Page 44 of Cast in Shadow
“Are you satisfied?” I asked defiantly.
“I accept that you are my Senna. But satisfied?” Still kneeling, he tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I have been starving for you for over a century. Carrying a need that has consumed me ten-thousand times over.” He leaned in close, the scorching rumble of his voice vibrating through my core, speaking to that dark place inside me that only he could reach. “One taste of you will never be enough to quell that hunger.”
“Let me go,” I whispered. It was all I could manage with flames of desire licking up my spine. Emerson had always had a way with words. He knew exactly how to get under my skin.
And my skirt.
“Why do you need to talk to your team right this minute?” He stood, pulling himself to his full height, though it wasn’t his six-foot-plus frame that made him imposing.
Okay, it wasn’t just his frame.
I chewed on the inside of my lip. What would happen if I told him the truth about what I was thinking? Would he want to work together to catch Megan? Could he do anything to help?
More importantly, could I really handle working side by side with him?
Before I could convince myself of anything, his front door exploded inward in a cacophony of splintering wood and hollered orders. His magic released me the next instant, but I couldn’t move fast enough. He hauled me up and threw me behind him, shielding me from the threat pouring through the gaping hole.
17
An army of agents filled his living room, all dressed in black fatigues, bulletproof vests, and tactical helmets with tinted lenses that obscured their faces, but I knew right away they all worked for me.
“Easy,”I thought, projecting the words toward Emerson, testing out our mental link.“Those are my people.”
He growled something beneath this breath, but when I put a hand on the center of his back and stepped around him out into the living room, he didn’t try to stop me. He stayed close though, following right on my heels like a hulking bodyguard.
“Stand down,” I said to the agents. At my command, most of them obeyed, but apparently not everyone was in the mood to follow orders.
The biggest agent of the bunch was standing front and center with a short-barreled rifle in his hands. When Emerson moved to stand beside me, he leveled his weapon at his chest.
“I’m fine, Nguyen. As you can clearly see,” I said, holding my arms out.
His face was hidden behind the dark tint of his helmet, but Ididn’t need to see his features to know it was him. His energy was unmistakable. What I didn’t know was why he wasn’t listening.
“Agent DeBruin, I saidstand down.” I threw as much authority and command into my voice as I could without tapping into my magic.
Emerson eyed my second-in-command. “You do know that thing won’t kill me, right?” he asked, tipping his head toward the gun in Nguyen’s hands.
“Maybe not, but this one is guaranteed to knock you down and leave you with a bitch of a headache,” Nguyen fired back.
Emerson shot me a look. “You enchanted their weapons?” I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was offended or impressed.
I let out a heavy sigh. “We do what we have to do to get the job done.”
He eased away from me a step, and my traitorous body ached to follow. “That doesn’t sound like the Senna I knew.”
“Maybe you didn’t know me as well as you thought you did.” How could he? I didn’t even know myself back then.
His jaw worked, but instead of speaking he just stared down at me.
“Move away from her.” The challenge in Nguyen’s voice crackled through the air. Any shifter within earshot would have felt it.
Emerson, to his credit, didn’t even blink. “What would possess you to create an enchantment that could subdue a primordial, even temporarily?” His eyes were still on me, as if no one else existed outside of the space between us.
“Protection, obviously,” I said.
He searched my face, biting the inside of his lip before giving me a little nod. “From me.”
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t bother responding.
