Elven Blood (Court of Rebellion #5)

1. Chapter 1

1

T reading carefully through the underbrush, Rebecca couldn’t ignore the fact that even Maxwell’s presence beside her—stealthy and soundless, as always—didn’t undermine the sense of wary suspicion and mind-numbing dread growing inside her.

Only a few steps into the woods, and it felt like all the moonlight had been sucked out of existence. She couldn’t see the stars through the trees. The darkness crowded in around her like a shroud, squeezing tighter with every step.

Probably Rowan’s doing, just to let her know he actually meant business this time.

Or she was imagining it, which only catered to Rowan’s larger motives here.

If he’d gotten her to second-guess her own instincts, imagining deeper darkness and isolation than reality confirmed, he’d already won. The second Rebecca stopped trusting herself, the fight was over.

She shot Maxwell a sidelong glance, relieved to see the silhouette of his prominent jawline clenched in suspicion, strong nose, and glowing silver eyes again instead of the old-man illusion. He’d always been there underneath, but the sight of him as his true self beside her now offered much more support and a steady assuredness only the shifter could provide.

Whatever happened next, they’d be facing it together.

Now she wished she’d had the chance to tell him everything the other day, before Rick’s last interruption. It would have prepared Maxwell for what they were about to step into with Rowan once they reached “his office.”

Dropping a mega-bomb of sensitive information on the shifter all at once would have been a precarious undertaking in and of itself. But for Maxwell to learn everything tonight, under custody of the Blackmoon Clan’s Scion and his Hakalini’ir Battalion…

Anyone would buckle under that kind of revelation. When it came from Rowan specifically, Maxwell would lose his shit.

Rebecca reminded herself to keep the conversation with her old friend brief and to the point. If she stepped in to avoid bombarding her Head of Security with the full weight of the Bloodshadow Court’s secrets and Rebecca’s true identity, that could mitigate some of the damage.

The bigger problem, though, was that she had no idea what to expect from Rowan during this chat. He’d surprised her with his disappearance. He’d seemingly given up trying to bring her back home according to his own designs. He’d abandoned Shade and all the operatives he’d worked with and lived with for months.

And then he’d used his knowledge of her task force to take down their partners and contractors, one by one, until Shade had nowhere left to turn.

Rowan could demand anything at this point. If he did, Rebecca would have to surrender.

Or Shade would be wiped off the map tonight, just like everyone else who had known them.

Her stomach folded in on itself, curdling and hardening as she and Maxwell finally reached a small area of cleared trees, the underbrush mostly pulled from the ground.

Rowan stood in front of an abandoned temp building, leaning casually against the exterior wall beside a flimsy door hanging askew from rusted hinges. He smirked and raised an eyebrow when his guests emerged from the thickest part of the woods around them.

Rebecca refused to meet his gaze and studied their surroundings instead.

The small building—nothing more than a trailer hoisted off the ground with a short set of stairs up to a stoop big enough for one—must have been a temporary foreman’s office during construction in the area. Like the Polly “L” Bridge, the area had also been abandoned halfway through finishing its work.

A broken excavator lay off to the side, rusted and overgrown with weeds. Piles of dirt rose all around the temp building, and to her left, a giant crater had been dug into the earth beside the already poured foundation of another building.

Whoever had tried to build out here had left in a hurry without bothering to either finish or break down what they’d started.

The ruins of someone else’s half-realized dreams, decades old.

The cold irony made her want to blast the office to bits.

Instead, Rebecca lifted her chin and continued toward her old friend turned traitor and captor, still refusing to meet Rowan’s gaze.

Not because she couldn’t stomach it; he no longer deserved the satisfaction of looking her in the eye.

After this meeting, she had no doubt he’d be even less worthy of it.

But she still had to do this.

Before she and Maxwell crossed the cleared area around the building, Rowan spun away from the outer wall, kicked the bottom of the door before it swung open with a clunky groan, and disappeared into the darkness.

Rebecca climbed the short set of stairs without stopping, though a brief pain speared through her core when Maxwell paused on the ground to search the area with a low growl.

That pain eased a second later before the tiny porch creaked and wobbled beneath the shifter’s added weight as he ascended right behind her.

No matter how she tried to spin it, Rebecca couldn’t conceive of any scenario in which all three of them walked away from this sitdown relatively satisfied. Rowan would come out on top no matter what, having cornered her into a real-life checkmate. She would have to relinquish something , most likely her entire life on Earth and every ounce of her freedom.

And Maxwell would either pull himself together long enough to take over Shade in her place, or he’d try to fight for her and end up dead before the night was over.

If she played her cards right, they would all walk away from this with the least shitty outcome for all of them.

If Maxwell did as she’d asked and let her handle this.

The door wouldn’t open any farther than three feet, even with a good shove. The second she stepped through the temp building’s crooked door, the glow of half a dozen conjured light orbs floating beneath the ceiling greeted her.

The office trailer was falling apart on the inside too—laminate siding peeling off the walls; loose papers scattered across the floor among a collection of bone-dry leaves, all of them curled with age and stained by dust and decades of shifting elements; two warped metal folding chairs; a heavy two-drawer desk propped up on a stack of cinderblocks where one of its legs used to be; and a squeaking office chair chosen for minimalist portability over elegance and comfort.

Rowan sat in that chair, both boots propped up on the edge of the desk, smirking at his emerging guests.

His newest prisoners of war.

Rebecca’s nostrils flared at the scent of molding leaves and aged construction materials still lingering in the air. If this was Rowan’s “office”, he’d clearly chosen it just for tonight.

“I’d offer you some tea,” he crooned, “but admittedly, I haven’t been here long enough to properly outfit the place for guests. This is something of a last-minute setup.”

She stormed right up to the desk and only stopped when she couldn’t walk anymore before finally meeting his gaze with all the hatred and righteous indignation his betrayal had already stirred up in her. The sight of him lounging in front of her like this only fueled her rage. “Talk.”

“Oh no.” Rowan’s chuckle almost made her cringe. He pulled both boots swiftly off the desk, then he leaned sideways to reach for the floor before the room filled with the crinkle of paper. “We’re doing this the right way. At a table. Breaking bread together as the laws of vri-túl’ak demand. Our mutually assured survival. For now.”

He sat upright again and dropped a crinkled paper bag onto the desk with a thump. Then he leaned over the bag’s top and inhaled deeply through his nose, closing his eyes. “Smell that? Wow. This is supposed to be one of the best things this city has to offer, if you can believe it. Here.”

When Rowan withdrew an oblong package wrapped in red-and-white-checkered paper and extended it toward her, Rebecca wanted to chuck the damn thing at his head. All she could do was stand there in front of his lopsided desk, glaring down at him.

He wanted vri-túl’ak ? Right now?

After realizing she wouldn’t accept his offer, Rowan shrugged, set the package on the desk in front of her, and pulled out another for himself. The otherwise tantalizing scent of a Chicago-style hotdog in a freshly baked bun saturated the air even before he’d fully unwrapped it.

The smell made her stomach twist even tighter around itself.

Mustard, diced onions, and chunks of relish splattered onto the open paper beneath him when Rowan took his first bite. He closed his eyes with a humming sigh of approval, then flicked his gaze back toward Rebecca’s face again as he chewed.

She didn’t move.

After a few seconds of staring back at her, he nodded toward the crooked metal chairs behind her and spoke around his mouthful. “It doesn’t count if you don’t take a seat.”

By the Shadowed Seat, he was actually pulling this old-world bullshit on her tonight, inside this rickety abandoned temp building, just the two of them.

And Maxwell.

Rebecca knew Rowan wouldn’t move forward through the rest of his plan if she didn’t play along.

But following the laws of vri-túl’ak with Rowan Blackmoon was nothing like entering the old Xaharí truce with Kordus Harkennr. Not even close.

Rebecca spun, snatched up one of the metal chairs, and clanged it down noisily in front of the desk. The chair squealed in protest and threatened to fall apart at the joints when she dropped into it. Then she grabbed the hotdog, ripped open the wrapper on one end, and tore off an enormous bite with a violent jerk of her head.

She glared daggers at the Blackmoon Elf while she took out her anger on the food he’d offered to seal their agreed-upon ceasefire until the vri-túl’ak came to an end. She swallowed once, grimaced at the feeling of food she didn’t want and barely tasted sliding down her throat, then tossed what remained in the wrapper back onto the desk.

“There.” What remained in her mouth, she furiously spit out onto the floor beside her chair, never once removing her furious challenging stare from Rowan’s face. “ Now talk.”

From the moment she’d snatched up the damn hotdog, Rowan’s only response was to break into a grin, pausing in the enjoyment of his own meal to watch her intently. Even now, he didn’t even seem to notice Maxwell standing protectively behind her chair, though the shifter’s presence in this tiny temporary office space couldn’t be truly ignored.

Rebecca felt Maxwell behind her, as always. The rigid tautness of his muscles, all of them coiled to spring if necessary. The rhythm of his steady breath fluttering across the back of her neck. The tempting burn of his closeness warring with both their anger nearly combined into a single entity between them.

Of course Rowan would act like he didn’t notice a thing. Like he didn’t owe either of them an explanation or even a half-assed apology.

Not that she would have accepted one now.

When he was apparently satisfied with her part in their vri-túl’ak ritual, Rowan took another enormous bite and chewed noisily with the bare-faced self-centeredness of someone who knew they had nothing to lose. Then he tossed the rest of the hotdog over his shoulder, where it struck the wall with a splatter of mustard before dropping to the trailer floor.

The next second, his infuriating amusement disappeared, replaced by a rare seriousness. “First, I want you to know that I did everything in my power to avoid this situation—”

“Bullshit,” Rebecca snapped. “You’ve been loving every second of this. Do you realize how many hundreds of civilians you’ve murdered in this city in the last three days alone? Civilians , Rowan. They had nothing to do with you and me!”

Her outburst surprised them both, but she just didn’t have the patience to sit here and pretend this conversation was going to go any other way. Rowan had already eradicated the possibility of a civil chat. This was something else altogether.

He blinked at her, then sighed and dipped his head. “Okay, look. I didn’t murder anyone…”

“Your battalion did. just your fucking battalion! And who do they take orders from, huh? It’s the same fucking thing—”

“No!” Rowan jerked forward over the desk, as if he meant to leap out of his chair. He didn’t, but his finger thrust in her face got him another warning growl from Maxwell.

If the Blackmoon Elf moved a single inch closer, Rebecca had no problem letting Maxwell take care of the rest of it for her.

She could already feel the shifter readying for it, as if he’d read her mind and now thanked her for the preemptive permission.

Not many other people would have seen it, but she definitely noticed the slight tremble in Rowan’s arm and extended finger as he pointed at her.

He inhaled through his nose and seemed to pull himself back under control. “No. It is not the same. I know you hate me right now, and you have every reason in the world to feel that way, Kilda’ari —”

“Don’t ever fucking call me that,” she hissed. “You’ve lost the right.”

Rowan pulled away from her with a flickering frown of confusion and hurt that lasted only a second. Then he lowered his hand and straightened in his chair. All calm and collected and well-put-together on the outside.

She didn’t even care anymore what he felt on the inside.

“But I’m asking you to put aside your anger so I can explain the full story,” he added, as if she’d never interrupted him. “You’ve seen more than enough, but you weren’t there to see and hear it for yourself when I first arrived in Chicago.

“You didn’t hear the orders I gave before you and I first saw each other again. The moment I pinpointed your location, I ordered my Hakalini’ir to stand down and wait. I wanted to go in alone and get a feel for things. For you . For what it might take to pull you out of your pretending in this world so I could bring you home.

“And Rebecca, I swear on Akskashirim’s Robes, I truly believed you were pretending.”

She snorted. “You only saw what you wanted to see. Forget the fact that I kept telling you the goddamn truth.”

“Oh, and everything out of your mouth should be taken at face value by everyone , is that it?”

Rebecca nearly bit straight through her tongue trying to hold back all the cruel, viciously honest things she could have thrown at him in response. No matter what she said now, none of it would get through to him. He’d already made his choice, or they wouldn’t be here right now.

Envisioning the many varied ways she could make him pay for this betrayal—to torture him the way this discovery of his deception had tortured her for the last twenty minutes—was the only thing keeping her in this shitty chair and her deadliest magic in check.

With another deep inhale through his nose, Rowan closed his eyes to pull himself together again. His voice softened even more when he continued, as if he were pleading with her now.

Only Rowan Blackmoon didn’t plead with anyone for anything. Not truly.

“It didn’t seem possible that you’d actually found something in this world full of strangers,” he added. “Strangers who know nothing about you. I couldn’t let myself believe any of this could have possibly fulfilled you enough to make you want to stay. Honestly, I thought you were trying to get back at me. Make me pay for not having been for you what it took me way too long to realize I should have been.”

“Even after I explained exactly what I’m doing here and why I’m staying,” Rebecca stated, her voice emotionless and flat despite the rage burning through her. “I stood right in front of you and told you what I would never do. And you still thought I was pretending.”

“Yeah, I know.” Rowan rolled his eyes, then absently swept at the decades of dust layered onto the desk’s surface, though his fingers barely made a smudge through the grime. “I was an idiot. I had my own preconceived notions, and I didn’t come into this with an open mind at all. I know that.

“And I’m sorry for it.”

“Too late for that now,” she muttered.

It had always been too late. It had just taken both of them a few months of floundering in their own issues to come to the realization.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Because I realized how wrong I’d been the night we burned down Harkennr’s warehouse and kept your shifter from death’s door.”

The ferocity of Maxwell’s next snarl reverberating through her chest made it feel like the trailer’s dilapidated walls would crumble down around all three of them at any second.

“Without your fuck-ups,” the shifter snarled, “it wouldn’t have been necessary.”

“Your shifter who’s fully recovered now, I see.” For the first time, Rowan broke from Rebecca’s gaze to turn his attention onto Maxwell. “You’re welcome.”

At the intensity of the searing heat burning through her veins—straight from the shifter standing on the verge of unleashing his wolf—Rebecca stretched her fingers out to her side to stop him. The desk blocked Rowan’s view of it anyway, but she preferred subtle messaging over publicly telling Maxwell to hold back and wait.

She probably wouldn’t have even needed to move at all.

The agonizing blaze of Maxwell’s readiness died down instantly, and she knew he’d gotten the message.

That didn’t stop him from growling again, this one almost inaudibly low and fiercely protective.

Rowan had already returned his hazel gaze to her face so he could continue.

He would talk and talk and talk until he felt satisfied with his bevy of excuses for slipping away from all accountability, and then he’d expect her to forgive him for all of it.

She didn’t know what she’d do at the end of this, but it sure as hell wasn’t that .

One way or another, though, Rebecca knew this wasn’t going to end the way Rowan clearly expected it would.

Even if she had to get her hands dirty first to then clean up his mess.