Page 51 of Elven Throne

“We can stay here,” he said, raising his voice to be heard across the front lawn. “It isn’t much, but we have been granted a week of sanctuary in this place. Meaning we have a week to figure out where to turn next. We are guests here, nothing more. Remember that.”

He swept his gaze across them one more time, searching faces to be sure his declaration was fully understood and accepted. Then he cleared his throat. “What we need right now is rest, food, and a place to sleep. Now we have it. Everybody around back.”

With only a few pockets of whispered conversation among them, the group moved together, converging at the side of the house to walk around it at a slow, exhausted pace.

Rebecca, however, remained at the shifter’s side, waiting for a more private moment in which she hoped to get a little more clarification.

Zida and Bor stayed as well, watching Maxwell as the shifter oversaw the mass exodus of their operatives from the front lawn to the back of the farmhouse. Like a shepherd overseeing his flock.

Only when the last of them had disappeared did Bor step toward Maxwell, his scarred face pinching in concern as he asked gently, “How’d it go?”

“Better than I’d anticipated,” Maxwell replied, all the certainty of responsibility and duty and leadership gone from his voice.

He sounded like a complete stranger.

Bor offered a curt nod. “Guests, huh?Allof us?”

Maxwell fixed him with a deeply knowing look. “You convinced me to take the chance, giveldi. I walked away from it with a week and my life. It will not get better than that.”

“And we’re all grateful for it.” With a grunt and one more brusque nod that could have meant anything, Bor returned his attention to leading Zida in a shuffling gait around the side of the house after the others, his staff thumping softly into the grass with every other step.

Maxwell started after them, but Rebecca stopped him with a hand on his arm. Not a forceful grip like last time, but a gentle gesture. She had a feeling that was what he needed.

He froze at her touch, a tingling ripple of energy flowing through them both at the contact.

Then he finally turned to face her, and Rebecca knew she’d been right. The overwhelming sorrow in his silver eyes, their glow duller now than she’d ever seen them, almost broke her open right along with him.

“Hey,” she said softly, hating the fact that she didn’t know how to fix this for him; she didn’t even know whatthiswas. “What just happened?”

“Later,” he muttered with a subdued rumble in his chest. “You have my word. But hesitation has no place here. And the hospitality comes with a price.”

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ItsoundedlikeMaxwellknew exactly what that price was, but he clearly didn’t plan to elaborate. Not here. Not now.

Overwhelmed by the dizzying weight of his grief now pouring into her too in this place, Rebecca had to take this shifter at his word.

He’d given it with all intention of providing her an explanation later, which meant she had to accept it, grin and bear the nearly unbearable curiosity driving everything now, and wait for the right moment.

When that right moment would be, she had no idea. But he’d left her no other option.

So with a nod, she reluctantly removed her hand from the shifter’s arm and joined him around the side of the house and toward the back. Where they’d all been invited.

Diving blindly into something she couldn’t even begin to understand. With dangers and consequences she was painfully unequipped to predict, prepare for, or even handle, if it came to that.

She really hoped it didn’t, because for the first time in a long time, she’d just willingly put herself in someone else’s hands.

Maxwell’s, yes, and the hands of the gray-haired man who’d opened the door for them.

As they walked around the side of the house—the sun almost hanging at its highest point now and lighting up the farmland that seemed to go on forever in every direction, speckled with groves of trees along rivers and small ponds—an entirely new perspective entered her awareness.

This must have been exactly how Maxwell had felt following her around through all her past secrets, and elven politics, and shitty connections over the last few weeks. Especially in that rotting temp trailer in the woods with Rowan.

Just as the shifter had no understanding of or experience with her world, she was completely out of her element now in his.

The best thing for her to do now was to watch and listen and try not to get involved before she fully understood what she was dealing with.

Something told her that last bit would be far more difficult than the others, especially with the changes in Maxwell since the moment he’d told her this was Shade’s only real chance.

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