A Shadow's Embrace Read online

  She leaned her head back on the sofa as the guys chuckled. “I tried to sort as I dumped, but I’m not sure how effective I was there toward the end. I got a little gleeful when I saw that huge trough of space appear. It was like Christmas.”

  “It’s all good. I couldn’t keep up with you, but I tagged most of it. I’ve got the footage of Rider up and ready to review.” He paused, concern evident on his face. “You sure you want to see this? We can handle this part.”

  “No. He’s my team. I’m in.”

  “So, check this.” Ace whirled in his chair and began tapping keys. A display popped up on the largest screen. Multi-colored scraggly lines appeared. “That green line is you. I took cues from Kaeden when you started so I could train Matilda.”

  “Matilda?” she asked.

  “His computer,” Dagan whispered. “They’ve had a love affair going for a few years.”

  Hah. He and Cadence would be hilarious when put in the same room. Definitely needed to hook them up. Their little geeklets would be legendary.

  “After a few minutes Matilda used your heightened pulse rate and other physical cues to tag the sectors of footage around those incidents. I’m bringing them up first. Then we can work back to the others if needed. There are thousands upon thousands of days of footage here, and that’s if we all look at it. I’m not sure how we’re going to process it all.”

  The fact that her body responded to the data even when she hadn’t recalled pausing to review it astounded Devyn. They’d never thought to analyze her physical reactions.

  “I’ve gotta admit I’m crushing on your geekdom, Ace.”

  Crimson rose in his cheeks. The guys chuckled, and one of the twins slapped him on the back. Dagan squeezed her thigh. She looked up and saw the heat in the depths of his eyes as he studied her.

  “Just a little bit,” she whispered. “I crushed on Kaeden, too, earlier. Just a little bit.”

  “Thinking I need to stake my claim and give you a reason not to crush so easily, little bit or not,” he whispered.

  Kaeden cleared his throat, causing Devyn to jump. Embarrassment flooded her. Had she really admitted to crushing on him when he was right there? Within hearing range?

  A sexy grin spread on his handsome face. Oh, yeah, she totally had. He’d admitted to being a secondary empath, but that didn’t mean he’d sensed her attraction earlier. Most empaths kept their abilities locked down, not wanting to be hampered by the residual white noise of everyone’s private thoughts and emotions. Knowing that didn’t make it any less humiliating, though. Her heart flailed for purchase in her chest as Dagan crushed her into a stronger hold against him. Experiencing techno-drop—her term for the heady, swirly, cloud-floating feeling she experienced when inside for a long period of time—was probably not a good thing when around so many hot Alpha men.

  What were they talking about? Oh, yeah. Analyzing all the data. “Cadence and I discussed it a couple of weeks ago when I hypothetically brought up the situation of a huge glom of data to her. I didn’t want them to know what I’d stumbled into with the ARES files. We didn’t have the bandwidth or the resources we needed for me to dump them. Until I figured out how important the data was, I decided to sit on it.”

  “Then he somehow figured out what you saw.” Dagan squeezed her thigh. “We’ll sort through it, figure out what is what.”

  “Apparently so.” It was all she could say as her synapses began pulsating, thundering arousal through her. They were body to body. She was practically in his lap. His very hard, firm lap. She rested her head on his shoulder and her hand on his abs, fighting the impulse to give them a squeeze, maybe cop a feel.

  Focus.

  Rex chuckled. “Is she always like this?”

  “Uh, Cadence said something about techno-space or something like that. Apparently she gets a little weird if she stays in longer than ninety minutes or so,” Ace offered.

  “Well, I’d be down with her kind of weird any day,” Rex stated.

  “No shit,” one of the twins said.

  Dagan grunted and shifted her deeper into his hold.

  “Let’s focus, everyone.” Kaeden’s admonishment censured the whispers from the men as they watched her.

  “Well, we’ll get into those files once we recover her man,” Rex said as his phone chimed. “I’ve got a really pissed-off dude named Dare calling me every twenty minutes, and I’d really like to calm his ass down.”

  “Maybe I should talk to him.”

  “No, we want you away from your team until we know Conver doesn’t have eyes or ears on them or us. Things have gone silent, which didn’t make sense until we got wind that they’d gotten your man Rider. That sucks, but it gives us time to assess the situation and create an offensive strategy,” Trent said.

  “Okay, well, back to the footage.” Ace’s lips thinned, and his voice faltered for a moment as the surveillance footage began playing. “This is gonna be rough.”

  “Just play it,” Trent stated. “She’s already seen enough when she was copying it down to know what to expect. You’re only dragging it out and making the wound deeper.”

  She silently thanked the man for his insight as she speculated what his ability was. She knew Rex was a telekinetic, and the twins had enhanced clairvoyance and clairsentience abilities. Dagan handled the mental manipulation, and he, along with Kaeden, had secondary empathic talents. Kaeden was a legendary seer. Very few on the street knew what Trent was capable of doing. Somehow not knowing made her more nervous.

  The crack of a whip, followed by hissed screams and grunts pierced the sensual, floaty space she’d been in. Deep, angry voices growled questions between the lashes. She cringed with each strike, as if they’d struck her rather than Rider. Listening to Rider’s torment was a horrific crash. She trembled against Dagan until his calming presence drifted into her mind, holding her firmly. Ignoring the rage roiling between the Shadows as they sat there watching, studying the torture of Rider, was tantamount to dying inside.

  Each passing hour made her slip deeper into herself until all that was left was a hull of what she was, wrapped around Dagan as though he was a security blanket. She saw and thought but didn’t feel beyond him. The images became objects rather than pain experienced by her friend, her brother. The moment she sensed the last of her humanity escape, she analyzed the footage like a drunken robot. She slipped into the data stream, enhancing and isolating the background of Rider’s location. Cracked windows fractured strays of sunlight behind him.

  The panes of glass offered brief glimpses to the surroundings. Shadows flickered on the other side of the panes, brief glimpses of movement that offered little detail other than the lack of isolation. She honed the feed, filtering the sounds until only the blare of car horns filled her ears. Rider’s captors were in the city somewhere. Had they remained within Chicago? Why would they take that chance?

  Her.

  They’d remained nearby, confident they could break Rider and discover her location.

  Rider wouldn’t break. He never had.

  She slid back into reality, listening as the men conversed, discussing the intel she’d pulled from the footage. They knew the area. Ace pulled up street cameras, and the collective began sorting through potential angles until they’d identified a specific building.

  They had a location.

  She forced herself to breathe deeper, reach into the cavernous web of data, and breech the weak security of each network until she found the one that had streamed the footage. “Third floor.”

  “On it.” Ace pounded the keyboard for a few minutes. “Yes. We’re live with the network now. We should be able to shadow their movements.”

  “Good. We’ll hit tonight. That’ll give us time to work up an op. Close-quarters situations, with so many eyes, make it difficult.” Kaeden stood and crossed his arms as he studied a map Ace had pulled up of the neighborhood.

  The men huddled around him. Devyn thought about the possibilities for a few minutes as Dagan�
��s hold on her emotional reactions abated.

  “You’ll need a diversion to draw eyes and ears to something other than your entry.” Broaching the subject of her participating in the op would have to wait. Dagan and his men were probably above working with untrained lower levels like her, but she could help.

  “I need to talk to Dare. Diaz’s crew could help. Averting attention is their forte. The street squads use it all the time. Or used to before I talked them out of scheming.”

  “Using unknowns is risky.” Rex shook his head. “There’s another option.”

  And, while they were figuring out precisely what that other option was, Rider endured torture. He hung in hell while they took their time deciding what was to be done. Damn them. Fuck caution. Make a decision and move, you chicken-shit slow pokes. She bit back the enraged response, knowing it’d do no good. They were the experts.

  “Diaz is solid, trainable,” Dagan stated.

  “Tell us about him,” Kaeden said.

  “Dare and Rider caught his so-called gang breaking into a corner market one night. They were loaded down with food, medicine. They hadn’t even touched the register.” Devyn chuckled. “That little street urchin gave them a run for their money. He told his crew to split, and they didn’t even blink before jumping to do exactly what he said. They were smoke. I’d never seen anything like it. It shocked Dare and Rider stupid I think because the next thing I see on the video surveillance afterward is both of them flat on their asses and him grinning down at them.

  “It took a couple of weeks for me to track Diaz’s crew down, but I did. I decided to approach him myself. Cut out part of my soul that day to see them all in tattered clothing, scrounging through sacks of restaurant garbage they’d dragged back to their lair—an abandoned building a few blocks from our headquarters. He’d learned who we were. He walked right up to me and held out his hand in welcome.”

  “They’ve had it rough.”

  “Yeah. Their parents were mostly level threes turned away from Base Four a few months before you all broke out, I think. So, four years ago? Many of them died shortly after being turned out, their injuries too bad to be healed. Diaz had been the oldest at the time, a whopping fifteen. He rounded up the other kids and took control. They’re family.”

  “And you look out for them now.”

  “When they let me. They’d been surviving long before I came around. Indigo Order doesn’t shove itself down the throats of the street. We keep the doors open and let them come as they need, asking no questions.” Devyn shrugged. “Dare and Rider took it upon themselves to do more when they could. We all did, I guess. Cadence, Mia, and I work with them on their reading and computer skills, stuff like that. Dare and Rider are the real kings of the street to Diaz and the other crews. They teach self-defense and street fighting, help the kids learn to control their powers.”

  “Dare and Rider are level six,” Kaeden stated.

  Devyn nodded. “They’re probably like y’all. They were moved to our base because they’d been unruly in their station. They don’t talk about where they came from, what they did before then. I assume they’re Shadow Elites. Doctor Lang was working to curb their violent tendencies. It proved difficult because they’d learned to work in tandem, somehow using Rider’s abilities to channel each other.”

  “Very interesting,” Kaeden stated.

  “Diaz studied how the two of them work together, and he has his whole crew doing it, admittedly not as efficiently, but it’s quite a sight to see those kids we first met a couple of years ago able to work together and be that strong now. That proud.” Devyn smiled. “They’ll surprise you if you give them a shot.”

  “Well, even if we do, the street hasn’t exactly been shy about expressing their dislike for the SEO. I doubt they’d work with us,” Trent stated. “If I had a buck for every time someone jacked something from my Harley, I’d be a millionaire.”

  “That’s why I need to talk to Dare. They’ll do it for me, for him. More importantly, they’ll do it for Rider. Like I said, those two are their kings.”

  “That explains a lot about after the explosion. Every underground psychic Indigo Order ever helped must’ve shown up. It was impressive as shit,” Corbin said.

  Her heart swelled when she thought about them all turning out to help, but it sank into her gut like a lead balloon when she realized all the work she and her team had ahead. Getting Indigo Order back up and running would be a massive endeavor.

  The compound had been obliterated based on what little she’d heard. The fact that she hadn’t heard more proved it’d been bad. No one wanted to be the beast to burden her with the destruction of what they’d all worked so hard to do.

  But they’d overcome this. Together. Somehow. It would just take time, and she prayed the underground street crews she helped could hold out in the meantime.

  “They’re the reason we do what we do. We aren’t covertly trained elites like you all. We can’t take on General Conver directly, but we can cut him off at the knees. We can protect those he expected to die.”

  “You do good work,” Kaeden said. “When we get this op done and the dust settles, we’ll sit down, discuss how the SEO can help get Indigo Order back up and running. What your group does is too important for you to be down for long.”

  Wow. The offer shocked her. She’d never respond one way or another without discussing it at campfire with her team. Hell, she’d probably have to discuss it at campfire with the street, too. There was no way Patch’s crew would be down with being associated with the SEO, not even if Diaz’s group was.

  Their help would mean a massive boost in the time it would take to situate Indigo Order, but it was a cumbersome responsibility to saddle them with since they’d already done so much for her. Hell, they were going to get Rider back. She and Dare could never handle that alone.

  She rolled her shoulders and grimaced as the telltale exhaustion from power usage crept into her body. Dagan massaged the sore muscles.

  “Come on, I’ll show you where you can rest up.”

  She followed him through the hallway and up the stairs. Her pulse quickened when she realized they were alone again. The non-descript bedroom was what she’d expected from a safe house. Decent, but bland. White walls, a double-sized bed, white comforter, and two equally colorless pillows offset the dark wood of the nightstand and dresser.

  A yawn escaped as she turned to thank Dagan. His hands settled at her waist as he drew her closer.

  “You okay?”

  No. She was as far from okay as possible. She’d spent God only knew how long watching footage of a man she considered a brother being tortured. “I—I can almost smell his burned skin. He never screamed, Dagan. How can someone endure all that and not scream?”

  “Because he knew you’d find him, find the footage. He knew what it’d do to you to hear him scream.”

  The stubborn son of a bitch needed a good wallop aside the head. “I always told him I don’t need to be protected.”

  “There’s no shame in accepting help, in letting someone else take the lead.” Dagan pushed errant strands of her hair behind her ear. “You let me care for you last night, let me handle the control room.”

  “That was different.” She couldn’t explain why or how. It just was.

  Dagan brushed his lips along hers, pulling away before she could respond. “Get some rest, babe. We’re in for a long day tomorrow.”

  Chapter Six

  Dagan glanced at his watch. Three hours. He’d have to wake Devyn soon, give her a chance to eat something. His dick throbbed in a dull, continuous ache when he thought of her, like he had nonstop for the past three hours.

  The vanilla of her shampoo still permeated his nostrils. The weight of her hand still pressed against his stomach when he closed his eyes. Fuck, he was in deep and didn’t ever want to crawl out.

  He wanted to be the calm in her storm every day, the one to bring out that sexy-as-fuck smile of hers. Running through surveillance foota
ge of the week before her abrupt departure from the compound had been an exercise in restraint. The urge to charge into her room, spread those sweet long-as-fuck legs of hers wide, and bury himself in her wet heat rode him almost as hard as he needed to ride her.

  But there was no way in hell that was going down soon. They’d added Dare to the mix shortly after deciding they needed a better assurance something specific hadn’t gone down to get Devyn gone from Chicago—thus the perusal of every moment of Indy’s life before the week she’d poofed to do her digging.

  Raised voices in the makeshift war room drew Dagan from the building specs he and Dare had been studying for the past hour. Contacting him had been a mistake in several ways. He was stubborn, fearless, and determined to help rescue his teammate. He was so much like the men on Dagan’s team, he melded flawlessly. But his ruthless, dog-with-a-bone mission to get Rider back kept Dagan on edge. Failing Dare or Devyn wasn’t an option.

  “Sounds like trouble’s brewing next door,” Dare commented. “Are you the Rider of your crew?”

  “Come again?”

  “You calm and sort their shit before it hits the fan?” Dare tossed a map on the table. “That was Rider. No matter how pissed I got at the risks Indy took, he calmed my ass down.”

  “Why do y’all call her Indy? How’d that start?” The nickname was cute and matched her independent spirit, but Dagan doubted that’s where it came from. He knew the street had come up with it, supposedly a nickname because of Indigo Order.

  “We came up with Indigo Order because of the legend of the Indigo children—it sort of defined us in a simplistic way. I say we, but it was all Indy from the get-go. All Rider and I did was knock heads together to garner respect with the street and keep her, Cadence, and Mia safe. But the name appealed to the kids on the street, and that’s what mattered to Indy, I mean Devyn.”

  Dare shook his head. “She was unstoppable. She wanted to hunt down and help every urchin this side of the Mississippi. I can’t tell you how many scrapes we dragged her out of. She’d go toe-to-toe with the worst dregs of the drug cartels and not even blink, like she knew she’d win the fight even though she couldn’t throw a punch for shit at the time.”