Page 2 of Cast in Shadow (Drenched in Darkness #1)

2

I eased my eyes open, holding my magic in a death grip as I tried to get a sense of my surroundings.

I was inside. That much was clear from the rough plaster ceiling above me and the dim light glowing from somewhere off to my right. I’d been laid out on something hard, like a table or counter, but the air was warm enough that I was sweating in my jacket and cargo pants.

It wasn’t a space I knew, and yet, a whisper familiarity tickled my senses. Then I tried to roll my head and realized I couldn’t move. My last few moments in the forest came rushing back.

As if on cue, an unnatural warmth rolled over me, making my limbs tingle like they’d been asleep. Sensation crept along my nerve endings, and dread trickled through my veins as I flexed my fingers and curled my toes. One by one, I tested my other joints, moving like a wooden puppet that had just been animated for the first time in its life.

Emerson had used his magic on me many times before, but always in a consensual way, pulling my control and ravaging my body. I might have spent the last hundred and thirty years hating him, but for some reason, having him use his power on me like this made me sick to my stomach.

Not to mention furious.

I sat up and swung my legs around, swallowing hard against the acid burning up my throat.

“For what it’s worth, I had hoped to do this differently,” he said from the shadows.

I coughed out a bitter laugh, barely able to contain the whirlwind of emotions churning inside me. So many questions swirled in my mind. Why had he frozen me with his magic? Why would he interfere with my mission? Why did he knock me out and bring me to this place?

But most importantly, how did he find me?

“Why were you following that woman?” he asked. His tone was different now, more demanding.

I shot him a narrow look and instantly regretted it. He looked exactly the same. That stubborn square jaw was as proud as ever. His lips still carried those painfully familiar curves, despite his scowl. And somehow, he still managed to take up all the space in the room.

And what was my traitorous body’s reaction to seeing him? My heart was tripping over itself, unable to find a predictable rhythm. Ice and fire warred in my veins. And my head throbbed with a toxic cocktail of anger, fear, adrenaline, and something I refused to acknowledge.

I pulled in a deep breath to steady myself a little and found my voice. “Is that really how you want to start our first conversation in over a century? With an interrogation?” When I moved to get off the counter, pain ricocheted through my limbs, but they didn’t move an inch.

“No,” Emerson said, stepping closer. “But I will if I need to.”

His strong brow was drawn down, and that unruly dark hair I used to love tangling my fingers in was swept back from his face, like he’d just shoved a hand through it. There was no one in the world I should have hated more, but that didn’t stop my mouth from watering at the sight of him.

The pain in my joints eased a little. There was no point in trying to fight him. His magic was as familiar to me as my own. So too was the way his ethereal touch feathered gently across my cheek.

He was the worst kind of trouble. The kind that left me twisted up inside long after I’d fled from him. Yet, even now, after a lifetime apart, my body ached with the memories of how he’d made me feel and the things I’d let him do to me… things I’d begged him to do.

What was wrong with me?

How the hell could he still make my mind spin and my body ache?

“Let me go.” I ground the words out despite the need pulsing between my thighs.

His smirk told me he knew the effect he was having on me, but there was something else lingering in his expression. “I can’t do that.”

“It wasn’t a request.”

“Senna.” My name rolled off his lips in a lover’s whisper, and I closed my eyes.

His voice was a warm blade slowly dragging against old scars, slicing open wounds that had refused to heal cleanly. It was too much. I couldn’t bear to hear him and see him look at me that way. Not when leaving him had cost me so much.

“Let me go, Emerson. This has nothing to do with you.” Thank the gods I still sounded like I had a backbone, because I sure as shit didn’t feel like it.

His energy pulsed around me, closer, until the heat of his body pulsed inches from mine. Except when I dared to open my eyes, he was still a few paces away. “I’m not letting you go.” His gaze raked down my body. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Why not?” I glared at him, hating my traitorous pulse for fluttering when he looked at me like that.

“Tell me why you were following that woman first.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “She’s been summoning dark magic.”

“I’m aware,” he said, keeping his voice low in a way that heated every inch of me.

“Do you know how much damage a witch can do if she’s caught in the throes of darkness?” She could become unpredictable. Destructive. Deadly to anyone in her path.

“I do.”

Right. Of course he did. Because he’d been around long enough to see it all.

“Then why would you interfere?” I hissed.

Emerson let out a heavy breath and crossed his arms over his broad chest, the soft fabric of his dark gray t-shirt straining against his biceps. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re here. Safe.”

Oh, that was so far from the truth that I had to swallow down the bark of laughter that threatened to escape. He could hurt me in so many ways, good and bad, but nothing compared to his betrayal. That had nearly killed me.

“What was that?” He stepped forward, his eyes like a hawk’s as he released just a little of his magical hold on me. “What are you thinking right now?” Another step.

“Stop. Right there.” Dread and excitement were doing a little dance in my belly. “If you come any closer, I swear to all the gods, Emerson…”

He didn’t listen. He took another step, then another, moving like a predator until his hips brushed my knees. He smelled just like he used to, like trouble and heartbreak wrapped up in a smoky musk that made me yearn for a past that was as dead as I was supposed to be.

Goddammit.

My pulse tripped when he slid my knees apart and leaned in close, his breath ghosting over the shell of my ear. Seconds ticked by before his whispered words cut like an accusation. “You left me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t do this. Not with him.

He gripped my chin hard. “Look at me, Senna.”

I did as he said, pinning him with a glare that even a being born in shadow should have been able to read. My blood heated. My heart beat a deafening pulse in my ears. “Let. Me. Go.”

His lips crashed against mine in the next instant, his fingertips digging into my jaw, holding me captive to his kiss. My instincts told me to fight him off—demanded a fight—but my body refused to listen.

It wasn’t his magic or some supernatural power that was holding me in place any longer. It was just him. Emerson Bradach.

I never had a chance when it came to him.

My hands groped blindly at his chest, fisting and yanking at his shirt as I tried to pull him closer.

He was the most dangerous kind of addictive.

His teeth nipped at my bottom lip before he pulled back, leaving me leaning into the inch of empty space between us. “Why did you let me believe you were dead?”

The words ripped me back to reality. I was supposed to be dead, at least to him. Which dragged me right back to the most pressing question of all: how the hell did he find me?

I shoved him, hard, but the step he took back was entirely his own choice. I hadn’t put any of my magic behind that shove .

“Why did you sabotage my mission?” I asked. He could say it didn’t matter, but it did. There had to be a reason he was there.

His eyes narrowed. “Who ordered the mission?”

A question for a question. I hated this game, but I could play it just as well as he could. Drawing in a breath that did precisely nothing to steady me, I hopped off the counter and pulled myself up to my full height. “Do you really expect me to believe you don’t already know?”

He’d found me, despite the fortune I’d put into staying hidden. It wasn’t like he’d accidentally stumbled into my path on some random Wednesday. No, he’d clearly been hunting me, but if he didn’t know who I worked for, I wouldn’t be the one to tell him.

Emerson ground his teeth, his jaw flexing with the movement. “I was really hoping it wasn’t true.”

“What, that I’m still alive?” I snapped.

He flinched. At least, I was pretty sure he did. The expression was only there for a fraction of a second before it was buried beneath his scowl. “Lexa,” he bit out.

So, he did know. It wasn’t really a surprise, but it still grated.

Lexa—short for The Lexa Loroud Agency—was a shadow organization tasked with taking down rogue paranormals. To most of the supernatural community, it was just a rumor, and we went to great lengths to make sure it stayed that way. Of course, there were people who knew the truth, or who had seen enough to believe the rumor. Most of them knew enough to keep their mouths shut, but clearly not all.

“Who I do or don’t work for is none of your business,” I said, giving my head a little shake.

The muscles in his neck were pulled tight. “Yes, it is.” He closed the short distance between us, his heat soaking into my skin as his big hands wrapped around my arms and pinned me in place. He dipped his head to meet my eye. “Lexa is dangerous, Senna.”

No shit. It was built to be dangerous.

“This is the last time I’m going to say it, Emerson. Let me go,” I ordered, but he only stared in response, his deep blue eyes boring into me like he was searching for something.

My magic was right there beneath my skin, a steady hum of energy that was silently daring him to push me too far. I let a trickle of it break loose. Just enough to send a message.

His brow knitted. He moved slowly, releasing my arms while staring at me like he had no idea who I was. “What happened to you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

As if he didn’t know.

“You.” I gave into the urge to shove him again, but he didn’t budge. “You happened to me.”

“ You left me , Senna.” He shook his head on a humorless chuckle. “You faked your death. Why?”

Rolling my shoulders back, I braced for the fight we should have had a hundred and thirty years earlier. “Because I knew what you were planning. I saw you that night.” I shoved him again, putting some of my magic behind it this time, if only so I could escape to the middle of the room rather than letting him box me in with the counter at my back.

He stumbled back, and I slipped past him. “Saw me what?”

I spun, and even though the last thing I wanted was to relive that moment, I threw his own words back at him. “She’s nothing. Just a pretty little plaything.” Saying the words aloud was like tearing open an old wound. Everything in me wanted to shove him again, to drive him back and inflict some measure of pain. But I knew if I put my hands on him again, I might not be able to drag myself away. “I’ll take care of her.”

He blinked once, twice, and jerked back as if I’d slapped him. “ The night of the fire?” Surprise shifted to anger and his blue eyes became an ocean of warning. “You followed me?”

“Jesus, Emerson. That’s what you care about? Yeah, I followed you.”

And he would never know how much I regretted it.

So many times, I’d wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t witnessed that betrayal. What if I hadn’t heard Theloneus, his closest friend, telling him it was time to either bring me into the fold or take me out before the others stepped in? And when Theloneus questioned why he was hesitating, what if I hadn’t heard those cruel, dismissive words?

She’s nothing. Just a pretty little plaything. I’ll take care of her.

Would I have been allowed to live in my blissful ignorance for a few more days? Maybe weeks? Until he eventually did as the Brethren commanded.

He backed up and sank down on one of the worn wooden dining chairs, shaking his head. “Everyone thought you were dead.”

“That was the point. You told me what happened to the witches that got tangled up with the Brethren. Whether it was you or them, I was dead either way.”

Emerson was an original demon, one of eleven primordials who were dragged through the veil into the human realm thousands of years ago by an unknown force. It should have been impossible. The Alius was like an anchor, and the veil’s energy was a near-impenetrable barrier, keeping all demons trapped in their realm for eternity.

At least, that was how it was supposed to work. According to books. In reality, no one really knew for sure.

As ruthless immortal creatures with millennia of experience in the human world, Emerson and the rest of the Brethren could carve swaths of death and destruction through our world, and for a time, they did. But somewhere along the line, they’d shifted from being predators to protectors. Sort of.

Instead of hunting fragile humans for sport, they started taking out other powerful beings who sought to destroy or control us.

They were almost the good guys in that way, but however noble their intentions, they didn’t change the fact that every witch that had ever worked with them had met a tragic end. Either the Brethren pushed them too hard, didn’t protect them when they needed it, or they took them out themselves when the witch’s power grew beyond a certain point.

Emerson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked up at me. His hands—always so strong and capable—flexed in and out of fists. “I would get these little glimpses of you.” He tapped the side of his head. “For years afterward.” He paused, drawing out the silence as he searched my gaze. “I thought I was losing my mind.”

I let out a tired huff. “Unfinished business has a way of eating at a person.”

Emerson pushed up off the chair and moved closer, displacing every ounce of oxygen between us. He opened his mouth to respond but snapped it shut again, his nostrils flaring. His hand drifted up. When he cupped my cheek, I flinched. Every muscle in my body tensed, screaming at me to pull away. But I didn’t.

His eyes narrowed, staring intently at my mouth as his thumb traced my bottom lip.

Half of me wanted to punch him, but the other idiot half wanted to lean into him.

Why wasn’t I fighting him off? Why the hell was I letting him touch me?

I knew better than to let him get so close to me. My need for him had always been a force of its own, but apparently knowing that still wasn’t enough to stop me from leaning into his hot palm and closing my eyes against the tears threatening to fall.

I hadn’t let myself cry for him back then, at least not at first. I’d been too shocked for tears. And afraid. Until it all morphed into a fury that I let run so hot for so long that it hollowed me out inside.

For a long time afterward, I felt nothing.

No light or dark. No sadness or joy. I existed. Barely.

Then, in a reckless moment of desperation, my whole world changed. And when I found my feet, the anger came roaring back, right along with the heartache and a grief so profound it left me speechless some days.

I’d embraced it all then, using the power of those emotions to build my dying heart back up into something stronger. I’d made myself impenetrable in the years since, never letting anyone in. Not until I found a greater purpose with Lexa.

Now though, a tiny fissure was forming in the dam I’d built around my heart. If I wasn’t careful, there would be nothing I could do to stop it from bleeding out.

“Senna.” Emerson’s deep voice cracked on my name as his strong arms closed around me, pulling me into his chest.

I tried to shove him away—I wanted to—but the homesickness and longing that tore through me almost broke me all over again.