Page 53 of Elven Prince

Rebecca couldn’t fault her Head of Security for taking his aggravation out on Rowan then.

But Rowan was out of the picture altogether and had been for weeks.

So what was Maxwell’s excuse now?

Minutes later, the barricade in the front room was as good as it was going to get, and Rebecca and her team fell back behind it, ushering Bruce along with them to take up their defensive positions and wait this out together for however long it took.

With no way of knowing how long that would be.

After several minutes of tense silence while they waited for the inevitable, Bruce had apparently forgotten Maxwell’s warning already.

“Seriously?” he asked with a snort, glancing from one stranger in his home to the next. “You came all the way out here tonight to bust down my door and tear apart my home just so we can all sit here together playing Hide-and-Seek?”

Maxwell let out a slow, measured, unnaturally long exhale through his nose and said nothing, his silver eyes centered on the front door.

Tig and Lerrick both looked to Rebecca, neither of them wanting to address the gnome themselves and risk speaking out of turn.

Rebecca wouldn’t dignify Bruce’s valid and justified questioning with an attempted response. As far as last-minute operations went, they were really winging this one, with hardly any intel and not even the bare bones of a half-ass plan.

So she changed the subject.

“We’re still working on the details, but hopefully you can help us with some of that. Have you had any strange, out-of-the-ordinary interactions lately?”

Bruce gawked at her before barking out a bitter laugh. “You mean other thanthisshitshow you brought to my house?”

“Yes. I’m referring to any timebeforemy team and I arrived.”

He scrunched up his face, as if giving it a moment of deep contemplation. Then his expression fell flat. “No! Nothing else comes to mind!”

“Any surprising new business arrangements? Unfamiliar people showing up in places you frequent? A feeling of being watched?”

“Listen, the last time I did any business with anyone was my work for you and your merry little band. First the upgraded new comms units, then the illusion bands. Hell, it’s not like business isn’t booming or anything, but you guys keep coming back for a lot of stuff. Like, these are abnormally large orders, okay? I haven’t had to even think about finding new clients since the witches set me up with your guy from—”

“Shut up,” Maxwell hissed, raising a fist to signal for silence as if they were a bigger team approaching a target on foot.

The gnome snorted but held his tongue as he eyed the shifter up and down.

The thick silence surrounding them seemed unnecessary at first, until the gentle crunch of gravel and an even softer, whispering footfall on the first wooden porch step outside made Rebecca’s pulse leap and stutter in anticipation.

Maxwell slowly raised his augmented weapon to aim squarely at the front door and whispered, “Someone’s here.”

14

The front door burst apart with a blaze of electric-green light, sending shards of splintered wood flying everywhere.

Rebecca and her team ducked behind their constructed barricade as massive splinters and wood chips peppered their makeshift cover, followed by the deafening crash of shattered glass bursting from every front window busted in at the same time.

Bruce screeched and curled into a ball at the back of the barricade.

Rebecca’s small but no less effective team was fully prepared to strike back. They didn’t even need a signal for this one.

The growing high-pitched whine of their magitek weapons powering up rose in tandem as the first enemy boot stepped through the blistered doorway, crunching down on broken glass and chunks of exploded door.

When they opened fire, rounds from all four weapons lit up the air with multicolored lights streaking toward the doorway. Every shot found its mark in the first intruder, pummeling the target simultaneously in a crackling blaze of magical rounds before any of them got a good look at his face.

The intruder crumpled to the floor in a smoking heap without a sound.

Then a blast of purple flame barreled into the house right on his heels. It bashed into the front of the barricade with a cracking boom, rattling the stack of mismatched chairs, tables, and bookshelves and launching Rebecca and her team backward from their positions.

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