Page 37 of Elven Throne

The Azyyt Ra’al had come here for Rowan first, though, not Rebecca. Which also meant Maxwell knew nothing more about the Blackmoon Sion, either, beyond what he’d witnessed for himself.

Nor could the shifter possibly comprehend the deadly politics following Rebecca across two worlds, or any of the implications and consequences and sacrifices that came with all of it.

He was safe.

She could trust him, wholly and completely, if that was what she decided to do.

Now that it was real, now that she had her proof, the thought of submitting to this thing between them and opening herself up to it any more than she already had was nearly just as terrifying.

And how could Maxwell possibly know any of that?

All he had to go on was what he saw in front of him and the bafflingly contradictory emotions battling within Rebecca, which he had to have picked up by now.

He looked horrified, stuck halfway between reaching for her again and completely backing off, as if he’d just broken her.

“Rebecca, I swear,” he added hastily, the low rumble through his chest rippling into her and not necessarily making this any easier. “I swear on my honor, I do not know who it was. I would have told you. I would have—”

“I know.” She closed her eyes and felt the hot sting of those same tears squeezing out from between her lashes, trickling down her already burning cheeks. She hated those tears, though not nearly as much as she once might have.

“I know,” she repeated. “I believe you.”

When she opened her eyes to finally look at him again, he was clearly unconvinced.

Maxwell’s frown had become a raging storm on his face, and he kept slowly reaching out to comfort her before thinking better of it. “ShouldI have known?”

“No. Trust me. It’s so much better that you don’t.”

The surprising softness of his fingers against her cheek as he wiped away the tears made her freeze.

Maxwell instantly lowered his hand again, leaving the other side of her face untouched. “Then why are you so terrified?”

After all the things he felt in her,thatwas the one he’d settled on?

Rebecca huffed out a laugh rendered desperately flat beneath the irony of the answer she had to give him. “Relief doesn’t generally last long when the impossible turns out to be…the truth. Especially when it’s exactly what I’d hoped for.”

Then realization dawned on the shifter’s features. While his frown of concern remained, the anxious confusion behind it melted away before he lifted his hand again to brush the tears off her other cheek. “An impossible truth? That is what you hoped for?”

By the Blood, he had her now. The tension thrumming between them as he pressed against her, pulled more stray hair away from her neck and face, his heartbeat thundering against her as every inch of her body ignited with heat and need and the tingling intensity of their connection urging more from them both.

It was even harder to resist now that suspicion and doubt no longer held her back. Not with him. Not anymore.

“Usually when I get what I want,” she whispered, “it just means bigger problems and more room for disappointment.”

The hint of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth before Maxwell exhaled slowly and dipped his head toward her. “Sounds like you’ve been wanting the wrong things.”

One hell of an understatement.

“I’m working on it.” Her smile diminished beneath the growing power of their connection bringing them together like magnets—still with some unseen, unknown force keeping them from coming together all the way.

But the thing between them that had grown for months, feeding off their desire and their struggle and all the things they’d denied themselves because of it, just kept pushing.

And it always would, she realized. Until…

Until what?

What did it want? What was any of this actually about? What purpose did it serve and why?

It would have been only too easy to find out right here along the side of Shade’s destroyed Headquarters building—with the first bit of uninterrupted privacy she and Maxwell had had since they’d stopped suspecting and despising each other more than they wanted to make things work.

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