Page 6 of Cast in Shadow (Drenched in Darkness #1)

6

Between the scalding water and ruthless scrubbing, I’d nearly stripped my skin raw trying to erase the feel of Emerson’s touch.

It did help though. I was finally starting to feel semi-normal again.

I pulled my shirt over my head and let it fall into place, ignoring the various scars tattooed across my torso. I’d lived a very long life by human standards, but it hadn’t been a gentle one. Until I’d found a way to use my magic on myself—which was a hell of a lot trickier than it sounded—I’d been just as easy to mark up as any other human.

Unfortunately, my magic couldn’t help me with the trauma that accompanied Emerson crashing back into my life.

I unwrapped the towel from around my damp hair and stared out the window overlooking the city of Brynworth. My city. It was beautiful at night, with the light of the moon reflecting off the mirrored windows of the nearby office buildings, and the way the streetlights and intersections created a glowing grid that stretched out below me. It was the place I’d called home for decades.

The last thing I needed was my past ruining it for me.

A reflection in the glass caught my attention. My reflection, though it didn’t really look like me. The woman’s expression was haunted against the city lights. Her skin was too pale, and her brown hair hung in damp clumps around her face.

I looked like death.

That wasn’t unusual after expending as much magic as I had, but draining myself made it easier to see the hint of crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes and the fine lines etching themselves around my lips. They’d been there for a while. Twenty years, give or take. A gentle reminder that I was, in fact, mortal. I aged like everyone else. I just did it slower.

Turning away from the eerie image, I went back into the bathroom. I dropped my towel in the hamper, grabbed a hair tie from the bowl on the counter, and tossed my hair up into a damp messy bun before heading back downstairs.

Sublevel Three, the main level for all Lexa operations, was mostly quiet. Thank the gods. I might not have felt like being alone in my room, but that didn’t mean I actually wanted to talk to anyone. So, instead of locking myself in my comfy suite with its soft bed and wall of stacked-to-the-brim bookshelves, I hid in my office with the lights low and the shades pulled.

It was a functional space but old school, according to Shayla. Of course, she was partial to smartboards and cloud storage, whereas I still had a fondness for holding an actual file in my hands. I wanted to feel the paper between my fingers and sift through physical pages. It made it easier to think sometimes.

Spreading the contents of the file on the floor gave me a bird’s eye view of the problem. That was what I needed with the case of the shifter girl. And what I needed to keep my mind off Emerson .

Female alphas weren’t unheard of, but they were rare enough to draw attention. Couple the shifter girl’s innate power with an overbearing, misogynistic pack, and I was a little surprised they’d let her live much past her first shift.

“They must have thought they could control her,” I mumbled to myself, shifting pages and photos at random.

That was another part of the process. Neat and orderly had a place, but to find something that didn’t want to be found, sometimes you had to mix things up.

“But are we sure she doesn’t want to be found?” I asked the empty room. I stood and let my gaze drift over the pages. “She didn’t know we were there to help. How could she? And even if the team did manage to get that message across, with the whole pack coming after them, it would make sense to run.”

I crouched next to a picture of the girl at a carnival, my tired joints protesting as I ran my fingers lightly over the image. She was younger, a year or two before her first shift, and she looked so happy in the photo. Her bright smile lit up the page, and her long, straight hair, so black it had an almost blue tint to it, was blowing across her face.

“Where would I run if I was a scared shifter?” I whispered.

“The last place you felt safe.”

I jumped at the sound of Nguyen’s gravelly voice. “Christ. When did we stop knocking?”

One thick brow lifted. “I knocked. Twice.”

Shit. Did he? “Sorry.” I gave my head a little shake. “I’m trying to get into the mind of the shifter girl.”

“She has a name.”

Letting out a heavy breath, I folded my legs under me and sat cross-legged on the floor, ignoring the comment.

He knew I didn’t like to use the names of people we were rescuing. The ones we hunted down because they were a threat? Yeah, names all the way. But the ones who needed our help because no one could—or would—step up and take the job, they all had identifiers. The shifter girl. The broken angel. The guy with the hair. I preferred to keep them as bland as possible, because if we lost one of them during a mission, I would never get their name out of my head.

“Naomi,” he said quietly.

I glared up at him. “We’re not having this discussion again.”

“Dehumanize them all you want. We both know it doesn’t work.”

He was talking about the last case that had gone to total shit. We’d been trying to extract a young boy from a cult, and it hadn’t ended well. “It works sometimes.”

Skepticism dripped from the look he gave me, but instead of arguing, he motioned to the photo I’d been touching. “She wouldn’t go back there. She’s having fun in that picture, but fun isn’t the same as safe.”

Solid point.

“Okay.” I pulled myself up to my knees and scanned the pages and pictures again. “It’s not going to be anywhere within her pack’s territory.”

“Agreed. I doubt it would be anywhere she’s been since her first shift, unless she has a friend we don’t know about.”

I shook my head. “They homeschool their young. So, no outside school friends. As far as I’ve seen, she didn’t have any real connections beyond the pack.”

He stepped carefully around the scattered papers with his enormous black boots and stood a few feet away from me. “Doctors?”

“They have one.”

“Of course they do.” He kneeled and picked up a copy of a handwritten letter. “What about this?”

“It’s from her grandmother, dated seven years ago. It’s the only communication we found between the two. ”

“But it’s a letter. Is the grandmother not part of the pack?”

I rocked back onto my heels and stood. “No. According to what we were able to dig up on her, she doesn’t have a pack. Lives alone about twenty miles south of the city.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Outcast or runaway?”

“No idea. The files don’t go that deep.”

He held up the letter. “My gut says Naomi will try to find her. A wolf’s pack is part of their identity, and since she’s still so young, she’ll try to find the next best thing.”

“Family.”

He nodded.

“Alright then. In the morning, I’ll head out to find the grandmother. I need you to coordinate with Echo from here while they look for the girl.”

“Naomi.”

“I know her name.”

“Then use it, Senna.” His nostrils flared just a little. “She’s a person. Whether she lives or dies in the next few days, nothing will change that fact.”

I rubbed my lips together to prevent the angry retort that was sitting on the edge of my tongue from darting out. This wasn’t the first time he’d challenged me about keeping my distance on a case, but this felt different, especially after the way he’d lingered in my room earlier.

Or maybe I was the one who felt different.

I pointed to the open door. “Coordinate with Echo. I’ll call when I have something on the grandmother.” My clipped tone must have been enough to make my point, because he gave me a curt nod and left my office with his wide shoulders set in stone.

When the door closed behind him, I let out an irritated huff and stepped back, resting my ass on the edge of my desk. I didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with him pushing me when I had the shifter girl and Megan Navali to worry about.

And let’s not forget about Emerson.

“Oh, why don’t you just fuck right off,” I snapped at the voice in my head.

I stared at everything for a while longer, then gathered the papers and slipped them all neatly back in the stiff manila folder. The clock on the wall told me it was almost three in the morning. Which meant Nguyen was running on shit for sleep, and I’d just tacked another mission onto his already loaded schedule.

No wonder he wasn’t happy with me.

Once we found the girl and got her somewhere safe, I would order him to take a few weeks off. We all needed time to decompress, and he’d been on the job without a real break for too long.

I could take care of Megan on my own. She was stronger than I’d anticipated, and it would be tricky steering clear of the Brethren, but it would be manageable. We just needed to get tabs on her again.