Page 12 of Cast in Shadow
She kneeled in front of me. “Yeah, boss?”
“I’m going to need a little help.”
She grabbed me by the wrists and hauled me up. I wavered once I was on my feet, but she was there to steady me. “You need to lie down.”
“Not yet. I need more on what happened with the shifter mission. Where’s the girl?”
Brody shook his head. “We got her clear of her pack, but then she took off. We didn’t follow because…” He motioned to the blood soaking the hallway floor.
That was the right call. “We need to send someone out to look for her ASAP. If the pack finds her, they’ll drag her right back to the alpha, and there’s no telling what he’ll do to her after our interference.” Black spots dotted my vision, and I leaned more heavily on Shay.
“Brody,” she groaned with the effort to hold me up.
“Sorry,” I said weakly. I wanted to ask why the team hadn’t radioed in when they were on their way back. We easily couldhave had the med team on standby waiting for them. But my muscle control was slipping from my mental grasp.
Brody moved to my other side, looped my arm over his shoulders, and they half carried me down the hall.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Conference room,” I managed to get out. The words were slurred, but even though I sounded drunk and could feel the drag of my eyelids wanting to close, I was alert. It was a maddening feeling.
They followed orders without arguing, lowering me gently onto the stiff brown leather couch at the back of the long room. That was all it took. My eyelids slipped closed, and I slumped into a familiar paralytic state.
It was always a strange experience, being awake and aware without being able to open my eyes or move my body. I could hear everyone talking and moving around me, feel the pulse and flow of their magic, but I couldn’t do anything.
My body was effectively shut down.
Thankfully, my mind was still whirring with all the new developments. We needed to find the girl and get her somewhere safe, far out of reach of her pack. I also needed to find Megan Navali.
My original plan was to lock the witch up until we could strip her of all her non-essential magical ability and put a block in place so she could never practice again. Now that she’d crossed the killing line, putting her down was at the top of my list.
Then there was Emerson. Not to mention Theloneus and everything with the Brethren. Was Megan the reason Emerson was in my city? Or was he there for something else?
My thoughts circled like that for a while as I absorbed the conversations happening around me. Nguyen and Dennis walked through the mission debrief and communication failurewith Charlotte and Brody, but only Shayla took the time to talk to me directly. Bless her heart. They all knew that I could still hear and think when I was in this state, I’d explained as much more than once, but she was usually the only one who addressed me.
In the end, after things were settled and the others had made their way back to the infirmary or up to their personal quarters, Nguyen hauled me into his arms and carried me out of the room.
It grated on me that I couldn’t do anything to help anyone when I was in this state, which was why I usually tried a hell of a lot harder to use my healing magic sparingly on others. It was tough to stick to that rule with my teams, though. Their safety was my responsibility.
The ding and hiss of the elevator doors opening let me know we were on Lexa’s private floor in the hotel. We all had rooms up here, each with our own private spaces where we slept, ate, fucked, and generally lived our lives when we weren’t downstairs or out on missions.
The organization had no official rules against fraternizing. With what we did, having someone you could celebrate with when you pulled off an impossible mission, or someone you could vent to when it blew up in your face, was one of the many keys to survival. As long as everyone could act like adults and continue to work together if the relationship went to hell, I wouldn’t deny my people the opportunity to find some comfort within our small circle.
Me, though? I’d never been tempted to fish from the company pool. Even with Nguyen.
In truth, I hadn’t really been interested in sex since Emerson. I’d tried. Half a dozen times in a hundred and thirty years still counted as trying, thank you very much. But all the awkward fumbling and groping just didn’t do it for me, and I’dput a stop to each encounter before we’d ever made it close to sex.
Emerson had ruined me in that respect. The way his touch lingered on my skin could stay with me for days, and no one made me feel anything even remotely close to what I’d felt with him. Of course, that obsession had nearly gotten me killed. That probably had something to do with my aversion to connecting with someone else on that level.
Luckily, with the arrival of the modern age, along came batteries, and vibrators, and a variety of truly clever stimulators that helped me keep my physical cravings at bay.
Don’t get me wrong, there were still nights when I ached for rough hands and rougher sex, but I was getting by just fine on my own.
Nguyen laid me on my bed, took off my boots, and covered me with a throw without a word, but he didn’t leave right away. His rustic magic was hard to miss. I could feel it permeating my space, and the musky scent of his powerful bear was unmistakable.
At least he kept his distance. He’d never stepped even a toe out of line when it came to my wishes not to get involved. Not since the night a decade earlier when he’d tried to kiss me, and I had politely shut him down.
He still watched though.
