Page 49 of Cast in Shadow
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.
19
Shay slept clear through the night. Thankfully. When I got up at 4:00am to get ready for my meeting with Emerson, she sat up, bright and perky.
