A Shadow's Embrace Read online

  “Sounds like you and Rider kept her alive back when it started.” Dagan thought back to the rooftop. “And you did a hell of a job upping her fighting skills.”

  “She gave us a reason to keep going. I won’t pretend we had it as hard as you did in the Elite ops Shadow bullshit Conver made you do, but things got real intense quick back before we escaped. Indy blames herself, you know. Thinks she should’ve used her power and gotten us out sooner. I try to tell her it wouldn’t have worked. Things were too secure at first. We had to wait until they got lazy, comfortable with the fact we’d been broken. Then you Shadows showed up, and we saw our chance.”

  “She mentioned thinking you two were Shadow Elites before you showed up at the facility y’all broke out of with her.”

  “Appreciate all you’re doing for her and my brother in arms, but he and I agreed a hell of a long time ago never to talk about the shit from back then. We paved roads in hell no one else traveled.” Darkness settled in his gaze. The heaviness of the man’s regret punched Dagan. “We’re alive because of her. Until we saw her in that compound, shining brightly with hope despite all the evil shit Lang did to her and those she cared about, the two of us were ready to check out.”

  “But you held it together, because of her.”

  “She needed someone to have her back. We could see the bright in her darkening threatening to dim. Lang was close to figuring out she was a level six, a fuck of a lot stronger than even that in many ways. Somehow they hadn’t contemplated her power existing. But Rider felt it, tasted it. From the moment we saw her, we knew why we’d survived.”

  “To keep her safe.” Dagan rubbed his chest where it ached at the thought of what would’ve gone down had they not shown up. “You taught her how to survive, be strong inside that place.”

  “No. That was all Rider. He refused to break, and, as long as he held out, we all did. It was a pride issue, sort of a throw-down street challenge for us all to endure and overcome whatever they threw at us, even if they didn’t know.”

  “She blames herself for Rider getting caught.”

  “Fuck, I was afraid of that. The thing is, she’s never kept shit from us. We didn’t know she had it in her. I get why she did it. I mean I do now. Rider will too. But, I gotta tell you, that shit burned bad, knowing she’d been going in alone and hauling out intel to pass on to you. We knew about some of it, of course. But we had no idea she’d come across all this shit.”

  “Neither did we. She hadn’t passed anything on, not yet. She’d just discovered it when she took off for that week.”

  “That week was hell on Earth. She’d never gone AWOL before. Rider blamed himself for being in her shit too much, keeping too tight of a hold on her. I’m relieved you all intervened and dragged her ass out of the fire when Conver was breathing down her neck.” Dare shook his head. “We owe y’all huge.”

  Man, I know you’re bonding with the new guy, but we could really use you in here. Kaeden and Trent have lost their shit.

  “Fuck. Corbin says shit’s getting intense next door. Let’s move.”

  Tension thickened the atmosphere when Dagan entered. Rex and Cash had Trent cornered on one side of the room. Ace and Corbin had Kaeden down on the floor, his face pressed against the carpet.

  What the fuck?

  He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Corbin turned his head. “It’s about time. Can you hold their reins so we can figure out what the ever-living fuck your girl ran across?”

  Dare whistled. “I’m warning everyone this one time. You say all those fucks in front of Indy and she’ll have your ass. She says we have to set an example for the kids.”

  Cash and Ace snorted.

  “Yeah, good luck getting this crew’s mouths clean,” Rex commented.

  Dagan broke through Kaeden’s and Trent’s personal shields and held their rage and shock at bay. Violating his comrades’ privacy sucked. They fought his intrusion, their minds drowning beneath his resolute determination to do his duty.

  Infiltrating two minds at once split his attention and weakened his power. That wasn’t ideal since Kaeden and Trent were fearless level sixes. They wouldn’t accept his intervention easily since rage mottled reason within them both. Their anguished denial echoed in his awareness.

  Calm the fuck down so we can sort this shit. Don’t make me knock your asses out. Dagan projected the telepathic order to them both, praying to whatever God listened that they’d comply.

  Get the fuck out of my head. Kaeden’s command thundered in Dagan’s mind but he held on.

  This isn’t helping the situation. Whatever the hell this is, we’ll figure it out and get through. It’s what we do. Man up. Dagan held on as the two grumbled, but eventually calmed enough to accept his rein around them.

  Thank fuck. He maintained his hold even though relief engulfed him. He loathed the responsibility which came with his ability. Who the hell was he to dictate what someone felt? How they reacted?

  Dagan had never had a problem handling Conver’s men. But powering up and using it against Kaeden and Trent was like dancing on a minefield. They’d been forced to train, battle one another for their entire lives. They’d hurt one another.

  Escape had meant an end to hurting one another. Yet here he was, doing exactly that—violating the freedom they’d sacrificed everything for.

  Fuck.

  He couldn’t control the guilt and regret trickling past his carefully constructed psychic defenses. Trent and Kaeden both stilled, as if sensing the building tide within him.

  We’re good now, man. Trent’s calm voice settled the emotional battle within Dagan.

  Trent and Kaeden were shredded inside, as though someone had lobbed live grenades on already bleeding wounds. Only one thing would set both of the men off.

  “What did she find?” Dagan’s inquiry relieved the unease of the others in the room. They eased off Kaeden and Trent, allowing the two men to begin pacing back and forth in front of the monitors like barely contained animals.

  Cash’s eyebrows rose as though silently asking, “Are they really okay?”

  Dagan needed Devyn, the warmth her presence offered. He wanted her lush curves settled against him, her arms wrapped around him. Maybe he should go check on her. No, she needed to rest.

  Ace wrung his hands a few times before sitting back down at his computer with a heavy breath. A couple keystrokes later, the large monitor replayed a nightmare. Footage of Nevada and Sage. In the background, Dagan could see younger versions of himself and his team being held back by Conver’s cronies.

  Tears streaked down both the women’s faces. Dagan swore as he watched what they hadn’t seen back then—the frontal view of the incident that had changed everything—destroyed them all. The bullwhip cracked the air, again and again as the camera caught an occasional glint of pleasure on Conver’s face as he wielded the whip on the backs of the two women.

  Whoever operated the camera moved, angling to get a close-up of their ravaged backs. Conver halted the brutality to scrape his fingers along the bleeding wounds on their skin. Both women gasped, but neither screamed.

  “Swear your allegiance. Plead for my forgiveness.” Arousal flared hot across Conver’s features as he regarded the twins, their hands manacled above their heads, their bodies stripped bare.

  Both remained silent even though they trembled. Conver’s maniacal laughter, the same sickening sound that haunted Dagan’s nightmares every night, echoed through the room. Angry curses filled the room, useless screams from back then, when they’d hoped their pleas would work—when they hoped obedience would keep the two women safe.

  They had no idea how twisted Conver was. The zipper. Fucking shit, Dagan could hear the sound so easily thanks to the camera’s audio.

  “Turn it off.” Dare’s voice punctuated the nightmare they found themselves reliving. “No good comes from watching that fucked-up shit.”

  Ace complied quickly, the determination in Dare’s voice offering a bit of normalcy
within the hellacious memories still engulfing his mind. He could still hear their outraged screams as Conver violated them, one and then the other.

  It had taken twenty-four men to hold Dagan and his team back. Collared and unable to use their powers, they’d had no choice but to stand there and watch while the only pure things in their lives were violated by evil.

  “Who were they to you all?”

  “Family,” Rex stated.

  “Everything,” Trent growled as he halted his pacing and stared at the screen.

  Kaeden’s face remained grim, his mind destroyed as he regarded the frozen image of the two women with a longing that made everything in Dagan ache for the man.

  Dagan took a few breaths before responding. “Nevada and Sage were our Devyn in a lot of ways. They were Trent’s and Kaeden’s women. We tried to keep that part under wraps, but Conver figured it out. Whenever we fucked up or didn’t comply with his orders, they suffered.”

  “This was the last day they lived,” Cash whispered. He collapsed into a chair.

  “Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell me what went down after this isn’t in the stuff she found. I can’t watch that shit again, relive it.” Corbin ran his hands through his hair and began pacing the room in agitation. Dagan tried to reach out and wrap him in the same calming net he had Trent and Kaeden locked in.

  Dare settled his arm on his shoulder. “I don’t know you, man, but I know my man Rider had limits. There’s not enough power in the world to make this sit calm. Don’t run dry trying.”

  Dagan nodded and eased his hold off on Trent and Kaeden. They glared their disdain for life, for everything, for nothing. The lack of control, once again, scraped along their thoughts. Dagan tasted their regret, their anguish. It mirrored his.

  “Dagan?”

  The soft inquiry drew his attention and reignited the brushfire of need in him. Devyn shuffled into the room, wearing nothing but one of his shirts. He inhaled, his gaze memorizing the naked legs, the bare feet, the soft swish of fabric along her upper thighs as she made her way to him.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “We’re reviewing some of the other footage and ran across something unexpected.” Dagan tried to soften the blow but knew there’d be no way to accurately describe what she’d found. “You uncovered some footage from our past.”

  “Oh.” Her gaze softened as she regarded the screen. Licking her lips, she looked around. “It was really bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, so maybe that’s what Conver didn’t want you all to see, why he came after me.”

  “We were there to see this.”

  “It could be related though,” Dare added. “We need to keep going. Maybe Devyn and I could give you a break from watching this shit again. We aren’t in as deep.”

  “No,” Kaeden growled. “Ace, get moving again.”

  Dagan’s stomach soured as they forwarded through the events that transpired after the punishment Nevada and Sage had endured. Devyn settled in the seat beside him, her hand resting on his. He squeezed it reflexively as he sensed his entire team tense when Ace restarted footage of a scene everyone recalled all too vividly.

  “Is there any value to watching this?” Trent asked testily. He stood and paced.

  “Let’s get it over with. The sooner we do, the better.” Kaeden crossed his arms and locked down.

  Dagan’s heart twisted for his friends. Fuck, he couldn’t imagine watching this go down again, and he wasn’t them—they were in love with the women involved.

  His mind rewound to that day. It had been normal in many ways, endless hours of PT and countless physical and psychic challenges designed to break them. Nevada and Sage had been removed from isolation. It was two short days after their brutal punishment and rape, and Conver had caught Dagan and the guys planning an escape. If Dagan and his team had only known that back then, maybe they could’ve saved the two women.

  “They lined us up like cattle,” Rex stated.

  “We should’ve known something fucked up was about to go down,” Cash added.

  Silence descended as the footage continued. They listened to Conver spew his latest vision of a new world order. Then he pulled Nevada and Sage from the line, a psychotic laugh tumbling from him as he pulled out a couple of syringes and plunged them into the girls.

  Anguish burned in Dagan. He wrapped his arm around Devyn, suckling on her warmth and calmness like a newborn babe. Jesus, she was everything they’d fought for back then. Innocence, beauty, hope. So much like Nevada and Sage….

  “You think you’re smart enough to escape, to plot against me, and I wouldn’t know?” Conver’s voice punctuated the pained silence. His cronies trained countless weapons on them all. “I think it’s time for you all to learn exactly what the ultimate sacrifice is like, to know my vision will not be challenged by anyone.”

  Their reaction had been swift, an instantaneous response to the imminent threat to Nevada and Sage. Gunfire exploded around them, but they hadn’t cared. Somehow, mostly thanks to Rex’s quick reflexes and telekinetic powers, they’d escaped immediate termination.

  They’d booted them all, but they’d finally figured out how to unlock their collars—which they did the moment the fight ensued. The collars were synched to their individual abilities, which left them vulnerable to another psychic’s talents. It had taken way too fucking long to realize that. Channeling one person’s power into the collar’s power mechanism short-circuited the device and enabled removal.

  Getting one of them uncollared to use his abilities on the first device had taken weeks of planning and careful observation to get the narrow window of time Cash and Corbin had needed to swap places. Back then the twins were so identical no one outside the team could distinguish them. They’d only managed to switch earlier that day. The team had expected to remove all their collars when they were on team lockdown for the night, but that hadn’t happened. They’d had to break out of them during the melee. Somewhere within the hell the women had disappeared.

  Kaeden and Trent leaned forward and studied the footage. Dagan followed suit. This was their chance to finally see what exactly had happened to them. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  It would only strengthen the nightmares.

  “Wait. Rewind a few seconds,” Rex shouted. Ace complied. “There. Conver and those two minions dragged them out. See?”

  Finally. Now they could see for themselves how it went down.

  Kaeden prowled toward the screen. “Eyes on the other sectors.”

  Ace banged his keyboard a few times, and more footage came up on the smaller monitors. Everyone studied them. Fuck. There were too many views. They’d never find the right ones.

  Devyn stood and moved to sit beside Ace. “You want to follow them, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Consider it done.” The monitors blurred for a few moments. Matilda whirled louder, almost purring as Devyn established contact. Dagan sensed her power spreading through the room, blanketing it as she ran through the footage.

  “Fuck,” Kaeden stated as he stood and headed toward Devyn. He looked around at all the men. “Circle up. She’s weak from before and inside for us. We need to drag her out stat if we get even a blip she’s having issues.”

  “Roger that.” Ace pounded away on the keyboard. “Matilda’s monitoring levels.”

  Dagan pulled his chair against hers and settled his hand on her shoulder, ready to dive soul first to pull her out. Hundreds of surveillance cameras had controlled every inch of the compound they’d been held in. Without her it would take days to wind through the footage and find the trail. Within moments, the monitors filled with different camera angles.

  His insides burned with the fiery embers of her selfless gift to them. Everything she’d worked for was crumbled to ash, her team gutted with the loss of a man, and she’d dived heart first into their problem without even thinking about the impact it’d have on her.

  Fuck, he w
as a goner. Every fiber of him screamed to have her, inhale the perfection that was Devyn. They settled in, watching in startling alarm as her skin, already pale, lost even more color and her body trembled from the overexertion.

  Kaeden cursed softly on her other side and watched Devyn, nodding his assent that it was time to get her back. Thank fuck. Just as Dagan was about to go in, she shuddered—a reflexive tremble that shook every inch of her for a few moments before she blinked to awareness.

  He tracked the soft movement of her throat as she swallowed a couple of times as though testing her ability to speak.

  “Okay, I can look again, but these are the ones I found time stamped after the gunfire battle. I’m pretty sure I have them in the right order. I guess there’s only one way to find out.” She studied the monitors. “Are you all sure you don’t want me and Dare to handle this?”

  “No. I want to know.” Trent stood beside Kaeden, darkness etched in his grim expression. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m fine.”

  She was far from fine. She stumbled from the chair and collapsed into Dagan’s lap. He enveloped her in his hold as Kaeden settled a blanket over them both.

  “Here we go,” mumbled Ace as he started the footage.

  It was like watching a movie. The cameras tracked them all the way through the compound as Conver dragged them along like dolls.

  “Why are they so docile? Did he drug them?” Rex asked.

  “I saw him holding syringes in the footage earlier,” Kaeden said. “I remember wanting to shove them down his throat.”

  They fell silent at the thought. Camera footage caught them stumbling into awareness, several cameras into the grim replay. One of the twins suddenly shoved the man dragging her. The man slammed against the wall with a splattering of blood that erupted across the tiny corridor.

  Kaeden chuckled. “Sage always had a temper.”

  “Oh, yeah, she did, almost worse than Nevada’s,” Trent said.