Page 68 of Elven Throne

She didn’t know why she still trusted him to pull through.

“I do,” she said carefully. “He’ll show up eventually. Though exactly when or how is anyone’s guess. Whatever his methods, he clearly has his ways of finding me when he wants to and revealing himself when it suits him. But yeah. He’ll show up.”

“But there is something more about it,” Maxwell prompted.

It wasn’t a question. He’d picked up on her hesitation even before she’d realized she was feeling it.

“No, it’s not,” she replied. “Blackmoonwilleventually show up. But I’m not gonna hold my breath for it, and I can’t afford to stay here with everyone else. Not for a whole week. This is the best opportunity I’m likely to get, to leave Shade in good hands while I look for those records. Maybe the only time to do it that won’t instantly make everyone feel like I’ve abandoned them too. Ihaveto go.”

“I understand,” he rumbled and lifted his chin toward the trees ahead of them, as if steeling himself to face some unknown thing.

As far as either one of them was concerned, it was all unknown.

“When the time comes,” he said, “you and I leave together. It will be safer for everyone else once I’m gone as well.”

Not in the same way that Rebecca’s absence would protect Shade. But he wasn’t talking about her anymore.

He was talking about himself, finally acknowledging how on-edge he’d been since before they’d reached the farmhouse and the shifter compound. And how dangerous it was for him to stay here any longer than necessary.

He’d made up his mind.

Rebecca studied his profile as they walked, knowing this moment for what it was.

If there was ever a perfect opening to lead Maxwell into sharinghistruth, this was it.

And she would have to ask him for it.

Trying not to let the discomfort and the fear of breaking open something else inside him color her decision, she took a deep breath and made the jump.

Come what may.

“Maxwell, what happened here?” she asked, hoping she’d found the perfect combination of asking casually while not sounding like she couldn’t have cared less about the answer.

She cared very much.

“With you and these shifters,” she added.

He stopped cold, clenching and unclenching his jaw again, and studied something through the trees she couldn’t see.

But when he finally did look at her, it was with the most horribly pained expression of pride and shame, longing and loss.

Feeling it with him at the same time through their connection, Rebecca knew the answer in an instant.

And the sorrow of it stole her breath.

“They wereyourpack.”

20

Assoonasshesaid the words, Rebecca wished she’d never brought it up at all. That the moment had never happened. That she could take the whole thing back.

Maxwell gazed at her so intensely, with so much pain and grief flooding out of him, she knew she’d taken it too far.

As if responding in any way to her revelatory statement would break the shifter entirely and leave him in a pile of fractured pieces on the forest floor.

How had she notseenthis before?

Rebecca sucked in a sharp, hissing breath and looked away, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. That was…”

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