Page 27 of Elven Throne

Blood coated his face from the nose down, thickest around his mouth, chin, and neck, smeared down the front of his bare chest exposed beneath his open shirt. So much blood, it almost covered the unnaturally dark mark of the elven rune peeking out from beneath the fabric fluttering in the breeze as he moved.

Shock, understanding, relief, and a new level of approval impossible to ignore all swirled through Rebecca as she took in the gloriously deadly sight of him.

Now she knew exactly what the shifter had accomplished tonight.

Damn. He’d found his target,andhe’d completed his own personal objective the way only a shifter could have.

Maxwell’s wolf had ripped off the conniving grimbúl’s head and brought it back here for everyone to see.

Rebecca hadn’t noticed Zida’s approach until the old healer let out a weakened cackle beside her.

Then the woman looked up from the severed head and leaned toward Rebecca to murmur, “I know some wild things like to hunt and bring back presents, but doesn’t this just feel like a little overkill?”

Somewhere close by, Bor snorted.

Rebecca couldn’t look away from the viciously bloody, exquisite sight of the shifter drawing ever closer. Her flesh rippled with a wave after wave of tingling warmth growing nearly as unbearably hot as the storm of Zida’s magic.

She’d never seen this side of him. Not quite like this.

In that moment, she didn’t want to ever look at anything else again.

Then he was only a few feet in front of her, as if she’d blacked out during the rest of his approach, leaving her stunned and breathless and monumentally impressed.

Captured all the while within the ferocity of those glowing silver eyes.

“No room for second chances,” Maxwell snarled without once looking at the grotesque proof of success he’d delivered at his Roth-Da’al’s feet. “Not after he brought this to our front door.”

More fiercely than the desire might have ever consumed her before, all Rebecca wanted was to run to him and throw her arms around him. To feel the physical heat and solidity of his burning flesh pressed against hers. To breathe him in and know in a physical way, beyond anything her eyes told her, that he wasreal.

That he was here. That everyone had made it out of this endless chaos alive and intact, Maxwell among them.

Feeling the same urge coursing through him as he drew closer, step by agonizingly slow step, only made Rebecca’s own compulsion that much harder to fight off. But she fought it, just as fiercely she felt the shifter fighting against it too.

“Found him just beyond the blast radius,” Maxwell growled before finally coming to a stop right in front of her.

So dangerously close, containing herself and keeping her hands off him felt impossible. Somehow, she managed it.

He dipped his head toward her, silver eyes flashing. This time, he spoke so softly, only Rebecca could have heard it. “You were right.”

While they stared at each other for what felt like an eternity—each of them painfully aware of the other’s longing and need, of the unparalleled hunger for the darkness that could only be reached when they both gave in to their connection—Rebecca didn’t think she could successfully hold back much longer.

But the murmured comments and odd speculation rising in a hushed background whisper from her operatives standing all around was enough to ground her to the present. And to everything else that existed beyond the shifter looming over her.

The battle was over, but Shade’s work certainly was not. Of all the terrible places and times to give into this endlessly ravenous thing between them, this was the absolute worst.

Rebecca saw the same conclusion reflected in the silver glow of Maxwell’s eyes and felt the same struggling decision solidify through their connection.

Later. Always later with him, wasn’t it?

“Holy shit, Hannigan,” Hank exclaimed. “You went fuckingold-schoolon his ass.”

“Yep.” Murray straightened from leaning down to inspect the head and dusted off his hands with a sniff. “That’s Eduardo, all right.”

“And it’s really over,” Nyx breathed before glancing nervously around at those standing closest. “Right? I mean, Eduardo’s dead. We’re finally done.”

“The battle’s over,” Leonard replied as he settled a gentle hand on the katari’s shoulder, staring in awe at Eduardo’s last expression frozen forever now on the grimbúl’s face. “No more Eduardo. No more griybreki. Don’t get me wrong, that’s good fucking news.”

The mage slowly turned his head to look Nyx in the eye. “But I don’t think we can say it’s all over.”

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