49. Chapter 49

49

“ H ey!” Rebecca shouted, her grip tightening around the stock of the augmented rifle as the mechanism whined and powered up and the neon-orange light grew brighter in her periphery. “We all still have a job to do, and I promise you, this isn’t it!”

She’d shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. Now the other operatives backed away from her as well, but Rowan and Maxwell were too far gone to their own pride and stupidity.

It was too little, too late.

The elf and the shifter lunged for each other at the same time, snarling and spitting, fully committed to duking it out right now.

The only way that fight would end was with one of them severely incapacitated. Or dead.

Rebecca squeezed the trigger.

A static burst of neon-orange weapons fire leapt from the barrel and zapped across the room before it cracked into the floor between them.

The chipped wood and cement beneath exploded, throwing up a shower of sparks and splintered boards and chunks of foundation in all directions. An oddly brown, harsh, acrid smoke billowed up between the elf and the shifter.

Blinded and taken by surprise, they staggered away from each other, coughing and waving the smoke away before they seemed to realize at the same time where the shot had come from—and who had fired it.

Then Maxwell and Rowan both froze, rooted to the spot with much more space between them now. When the smoke finally cleared, they were both already glaring at Rebecca.

“What do you want ?” Rowan spat.

At the same time, Maxwell shouted, “You realize we’re standing right here , don’t you?”

Rebecca kept the rifle raised and aimed in their general direction, glaring right back at them. “Yeah, I realize exactly what’s going on right now, and I want both of you to grow up. If I have to shoot you to get the desired results, I will. Feel like testing that theory? Go ahead. I dare you.”

The shocked silence only lasted a moment before Rowan snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Blackmoon!” Rebecca barked, swiveling the barrel of her rifle directly at him. “Go help the rest of the team load up so we can get out of here.”

His stare contained nothing but pure disdain, which Rebecca had no problem handling.

She glared back at him just as fiercely and made a point to slowly and deliberately turn the settings dial on the side of the rifle until the mechanism powered up to a more destructive force. Its augmented whine made the neon-orange light inside sputter before it intensified as well.

Raising an eyebrow, she waited.

Finally, the Blackmoon Elf puffed out a sigh and stalked off toward the rest of the team. “Fine. Whatever.”

She didn’t keep her weapon trained on him as he moved, but she did follow him with her gaze until she was convinced he wouldn’t turn around and leap at the shifter again to finish what they started.

“Hannigan!” She darted her gaze toward him next. “A word.”

Then Rebecca took off for the stairs along the left side of the stage without waiting for a response, hopefully to find a modicum of privacy there. She felt everyone else staring at their Head of security, knowing that would make him agree to speak with her in private.

Though it apparently wasn’t an issue to snap at and come to physical blows with another operative on a mission, Maxwell wouldn’t defy his Thon-Da’al in front of the whole team.

His relenting sigh carried easily across the auditorium before he took off after her.

Rebecca waited for him to join her, then they slipped backstage, which might have been the only bit of privacy they could find within such an open space. Especially one that now produced even better acoustics than when it had been full of chairs.

Maxwell watched her diligently, his eyes wide with expectation.

Once they were alone, she didn’t make him wait any longer.

“Maybe I wasn’t clear enough the first time,” Rebecca hissed, “or even the second. Because now I feel like I need to very specifically tell you that your best option, what would make this whole thing easier for all of us, is if you tried to lighten up a little with the new guy.”

Maxwell’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second before his perpetual scowl covered it back up again. “That elf endangers everything and everyone around him. He’s immature, he’s reckless, and he doesn’t give a shit about following orders.

“Come to think of it…” He paused to look her up and down, then tilted his head. “He reminds me very much of you.”

She scoffed. “Okay, well let’s not lump all elves together in the same pile, shall we?”

“Why not,? he asked, completely deadpan.

“Why not? Because it doesn’t work that way. We’re not all the same, and that’s an unfair assumption. I’ve earned a little more credit than that by now, don’t you think?”

“So you do agree with me about him.”

“ Yes . Of course I agree with you.. You practically took the words out of my mouth, Hannigan. Everything you said about him is absolutely true—”

“Then why do you insist on giving him one chance after another no matter how many times he fails to live up to expectations?” he snarled.

Rebecca tried to roll her eyes—to stay calm and act casual and in control.

But it felt like every time the shifter’s voice intensified, every time those luminous silver eyes of his flashed, the dark, shivering pull between them, the energy of his presence and his closeness tingling across her skin like a ripple of electricity, made it impossible.

Great.

Now she had to focus on calming her breath too, because even that was quickening out of control.

“I wouldn’t say he’s failing to live up to expectations… ”

“Fine, then.” Maxwell grunted. “What would you call it?”

“I see it more as not having stepped into his full potential. Yet.”

The shifter’s next snarl as he spun away from her in an aggravated circle only made the tingling worse.

Rebecca was glad he’d turned away, but only because the sensation had made her shiver.

She was trying to have a real conversation with him. Why did that stupid tingle have to get in the way of it?

“I thought you were better than this,” Maxwell hissed as he whirled to face her again.

It took a surprising amount of effort to recollect herself before he looked at her again—to hide that shudder of uninvited longing, that tingling pull, that recognition between them begging her, luring her ever closer before he could pick up on it.

Now she had to act like everything was fine. Like all of this was normal.

Except his words.

“Hold on a second,” she argued. “Don’t make this about me. We’re talking about you and Blackmoon. I’m not the one who tried to start a fistfight right after we already battled a couple dozen…whoever the hell these guys were. And won. This is about you and him .”

“Fine,” Maxwell snapped, looming closer. “I’ll keep it about him. Blackmoon doesn’t belong here. He obviously has no respect for Shade. He never did. That was perfectly clear from the beginning. She never should have allowed him on this mission tonight, and somehow, despite everything he’s done to prove me right, you still insisted on bringing him along.

“So now I need to know what it is about him that makes you forget every valid reason to stick him back in a holding room until he realizes he has no other option. What do you see that I don’t?”

She couldn’t give him an answer to that. Not at any detailed level the way he wanted.

But as they stood there backstage, staring at each other, this unknown thing flared between them again, and she still didn’t understand it.

Even as it scrambled her thoughts and made her want to be physically closer while her rational mind screamed at her to run and get out while she still could.

Rebecca couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. Not fully. Not all the way.

Like a physical block inside her mind incapacitating her ability to deceive.

She couldn’t have made up a completely false answer to save her life.

She couldn’t even try.

So she went with what had so far served as the next best thing with the shifter. She gave him as much of the truth as she could afford while still holding back all the most dangerous parts. For now.

“Because Blackmoon stepped through Shade’s front door,” she said and defiantly lifted her chin toward him.

“He what?” Maxwell growled.

“Okay, I know. It wasn’t in the traditional way. He broke in. But proverbially speaking, it’s all the same. He found us. He came to us, and he asked for me specifically. When I made him the offer, he agreed to The Striving and everything else that comes with it. And he passed .”

The shifter gawked at her as if she’d answered him in gibberish before another growl escaped him. “That’s not even a real answer.”

“Well that’s the one you’re getting.”

“No, that’s what you want it to be!” He thrust a finger in her face before she smacked it away. “Blackmoon never said a thing about wanting to join. He didn’t ask for any of this.”

“You know what, Hannigan? Neither did I, but here we are.”

He glared at her and said nothing else.

They were getting nowhere with this, going around and around in the same circle while they each wanted something entirely different but for the same reasons.

Then an instant realization flickered across the shifter’s face. When he took a slow, hesitant step back, Rebecca feared the worst.

That maybe all of Maxwell’s well-founded suspicions had finally led him to the conclusion she’d been trying to keep beyond his reach. That there was something else between her and Rowan Blackmoon, beyond Shade’s commander simply trying to give another elf the opportunity to prove himself.

What the shifter said next didn’t reassure her in any way that he hadn’t figured it all out.

“Now that you mention it,” he said, his voice lowered again beneath a facade of calm and control she didn’t believe, “and since you brought it up, we might as well take another look at it now. He did ask for you. When my team had him in that holding room, Blackmoon asked specifically for ‘the elf.’ How did he even know Shade had an elf at all?”

“How is this remotely relevant?” Rebecca asked, hoping her expression didn’t give her away as her stomach sank.

“Answer the question, Knox.”

“I don’t know, Max ,” she quipped, tilting her head and refusing to back down. “How did Harkennr know Shade had a new commander almost before I did?”

Her deflection aggravated him that much more. “We agreed to work together, you and I. Not against each other. But you’re still acting like it doesn’t go both ways. Refusing to answer my questions only makes it worse.”

Spreading her arms, Rebecca leaned away from him, because if she didn’t, she had a feeling she would only start leaning into him. Something told her the closer she got to him physically, the harder it would be to not answer his every question with the full truth. No matter how strange or inexplicable that might have been, it was the last thing she could let happen.

“You know what?” she replied, “This isn’t anywhere close to the most important issue on our plate right now. So I’m gonna cut through all the bullshit you and I just can’t seem to get past, either and get straight to the point.

“It’s really simple. I need you to stand down and give Blackmoon some air.”

Sneering at her with a barely audible growl rumbling deep in his throat, Maxwell leaned in closer than ever until their noses practically touched and whispered, “Or what?”

By the Blood, with him this up close and personal, she was legitimately afraid her knees might buckle at any second and send her dropping to the floor backstage.

Somehow, Rebecca kept that from happening, though she was positive that tingling rush flooding through her at his closeness—while the scent of dew-laden grass and moonlight beneath all that sandalwood wafted off him—was making her blush like a flower right now, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“Or you can face the consequences of disobeying a direct order from your Thon-Da’al, Hannigan,” she whispered back. “Because that’s what this is.”

“Careful with how often you abuse that power,” Maxwell muttered even as he stepped back. “Or one day, it might not pack as hard of a punch as you expect it to.”

He could be pissed about her ordering him all he wanted. What mattered was that he’d backed down, even if it came with a healthy dose of shifter attitude.

Rebecca hardened her expression and held his gaze. “Fine.”

Now that he’d finally withdrawn to put a little more space between them again, Rebecca’s thoughts cleared enough to remind her that this dangerous power dynamic between them could either play against her or work to her advantage. She sincerely preferred the latter.

“Listen,” she added, with a heavy sigh. “Bottom line, we have to let Blackmoon prove himself over time, the way I had to prove myself. You don’t have to like him. Hell, I don’t either. But you can’t deny the fact that he’s a good fighter and that he can think on his feet when it really counts. Right now, this task force could use more good fighters with skills above and beyond the average. That’s what this is about, and that’s what should be our focus.”

He stared her down for so long, she started to lose hope she might ever get through to him, no matter how she tried seeing things from his point of view—to find the right thing that would speak perfectly to his sense of loyalty and duty and obligation to the task force he was so hells-bent on serving and protecting.

But then, with another growl that sounded like defeat, he pulled farther away from her, gritting his teeth as if more distance between them caused him more physical pain. “We could get good fighters anywhere and not have to deal with all the extra bullshit that elf brings with him.”

Well, she couldn’t argue with him there, but what was done was done.

And what hadn’t yet been done, Rebecca still hoped to keep from ever happening.

“You don’t have to like it,” she said. “And I won’t ask that of you. All I’m asking you to do is leave him alone. Give him some space. You’ve made your point, and trust me, Blackmoon got the message.”

“How are you so sure of that?”

Because she could see it in Rowan’s eyes every time he and the shifter squared up against each other.

Not an appropriate response, and again, she had to skirt around it.

“I can just tell, okay? The two of you haven’t exactly kept a subtle handle on your opinions. I know Blackmoon doesn’t like it either, but he has to deal with the way things are, and you have to give him room for that. Is it ideal? Probably not. But that’s what’s best for everyone.”

She wanted to ask if she’d made herself clear this time, to request a verbal confirmation that he’d heard her, and his word that he’d give it a rest, but that felt like overkill. So instead, with a curt nod to the end their conversation, she slipped out from between the wall and the shifter looming over her and turned back toward the stage to leave.

Rebecca was the one who’d called him back here for a word in private. She was the one compelled to make herself clear yet again about what she expected of her operatives and how they dealt with one another. Even after all that, though, getting away from Maxwell and leaving him behind still felt like narrowly escaping some kind of prison.

Or barely making it out of this with her ability to resist him still intact.

She wanted to write it off as an after effect of overloading her magical system, but with her Head of Security, she’d already disproven that theory.

This thing between them was something else, and Rebecca was determined to hold it at bay for as long as possible.

She swept aside the edge of the dust-caked, tattered, stripped stage curtain to step back through it and hopefully leave this entire conversation behind her.

But then Maxwell cleared his throat. “Rebecca.”

There was so much concern in his voice, so much calm seriousness mixed with the kind of intimacy between two people that came with using their first names, that she couldn’t help but stop in her tracks, no matter how fervently she wanted to walk away.

Not to mention the fact that the sound of her name coming from Maxwell’s lips—her real name, the only true name of hers he had—made her heart skip and stutter in her chest before that burning tingle washed over her again with irresistible force.

She hoped like hell she only thought she was trembling, because if he saw her like that now,how seriously could he take her?

As if the shifter uttering her name were its own kind of spell, she found herself turning around to face him, compelled by that pull and entirely powerless against it.

No matter how hard she might have wanted to fight against it.

No matter how deeply flushed Maxwell’s face had become once she met his gaze again.

What was this?

He looked at her with the same fearful, deeply pained expression he’d fixed on her when she’d lain in one of Zida’s infirmary beds with a wooden stake through her guts.

As if he couldn’t stand to see her like this.

As if he couldn’t stand to lose her.

As if giving her another inch of space between them would tear him apart from the inside out.

Rebecca would have done anything in that moment to convince herself she didn’t feel the exact same thing.

But if they were feeling the same thing, that meant he wanted to go to her the way some deeply buried thing inside her wanted her to go to him. To reach out. To finally accept and grab a hold.

Neither of them moved.

Was that because this was all in her head?

Or was he fighting the same pull to go to her now the way she fought it with every ounce of strength she had left?

“Whatever you—” Maxwell stopped himself, swallowed thickly, and now looked like opening his mouth and speaking to her was the most agonizing thing he’d ever done. “Whatever you may think you know, that elf is no good for you. Stay away from him. Or I’ll have to do something about it myself.”

It was a ridiculous thing for him to say, given the situation. It was a ridiculous thing to hear, like the shifter thought he had some kind of possession over her. That he had any say in who she did or didn’t stay away from. That he had any power whatsoever to even involve himself in a decision like that, which was hers and hers alone.

Rebecca knew all of this rationally. She could still think with perfect clarity, but his words and the way he said them—as a threat and a promise, as a vow not just to her but to this flaring electric thing between them that almost seemed to have a life of its own—made her face flush hot.

Her insides squirmed with a dark and giddy excitement bordering on glee.

On pride. On pleasure. On longing for more…

When she swallowed, Rebecca forced those ridiculous thoughts right back down to the depths of her mind, because it was the next best thing to getting rid of them completely, and she couldn’t get rid of them. She’d already tried.

But she could pretend.

“Noted, Hannigan,” she told him flatly. “Thank you.”

It was as curt and devoid of emotion or connection as her brusque nod of disconnected professionalism and dismissal as she ended the conversation.

She had to.

If she stayed here any longer, hidden backstage with the shifter who aggravated her more than almost anyone else she’d known on Earth and who held the record for so quickly and easily getting under her skin, she couldn’t be held responsible for what happened next.

She didn’t even let herself think about what that might be. Her cheeks flushed hot again, racing to the tips of her pointed ears. That tingling warmth rushed through her from head to toe and the physical, not-unpleasant weight of Maxwell’s gaze on her followed her out until she finally slipped past the curtain.

It remained on her even after that too as she crossed the stage and marched down the stairs to rejoin their team. The urge to look back at him made her slow for only a moment, but she denied it and kept moving.

Then she made sure that was the only time she paused, no matter how deeply and insanely she was called to look at him again. To return to him. To figure out what the hell this thing was that distracted her and controlled her and filled her with ancestors only knew what at all the wrong moments.

While the team finished collecting their gear and weapons confiscated from their dead enemies, Rebecca refused to look at her Head of Security again. Even when she felt him watching her. Even when, no matter where he moved around the building, she felt his presence like a physical tug at her core.

The lure at the end of an invisible, irresistible line connecting them everywhere he went.

She felt it every time he glanced her way. She felt it every time he breathed. She thought she could hear it until she realized how insane that was and convinced herself she was blowing the whole thing out of proportion.

Rebecca had mastered the finer points of lies and deception a long time ago, at a very young age. Even then, the only person she consistently failed to deceive now was herself.

It didn’t help that she couldn’t stop thinking about Maxwell’s final warning and how certain he’d been that Rowan specifically was no good for her.

As if the shifter knew what was and wasn’t good, what she did and didn’t need.

As if he had any authority whatsoever to tell her to stay away from Rowan and not the other way around.

Was that all because he finally suspected a private relationship between her and the Blackmoon elf? That he’d read the signs correctly and had stumbled upon the truth?

Or was Maxwell Hannigan…jealous?

Was he threatened by another elf on the task force, because the only other elf within Shade had risen through the ranks to supersede his authority?

Or was he threatened by the fact that he was no longer the only one to demand Rebecca’s attention and get under her skin?

By the Blood, if he only knew how differently she felt about him and Rowan.

If only he knew…

She could never let him know.

No matter how hard she tried to stop it, their conversation swirled through her mind as the team made their quick but cautious way back across the abandoned park toward their waiting vehicle.

And while they loaded everything up into the van.

And while the doors slammed shut, everyone took their seats, then Maxwell started the engine without a word to take them home.

It was impossible not to keep thinking about it as she sat in the front passenger seat beside him, forcing herself not to look at him but feeling every sidelong glance, every questioning look, every sharp inhale as he prepared to say something but never did.

Worst of all was the realization of what she’d truly felt in the moment Maxwell had told her to stay away from Rowan. The change in that buzzing, tingling pull, the brief transformation lasting only as long as his pained words, where the beckoning lure toward him that had only grown stronger since that first night she’d felt it.

The night Shade had overthrown their previous commander.

He’d told her to stay away from Rowan, like a desperate command of its own, and in that moment, the sensation his presence always produced had shifted into a fleeting but no less powerful energetic zap of something else that had almost been… painful .

Like a quick, electric jolt, or the first instant slice from a paper cut that faded seconds later into a dull background ache until it was either healed or forgotten or both.

But now that she’d remembered it, Rebecca couldn’t forget about it. This was something she didn’t even know how to heal or if it even could be healed.

Rebecca had only felt something like that once before. Similar, but not the same. A flicker of energetic and magical pain inflicted upon another, like an added bonus to the words, when she’d been chided as a child for breaking rules she hadn’t yet grown to fully understand.

It didn’t make any sense that she would feel the same thing from Maxwell’s words and his warning. Shifters didn’t have their own inherent magic. Not in this world or any other.

Not the kind of magic that could elicit a physical response like that.

So then what the hell was this thing? When had it gotten there? Why was it growing, and what did she have to do to make it stop?

And how long could she keep this up, trying to ignore it and pretending like it didn’t exist, without knowing what it really was?

How long before it became one more major problem, an immediate threat she just didn’t know how to solve?

How long before it cost Rebecca something she couldn’t afford to lose?