Page 60 of Elven Throne

He even tried to shield himself from her through their connection. She felt his emotions stiffening, growing rigid. His desperate attempts not to think or feel anything so his discomfort wouldn’t demand her attention.

So it wouldn’t lead her to make another horrible mistake and get them all thrown out of here the way she almost had.

Rebecca couldn’t stop staring at him, even when he refused to acknowledge her. Almost as if giving her the same treatment every other shifter here had given him.

She wasn’t buying any of it.

Now she had even more to sink her teeth into and ruminate on, refusing to leave his side.

“A shadow requires nothing.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean, anyway?

Some kind of shifter thing, clearly.

Rebecca’s first foray into the shifter world did nothing to broaden her mind, understanding, or acceptance of a race she’d hardly given a second thought to until Maxwell.

The wrongness of this place, the way they treated him that had rendered him nearly broken… It would take a lot more than an offered plate of food to figure it all out.

So what wasreallygoing on here under the surface? Why would Maxwell subject himself to this, accepting defeat from the moment they’d arrived, without even the will to consider fighting it?

What had these shiftersdoneto him?

It felt like she sat beside him on the log, staring at his rigidly stoic profile, for an eternity before any patience she might have had for this fucked-up mystery evaporated.

“That’s it.” She slapped both thighs enough to make them sting just as much as her hands and surged off the log to her feet. Then she tossed the paper plate aside and didn’t bother to see if it had landed upright in the short grass beside her.

Blinking heavily, as if waking from a deep sleep plagued by nightmares, Maxwell didn’t quite look at her, horror etched across his features. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going for a walk,” Rebecca hissed. “And you’re coming with me.”

His eyebrows drew together in pain and defeat. Nothing like the darkening scowl with which she’d grown so familiar. This was reluctance on his face, more shame and fear and failure. The frown of a proud shifter instantly broken by setting foot on a piece of farmland in fucking Sparta, Illinois.

Not if she had anything to do with it.

She whirled toward him, her bare feet whispering across the grass, and snatched up a fistful of the front of his shirt before bending down in his face.

Maxwell’s eyes widened as he met her gaze and finally didn’t look away.

“I can’t force you to move without making a scene and causing serious damage to both of us,” she snarled. “But I swear on the fucking Shadowed Seat, Hannigan, if you don’t get up and walk with me right now, I’ll break every fuckingpacklawin this place and get us all thrown out. Move your ass.”

So that was all it took, huh? The threat of violence and physical harm and not cowering before this stupid pack-law shit? Fine. At least he took her seriously, his eyes flashing silver with a renewed light that had all but died behind them. His breath quickened as they stared at each other, her fist clenched around the front of his shirt.

Then Maxwell growled, low and subdued and soft, but at least it fucking sounded like him again.

Rebecca held his gaze a moment longer, to be sure he knew she was deadly serious. Then she released his shirt and stormed off across the side of the yard, cutting a straight path toward the woods lining the river along the back of the property.

It took a few seconds, while she gritted her teeth against the sharp, breathtaking pain of walking away from him. But then that pain eased and released, and the tingling warmth of the shifter’s presence as he finally stood and followed her, his long stride bringing him ever closer, finally returned.

Good. She’d made him that promise, and she’d meant every word of it.

The last thing she wanted was to cause a scene and risk any more of Shade’s safety than she already had, especially here, where they’d found sanctuary that would actually provide relief.

But she’d had more than enough of this shifter-law bullshit for both of them.

At least there wasn’t a law prohibiting Maxwell from following her into the trees…

And if this private walk with him through the woods didn’t snap him out of it the way she hoped?

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