Page 85 of Elven Throne

She stopped pacing to look at him across the room again. “You think that’s what all this is?”

“Possibly. You seem more agitated by her current state than I would have expected.”

“I’m glad we got her back and that she’s still in one piece,” she said, clenching her eyes tightly shut with a sigh.

“Of course.”

“But there’s something else. Something I saw or overheard. Some other thing connected to whatever Nyx is so worried about, and I…reallydon’t like not being able to find it.”

“It will come to you when you need it,” he said gently, moving toward her. “In the moment, when the details are crucial. If that moment were now, your conversation with Nyx would have gone very differently. For the time being, I think we can both agree our current objective takes precedence.

With another sigh, Rebecca opened her eyes.

He stood directly in front of her, towering over her again, his eyes pulsing with silver as he swept his gaze across her face.

Her cheeks flushed and tingled because of it, completely beyond her control.

“You’re right,” she murmured, attempting a nod. Her head suddenly felt so remarkably heavy. “We focus on what’s right in front of us. Get this done. When Nyx’s problem becomes the next most important issue, I’ll deal with it then.”

“Yes, we will.” The shifter settled a hand on her shoulder, sending another electrifying jolt through her body at the contact.

How the hell hadn’t that part started to let up by now, even a little?

A frown of deepening concern cast darker shadows across Maxwell’s features before he dipped his head toward her. “If it were my place to tell you what to do, I would say you need to sleep.”

Rebecca let out a wry laugh. “Good thing it’s not your place.”

Unsurprisingly, Maxwell didn’t find that funny. He gently released her shoulder. “But I can strongly suggest it. Do you have any idea when Blackmoon means to make contact?”

Rebecca puffed out a sigh. “That’s like knowing with any certainty what you’ll have for breakfast five years from now. But he said he would find me when he had everything in place. Not that I have any idea how he means to do that, either, but that’s where we are. And I know that’s what he’ll do. Eventually.”

“Then you should sleep while you can.” Maxwell started to reach for her face, but then he quickly retracted his hand and turned away from her to head for the door. “I will secure the perimeter here. Should have been our first step anyway.”

Reeling with the harsh ache of him walking away from her but too exhausted for it to make much difference, Rebecca chuckled. “The perimeter of a shitty hotel off the highway that isn’t worth the gas to drive out here and stage an attack?”

Maxwell only stopped when he reached the door, then turned partially back toward her with a hand on the doorknob. Though now, he looked particularly distracted and solemnly brooding.

His gaze flickered toward the bed beside her, then he swallowed thickly. “I would rather double-check anyway. All sorts move in and out of these places. Constantly. Even a human motel.”

He was perfectly serious, wasn’t he?

They stared at each other a moment longer, and just as Rebecca opened her mouth to say she really didn’t think that was necessary, Maxwell jerked open the door, slipped through it in a single stride, and all but blustered out of the room without another word.

She’d grown used to the pain of their separation by now, but she still hissed as he walked away. The unavoidable pain now felt far more like an extra giant helping of exhaustion. She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed and gave herself a moment to breathe deeply and settle into the silence. Alone.

Just a little sleep.

After kicking off her new shoes, she swung her legs up onto the bed, not bothering to even pull back the comforter to climb beneath it.

The mattress was soft enough, and now she finally had a moment of peace and quiet to catch up from the last few days of constant battles, searching for safety, or being kept awake by the onslaught of Maxwell’s roiling emotions that had also keephimup all night.

Rebecca let out a long, heavy exhale, closed her eyes, and waited to drift off so sleep could finally claim her.

But it didn’t happen nearly as quickly as she’d hoped.

She felt Maxwell beyond the room, prowling along the side of the motel.Securing the perimeter. Peering around every corner and beneath every parked car.

Shortly after that, his sturdy intentions of ensuring their safety in a place like this morphed and changed, until all she felt from him, even from this far away, was an overwhelming desire to come back to the room.

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