Page 90 of Elven Throne

He stopped when he saw the empty pizza box off to the side and chuckled. “You even ate without me. Made yourselves real comfy in this quaint little getaway here. How long were you planning on staying?”

“As long as necessary,” Rebecca hissed, glaring at him.

“Hmm. Good thing I found you when I did, then. I’ve made all the preparations, so we’re ready to rock.”

“Great.” She gestured toward the door. “Come back in the morning, and we’ll start then.”

Rowan stepped over what she thought was Maxwell’s torn shirt, staring at it with a smirk before he turned back toward her. “No, you misunderstand me. Now that I’m here, I’m not going anywhere without you. If we separate, that only gives everyone else a chance to step in and divert us from our cause. I’m sticking on you like a blue priestess onhinwi.”

Maxwell took a massive, lunging stride toward the Blackmoon Elf and snarled, “Not inthisroom.”

“Are you kidding me?” Rowan barked out a laugh. “Look at this place. We could fit another three or four people in here at least. Assuming everybody else slept on the floor. Not thedirtiestmotel-room carpeting I’ve ever seen…”

“Then you won’t have a problem getting your own room,” Rebecca spat.

“Or you may never leave this one,” Maxwell warned.

Rowan merely laughed again, wagging a finger back and forth between them. “You two really are cute, you know that? Might even be starting to grow on me. You know what? That’s my bad. I left too much room for interpretation.Noneof us are staying here.”

Then he raised his eyebrows at Rebecca and spread his arms. “When I said everything’s ready, I should’ve added that it means we have to leavenow, or we’ll miss our window.”

Rebecca groaned. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nope.”

She and Maxwell exchanged a knowing, aggravated look before she asked, “Where?”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” Rowan replied, casually moseying around the room again, as if inspecting an art gallery. “It’s still in Illinois, if you’re worried about leaving the state, for whatever reason. Not too far of a drive.”

“Wanna be more specific?”

“Not really. We need to move. I made a sort of…appointment, if you will. Punctuality’s pretty key.”

Really?

After all his posturing about this being a step-by-step process and needing to make the necessary preparations beforehand, he came to them first with anappointmentsomewhere else not too far from Chicago?

With another sweeping glance around the room, Rowan took a deep breath and clapped his hands together. “Okay! Well, pack your things. We’d better get moving.”

As he meandered back toward the door, Rebecca leaned toward Maxwell and murmured, “I know it’s not ideal, but at this point, we just kinda have to follow his lead on this.”

“Far from ideal,” he grumbled, never letting his flashing silver gaze stray from Rowan. “Nor do I relish the idea of spending any length of time in a car with him, no matter where we’re going. It significantly increases the chances of me driving all of us off a bridge. On purpose.”

“Hey!” Rowan spun back toward them and spread his arms. “I’d be happy tofoldall three of us, if sharing a vehicle is too much bother. It’d move up our arrival time by quite a bit—”

“No!” Rebecca snapped. “Absolutely not. We’ll drive.”

His dangerously flashing grin returned, hazel eyes almost sparking in the semi-darkness. “Well, yeehaw. I love a good road trip.”

“Just…go wait outside.”

“So you two can try to give me the slip? Or, better yet, finish whatever kinda kinky role-playing you started in—”

“Outside!” she barked.

“Okay, okay.” He lifted his hands in mock surrender, bunching his shoulders toward his ears as he headed back toward the door. “Just don’t take too long. And try not to break anything else, huh?”

She didn’t stop glaring at him until the door shut again with Rowan on the other side of it.

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