41. Chapter 41

41

W ith a roaring surge of urgency fluttering in her gut to get moving , Rebecca dropped the stone figurine into the center desk drawer just as the door to her office burst open again, damn near startling her into summoning a crackling orb of battle magic in response.

“Okay, listen!” she snapped. “Even Head of Security needs to knock. Got it?”

“Right. Sorry.” Maxwell cleared his throat, then narrowed his eyes at her as he poked his head through the door. “One more thing, though. What about—”

Rebecca faked one of her most violent coughing fits yet, using it to both waylay his detailed questions and to cover up the sound of her palming one more vial of invisible meds from the center drawer. Only once she had it did she slump back in the office chair to keep coughing while slipping the vial into her jacket pocket.

Maxwell’s concerned frown was all she needed to see to know she’d given a convincing performance.

“Doesn’t sound good,” he muttered.

“It’s not,” she croaked between coughs. “I just need…”

She cleared her throat, swallowed, coughed heavily a few more times, then threw her head back in the chair and gasped for the breath she finally let herself take. “Damn. I just need some rest.”

“Right.” He nodded and hesitantly stepped through the door, watching her closely. “You should get as much as you need before tomorrow night.”

“My thoughts exactly,” she replied, feigning a return of weakness and illness she simply didn’t feel.

Not after her most recent vial-dose, anyway.

Rebecca pushed herself laboriously out of the chair and staggered toward the door. “I think I’m just gonna go crash for a while.”

“Good idea. ”

She’d hoped he would just leave her alone once she stepped through the office door, but no. She should’ve known she wouldn’t be that lucky.

Instead, Maxwell held the door open for her, pulled it shut once she entered the hallway, then resumed his previously obnoxious position of following her dutifully at a distance of no more than three feet.

Great. Now she really had to go to her room. It wasn’t necessarily the worst thing, but it definitely wasn’t where she wanted to be right now.

Patience. Patience was still key, here.

Apparently, the image of Shade’s new Elven leader moving through the compound with their Head of Security right behind her still hadn’t lost its novelty.

It was all she could do not to snap at everyone to mind their own business and quit staring, but that wouldn’t have helped her cause at the moment.

Fortunately, her feigned coughing fit was enough to keep everyone else at bay as well. No one tried to approach her for more questions or conversation or stopped her to ask if she was all right.

Then again, that might also have been a product of Maxwell following so closely behind her.

By the time she reached her private room, though, Rebecca wasn’t entirely sure she was faking it anymore.

The most recent wave of magical emergency energy was already starting to fade again, even faster this time than with the last vial. Rebecca’s pulse hammered through her veins for real now, and it felt like someone had parked an eighteen-wheeler on the center of her chest.

Of all the ghostly voices from her past that came back to haunt her from time to time—from her first life, the life from which she’d been running all this time—the gruff, compassionless voice of her trainer chose this moment to fill her memory with its coarse bark.

“That’s the magic of a perfect lie, Kilda’ari. And the danger. Give it the liberty to run, and it’ll make itself your truth. It’ll end up being the only thing you see.”

By the Blood, she’d been so sure she’d gotten rid of that voice in her head a long time ago.

Unfortunately, she’d known old Theodil was right back then, and he was still right.

She had to pull back on the leash she’d fastened to this particular lie before it completely took over.

“All right,” she croaked, stopping in front of her bedroom door, and lifted a hand for Maxwell to stop. “I’m going in, and you’re not. So feel free to—”

Her knees buckled, and a cold tremor surged up and down her entire body and out to the end of every limb in a matter of seconds before she realized she was dropping toward the floor.

But the smack of her flesh on the linoleum and the cool hardness pressing up against her cheeks never appeared the way she expected.

Instead, there was that warm, encompassing embrace again. The prickling tingle racing up and down and through her, battling the severe cold seeping in and threatening to overwhelm everything else.

She was really fucking sick.

Somehow, it felt like a miracle that she could feel anything at all.

But it wasn’t a miracle when she realized why she hadn’t hit the floor.

Maxwell had caught her.

With a groan, she tried to steady herself on her feet again, but they wouldn’t take her weight. “No, no… I’m fine. Really. Just…tired.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he muttered before walking her toward her door again, keeping one arm around her waist and bracing her with his other hand gently supporting her elbow.

His arm around her waist, huh?

If she hadn’t been so damn weak right now, she would have pushed him away from her.

Never in her life had Rebecca been grateful for a physical weakness she couldn’t fight off or ignore, but for some reason, she was grateful for it now.

Almost as if Aldous’s touch, his warmth encircling her while she struggled even to stay upright, was the only thing keeping her away from oblivion’s edge.

Why the hell would she even think something like that?

“But now that you brought it up,” he added, “are you sure you should be going anywhere tomorrow?”

Rebecca blinked to clear her blurring vision. When she finally succeeded, she realized she was staring right up into those glowing silver eyes, noticing the way they crinkled at the corners, even when the look he gave her now was filled with so much concern, she might almost have called it tenderness.

But that didn’t make sense. He didn’t even know her.

Maxwell didn’t care so much about what happened to her specifically. This was his concern for Shade talking. He’d already made that crystal-clear, as well as his feelings about her .

This was just the homunculus poison and Zida’s instant-energy remedy playing tricks on her mind. When she cleared it all out again, she’d be back to normal.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Rebecca replied in a hoarse whisper, working harder than normal to force out the words. “We’re going tomorrow night. I just need— ”

She had no idea what happened after that. Either a brain-blip from how much weaker she became by the second, or she’d passed out.

But when she realized something had happened, she also realized she wasn’t so much standing beside Maxwell in front of her room anymore but was practically being carried in his arms, though her feet still brushed across the floor.

Was that him sighing in relief?

“Thanks for the assist,” she told him. “I’m sure this is all normal. You don’t have to—”

He snatched up her left arm—not too hard or forcefully but just enough to make her hold still in surprise. Then Maxwell dipped his head toward her wrist and forearm, where, beneath her jacket sleeve, Zida’s bandage covered Rebecca’s worsening hand-shaped wound.

She would have laughed at him sniffing her arm if it wasn’t such an awkward thing for anyone to do—and if she’d had the energy for laughing.

Instead, Rebecca tried to pull away, but Maxwell tightened his grip on her arm to sniff at it one more time before his eyes widened. Then he met her gaze again. “Something’s wrong.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” This time, when she tried to laugh, it made her sound like she was trying not to choke.

And she hoped whatever he thought he smelled on her wasn’t the extra special vial she’d slipped into her pocket.

Maxwell cleared his throat, apparently waiting for her to look at him.

She tried not to, then realized why when she finally met his gaze and found the shifter looking genuinely worried. Which never made anyone feel better about themselves.

“That arm needs more attention than you’ve given it,” he said, his voice low and this time without its usual growl added to practically everything he said.

Rebecca’s gaze dropped to the shifter’s lips, only because he leaned in so close now, it was impossible not to.

Or was she just telling herself that?

If a shifter with his sense of smell had commented on the state of her wounded arm just because he’d sniffed it a few times, this injury of hers was worse than she’d been willing to admit.

Worse than she could let anyone know at this point, because no one wanted a brand-new commander behind the wheel who’d come already severely injured.

“It’s, uh…just a real stubborn one,” she said through a grunt. “Perks of fighting off a few homunculi in the halls. Not a big deal, though. Zida’s working on something to clear it out.”

Only when Maxwell studied her for an incredibly long time while halfway holding her in his arms—which were so wonderfully warm, she suddenly didn’t mind—Rebecca remembered the night he’d told her he could smell a lie too.

Hopefully the wound on her arm carried such a strong odor that it overpowered the scent of that one little white lie right now.

Then another wave of the invisible wake-up potion hit her, and she managed to sustain most of her weight on her own two feet.

“See?” she said, trying to covertly sneak herself out of his grasp.

Maxwell let her go gently enough, but he didn’t look happy about it.

Rebecca turned to face him and spread her arms. “Like I said. I just need more rest. It’s been a hell of a couple days, you know?”

The shifter nodded, and then—surprise of all twice-cursed surprises—he reached out to straighten her jacket before quickly brushing dirt or lint or something off her shoulder.

Her gut told her there hadn’t actually been anything there to brush off.

“If you say you’re fine, I’ll take your word for it.” Maxwell’s words came out now like a gentle rumble instead of his normal curt growl.

What was that supposed to mean?

“But I just have to say this once,” he added, “and then I’ll drop it. Maybe take it easy on those vials, huh? Harkennr left the time of this meeting up to you and your earliest convenience. At the rate you’re going, your earliest convenience might not be tomorrow. So if you need more time, we can always—”

“I told you tomorrow, Hannigan,” she said, finally pulling it together to remove herself fully from his hold and stand on her own again. “I meant it. I’ll be fine. I just need a full night of sleep that isn’t in an infirmary bed, and I’ll take it easy tomorrow. Then we move out tomorrow night with that team. Got it?”

He didn’t look convinced.

He didn’t look like he wanted to let her go, either, but then Rebecca opened her bedroom door and stepped through it.

“Just think about it,” he said behind her. “About taking it easy on those vials. Whatever that stuff is, it’s obviously powerful. And to be honest, right now, I can’t smell anything else on you.”

Oh, how sweet…

“If it ends up completely overwhelming your scent,” he added, “that’ll become a major problem. For both of us.”

Rebecca scoffed. “Oh really? Because what I smell like is somehow any of your concern? ”

“Because if I can’t track you, Roth-Da’al, it interferes with my ability to do my job.”

She gripped the edge of the door with both hands, hoping it wasn’t overly obvious that she did so to keep herself upright again, and shot him a tight smile. “Your job . Right. Which includes sniffing me whenever you feel like it?”

Okay, maybe the sarcastic-and-prickly way wasn’t the best method right now, but she really needed him to get the hell out of her doorway and leave her alone.

So she could go do what she did best out there on the streets of Chicago. Under the cover of darkness. Alone.

Her wry comment did what it was supposed to do.

A second later, all the concern and openness it had carried across Maxwell’s features disappeared, replaced in an instant by that perpetual scowl that made her a lot more comfortable to see now, because she needed to expect it.

“I’m not going to answer that,” he said.

“Great. I didn’t want you to. I need you to put that team together, Max. Intentionally. With all the right operatives to come in tomorrow night. I’ll be ready to brief them in the morning. You’re dismissed.”

He looked surprised by that, maybe even as surprised as Rebecca was to hear those words coming from her mouth, but the words had a purpose and were quite effective.

Her Head of Security turned quickly on his heels and stormed off down the hallway to go carry out his orders.

She didn’t even wait for him to get halfway down the hall before slamming her bedroom door shut and taking a deep breath.

When she could no longer hear his footsteps—and then after waiting just a little longer—she pulled out the last vial she’d taken from her desk and struggled for what felt like another two hours just to pry out the stopper.

She finally managed it with her teeth again, and the vial’s contents blasted into her lungs to fill her with their effects racing through her brain, racing through her veins, piercing her skull, flooding her exhausted limbs with borrowed energy and strength.

This was it. The one shot she had to take care of this the right way. Her own way.

Rebecca just hoped playing up her current infirmity had convinced Maxwell enough to keep him away from her for the rest of the night.

Only on her own, unseen and especially un-followed, could she leave the compound to find a target for her Bloodshadow magic. Once she did, she could then pry the homunculus poison out of herself and finally get her body back .

If Maxwell found out what she was doing, he’d be beyond pissed. It certainly wouldn’t help her case now or in the future. Not as far as the shifter was concerned.

Even less helpful to her overall, though, was the possibility of anyone remotely connected to the Azyyt Ra’al or Rebecca’s other enemies or her old life finding out who Shade’s new leader really was. Of anyone discovering that the Bloodshadow Court’s secret weapon was actually right here in Chicago, right under their noses.

If they put that puzzle together, the consequences would be so much worse, not just for Rebecca but for all of Shade.

If she was found out here, it would ruin everything for all of them.

Dammit, being in charge of an entire task force like this was practically her worst nightmare, second only to being discovered.

Leadership roles sucked. Some people just weren’t built for them. She liked to think she was included in that category.

The situation in which she now found herself was exactly why Rebecca had never wanted to lead anything or anyone, even when she’d been raised to believe her purpose and her destiny would never include anything else. That her life was meant for nothing but fulfilling her role as a leader and as the Bloodshadow Heir, as the next elf in a long and proud bloodline.

That all Rebecca would ever be and do amounted to stepping up onto the dais of the Shadowed Seat and taking her place so someone else wouldn’t be forced into such a position, just like her.

Fuck that. She wouldn’t let it happen.

No matter what kind of decision she made, someone always ended up getting screwed. Rebecca’s aim now was to make sure the terrible side effects of her decisions endangered the fewest number of people possible.

The best way to do that was to get out on her own and fix this. To make herself whole again, healed and back at full power, when Shade needed a good leader now more than ever before.

She just really fucking hoped this last dose of Zida’s potion wouldn’t wear off before she could get the job done.

Or she might not ever step foot inside Shade headquarters again.