Page 25 of Elven Prince

Only Aldous Corriger would accept a box of expired caviar as payment for anything.

She slammed the lid shut, latched it, and dragged the tote to the floor so she could inspect the next one underneath.

“Myquestion is why do you need anyone to come with you at all, boss? I mean, you’re the boss.”

The next lid’s latches flipped open beneath her hand, but Rebecca turned to look at him again without a single glance inside first. “You’re right. Iamthe boss.”

Titus nodded, still stroking the bear pelt on his shoulder. “No doubt about it.”

“I could come here on my own whenever I wanted,” she added. “Without anyone knowing anything about it. No one could do shit to stop me.”

“Exactly. Perks of being the boss.”

“That’s exactly what Aldous thought, too. That’s exactly what hedid.”

Titus froze, then lowered his hand to let it drop at his side against his thigh with a muffled slap as he met her gaze. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” The third tote’s lid opened with a creak beneath her fingers, but she still didn’t look inside. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s a little flattering, I guess, to hear you ask a question like that. Like it never even occurred to you I might abuse my authority or whatever and keep things from you all.”

“I’m not the only one,” Titus added, his voice settling into a rare gentleness she’d heard only a handful of times. “And for good reason.”

“Well, thanks. And I appreciate the vote of confidence from you and everyone else. But when I found this place, I promised myself I’d never show up on my own. That I’d always take someone with me and that someoneelseback at HQ would always know that’s exactly where we went. Anything I can do to be the exact opposite of what Aldous was, you better believe I’m gonna do it.”

Titus gazed back at her for a long time before dipping his head toward her, his scarred gray face reflecting nothing but purely genuine seriousness. “Trust me, boss. You’re nothing like that dick.”

She huffed out a laugh and finally looked into the tote, which was filled with pilfered Rolex watches—not the knockoff-kind. Nice. Definitely the kind of find she’d been hoping for.

“So, what?” he asked. “You just pick a name out of a hat to come with you on the next run to the fake bank?”

“Definitely not.” With a grunt, Rebecca hefted the third tote off the stack and dropped it with a thump onto the first to create her own take-back-to-Shade pile amidst the chaotic mess scattered across the vault. “No, I think I’m done picking new people to come with me on these little field trips. Besides me, there are only three others who know about this place. Blackmoon, because he helped me figure out what the key was to. Hannigan, because he’s… well, Hannigan.”

“Uh-huh.” Titus lifted a massive oil painting almost as tall as Rebecca off the floor where it had been propped against the wall, then held it out in front of him with both hands, slowly turning it clockwise as he scrutinized every facet from every angle. His frown darkened.

“And now you,” Rebecca finished.

“Right. Because I’m big and scary-looking.”

“No, because you looksogoodin a bear pelt.”

When he looked at her again in dumbfounded surprise, Rebecca wondered if she’d crossed a line she hadn’t thought existed with Titus.

But then he threw his head back and roared with laughter, practically tossing the oil painting off to the side so he could slap the antique mahogany desk in front of him with both hands instead of just one.

Watching that painting—which could have funded several fully outfitted missions—clatter onto the other piles of junk made Rebecca grimace. Fortunately, it somehow didn’t seem to have incurred much damage at all.

They spend a few more minutes rummaging through the vast and astoundingly valuable collection of payments and acquisitions technically stolen from Shade before Rebecca had re-inherited it all from Aldous. By default.

Eventually, she could no longer hold back the question floating around in her mind for the last several weeks. “Titus?”

“Yeah?” He whirled away from the open antique armoire through which he’d spent most of that time rifling, though for what, she couldn’t guess. Nothing that fit inside a normal human armoire could ever possibly have fithim.

When he moved, another cascade of what sounded like tiny, fragile bells tumbled either out of the armoire or from something else he’d knocked over, and the vuulbor froze, as if any further movement on his part would automatically place all the blame squarely on his shoulders.

Rebecca couldn’t have cared less about spilled stolen treasure.

She waited for the tinkling chime of those bells to stop before she asked her question. “How’s everybody doing these days?”

With a snort, he bent over to pick something up off the floor and inadvertently knocked over a pile of books in the process. No doubt rare and valuable books, or they wouldn’t have been in here.

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