Page 8 of Elven Prince

He raised an eyebrow.

“Trust me, I’m insanely grateful that it worked,” she added. “But that’s all there is to it, Maxie. No deeper meaning. No bigger puzzle to solve. It happened, and here we are, ridiculously lucky that you get to keep on living and that I didn’t have to scramble to find a new Head of Security just to bridge the gap.”

By the Blood, that made her sound like a heartless asshole.

“Yes, we’re all very fortunate,” he grumbled. “No argument there. But my point is you knewexactlywhat you were doing that night. And so did Blackmoon, didn’t he?”

Uh-oh.

He’d just revealed his trap, and now Rebecca was caught up in this web, with no way to talk herself out of it.

The second she considered the alternative of a bald-faced lie delivered to Maxwell on a silver platter, the flaming tingle of their connection pulsed through her with a rigid agony that felt like she’d been stabbed.

Rebecca managed to keep it all down with nothing more than the flicker of a grimace, but the warning pain had been perfectly clear.

Lying to his face would be unbearably painful, physically or otherwise.

And how the hell did this thing growing between them like a separate entity even tell the fucking difference?

How could it give warnings or want anything on its own?

Screw the connection, whatever it was. Rebecca’s options were simple.

If Maxwell had aligned himself with her enemies somewhere along the way, and the rune on his chest was a mark of his service to someone working against the Bloodshadow Court—andthosenumbers were many—the shifter would already know all the pertinent information connecting the Bloodshadow Heir to the Scion of the Blackmoon Clan. Rebecca to Rowan.

That would have inevitably become part of her enemy’s plan—to pit Rebecca and Rowan against each other before a shifter spy slipped in through the cracks to fill the void.

Everyone who knew her true identity also knew Rowan’s, plus the vows they’d never taken tying them to that fucking prophecy. As far as the elves of Agn’a Tha’ros and anyone standing against them were concerned, she and Rowan were a package deal.

But if Maxwellwasn’tworking with anyone else—if he’d been painfully honest with her from the start, though nowhere near translucent—that mark inked into his flesh could only mean one other thing.

That Maxwell was meant to be a part ofherstory. A part of all this from the very beginning.

Ashiftermarked for anelf?

It was hardly conceivable, let alone more likely than him spying on her for her people’s enemies.

But not impossible.

The proof of that lie right there in front of her, beneath the right collar of his button-down shirt…

“I don’t understand.” With a little growl, Maxwell stepped closer, his eyes pulsing with a slow, languid rhythm.

Like the low flicker of a dying fire still attracting moths to the flame.

“After everything we’ve been through, you and I, you still refuse to give me the truth.”

“The truth…” Swallowing thickly, Rebecca tried to pull away from him but found herself tethered to the spot, unable to command her body, unable to shut it down. “The truth has many different faces.”

“The truth of how I’m still alive.” His next rumbling sigh made her cheeks flush, and now, somehow, he stood right in front of her.

“The truth of how you brought me back and of how Blackmoon knew to aid you. At this moment, that is the only truth that concerns me, and I doubt it is as complicated as you claim.”

She wanted to shove him away.

She wanted to tip her face up toward his and kiss him again. Feel that dark, eternal need drawing them closer as whatever this was between them only grew. To forget what she now knew…

And why she now couldn’t give in.

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