Page 35 of Elven Throne

“If that’s the case,” he murmured with another growl, “if we have more in common than we want to admit, I imagine our excuses for avoiding the truth have just run out.”

Ourexcuses. As in both of them, together, on the same side of this.

He was right. No explanation necessary.

Shade now had nothing to their name but their own lives and a number of pre-existing enemies, however diminished, who would jump at the first opportunity to take that away from them.

Rebecca and Maxwell couldn’t afford to avoid this any longer.

The shifter didn’t have to tell her where he stood on the issue. She felt it all surging out of him.

He was willing to tell her everything she wanted to know, right here, right now. All she had to do was ask.

But was Rebecca willing to return the favor of honesty—and most likely their own survival—in kind?

In the woods, under Rowan’s dome, he’d already told her he had no idea what the rune on his chest truly was, or how it had gotten there in the first place, permanently inked into his flesh. He’d been as surprised by and clueless about the elven symbol’s flaring glow and the pain it had caused him.

And when he’d claimed it had always been there, Rebecca had believed him.

Now, the shifter asked for the truth of things on both their parts, and Rebecca wanted nothing more than to trust him with all of it.

She’d never wanted anything so badly, it hurt. She couldn’t help it.

Probably their damned connection pulling the strings again…

But even if it wasn’t, she had every reason to want more with him. They’d already been through so much together, and still, after all of it, Maxwell hadn’t turned on her despite countless available opportunities.

She hadn’t turned on him, either.

But she still didn’tknow, and now, having the Azyyt Ra’al on her trail only made the danger of giving in to the shifter that much more deadly, if he turned out to be someone she should never have trusted in the first place.

The Azyyt Ra’al…

That was it!

The one piece of the puzzle she now had to give her certainty, one way or the other, of just how much she could really trust him. Of whether any of this between them was genuine or merely part of her enemies’ nefarious long game.

She hadn’t had this tactic at her disposal before the Azyyt Ra’al’s attack beside the bridge, and she certainly hadn’t had time to realize she finally possessed a viable way to test Maxwell for sure.

To really know the truth, even if it was a mere sliver of the greater whole.

Until now.

One question. That was all it would take.

If Maxwell revealed even the barest sliver of hesitation, the smallest flicker of pain as he answered—which would mark it as a lie she would then feel radiating off him like needles as he stood so close like this, pressing himself against her—she wouldknow.

It would prove in an instant he was either lying to her or avoiding the whole truth. Their connection would make it instantly clear.

If he did lie to her or twist the truth in any way, Rebecca would then be certain the shifter she wanted so badly to trust and to understand and to keep on her side was just one more enemy to add to the endless list.

It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d made such a discovery. Rowan’s betrayal had cut deeper than she’d had the chance to truly acknowledge.

But if she lostMaxwellto the same kind of betrayal…

If that happened, Rebecca would have nothing. No one.

It was almost too unbearably painful to even imagine, but the pain alone wouldn’t stop her.

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