Page 28 of Elven Prince

That made this…thingbetween them that much more dangerous for both of them.

She scoffed and pretended to examine some other fragile trinket hidden behind a pile of ivory chess pieces on the desk. “You sure that’s not just your wishful thinking talking?”

“Wishful thinking? Shit. Not when you two would’ve rather killed each other than play nice for half an hour. All the way up until you… I mean, until the day Aldous…”

“It’s cool, Titus.” She shot him another quick smile, getting a grip on herself once again, because that was easier to do when someone else was stumbling for the right words instead of her. “Let’s call it what it is. I killed Aldous and took his place.”

“Wait a minute. No.Yougot attacked, acted in self-defense, andwevoted you in. Big difference.”

Rebecca shrugged and turned around, figuring it might help him be a little more open to the rest of the conversation if she wasn’t gaping at him like he’d just grown two heads.

“You wanna know what I think?” Titus asked.

“You’re gonna tell me anyway, aren’t you?”

“I think you’re trying your damnedest to change the subject, here.”

“Ha! Of course I am.”

He grunted. “Of course you are.”

And that seemed to be it.

He’d definitely surprised her with his line of questioning. She’d always taken Titus for the big-silent type, and he could take a hell of a hit—or two, or three, or get strapped to a magitek proximity bomb and make it out alive again simply so no one else would have to.

IfTitushad read her like an open book, how obvious was it to everyone else on the task force?

“Just calling it like I see it, boss,” he muttered before disappearing—mostly—behind another massive stack of boxes toward the far corner.

Rebecca could either take this personally, or she could acknowledge it for what it was—one of her operators calling her out and forcing her to face the truth, even when that was the last thing she wanted right now.

“Look atyou,” she called across the vault with a smirk. “Not just a pretty face, are ya?”

Titus shuffled around, paused, then thrust a hand out from behind the stack of storage containers to shake his shiny new gold illusion cuff at her. “Not withthisthing. You want me to put it back on, boss? Then I can be just a pretty face all day, if that’s what you want…”

“No!” Rebecca barked, then couldn’t help but join him when Titus’s booming laugh filled the single room still too small to contain the full size and volume of it.

It made her ears ring again, but that didn’t stop her from having a good laugh with him at her own expense.

If she couldn’t still dothatas Roth-Da’al, what was the fucking point?

“No, that cuff stays off until we leave the building,” she told him. “I haven’t seen many magicals who look creepierwitha human illusion, but you, my friend, are one of them.”

“Fine. Then you won’t have to look at my face when you answer the question.”

Rebecca waited for that question to follow, but it never did. “You haven’t asked a question.”

“Oh yes I did.” This time, his head poked out from behind the stack of crates, making it look much larger and more stone-like than usual without his body visibly attached to it. “But I’ll refresh your memory. What the hell’s up with you and Hannigan?”

“I told you it’s nothing.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Pretty sure I did. And that’s all you’re gonna get out of me.”

“Why? Because it’s asecret?”

“Sure. A whole lot of secretnothing. So if you’re done playing with costume jewelry and burying me in personal questions, let’s get outta here. Because I’ve got everything I need.”

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