Page 69 of Elven Throne

She started walking again. “I really shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t.” Maxwell caught her by the wrist, sending a flare of electrifying energy up her arm, and she froze.

This time, running away from what he felt and what he might tell her wasn’t an option.

She didn’twantto escape it, but she had no idea how he would handle whatever came next.

His grip on her wrist tightened—warm, solid, very much still there. A new gentleness crept into his voice, no matter how much sadness it carried with it. “Rebecca…”

She turned back toward him.

“We agreed this conversation was going to happen,” he added, releasing her wrist with visible effort while she tried to ignore the pain of him letting go and the stark coldness wrapping around her wrist in its place. “And I have already promised you more than once that I will tell you everything you wish to know. You need no apology for that. You never will.”

How was she supposed to argue with a declaration like that? Regardless of how much guilt tightened her chest and sank in her stomach at the thought.

He was about to tell her everything—or at least all the pertinent information, the way she’d shared hers.

But that same pack, the same cause of the shifter’s overwhelming pain, wasn’t just far back in Maxwell’s past or left behind in the aftermath of a battle hours ago. They were all still right there beyond the woods, on the other side of the property, nearly a stone’s throw away.

She had to force herself not to tell him to forget it entirely, even with her curiosity thoroughly piqued and desperate for more.

Maxwell started walking again first, and she walked with him. Silent. Waiting. Willing to give him as much time as he needed before he decided to begin.

Thataspect of her incomplete patience was certainly new.

“You are correct,” he finally began. “Theyweremy pack.”

“But not anymore,” she muttered.

“Not for many years,” he added, dipping his head. “The only thing I am to them now is outcast. A pariah. As far as they are concerned, I no longer exist.”

“Is that—” Rebecca instantly clammed up, not wanting to risk ruining his willingness to tell her anything at all.

He shot her a sidelong glance, which she thought came with another brief flicker of a smile. “Go ahead.”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“I can hardly fault you for engaging with my story as I did with yours. Ask.”

Again, she couldn’t argue with that logic.

She’d never been so aware of how her words might make anyone else feel. The hesitation she couldn’t quite release gripped her in an unfamiliar hold. Because she didn’t want to keep feeling those dangerously roiling emotions if she stoked all that anger and pain and rejection in him again.

No, it wasn’t self-preservation. She genuinely didn’t want to hurt him.

But he’d told her to ask, and now she couldn’t back away.

“Is that what shadow means?” she asked.

“One of its meanings. Yes. In my case, the shadow is unseen. Unheard. Has no scent or physical body. Shunned and cast out to wander alone. Forever.”

The deep rumble in his chest sounded like nothing else she’d heard from him. Anger, yes, but sorrow as well. A reluctant acceptance of it all.

He wasn’t just explaining Shifter customs to her; he was talking about himself for the first time in this way. Maybe the first time ever.

“And in my case,” he continued, “it applies everywhere and with every other pack. Even if I had tried to join another somewhere else, the consequences of accepting me are too great for anyone. A shadow has no need for a pack, does it?”

By the Blood, she never would have guessed a shifter punishment like this could reach so far, nor could she imagine what Maxwell might have done to deserve something like that.

---