Page 89 of Elven Prince

“Not my preference,” he growled.

“Oh, he has apreference… And what’s that?” She smothered another laugh, but the next second, the urge disappeared.

Maxwell slowed and looked her over from head to toe, then murmured expressionlessly, “Take off the cuff.”

It might have had a different effect under different circumstances, but coming from the gray old man with an astounding mustachioed beak hunched over beside her, it was just creepy.

Rebecca instantly looked away and cleared her throat. If the darkness didn’t hide the rising flush in her cheeks beneath the brush of Maxwell’s gaze unchanged by his new image, her own illusion cuff certainly would have. “Keep walking, old man.”

A barely audible growl reverberated around them. “I do not require a disguise.”

“You do. We all do. These are enemies we’ve faced before. If any of us is recognized, our objective tonight automatically fails. But this way? Maybe we get the upper hand.”

“Maybe. I still don’t trust those odds.”

She didn’t have a response for that. The oddswerestacked against them. Any number of things could go wrong tonight.

But Shade was used to things going wrong. They’d prepared for this more than they’d prepared for any other mission she could remember, and if things wentright?

The rewards would be greater than any success they’d pulled off so far. Excluding Aldous’s secret Nexus cache.

Worst-case scenario, the fifty operatives closing in on the “L” Bridge would be vastly outnumbered and underprepared, but even then, they’d still get invaluable recon out of the deal—before they’d have to square off against Big Boss and Suit in future battles.

Rebecca fiercely hoped for better than worst-case.

The dark silhouette of the bridge passed in and out of view as Alpha Team navigated through the trees, taking care to stay off the road. The next time she had a clear view of that dirt road stretching under the bridge and beyond, which had seen far more traffic in its inception than it did now, she realized they were almost there.

“All teams,” she murmured through the new advanced comms Shade had contracted from Bruce weeks before all this insanity, “state your positions.”

One by one, the other team leaders’ tinny voices sounded off in her ears.

Everyone was where they should be by now.

“Keep moving,” Maxwell added. “If anyone sees something they shouldn’t, call it in.”

That was as intricate as their plan could possibly get before the teams reached their final positions to stage one of the most brilliant ambushes the task force had ever whipped up. Assuming nothing went horribly wrong at the last second. That was still always a possibility.

The trees thickened, and it eventually became impossible for Alpha Team to keep moving through the underbrush without making more of a racket with snapping branches and rustling foliage. So Maxwell signaled for them to move cautiously toward the dirt road.

When Rebecca stepped out of the trees, her gaze settled on a large, dark shape in the middle of the road, still at least a hundred yards out.

At the same moment, an obnoxious static crackled over the comms before Whit’s voice filled her ear.

“Bravo to Alpha. We…might have a problem.”

“A little more detail than that would be helpful,” Rebecca prompted as Maxwell and the rest of Alpha Team stepped fully onto the road behind her, holding their formation.

“It looks like someone else thought tonight was a good night to be out here,” Whit replied, his voice barely above a whisper through the comms.

She almost asked for more, but when her angle shifted on the road and the moonlight glinted off the top of that dark shape up ahead, she no longer needed an explanation.

It was a car. An older town car, its sleek paint and chrome detailing flashing at her in the darkness now that the trees no longer blocked visibility.

“Vehicle parked in Bravo’s trajectory,” Whit explained. “It looks empty from here, but I’ll have to confirm.”

“Vehicle on Alpha’s end too,” she said, pausing in the road to shoot Maxwell a quick glance. Looking at himfeltthe same, but the shock of seeing a gray-haired old man in a sweatsuit instead of the shifter disoriented her enough to make her instantly look away again.

Yeah, she didn’t prefer the illusions, either.

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