Page 5 of Elven Throne

Her race’s well-known capability of teleporting across enormous distances without the need for powerful reagents, or complicated spellcasting, or any of the requisite nasty side effects suffered by anyone else who successfully harnessed such a useful trick, no matter their race.

Except for a katari. For them, it was as natural as breathing.

The new silence permeating the comms carried the unspoken question no one dared ask aloud, though they all wondered the exact same thing.

How the fuck didEduardoget his hands on the ability to use and control katari magic like this with such precision? Or at all?

Maxwell’s next growl shattered the eerie stillness surrounding Nyx’s latest revelation. “Whatever he’s trying to do, that nexus there won’t last much longer before it explodes.That’sour priority target. All teams close in on—”

“That’s not Eduardo,” Rebecca interrupted.

The comms went deathly silent again, every operative baffled by the fact that anyone would contradict their Head of Security at a time like this—even their Roth-Da’al.

She still couldn’t stop staring at that column of white light at the center of the chaos.

Her next thought wouldn’t have occurred to her if Maxwell hadn’t put ‘Eduardo’ and ‘nexus’ in the same sentence, but she knew without a doubt Eduardo had nothing to do with that brewing storm of deadly power.

She couldn’t logically explain why, but she sure as shit felt it.

Even the sound of Maxwell gruffly clearing his throat beside her couldn’t make her look away.

“Then who is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know…” she murmured, then remembered with a painful flare of acuity that this wasn’t just the two of them, alone, in a private conversation. “But it’s not fucking Eduardo. I know that much. Priority targets are the fucking frogmen swarming HQ.”

Under any other circumstances, facing any other threat anywhere else, the Shade teams would have moved instantly at those words, taking action on their Roth-Da’al’s command without an official order, because they all knew by now how this worked with Rebecca in the lead.

But this was so mind-numbingly different.

No surprise, however, when Maxwell recovered first, far more quickly than anyone else, before clearing his throat a second time and stepping back in.

“We break up the siege. Full infiltration. Then we get the rest of our people out of there. Bravo Team, east flank. Charlie takes west. Delta’s on the north sweep. I don’t care how you get there, but you fucking get there, and you take out everything that moves.”

“Aim for the jump points where they’re all coming from.” Nyx’s voice rose shrilly through the comms again, impossible to mistake or ignore. “Shutthosedown, and they won’t open again.”

“You heard her,” Maxwell snarled. “Move!”

Vehicle doors opened and shut. Weapons clicked against gear while every operative gathered their things and prepared for one more battle, again, with hardly any rest between.

Even when Tig, Shell, Theo, and Murray wasted no time getting out of the Honda, Rebecca remained in the passenger seat, waiting until the shifter beside her was ready to move on his own orders.

Shade’s four combat teams broke away from the vehicles, moving in tight formation into the woods and toward their target locations, leaving little sign of their presence andalmostno sound. They weren’tHakalini’ir, after all.

Fifteen seconds. That was all Maxwell gave himself before he finally looked at Rebecca for the first time since bringing the Honda to a screeching halt half a mile from the compound.

She already felt the tumultuous battle of his warring emotions through their connection before she met his silver-glowing gaze. Then the strength of what he felt only intensified.

But at least now he’d pulled the worst of it back under his control, which meant she didn’t have to worry about fighting off an attack from the shifter’s flaring rageandthousands of griybreki intent on bringing Shade to its knees. For now.

Maxwell let out a low growl and finally released his grip on the steering wheel, flexing his fingers wide as he held her gaze. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“Me neither. But we’ve definitely seen worse.”

It wasn’t very reassuring for either of them, but it was true. Accepting that truth, no matter how difficult or how large the threat they now faced, was still far preferable than lying to themselves about the situation.

When he inhaled deeply through his nose, she thought Maxwell meant to say something else, but then he tore his gaze away from her and opened his door. “Time to move.”

She couldn’t argue with that. But the second she stepped out of the Honda’s passenger seat, the thick power radiating through the air, even this far out from the compound, nearly knocked her over before she could even close the door.

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