happen!

Her team had successfully thwarted the attempt on Bruce’s life, if nothing else. Tonight, they’d gotten here in time to intercept the attack. They’d saved their new magitek contractor when everyone else Shade worked with had already been hit.

And then they’d let their guard down just enough to tempt another sneak attack on one of their own.

If they were too late in getting to Lerrick, just like all the civilians Shade had failed to protect tonight…

Rebecca groaned and stormed across the living room toward the front. “Fuck me… Could this get any worse?”

“Aw, shit.” Tig almost ran into Rebecca when he returned to the living room, his eyes wide and panicked. “He’s not even in the house.”

“Well he didn’t just disappear into thin air,” she snapped. “We gotta find him.”

“Wait a minute,” Bruce stammered as he started to push himself out of the armchair. “What’s happening now? What are you people—”

Maxwell snapped his fingers before pointing at the gnome with a threatening growl. “Stay!”

The gnome shrank back into the armchair and did as he was told.

“Find him!” Rebecca shouted as she stormed past Tig to head through the destroyed front door this time. “Now!”

With her pulse racing again as she stalked back out into the night, searching frantically for their missing operative, the despair that had almost overwhelmed her after Rick’s update now grew into a boiling rage she could hardly contain.

Who was doing this to them? And why couldn’t they pin the motherfucker down before things only got worse.

She scoured the streets in front of the gnome’s house, searching the neighbors’ yards. While Maxwell and Tig helped her scour every square inch of the surrounding area, Rebecca wondered if her ascension to the Roth-Da’al of Shade had become more of a death sentence for the task force than a saving grace.

Nothing like this had happened before in Shade’s history. No matter how terrible Aldous had been in command, he hadn’t gotten their contacts murdered en masse or individual operatives attacked without rhyme or reason. With no shred of evidence as to who was gunning for them.

For the first time, she doubted her ability to lead Shade the way it deserved, now that all her efforts had led to this and she was no better.

Making her no better for Shade than Aldous, when she couldn’t even protect her own people.

The frantic search for Lerrick didn’t last long before Rebecca, Maxwell, Tig reconverged in front of Bruce’s bungalow, all of them looking equally downtrodden and horrified.

“No sign of him anywhere,” Maxwell grumbled.

Rebecca turned her gaze onto Tig, feeling the snarl reveal itself on her face but unable to stop it. “Did he say anything to you when you two went out front? Did he give you any indication that he was leaving? Or that he’d found something new?”

“No, Knox. I swear. He was right behind me on my way back in. I didn’t talk to him out here because I figured we’d go over everything inside withyou.”

“And he never said anything about leaving or needing to get out? Did he look like he was hiding something? Like he was trying to get away?”

“What?”

“Was he acting suspicious, Tig?” she shouted. “You were with him all night! And you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?”

“Of course not. Why would I? What are you trying to say?”

“You think Lerrick was the mole?” Maxwell asked. “You think he’s the one who’s been feeding our intel to the enemy?”

“I don’t knowwhatthe fuck to think!” Rebecca snapped. “Nothing about tonight has made any sense. Hundreds of Chicago magicals are dead because of us, and now, after the only averted death, with our only two possible leads dead on the floor inside that house, one more of ours just up and disappeared! If you ask me, this would’ve been theperfectopportunity to make a run for it.”

“No!” Tig shouted back, vehemently shaking his head. “No, that’s not right. We all know him. Lerrick wouldn’t do that.”

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