Page 1 of Elven Throne

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Evenaftermorethana thousand years of this life, Rebecca Bloodshadow had grown to believe some time ago that she still wouldn’t live long enough to see the end of the world—on either Earth or Xahar’áhsh.

But right now, sitting in the Honda Civic’s front passenger seat while Maxwell Hannigan barreled down the dark highway, it sure as hellfeltlike the end of the world.

Shade Headquarters was under attack—unprotected, unfortified, empty of everyone who stood a chance at turning the tides back in their favor. With just over seventy-five combat-ready operatives split among multiple vehicles hot on the Honda’s tail, they just might have a chance.

Ifthey weren’t already too late.

That slimy bastard Eduardo would get everything he had coming to him. One way or another, he’d pay for making this brazen move against Shade while they were at their most vulnerable.

Whether that went quickly and painlessly for him, or as a long, drawn-out nightmare of agony and pleading for the end, depended entirely on what Rebecca and her operatives found when they got there.

For the sake of all the non-combat magicals and support staff they’d left at Headquarters for the last twenty-five hours, she hoped with everything in her for Eduardo’s quick and painless end.

Beside her in the driver’s seat, Maxwell scowled through the front windshield, his silver eyes blazing with urgency and blistering rage, flashing brighter every time a highway streetlight strobed past the windows at dizzying speeds.

Pushed to its limits, the Honda’s engine let out one chugging belch after another, the vehicle weighed down even further by Tig, Shell, Theo, and Murray crammed into the back seat. Even then, the creak of the leather-covered steering wheel in Maxwell’s double-handed grip and the ominous popping of his knuckles as that grip tightened by the second rose above every other sound.

Comparatively, it sounded more like fired gunshots during their oppressively silent race across Chicago. They’d just come from a deafening bevy of live weapons fire, and they were sure to enter another battle with more of the same to come.

No one said a word.

What could any of them possibly have to say?

None of it would affect their current circumstances. None of it would change the coming horrors into which they now raced. None of it would save their home or those they’d left behind within it.

Anything Rebecca might have said certainly wouldn’t improve matters, either. The only thing spiraling through her mind, over and over again, matching Maxwell’s chaotic driving, would end up destroying what little morale remained after what her teams had just been through beside the abandoned Polly L. Bridge.

That didn’t stop her from thinking it over and over anyway.

She felt like a traitor. Like an elven madwoman willingly leading her teams to their own brutal deaths, like lambs to the slaughter.

The fact that none of her operatives would have agreed with the sentiment did nothing for the churning knot of fear and guilt twisting in her gut, hardening and serving up a roiling nausea she couldn’t ignore the closer they came to the repurposed old factory that had served as Shade’s Chicago Headquarters for decades.

The endlessly horrifying possibilities of what theymightfind there when they finally arrived made the wait that much worse. Especially when all her operatives speeding down the highway after Maxwell were already exhausted, battle-weary, hungry, disoriented, and just as terrified of showing up at the compound’s latest battle too late to make any difference at all.

Thanks to Rowan Blackmoon and his elite battalion ofHakalini’irelves under that fucking dome, plus an unexpected attack by the Azyyt Ra’al, which none of Rebecca’s operatives would have survived if she hadn’t summoned the brutally deadly force of her most powerful Bloodshadow magic.

If she hadn’t displayed it out in the open, at the eleventh hour, for everyone to see.

They’d wrapped that up less than half an hour ago, which meant the teams were running into this new danger at their absolute worst. Unrested. Unprepared. Unable to do a damn thing about it but pray to whatever gods might listen that this wouldn’t be the end for all of them.

For any of them…

The utter helplessness the situation imposed made Rebecca want to scream. To seethe and rage and struggle against such a thing, because feeling it only proved how little control they truly had over how the rest of tonight would pan out.

But screaming the pent-up frustration in a full vehicle, with Maxwell behind the wheel, wouldn’t exactly put anyone in a better frame of mind to face Eduardo and his griybreki swarms.

And if anyone saw their Roth-Da’al losing her shit over what could very possibly be the greatest all-consuming threat Shade had ever faced to date, what the hell would any of them have left to draw on once they finally arrived?

Even in a high-speed chase after an enemy already fifty steps ahead of them, there was barely enough time to think, let alone strategize an effective battle plan. By comparison, every other chaotic, last-minute decision Rebecca had made for her task force seemed tame and outrageously organized.

This was a total shot in the dark.

By the Blood, what an ironic twist of fate.

If the Azyyt Ra’al’s contingent hadn’t attacked Rowan’s forcefield dome of “conflict resolution”, Rebecca and her operatives would still be there, forced to endure such close -quarters with the Blackmoon Elf and hisHakalini’irfor that particular spell’s remaining twenty-four hours. Cut off entirely from the rest of the world. Held against their will.

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