45. Chapter 45

45

A s she tracked Maxwell’s wolf across the outskirts of Chicago, Rebecca was so furious, she was sure she’d kill him for what he’d done.

Assuming she caught up with him before he made it back to headquarters.

Would she have gone easy on him if he’d stuck around after crashing her solo investigation of Harkennr’s operations base? Probably not. But forcing her to track him in his wolf form for the last half hour obliterated any chance he might have had to escape the worst of her wrath.

Now she wanted to hurt something. Badly. Preferably Maxwell Hannigan.

She almost had him before his tracks deviated from the straight route back to headquarters and veered across a trailer park instead.

Just as Rebecca passed the first mobile home in her way, separated from its neighbors by a surprisingly large lot, she caught the end of an enormous paw and a thick gray tail disappearing into a blackberry bramble.

Did he seriously think he could avoid any and all consequences for what he’d done tonight? That he could just disappear from sight, and she’d forget all about it?

Her pulse pounded, the blood rushed in her ears, and her entire body blazed with the fire of her growing anger at the shifter who’d ruined her night. Not to mention her chances of discovering who they were really up against before she officially accepted Harkennr’s invitation.

If she ever did after this.

The bushes rustled as Rebecca stormed toward them, and she launched a crackling sphere of crimson battle magic at the source of the movement.

Stripped leaves erupted in the air with a shower of blazing red sparks and smoking brambles. A muffled crack, sizzling hiss, and a brilliant flash of silver light from within the bushes followed almost immediately .

“Oh fuck…” The whisper of a few other unintelligible words followed Maxwell’s exclamation, then the rest of the bushes rustled wildly before a low growl burst from with the tangled branches.

“I know you saw me,” Maxwell snarled from his hiding place. “What are you doing ?”

“Guessing,” Rebecca snapped and summoned another crimson orb to let it fill the night with a warning glow and crackle in her palm. “But if you grew a spine and quit hiding in the bushes, I wouldn’t have to. I’m a perfect shot when I can see …”

“Grew a spine ?” he grumbled. “If I hadn’t shown up when I did—”

“My night would’ve gone exactly the way it was supposed to. But no. You just had to get involved.”

Another growl emerged from the rustling bushes. “ You left without me.”

“On purpose!” She sent her second sphere of battle magic cracking into the bushes.

With a yelp, Maxwell moved through the wildly trembling brambles. “What’s wrong with you? We’re on the same side!”

“Not when you’re cowering in the fucking shrubbery!” she shouted back, summoning one more attack. “Do I have to set the whole thing on fire and smoke you out?”

“Unbelievable. I was doing my job, and you—Hey!”

Rebecca’s third magical blast into the bushes cut him off, and she snarled as she summoned a fourth.

“Jesus, all right. Fine! Just stop !”

The brambles trembled violently, dropping shredded leaves and whole clumps of heavy, ripe blackberries before Maxwell finally stumbled through the thickly twining vines and branches and into the open.

She’d already stormed toward the edge of the bushes to meet him there, snuffing out her battle magic to clench her fist instead.

When the shifter’s face came into view, Rebecca let her fist fly into it. Her knuckles cracked against the side of his jaw.

He reeled back with a grunt. “What the—”

“ You sounded their breach alarm,” she snarled, hardly feeling the sting in her fist as she cocked it back for another swing. “ You alerted the whole damn base. I had to stop you from running snout-first into that prison teeming with Harkennr’s soldiers, and then you make me chase you down ?”

She swung again, channeling all her anger and annoyance and admittedly some still-existing fear into her second blow aimed at the shifter’s face.

Maxwell reacted faster than she’d thought possible, his arm moving in a blur she hardly saw before he clamped a hand around her wrist and caught her punch two inches from his chin.

The instant flare of tingling energy and warmth mixing with her burning rage made Rebecca freeze even as she scowled at him.

His hold on her tightened, and his eyes flashed with warning silver as he growled. “I strongly suggest you stop trying to fight me, Roth-Da’al.”

Screw him.

Rebecca couldn’t fight him the way she wanted. Not without revealing the true source of her power, which would only make him question her that much more. As long as Maxwell insisted on trailing her at every turn and hovering over her every move, she had to keep acting like any other elf who probably could have matched Maxwell Hannigan in speed and strength but would have been hard-pressed to overtake him as easily as she knocked everyone else to the ground.

Dammit, she couldn’t even be angry without holding back.

So instead, she let another snarl burst from her lips as she glared at him and let herself play his game. “That’s a two-way street, shifter .”

She knew the second she said it that she shouldn’t have. Not like that. But what else was she supposed to do? She couldn’t hurt him—at least not the way she liked to think would have made her feel better about the way he’d ruined her night.

So she’d gone with trying to tear him down for something he couldn’t help or control?

Not very commander-like, was it?

Maxwell narrowed his eyes, then released his grip on her wrist the same second Rebecca tried to jerk it out of his grasp.

Without a word, the shifter slipped away from her to storm across the surprisingly private back yard of the closest trailer home.

Buck naked.

By the time she thought she remembered what she’d been trying to say, Maxwell had already walked away from her toward a clothesline hanging yards away from the closest trailer home, completely oblivious to his own nakedness.

Either that or he was deliberately trying to get under her skin. And unfortunately for Rebecca, it was working.

She clenched her fists and ground her teeth as she glowered after him, reminding herself yet again that she’d spent way too much time watching the shifter’s bare ass as he walked away from her instead of focusing on their budding argument and all the valid, valuable points she still wanted to make .

“You know what?” Maxwell stopped in front of the backyard clothesline and hardly paused to consider his options before yanking random items off the strung rope. “I don’t even know why I bother with you. I should just let you do whatever you want, whenever you want.”

“You won’t hear me argue with that,” she snarled.

“You’ll end up proving me right in record time anyway,” he continued. “And at the rate you’re going, you’ll run Shade right into the ground at the same time. Maybe even sooner. Won’t be too hard for you to pick up where Aldous left off. You’ve already proven yourself frighteningly competent at fucking everything up.”

This fucking asshole.

“So, hey.” With a nonchalant shrug, Maxwell stepped into a pair of someone else’s cargo pants. “You wanna be left alone from here on out? You got it. I’m just the shifter at your service, Roth-Da’al, and when you crash and burn and take the rest of us down with you, I’ll get to say I told you so.”

“Do you ever stop spewing bullshit?” she snapped.

Maxwell turned away from the clothesline to widen his eyes at her as if she were some intriguing but not particularly relevant bit of entertainment in front of him.

Then the last of her self-control dissipated, and she hissed, charging toward him. “And who the fuck do you think you are anyway? Because I can tell you one thing for sure, wolf. You’re not in command here, and I am so fucking tired of your pushback.”

Eyeing her with the same level of emotionless apathy as every other time she never got a reaction out of him, Maxwell calmly slid his arms through the sleeves of a borrowed button-down shirt and said nothing.

That only infuriated her more.

“I don’t give a shit what you think about me or whether or not you trust me,” Rebecca snarled. “I need you to back the off. I’m the one running things now. I’m the one calling the shots.”

She only realized she was bearing down on him step by step when his eyes flashed once as he took a small step back, then he turned away from her to peruse more of the clotheslines.

But now she couldn’t stop herself.

“And while we’re here, Hannigan, I can promise you won’t find whatever it is about me you think you’re looking for. You’re not the only one who’s tried, and you won’t be the only one who fails. So leave it the fuck alone, quit screwing with my shit, and learn how to follow fucking orders! Like turning around to face your commander when she’s speaking to you—”

Maxwell whirled around and took a lunging step toward her, as if he’d been waiting for the moment when he finally pushed her to her limits and she lost control of herself.

Maybe even the moment she attacked him, provoked or otherwise, because then he’d have something concrete to hang over her head.

His snarling growl wasn’t in annoyance or frustration this time but as a direct challenge.

Then they were standing toe to toe, practically on top of one another, but neither of them moved.

Rebecca glared up into those silver eyes flashing with a brilliant, strobing flare that probably excelled at intimidating others. One corner of his lip twitched to bear a sliver of his teeth in the darkness, and she waited for the shifter to make his move.

If he did, she’d put him down.

If he did, she wouldn’t have a choice.

The strongest blaze of contradictory urges ran through her the next second, which only made knowing what to do that much harder.

She wanted to conjure her spear and run it straight through Maxwell Hannigan to get rid of him for good. And at the same time, just as strongly, she wanted to rip those stolen clothes right back off him again because she preferred that version of him so much more—

Wait. What ?

Dammit. She couldn’t keep thinking this shit around him. This had to stop.

There it was again—that goddamn tingling across her skin, even while he loomed over her with a furious, snarling challenge.

The challenge she’d risen to so she could finally start acting like the boss Shade had made her.

He didn’t have to like it. But if this was going to work out, he needed to back the fuck down.

Whether or not the wolf in him would allow it was a different matter altogether.

He growled again, his anger-heavy breath only slightly slower than hers while they stared each other down. Then Maxwell snorted and finally broke the tension.

“Did you have a point?” he asked, leaning ever so slightly closer while that Blood-cursed tingle across her flesh intensified into a burning rush that almost made her forget her own name.

Almost.

“My point, Hannigan,” Rebeca hissed, “is that you don’t get to control me. You don’t get to choose what I do or where I go— ”

“And you don’t get to do whatever you want,” he snapped.

“What I want is none of your business!”

“When it endangers the entire task force you said you were trying to save? You’re damn right it’s my business. The truth always comes out eventually, elf. I suggest you get on the right side of it before that happens.”

She huffed out a laugh and stepped even closer. If she had to out-alpha this lone wolf, fine. It wouldn’t be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

Even if it was the last thing she did now, she would draw the line, and she’d make certain Maxwell saw it before he decided to step over it more time.

“Is that a threat, soldier?” she asked.

Dammit, she hated the way that sounded—the pompousness, the control, the superiority. Everything she’d left behind with the Bloodshadow Court when she’d left that life forever in her past.

But if she’d kept anything with her from her old life on Xahar’áhsh, it was the knowledge of exactly how to pull rank on someone for whom rank actually mattered. Even as she hated every second of it.

Maxwell’s silver eyes bored into hers, and he growled again. Unflinching and unmoving and unwilling to back down.

Until he wasn’t.

The next second, there was a sudden, unexpected softening in his silvery glare. An acceptance, maybe. Or a change of heart.

She couldn’t help but think something had changed, though she hadn’t even done anything yet.

“No,” he said simply, then tilted his head. “I wouldn’t dream of threatening you .”

Rebecca couldn’t tell if that was sarcasm or if he was being serious. But it didn’t matter anymore.

The standoff had suddenly come to an end, and now she realized he was standing way too close.

“Great.” Unable to keep her gaze from dropping to his bare chest, she scoffed, pretended to dismiss the whole thing, and took two steps back before spreading her arms. “Put a fucking shirt on, will ya?”

Maxwell blinked slowly, then looked down at his bare torso beneath the unbuttoned shirt he’d snagged off the line. Then he met her gaze again and almost smirked. “Something bothering you, Roth-Da’al?”

A bitter laugh escaped her. “So many things, Max. Believe me. Like, for instance, if my Head of Security’s gonna be such a stickler for the rules, he needs to follow them. ”

She looked him up and down again—bare chest rippling with well-defined muscle even in the low light; the snugly fitting cargo pants that definitely weren’t his; bare feet digging into the earth.

“And I wouldn’t exactly call that regulation,” she added glibly. “Would you?”

“Funny.” His tone had completely changed now, matching hers with its level of apathy and unaffectedness. Like he wanted her to think he really didn’t give a shit.

Rebecca was only playing that part right now. Because if she let herself give in to her frustration, she’d end up doing something to him she would instantly regret.

Like severely injuring him.

Or revealing her Bloodshadow power and her true nature to him, effectively putting herself in his debt.

Or jumping his bones out here in the middle of nowhere between two crumbling trailer homes…

Jesus. That kind of thinking had to stop.

As Maxwell slowly buttoned up his stolen shirt—a nice blue and gray flannel that somehow made his eyes look even more silver than they already were—she caught a glimpse of him watching her. Not quite smirking but almost, like he thoroughly enjoyed how much he’d just pissed her off.

Whether he took his sweet time to finish dressing himself in other people’s clothes on purpose was anyone’s guess. But at least it gave her time to cool off.

And to realize that what the two of them really need right now was a truce. Temporary if it had to be, fine, but something was better than nothing. It had to be, if they were going to make it through this less-than-ideal scenario of Rebecca sitting in the commander’s seat and neither of them all too happy about it.

If they were going to pull Shade out of the giant crater in which Aldous had left it.

Maxwell was a pain in her ass. He’d screwed with her plans to an almost disastrous degree and clearly knew exactly how to push her buttons.

But she couldn’t deny the fact that they’d worked fairly well together in the prison yard, just the two of them, given the circumstances. Nor could she turn a blind eye to all the hard work still waiting for them back at headquarters.

If they were ever going to make it through whatever came next, they’d have to work together. At the very least, that meant coming to some kind of mutually understood agreement.

When he finally finished buttoning up the shirt, Rebecca took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh before trying again. “Look, if you’re gonna keep doing this, being my Head of Security, second in command, whatever…doing your job the way you say it needs to be done, then you gotta do all your job. Including taking me seriously.”

“Interesting.”

She cocked her head and fixed him with a deadpan stare. “I’m serious, Hannigan. I need you to follow orders, not try to undermine them. If we’re gonna make this work, you need to be the guy I can depend on to get shit done, when I need it done.”

She took two slow steps toward him and ran a hand through her hair, trying to summon the parts of herself that knew this kind of diplomacy for mutual benefit was the only solution right now, no matter how much he infuriated her.

“Does it need to go both ways?” she continued. “Absolutely. But I’m not prying into your secrets to figure out whether or not you’re good enough to do your job. And I won’t. All I’m asking for is the same courtesy from you, all right? Then maybe, once we get past that part, we might finally learn to tolerate each other.”

Maxwell didn’t respond. He didn’t move a muscle as he stood there, barefoot in some random stranger’s clothes, watching her while she delivered her little speech. His silver eyes flickered back and forth across her face.

That was the look of someone who’d finally decided to listen.

But he still wasn’t going to give in, was he?

No, he would refuse to meet her in the middle, because he was a stubborn asshole who would rather focus on not trusting her than on what could be done for the benefit of their shared responsibility.

She almost turned away from him, to leave him there in the trailer park and figure out a different way on her own, because she’d given what she could, and he just wasn’t willing to budge.

But then he cleared his throat and muttered, “You’re right.”

Well that was unexpected.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow.

“I still don’t trust you,” he added, “but I can trust the job. Maybe even your dedication to it. If you quit running off every night like this.”

“I can’t make any promises,” she said.

“Yeah, me neither. But I can follow orders.”

“Yeah, instead of following me,” she reiterated. “Not both at the same time.”

Maxwell snorted. “Sure. You’re still the commander. And I will follow orders from my commander. That I can do. For Shade.”

Finally, they were starting to get somewhere .

“Thank you.” She tried not to let even more aggravation seep into the small bit of gratitude, even while she genuinely meant it.

Then Maxwell stepped forward to loom over her again and lowered his voice into another deep, threatening growl. “But if you fuck this up, elf, I will come after you with everything I’ve got.”

“Fine. Deal.” Rebecca thrust her hand toward him and waited for him to take it.

He stared at her hand, then took a deep breath. “Being at the top like this isn’t supposed to be about those in power. At its core. It’s about everyone else. That’s what Aldous could never learn.”

“Trust me, I know what it’s about.”

Rebecca understood the victories and pitfalls of taking leadership.

More than she could ever let him know. She could never tell him why.

Here they were, finally coming to some kind of agreement. And now she hated herself for already knowing she would never be able to tell this stubborn-as-hell shifter who she truly was.

But her response, apparently, was convincing enough for him.

Maxwell offered a curt nod, then briskly took her hand in his for a brisk shake.

The warm tingle she’d been feeling in his presence for the last several days now erupted at the contact between their hands, rising through her fingers, up her arm, and the side of her neck, then swelling like a nice buzz after just the right number of drinks gone to her head.

She fought back a shiver of both hesitation and delight at the sensation, pretending not to notice when Maxwell’s silver eyes widened as he stared at their clasped hands.

No way it was still the homunculus poison or Zida’s invisible-gas remedy.

This was something else, and he’d felt it too.

Maxwell kept his grip around her hand longer than any appropriately binding handshake warranted, then quickly released her and headed toward the dirt path cutting through the trailer park.

This time, he walked away from her slowly enough that Rebecca had no problem catching up with her shifter second before they headed together toward the other side of town and Shade’s compound.

Now with a budding, reluctant, yet still tentative truce growing between them with every step.

When they finally reached the large parking lot outside Shade’s compound, their newfound understanding still settling in, Rebecca started to let herself think they might actually have a chance of making this work. As long as she was willing to step up into her new role as commander the way Shade needed her to.

And, of course, as long as Maxwell stuck to his word and stopped questioning everything she did.

They were just going to have to take a chance on trusting each other, for however long it took.

Her mood had definitely improved on their short trip back to headquarters,. Feeling completely like herself again definitely helped—her energy restored, no dizziness, no coughing, no pounding headaches or overpowering ebb and flow of manufactured energy that had never been truly hers from the start.

Rebecca was back.

And not a moment too soon, because when she and Maxwell reached the front doors of the compound building, it was perfectly clear something was very wrong.