Page 37 of Cast in Shadow
“She’s more than that.”
I knew what he meant, but it hardly mattered. “Get up,” I snarled.
“Are you done, Sai? Have you had your fill of vengeance?”
I flinched at the name.Sai.It had been his pet name for me—an intimate name—and hearing it brought back a flood of memories that threatened to drown me.
Passion burned in his hot gaze, and I slammed my eyes shut. “Get up, Emerson.”
I heard him move, then heard his partner in crime murmur something.
“Leave, Jabiah,” I said, opening my eyes and focusing my attention on the other man.
He glanced between us, his brow pinched, then nodded once and disappeared. Poof. Gone in a blink. That was one handy little trick that I still hadn’t learned, even after all these years.
“Can we take this inside?” Emerson’s voice made him sound closer than he was. Not in my head, since I still had my barriers up, but the way his words hung in the air, it was like being surrounded by him.
“Not where you took my people.” Aside from that, I didn’t care.
“I know a place.” He held out his hand.
When I didn’t take it, he arched a brow. I could tell he was fighting the urge to order me to do it. Part of me wanted him to try just so he could see how little control he had over me now. But what was the point? We both knew I was going with him, and the sooner we got this conversation over with, the better.
“I’m not apologizing for hitting you,” I said, slapping my hand into his.
His strong fingers wrapped around mine and he squeezed gently. “I wouldn’t want you to, but I do want you to know I didn’t hurt either of them. The girl or your bear. That was all Phineas.”
In the next breath, we were inside. It was warm, dimly lit, and the world was spinning. He eased me down into a soft chair and crouched in front of me with my hand still in his. “Take a deep breath.”
It had been forever since I’d felt traveling sickness, but my memory of it was just as unpleasant as it had always been. I did as Emerson said, closing my eyes and breathing in deep through my nose, letting it escape through my mouth a moment later.
It didn’t take as long as I remembered for the worst of my unease to settle, at least on the physical side. When I opened my eyes, I finally managed to piece his last words back together.
“It wasn’t you?”
He held my questioning gaze. “I didn’t lay a finger on your people. And I didn’t know what Phineas had planned until he already had them. Jabiah and I got there moments before you did, and we’d already put a stop to what he was doing.”
The bitch of it was, I believed him. Was that wrong of me? He easily could have been feeding me a line, but deep down, in the dregs of my soul, I knew he was telling me the truth.
“I guess I do owe you that apology then, don’t I?”
The whisper of a smile ghosted his lips. “No, you don’t.”
The way he looked at me, with the kind of longing that made my entire being want to reach out to him, only made things worse. I was in shambles. I’d lost good people today. The guilt of what happened to Shay and Nguyen was eating me alive. And Emerson… I didn’t even know where to start with him.
Tugging my hand free, I forced myself to look away, searching for anything that wasn’t that big, irresistible demon. Bits and pieces of the room were familiar in a distant way, like I was seeing everything from a strange angle. “This is where you took me before, isn’t it?”
He nodded as he stood and took a step back. “This is where I’m staying while I’m in town.”
I’d only cared enough about the space the first time around to mark my exit points. Now, taking a moment to soak it in, it felt so much like him it made my heart ache.
“How long have you been here?” I asked coldly.
He was silent for a long time before he sat down on his chunky wooden coffee table to face me. “Eight months.”
Did I hear that right?We’d had pings tracing him all over the world over the last several months and nothing to indicate he was hiding in my own city.
His gaze flicked across my face, no doubt reading the flurry of emotions and thoughts that shot through me.
