Page 18 of Cast in Shadow (Drenched in Darkness #1)

18

Nguyen stared at me from the other side of my desk, his shoulders rolling forward as he pressed his palms into the solid oak. “You should have told me.”

His words came out in such a cutting tone that my first instinct was to sit back in my chair and put more space between us.

Screw that.

I stood slowly, pulling myself to my full height, and met his furious gaze head on. “What happened between me and Emerson is none of your business.”

His brow jerked up, then down. “Isn’t it? You’ve had us tracking him for years. I thought he was a threat to you. But instead, you had your team keeping tabs on your obsessive ex. Do you get how fucked up that is?”

Emerson was a threat to me. To my heart. To my sanity. To my life.

“Watch it, Nguyen. I’ll give you some leeway after what you and Shay went through tonight, but I’ve got a very short fuse.” Maybe he couldn’t see it through his own turmoil, but my nerves were beyond frayed.

“Yeah, what Shay and I went through. I watched what they did to her, Senna. Watched and couldn’t do a fucking thing.” He shook his head in disgust. “And then you let that monster touch you.”

He sounded like he wanted to be sick. Kind of looked like it, too.

“They or Phineas? Emerson told me he didn’t lay a finger on either of you. He said it was Phineas who kidnapped and tortured both of you, and that he and Jabiah intervened when they got there. Was that a lie?” If it was, I would never forgive him.

Nguyen’s expression turned icy. His upper lip curled, and he flicked the point of one long canine with his tongue. “No,” he finally ground out. “But it was one of the Brethren.”

“And between our resources and theirs, we’ll find Phineas. You have my word that he’ll pay for what he did to you both.”

He shoved away from the desk. “Jesus, Senna. That’s not even the point.” Turning his back to me, he jammed his hands into his sable hair, gripping it tight.

“Is that not what you want? Retribution for the pain he caused?”

His whole body vibrated with the breath he let out. His meaty hands fell to his sides, and then he started laughing. It was a humorless sound, but when he turned, anguish pinched his features. “I’m talking about the pain you caused. We’ve worked together for ten years. Side by side. And I’m just now figuring out that you don’t trust me enough to tell me who he really was to you.”

“It’s not a matter of trust. What he did or didn’t mean to me is my personal business. Not yours.” I folded my arms over my chest. “I asked you to track someone I saw as a threat. Simple as that.”

But my situation was far from simple, wasn’t it?

Should I have told Nguyen the truth? Did he have a right to know? I honestly didn’t know.

We stared each other down like that, with him furious and hurt, and me weighing the pros and cons of telling my second-in-command something that would undoubtedly change our dynamic significantly, until a knock at the door broke the stalemate.

Nguyen turned away with a frustrated growl.

“Come,” I called.

The door inched open, and Shayla peeked her head through. “Hey.”

Gods, she sounded so small.

“Shay, sweetie.” I moved around my desk to pull her into the room and wrap her in a hug. “You should be sleeping.”

That was how I’d left her, sleeping soundly in her bed, locked safely in her room upstairs. I hadn’t wanted to leave her up there, but I’d needed to deal with Nguyen. We sure as hell weren’t having our yelling match in front of her.

She shook her head against my shoulder. “Can’t. My dreams are…” A shudder racked her small frame.

I rubbed a gentling hand up and down her back. “I am so sorry.”

“That asshole thought he could make me talk, but I didn’t tell him anything.” Her arms tightened around me. “I didn’t give you up.”

Guilt hit me so hard it stole my breath. She should have given me up to Phineas. She should have thrown me right under that damned bus to save herself, but it wasn’t like I could say that to her now. The girl had endured gods only knew what kind of torture to keep my identity safe. And for what ?

I shot a glance at Nguyen. He was watching us, looking just as furious and helpless as I felt, with his hands balled into fists.

It wasn’t Shay’s job to protect me. I was supposed to protect her, and I’d failed.

It was, however, also Nguyen’s job to protect her. If Shay wasn’t willing to tell the Brethren who I really was to save herself, he should have done it for her.

Regret and anger burned inside of me. The memory I’d just made with Emerson turned sour in my stomach. I couldn’t even think clearly, let alone conjure the right words to soothe a young woman who’d just been tortured nearly to death.

I pulled her in tight and just held her for a minute.

She really did need rest. We all did. Nguyen hadn’t given me details on what Phineas had done to them because I wasn’t ready to hear it. Not yet, anyway. That was information that I would need time to process. Otherwise, I would end up doing something reckless.

“What can I do?” I finally asked.

She leaned back. “I feel like I’m tired enough to sleep, but I really don’t want to be alone. Can I try to catch a nap in here while you work? Like, on the floor or something?”

I could do better than that. Checking the clock, I saw that it was almost eleven o’clock. “How about you and I go up to my room? I’ll make some of that microwave kettle corn you love, and we’ll start a movie.”

A cautious smile softened her tired features. “Really? Do you have time for that?”

“I always have time for you, sweetie.”

Nguyen escorted us upstairs in silence, and when Shay asked if he wanted to stay and watch the movie too, I didn’t protest. If having him nearby made her feel safe enough to sleep, so be it. I would carve out my still beating heart for the girl. A little uncomfortable silence with an angry shifter was the least I could do.

She crashed less than twenty minutes into 50 First Dates , her favorite movie. She knew that thing backwards and forwards, line by line. The fact that she was already fast asleep, curled up next to me with her head in my lap, while the bowl of kettle corn went mostly untouched, spoke volumes.

“I can keep an eye on her,” Nguyen whispered from the plush gray reading chair beside the couch.

I shook my head, adjusting carefully, trying like hell not to disturb her. It would be a long night for my lower back sleeping upright on the couch, but it was a small price to pay. “We’ll be fine. Go get some rest. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

Not that I saw much rest or relaxation in my near future. There were too many fish still flopping around in my frying pan.

Phineas was on the loose, and I wanted to take that sonofabitch down myself. Which meant I needed to get the team started on tracking him.

Then there was the Brethren. By now, every one of them would know not just that I was alive, but that I was also the director of Lexa. That meant we needed to increase security at HQ. Doubling up on agents for missions would probably be a good thing too, at least until we knew how having a traitor in the Brethren’s midst would impact our operational safety.

And, of course, there was Emerson. I couldn’t even process everything with him yet.

There was so much damage control to do, and so many questions that needed answers.

Would the Brethren still hate me as much now that they knew Phineas was lying about Theloneus? Was their animosity toward Lexa based solely on that one strike, or was there more to it ?

If I was being honest, after talking with Emerson, it felt like the latter.

Also, why would Phineas turn on one of his demon brothers? They’d walked the Earth for millennia. Sometimes together, sometimes not, but after that much time in someone’s life, you’d think you could figure out how to work through any differences. Or at least walk away.

And, last but not least, there was Megan Navali—the witch whose body count was now high enough to fill a Major League roster. I needed to get eyes on her. The footage from the campsite gave me a glimpse, but I needed more information to confirm whether the idea percolating in my mind had legs.

She was dead either way. Whether by my hand or a primordial demon’s, I didn’t particularly care. Now, it was just a matter of figuring out how to take her out without unleashing whatever power she’d managed to harness.

Nguyen cleared his throat softly, and I glanced over. I’d clearly missed something. “Sorry. My mind is all over the place,” I whispered. “You can go, if you want.”

His brown eyes danced across my face. “What if I’m not ready to leave?”

“If you’re staying for her, stay as long as you like. If you’re staying in the hopes that we can continue our argument?—”

He cut me off with a resigned shake of his head. “It’s for her as much as it is for me.” A miserable look darkened his features, like he was caught between shame and regret.

“You did everything you could to protect her,” I offered, but we both knew that was a lie. He could have given Phineas what he wanted. He damned well should have.

A spark of anger flared somewhere deep inside me, and it took more effort than usual to douse it. The man was torn between doing a job he’d sworn to do—protecting me as the director of Lexa—and sacrificing my identity, and possibly exposing the entire syndicate, in order to save my daughter.

Would I have made that choice? In a heartbeat, but I’d been around long enough to know the only thing in life that couldn’t be fixed was death.

He slumped a little further in the chair and propped his boots up on the coffee table. On any other occasion, I would have told him to take them off. Tonight? I much preferred having him ready to move in a split second rather than scrambling for footwear.

It wasn’t that I was expecting trouble. I just understood how both he and Shay felt. They wanted to feel safe and to know those closest to them were safe.

I wanted that too.

When Nguyen’s attention shifted back to the movie, I closed my eyes and cracked open the steel door locking Emerson out of my mind. “You there?”

“For you, Sai, always.” His warm voice sent an unsettling wave of relief through me.

“We need to talk.”

There was a short pause. “Now?”

Just the thought of seeing him again so soon let loose a swarm of butterflies in my middle. “No. I’m not alone right now, and what I want to discuss should really be handled face to face.” A longer stretch of silence followed as I listened to the movie play on. “Emerson?”

“Are you with your bear?”

Was I imagining things or was there a hint of jealousy coloring his question? The thought made every independent bone in my body buck. It also made my stupid, soft heart swoon.

“I have Shayla asleep with her head in my lap, and yes, Nguyen is here too.” A flare of heat worked through our mental connection before I added, “Sitting in a chair next to the couch so he can be close to her, not me.”

“You are not that foolish, Senna.”

Maybe not, but he didn’t have any right to be upset about it. “I’m telling you what he told me. He feels horrible about what Phineas did to her on his watch.” So did I. Guilt hung heavy across my shoulders and there was nothing anyone could do to lift it.

“If I’d known who she was…”

“What? You stopped him, right? The only person I can really blame for what happened to them is him.” And myself.

Then it hit me. Some of the guilt curdling in my gut wasn’t mine. I mean, I felt guilty as hell. I was the reason she was in the Rover with Nguyen and the others tonight. It would have been just as easy to ask any other agent to make the vehicle swap. But the guilt that was eating at me wasn’t entirely my own. At least, I didn’t think it was.

Unless I was losing my mind—which was entirely possible—Emerson’s emotions were seeping through our mental link.

Could that actually happen?

Could he feel mine too? A flurry of panic stirred within me, followed quickly by hope and fear battling for the reins.

“Can you… feel what I’m feeling?” I asked hesitantly.

Another long stretch of silence followed, and I supposed that was an answer in itself.

“Have you always been able to feel me like this?” I finally asked. “Is this what it’s like for everyone you connect with this way?” Because damn. It was all kinds of intimate, though not necessarily in a sexual way.

“No.” His answer was measured, tight, like there was more that he wasn’t saying.

Why did that make me feel both better and nervous as hell?

After a few loaded seconds, his voice filled my head again. “ I’ve never felt anyone like this. Not until the night you left yourself open to me.”

The night he found me. The same night I was trapped in my head because I’d drained my magic saving one of my agents.

Heat swirled in my core at the memory. I’d been so frustrated. Emotionally and sexually. Then he was there, touching me, taking care of the ache that had been tearing me apart inside.

“Your energy called out to me that night, like a beacon in the darkness of my never-ending life .” He paused, and I waited because I didn’t know what to say. “I almost left you alone. I fought with myself, wanted to do this thing with us the right way, but I never could stop myself when it came to you.”

My heart twisted painfully in my chest. Him and his damned words. Were they all just pretty lies like I’d been telling myself for eons? Or was there some truth to what he was saying? He sounded like a man obsessed, but obsession was a far cry from love.

“I can’t do this, Emerson.”

A sad sigh filtered through my racing thoughts, followed by a longing so fierce the ache drilled down to my very essence. “Now or ever?”

It was my turn to let the silence fill the passing seconds.

If I gave in to him again, I would be done. As it was, just the few moments we’d shared were already taking up too much space in my head, gumming up the works.

I wasn’t the same witch he’d known. My world was so much bigger now. I had Shay. Not to mention Nguyen, Dennis, and all my other agents. And I had an organization I’d built from the ground up that I loved and took an enormous amount of pride in. We did good work. Sure, we bent the rules sometimes, but the goal was always to do more good than harm .

I would never be able to fall back into who I was when we were together, and I wouldn’t want to.

“I don’t know,” I finally confessed.

Frustration coiled inside me, but it wasn’t just mine. It pulsed from him, mixing with my own.

When his voice came through again, it was clipped. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Carlisle Park, the west trailhead. Five a.m. sharp.” While I didn’t love the idea of potentially waking Shay that early, I didn’t want to give Megan Navali any more time to wreak havoc. “Bring running shoes,” I added.

The silence that followed stretched on long enough that I was tempted to ask if he’d heard me, but I held back. Frustration trickled through the link. It was barely there, little more than a tingle at the base of my skull, but there was no denying that he had more to say.

“I’ll be there,” he finally sent through.

A tiny ripple of relief worked its way through me. “Thank you.”

In the space of a breath, that momentary comfort was washed away by a wave of anticipation. Only this time, I couldn’t tell if it was coming from him or me.