Page 78 of Elven Throne

“We could have found something better.”

“You know what? You just stand there looking pretty and let me do all the talking, okay?”

He paused and turned the scowl onto her next. “You don’t think I can get us what we need?”

“Oh, I know you can. But intimidating civilians while you do it isn’t exactly at the top of our priority list right now. And I definitely wouldn’t categorize it as keeping a low profile.” Rebecca playfully nudged his arm with the back of her hand. “But if it really bothers you that much, I’ll let you get the next one.”

“What bothers me is the smell,” he growled.

“See? That’s exactly the kinda thing that’s gonna make us stand out here. Just hang back.”

Rebecca hurried toward the lobby desk, forcing herself not to scan the room like someone on the run who didn’t want to be found.

She knew Maxwell was already doing that behind her.

She prepared herself to smile and act like any other regular person about to make this exchange.

But when the woman behind the desk greeted her with a jerk of her head, loudly smacking the enormous piece of chewing gum between lips coated in garishly bright red-orange lipstick, smiling just felt too much like a chore.

“What do you need?” the woman asked, tucking strands of poorly dyed black hair behind her ear and twirling a pen between fingers decked with way too many cheap rings.

Rebecca couldn’t help but stare at the streaks of green on the woman’s fingers left by so many pieces of cheap nickel. “Just a room.”

“How long?” the woman asked, smacking out each word with her gum.

“One.” Now Rebecca stared at the woman’s lips. Did she have any idea how much noise she was making?

The woman rolled her eyes and typed with agonizing slowness across an ancient keyboard connected to an equally ancient desktop computer. “Number of guests?”

“Two.”

When the woman looked up from the keyboard, she found Maxwell standing in the lobby, and her eyes widened before she shot Rebecca a pert look. “How many beds?”

Rebecca hadn’t booked a motel room in a while, but she didn’t remember any of them requiring answers to this many questions.

“Doesn’t really matter,” she said, trying not to fidget. “Whatever you’ve got.”

“Uh-huh…” The woman smacked her gum, stared at Maxwell for an inordinately long time, then rolled her eyes again and typed some more.

Waiting for the receptionist to do her job with such agonizing slowness made Rebecca instantly antsy.

Was the lady taking this long on purpose? Or had she just never touched a computer before?

The tingling sensation across her skin when Maxwell slowly crossed the lobby toward her didn’t help. She tried to send him some indication through their connection that she wanted him to stay back, if that was even something shecoulddo.

Either way, it didn’t seem to work.

The computer let out a choking, sputtering whir as it fought to process the request.

Maybe Rebecca should have picked something a little less off-the-grid, where employees actually took their jobs seriously.

But she’d already insisted this was the best place for them at the moment, and she couldn’t back down from that now.

Or Maxwell would be telling her, “I told you so,” first.

“Here.” The woman finally turned away from the computer to grab a physical key from the small group of them hanging on pegs along the back wall. She tossed it across the counter toward Rebecca. “Fifty bucks for the night.”

Then the woman’s gaze settled on something over Rebecca’s shoulder.

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