Page 63 of Cast in Shadow
“Emerson is aware of the basics, and he’s agreed to keep this knowledge to himself.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Shay asked. The question was barely a whisper in the busy bar, but excitement rippled through the aura of magic surrounding her. “You’re the witch?”
Nguyen’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle in it twitched. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“It was a long time ago.” The urge to pace was surprisingly strong, so I did the opposite. I took the seat next to Shay’s end of the couch and waited for questions.
“How long?” Nguyen asked.
“One hundred and twenty-seven years, give or take.” I took another drink of my whiskey. The taste barely registered, but the warmth as it slid down my throat was still soothing.
His head ticked to the side and one of his eyes twitched minutely, reminding me of a glitching robot. Then he muttered a colorful curse.
Dennis pulled himself to the edge of the cushion. “I’m pretty sure time travel isn’t a real thing.”
“No time travel involved.”
“How is that even possible?” Nguyen asked.
“I learned to heal myself while I was in the Alius. I’m pretty sure the same ability is what slows the aging process for me here.”
Shay got up from the couch and perched on the arm of my chair. She studied me like I was a museum exhibit that had just started talking. “So, you’reliterallysuper old?”
I pinched my lips together to hide the smile that tried to bloom. The girl had accused me of being old more times than I could count. Now she knew.
“One hundred and fifty-eight, to be exact.”
She gawked at me, complete with wide eyes and a slack jaw.It was adorable, but her reaction was overshadowed by the energy pulsing from across the table.
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Nguyen had a singular kind of presence. It wasn’t quite the showstopping, everyone-in-the-room-turns-to-stare kind of magnetism that Emerson possessed, but it was close. In all my years, he’d been the only other man who might have had a chance of chipping away at my walls enough to get to know the real me.
And he’d made some progress on that front. We were close, once. I would even go so far as claiming him as one of my dearest friends, but that was all we were.
Had I thought about what it might be like to get to know him on a more intimate level? Yeah, for about a minute. His heated glances and the gravel in his voice when we were alone in a room might have sent a flicker of awareness through me once or twice, but it was nothing.
A fraction of what I knew was possible.
A fraction of what Emerson could elicit without even trying.
Nguyen propped his boot up on his opposite knee, his dark eyes gleaming with something that had my shoulders tensingbefore he even spoke. “If you’ve been around that long, how long ago was your affair with the demon?”
Low blow.
His words were a blade to the back, but I’d spent over a century learning how to bleed without letting anyone see. Despite the fact that every muscle in my face wanted to glare daggers at him, I didn’t so much as blink.
He knew I hadn’t told anyone else at Lexa about the depth of my connection to Emerson. And he’d just used it against me. Out of spite.
“Yourwhat?” Shay squeaked.
Letting the ice in my veins bleed into my voice, I gave him the truth. “I ended things with Emerson three years before I wound up in the Alius.”
Surprise flashed in his expression, washing away some of his cockiness.
That was another reason I’d refused to let anything more grow between us over the years. Confidence could be an incredibly attractive trait, but it could also be the thing that turned a person ugly. Nguyen liked to play jump rope with that line.
Dennis raised his hand, drawing my attention. “Hold on. If you’ve done what you think Megan is trying to do, why would we need anyone’s help?”
