Page 21 of Elven Throne

She was about to ask after the rest of her task force, but a sliding pile of rubble tumbled down over the edge of the crater, with Bor following close behind. He slipped and slid halfway down into the parking lot’s new, enormous pit before hobbling the rest of the way with the support of his staff until he finally reached them.

With another grunt, he extended a gnarled hand toward the healer, who finally opened her eyes with a weary smile and let the old giveldi gently haul her up out of Rebecca’s arms.

The moment Zida was on her feet, she toppled forward into Bor’s waiting embrace, letting out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a strangled, croaking cry of relief.

He wrapped his arms around her as she sagged against him, one gnarled hand gingerly patting her upper back as she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

Neither of them said a word. Words clearly weren’t needed.

Rebecca watched them, surprised and a little softened by this rare moment of tenderness between two of Shade’s oldest members who’d been around the longest. Who’d lived full lives in two different worlds. Who’d spent so much of it together within this very compound lying in ruins above the crater.

They were old and crotchety, sure, and they each took their jobs with the utmost seriousness. But none of that made them incapable of caring for one another just the same.

If anyone had told her this softer side to either Zida or Bor existed, Rebecca would have laughed in their face.

Now, if theyhadn’tacted this way with each other at a moment like this, it would have disturbed her.

As if the universe had held everything else back to give these two ancient Xaharí their own uniquely private moment, the rest of the world beyond the crater made itself known.

Shouts rose from every direction as Shade operatives and support staff regained consciousness and then their balance as they picked themselves and each other off the destroyed ground.

They hollered at each other from across the parking lot, some of them making so much noise, Rebecca wondered if the blast had shattered their eardrums.

Then she realized none of the growing noise came through her comms. When she whipped the newest device—courtesy of the tech-genius gnome Bruce—out of her ear, she found the earpiece twisted and shriveled. Ruined.

No surprise there, really. Rebecca and Zida had hardly survived the explosion. How could a state-of-the-art magitek comms unit fare any better?

As more and more baffled and curious faces of her operatives appeared over the lip of the crater, Rebecca figured it was time to get back on her feet.

Only once she stood again, though, did she realize she stood in front of her task force nearly naked. Her shirt ripped and burned away to nothing but strips, her jeans tattered and hanging by threads at the waistline.

What she wore now wouldn’t have even passed as shorts in some places.

Nothing remained of her shoes.

The operatives converging on the crater seemed too baffled by recent events to notice. All things considered, it didn’t really matter in the face of having just saved them all from multiple threats in one go.

She didn’t see Maxwell anywhere.

Where was he?

The second she thought of him, she realized she’d felt his presence drawing closer since she’d risen to her feet. She felt him drawing closer still, with the warm tingle growing stronger as it surged across her skin and through her.

With the sensation of him came a burst of the shifter’s emotions, faint at first but steadily strengthening like everything else.

Urgency. Concern. Confusion. And a budding fear blooming into something like panic…

7

“Comingthrough!Don’tjuststand there. Everybodymove!” Titus’s gravelly, booming voice echoed everywhere before the enormous vuulbor shouldered much smaller operatives aside before half-hiking, half-sliding down the incline into the crater.

Rebecca was too focused on the feeling of Maxwell somewhere close by and of his emotions flooding toward her, intensifying by the second.

“Knocks?”

Titus’s rumbling voice ripped her back to the here and now, and she turned toward the vuulbor, widening her eyes at the sight of him lumbering toward her. Disheveled. Covered in dirt. Blood smeared across his bulky arms and bald head.

She offered him a distracted smile. “Yeah, big guy. All good.”

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