Page 29 of Cast in Shadow (Drenched in Darkness #1)

29

That evening, shortly after sunset, Nguyen and I met up at the same clearing where I’d first laid eyes on Megan Navali. We had two teams of four agents working the area, finding the best places for them to take cover.

There was no outdoor festival to worry about, but there was always the chance someone out for an evening stroll might stumble across our trap at the wrong time. The best way to defend against that was to have people in place to redirect them.

“I want to keep the teams out of the action if we can help it,” I said to Nguyen, trying not to let the way he was looking at me get under my skin.

I couldn’t tell if it was worry or something else coloring his expression, but there was obviously more on his mind than a simple recon mission.

If it was worry, it was misplaced. Since I’d come back from the Alius, I had yet to encounter a witch who could rival me in terms of power. My major concerns were stopping her before she figured out how to touch the veil and keeping my people and my city safe. Because despite the hours we had in collecting information on her, our data was still frustratingly thin.

Nguyen shot a wary glance over his shoulder before turning his attention back to me. “I agree, at least fifty yards out.” Then he reached out and caught me by the wrist. “Are you sure about this, Senna?”

His heavy brow was pulled down in a scowl, and the energy around him sent a ripple of warning along my nerve endings. It took more than a passing concern to ruffle his feathers.

“I’m sure,” I said. “How many missions have we been on together?”

He didn’t answer, just tipped his head slightly like I was missing his point.

“It’s risky. I’ll be the first to admit that. Which is why I’m the one taking the risk. Besides, between you, me, Emerson, and two top-notch tactical teams, if we can’t stop what’s coming, nothing can.”

He let go of my wrist and shook his head but didn’t argue.

Was it using me as bait that he had a problem with or was it the fact that I was seriously considering letting Emerson back in my life? I hadn’t said as much to him, but I knew better than to discount his instincts.

My own heart and mind had been in an increasing state of overwhelm since reconnecting with Emerson. What if my internal chaos was drowning out some looming threat?

I turned my attention inward. Anticipation, check. Excitement, check. A whole lot of worry mixed with self-doubt, check and check. But maybe he was right, because when I dug deeper, something darker churned beneath the surface. Something colder. Something that felt like a warning.

Intuition? An omen? I honestly couldn’t tell.

I wasn’t worried about Emerson in a fight. Primordial demons were damned near indestructible. It was the safety of my people that would weigh on me until this thing was done. But this was purely a recon trip. We were here to get eyes on the area and finalize the plan for positions.

The real show wasn’t for another twenty-four hours.

And yet, standing there in the cool light of the moon, another layer of unease draped over the first. When my phone buzzed in my pocket, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Nguyen shot me a look as I pulled it out.

“It’s Shay,” I said, showing him the screen.

If the events of the last few days had gone differently, I probably would have silenced it and called her after we’d wrapped for the evening. Now? I wasn’t about to send her to voicemail.

I held up a finger to let him know I would be a minute. When I brought the phone to my ear, at least a dozen voices spilled out, but they were mostly in the background, like she was at a bar.

“Senna?” Her voice was low, almost a whisper, and a trickle of warning dripped down my spine.

“Yeah, it’s me. Is everything okay?”

The background voices grew louder for a few seconds, then they were drowned out by the thump of heavy bass music. Shay said something I couldn’t make out.

I held my hand over my other ear, as if cutting off the silence of the forest would somehow help me hear her better. “Say that again?”

Nguyen inched closer, his expression turning sharp. “What’s wrong?” I tried to wave him off, but he wasn’t having it.

“Shay, are you there?”

The music dipped in the background. “Senna, you need to get down here.”

“Where?” I was already moving toward my Jeep with Nguyen matching me step for step .

A few excruciating seconds ticked by. “Andreno Heights.”

My stomach dropped. That was where we’d spotted Megan Navali the day before. What the hell was Shay doing in that part of town? Especially after I’d made it clear that I wanted her safe inside Lexa until the job was done.

“Are you okay? What’s happened?”

Nguyen stared at me intently, his brown eyes slicing clean through my calm facade. I pulled the phone away from my ear and tapped the speakerphone button. Music and laughter spilled out before Shay’s voice cut back in.

“Nothing yet, but Navali is here,” she whispered.

“Fuck,” Nguyen growled.

“You need to leave. Right now,” I ordered.

“I’m fine. It’s not like she knows who I am. I’ll just keep an eye on her until you get here.”

“Shay, I mean it. Get out of there,” I said, swallowing down the rising panic that was squeezing my throat.

She rattled off an address. “It’s a house party. Lots of cars. You can’t miss it. How soon can you be here?”

“Goddammit,” Nguyen hissed under his breath. I didn’t need to be psychic to know what he was thinking.

“Listen to me, Shayla. She is too dangerous. You saw the footage from the camp site. Remember? The bodies?”

The sound of the party spilled through the line, but she didn’t respond. Worry and dread raked sharp fingernails along my already sensitive nerve endings. At some point, I’d broken into a run, and Nguyen was right on my heels, barking low commands into his radio as we went.

“Talk to me, Shay.”

Other voices came and went. The music rose and fell again, until I could barely hear it in the background. “I’m here,” she finally said, keeping her voice low. “I’m outside now, okay? ”

I let out a shaky breath without slowing. That was only a small improvement. “How did you get there?”

Another beat of silence ratcheted up my blood pressure as I climbed into the big white SUV and fired up the engine.

“I took your Jeep,” she said sheepishly.

Good. Perfect. “I want you to get in it right now and get as far away from that place as you can.” I slammed the shifter into gear and tore out of the gravel parking area onto the paved road.

“She’s not doing anything, Senna.” Her voice was louder now, coming through the SUV’s sound system. “Honestly, she’s just wandering through the crowd.”

No, she wasn’t. The witch was there for a reason, and I would bet my life it had nothing to do with partying with a bunch of pretentious assholes in the rich part of town. She was looking for someone or something. Like information. Leverage. Power.

My gut twisted. Many of the wealthiest families in Brynworth had long magical legacies, and power was the very temptation I had planned on using to lure Megan into my trap. But I was supposed to be her target. Not my daughter.

“This is not a request, Shayla. It is a direct order. Get in the fucking Jeep right now.”

“Yeah, about that… I am outside like I said, but I’m on the roof, not the street.”

Nguyen let out a tortured sound. “Why?—”

She sucked in a sharp breath, and I braced for an argument. Instead, another feminine voice filtered through the speakers. “Hello, beautiful.”

A shock of ice raced through my veins.

Then the line went dead.

I jammed the gas pedal to the floor, but it had nowhere to go. We were already careening through the traffic littering the highway.

“Call her back,” I yelled, tossing my phone at Nguyen.

Andreno Heights wasn’t far. Maybe a five-minute drive if I followed the speed limit, and I was already doing well above that.

The phone rang through the speakers, and with each unanswered ring, the thoughts of what I would do to Megan when I got my hands on her grew darker. Panic and worry might have been gripping my chest like a giant fist, but anger was a living beast inside me, clawing at that crushing force.

Navali was already dead, but if she laid so much as a finger on Shay, I would make sure she paid in ways even her worst nightmares couldn’t conjure.

“Where are the teams?” I snapped.

“On our six,” Nguyen replied.

Good. No one working for me was disposable, but when it came to keeping Shay safe, I would throw the whole goddamn kitchen sink at the threat.

“Try her again.”

He redialed but it went to voicemail again. “We don’t know that the voice belonged to Navali,” he offered.

He might not, but I did. My gut was practically screaming it.

I also knew Shay had a unique kind of magic, and if Megan had gathered enough power to sense it in others, Shay’s would be irresistible.

“What the hell was she thinking?” I muttered, swerving around a minivan that looked like it was frozen in space and time.

“Probably that she wanted to help,” Nguyen replied with a shake of his head. “And maybe to prove she’s not broken.”

That gave me pause. She had nothing to prove. She’d been abducted, tortured, and forced to watch while someone she knew and trusted was tortured in front of her. All to get to me. That would take time to come back from, but dealing with trauma wasn’t the same as being broken.

It was also unreasonable to think she could bounce back in a matter of days, or to assume that she would be the same afterward. And it grated beyond measure that I still didn’t have the full story.

I was tempted to demand an incident report from Nguyen there and then. The full story. If nothing else, I could use it to add fuel to the fire that I would ultimately use to burn Megan Navali to ash. But the exit I needed snuck up on me, and I was lucky to keep all four wheels on the ground as I made the turn.

“What was the address?” I snapped, ignoring the way my fingers tingled from my death grip on the steering wheel. Or maybe it was from the way my magic was already surging inside me.

Nguyen recited the same address I’d heard, and I let my focus narrow to the road.

Less than a minute later, expensive cars lined the street in a sweeping curve, all leading to a boxy, white-washed mansion that was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was set back from the road, but there were enough fairy lights running along the front balconies and strung between the varied ornamental trees out front to make the thing visible from space.

There must have been hundreds of people at the party. Dozens lingered on the grass outside, laughing and smiling with drinks in their hands, but my gaze shifted upward to the flickering tiki torches running along the roof.

“Any sign of her?” I asked, scanning the rooftop again as the SUV rolled excruciatingly slowly through the front gate.

Nguyen let out a grunt that I took to mean no.

“Keep looking.”

I rolled up to the steps leading to the front door, pulled my pistol from my thigh holster, racked the slide, and then reconsidered. Gunshots would create panic. With that many people, panic would lead to a stampede from the house, lots of injuries, and potentially the death of one or more bystanders.

This was one of those situations where having the ability to throw my magic would have come in handy. I tried not to take my abilities for granted, but light anchored in touch was only so useful. No matter how many decades I’d spent working with it, honing it, that had always been one limitation I couldn’t overcome.

“Bring it,” Nguyen snarled, slamming the passenger door behind him.

“Yeah.” I shoved the gun back in its holster and climbed out of the SUV, leaving it running.

We bypassed the startled valet without a word, stalked up the concrete steps, and walked right through the arched front doors. For a party in such an affluent neighborhood, their security was woefully lax.

A few heads turned our way when we walked into the foyer. My temples throbbed with a toxic cocktail of anger and worry as I took in everyone and everything around me, searching for any sign of Shay.

Another unique thing about Shay’s magic was that it didn’t leave much of a trail compared to other types, and with so many people and so many layers of trace magic, nothing stood out. Not until I spotted a thick black stain cutting through the weaker trails.

The vice cranked tighter around my ribs as I angled toward the curved staircase leading up to the second floor.

I had to shove one guy out of my way at the bottom of the stairs. Then another halfway up. Were they really so oblivious to a furious woman dressed in black tactical gear stalking up the stairs ?

When we reached the landing, Nguyen stepped around me, clearing the path ahead of us with his massive frame and patented scowl. That was fine by me.

The black trail took a sharp turn, and I tapped his shoulder. “Left.”

He swiveled on a dime, shouldering past anyone who didn’t move out of his way fast enough. A guy sporting a shaggy haircut and a ridiculous, crystal-embellished t-shirt, which probably cost more than the average house payment, threw his hands up like he was man enough to confront my second-in-command.

One low, beastly growl was all it took to shut him down.

The witch’s dark path led us up another staircase where three terrified young women stumbled down the steps beside us.

Not a good sign.

I laid a hand in the middle of Nguyen’s broad back. “Easy.”

He grumbled something unintelligible.

“We need to get the lay of the land first, just like any other mission,” I said quietly, reminding us both. Violence was a barely contained storm inside me, but there was a right way to do things. Going in hot was a good way to get people killed when we were dealing with a witch as powerful and as ruthless as Megan.

His shoulders heaved, and I felt his slow exhale through my palm.

“I’ll take point,” I added.

Nguyen shook his head, but I was already stepping around him. He’d gotten us through the crowd and where we needed to be. That was step one. Step two was protecting what mattered.

“When we find Shay, your only job is to get her out of here. Got it?”

Nguyen glared at me. “We leave together. ”

“No, we don’t. She is the priority,” I said, pulling my gun from its holster. “I don’t care if you have to throw her over your shoulder and carry her out of here kicking and screaming.”

He ground his teeth, but I didn’t have time to argue with him. I just had to have faith that he would do the right thing when the time came.

Pulling in a bracing breath, I climbed the last few steps and stepped out onto a sprawling rooftop terrace. The glow of the torches and two stainless steel fire pits warmed everything they touched, but a light breeze had those flames dancing, adding to the wild energy in the air.

A handful of people were huddled at the far corner, trying to disappear into the shadows. A few more were trying and failing to make themselves invisible behind overturned tables and slatted lounge chairs. No matter which ineffective hiding spot they’d chosen, all eyes were trained on the woman in the dark, flowing dress who was locked in a passionate kiss with my daughter.