Page 92 of Elven Throne

The drive turned out to be slightly longer than an hour and a half, and from start to finish, a tensely roiling silence had filled the car, while Rebecca received the full force of Maxwell’s emotions as he drove.

Nothing but his ceaseless urge to rip Rowan in half.

Things could come to a boiling point at any second, and it wouldn’t be good for any of them.

Rowan wouldn’t see it that way, though, would he? No, any attention he received, good or bad, was only fuel for his own obnoxious fires.

Maxwell, on the other hand, looked like he was about to lose all self-control, even when no one had uttered a word since leaving the motel.

“Oh, hey!” Rowan leaned forward in the back seat and pointed through the windshield. “Right there. That’s where we’re going. Macs.”

Rebecca braced herself against the door when Maxwell swerved violently off the highway, cut across the parking lot, and slammed the Honda to a screeching halt in front of the building.

Everyone got out together, fortunately without coming to blows, but that could end any moment.

Rebecca was so sure these two were about to tear each other to shreds, she didn’t even notice at first where they were.

Then she took in their surroundings.

A parking lot just off I-70, directly in front of the Macs, with a neon Open sign and the other dozens of flashing lights in the windows staring her in the face. Taunting her the way she knew Rowan was also taunting her.

She caught up to him in his bouncy little stride on the way toward the liquor store’s front entrance and pulled him aside. “If we were wasting time at the motel, I’m pretty sure stopping to get lit only wastes even more of it.”

“But wouldn’t that just make this so much morefun?” he asked, grinning despite her warning. “Come on. Why don’t you guys come with me?”

Rebecca backed away from him and scowled at the marquee above the front doors.

Beside her, Maxwell did the same and answered for them both. “We will wait.”

“Both of you?” Rowan looked back and forth between them, then shrugged. “Okay. Fine. I’m telling you, though, this is a fun place… Your loss.”

Then he spun around and waltzed right through the door, the jingling of the bell chime echoing after him.

The whole thing baffled Rebecca more than she could have explained. She’d really thought a stop at the liquor store was just another one of Rowan’s obnoxious jokes, but this was very real.

“Do you have any idea what he’s doing?” Maxwell grumbled.

“Not at all.” She puffed out a sigh. “This is ridiculous.”

“It feels appropriate to remind you of your promise to let me work out my own frustration on him, if we find proof of even the slightest deception.”

If she hadn’t been so on edge herself, questioning Rowan’s motives and everything he did, Rebecca would have found that particularly amusing.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I remember.”

The shifter could use Rowan Blackmoon as a fucking piñata for all she cared, though she would have highly preferred knowing without a doubt that the Blackmoon Elf wasn’t jerking them around for no reason.

That he hadn’t lied about helping her find the prophecy. That he wasn’t drawing up some other plan of betrayal right now, while she and Maxwell waited for him outside a fucking liquor store.

She didn’t trust Rowan at all. He’d broken every last ounce of her willingness to trust him, which still amazed her even now, after everything they’d once been to each other in the old world.

But all that was clearly over. Rowan was no longer who he’d been, and she had to keep treating him as such. His priorities had changed drastically.

Then again, so had Rebecca’s.

They stood there no more than two minutes before Maxwell tensed beside her, his senses on full alert, every muscle growing rigid at a new discovery Rebecca hadn’t yet made.

When she turned toward him, meaning to ask, he set a hand on the small of her back to guide her away from both their vehicle and the liquor store’s front doors. Dipping his head toward her ear but still fervently scanning the parking lot, he murmured, “We are being watched.”

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