A Shadow's Embrace (5 page)

“How dare you?” She shook off the dregs of mindlessness and whirled around, determined to return to Dare, to the compound. He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her against him.
 

“We’re almost out. Look around. It’s too late to go back.”
 

The metal lined corridor pulsated with fiery heat. The charges had been detonated.
 

“That doesn’t make sense. They weren’t out yet.”
 

Dagan’s arm tightened around her waist. “I don’t think they meant to set it off.”
 

No. Her throat burned from the fierce scream of denial.
 

Dare. Cadence. Mia. Rider. Someone, please. Are you okay?
 

“Don’t. Conver has the strongest telepaths in existence.”
 

They were moving, but in the wrong direction. Fighting to return, search for her team, she pulled away from him, clawing at the tight grip he had around her waist. She dragged her feet along the concrete floor and grabbed at the passing walls. Flames shot toward them, flinging fiery shrapnel their direction.  Dare and Mia were back there. She had to get to them. The corridor heated as the fire spread its evil manacles along the exit Dagan was hauling her down.
 

“Let me go. I won’t leave them! Damn you, I won’t leave them.” She grabbed at the walls, now heated by the advancing inferno threatening to envelop them. Why wouldn’t he let her go? She had to help Dare. Kicking, she bit back the pained cries in her throat as her fingers burned from their impact against the hot surface.
 

She kicked and grunted, wriggled and punched at the steely grasp around her waist. Cool air trailed along her skin as he carried them out the exit. No. She couldn’t leave her team. Not until she knew they were okay.
 

“Easy, Devyn. We’ve gotta get out of here. We’re meeting with Dare and Mia soon, remember?”
 

The confidence in his tone eased her worry somewhat. Why didn’t she have that confidence in her team? Dare was a fierce telekinetic. They had to be okay. She’d been on the run, on her own, for too long. That, combined with today’s run through Chicago, had done her in.
 

Psychic exhaustion was lethal, a dangerous depletion of critical energy. Fear rattled around in her as her body began shutting down, forcing her to do what she hadn’t done on her own—replenish her reserves.
 

She leaned into Dagan’s strength, welcoming his willingness to take control. For the first time in…well, forever…she didn’t want to be in charge. All she wanted was to close her eyes, surrender to the exhaustion. Forget this shitty day had happened.
 

?
 

Dagan hated waiting. Impatience was his best friend, and he liked it that way. Shit happened if you sat around on your ass doing nothing. Taking the fight to the motherfucker stupid enough to mess with him had been his modus operandi for as long as he could remember. Yet, here he was.
 

Waiting.
 

Surrounded by a bunch of scrawny street punks who’d made it quite clear he was just as distrusted as Conver. Fuck. This shit sucked. But he had to grudgingly admit the hideout was perfect.
 

He’d gotten a couple blocks with her before a group of punk-ass kids, wielding busted pipes and boards from broken crates, surrounded him and led them down two stories of rickety stairs in an abandoned warehouse. They’d wound through yet another underground maze without uttering a word.
 

The buzz of his cellphone startled him. Apparently they weren’t as far underground as he’d thought. Then again, Kaeden insisted they have the best of the best, so Dagan could probably get a signal in hell if necessary. Speak of the devil. Dagan sighed his frustration and took the call—the fifth one in the past hour.
 

“Nothing’s changed, Kaeden. You keep calling every ten minutes, I’m gonna stop answering.”
 

“I wouldn’t advise that.” Yeah, just as Dagan suspected. Kaeden was in a shit mood. “How is she?”
 

Fucking amazing. Devyn had crashed from her adrenaline high a while ago, after making sure he and everyone around her was okay. She’d been running for her life for God only knew how long, and she’d been worried about everyone else.
 

“Well, seeing as how she spent most of the day being shot at by Conver’s men, only to then see everything she’d built blown to shit, she’s doing pretty damn good.” Dagan looked over at the makeshift pallet he’d made in the corner. “Anything about her team yet?”
 

It had killed him to drag her from that inferno. He’d reconciled himself to Dare and Mia being gone, but he prayed to fuck he wouldn’t have to break that news. Ever.
 

“Corbin and Cash are rooting through the rubble as we speak. It’ll only take a couple of objects for them to pick up on what happened, but there’s a lot of debris to sift through to find something Dare or Mia might’ve touched close enough to the event. Half of Chicago showed up to help. I didn’t realize how far her reach on the street went.”
 

No shit. Half the street was huddled around her as Dagan spoke with Kaeden. The other half had been and gone, opting to take the first shift to “keep the location secure.” If devotion measured ability, Conver was fucked. These kids meant business when it came to keeping Devyn safe. Their determination alone made Dagan want to keep them all safe, even after Conver’s shit storm blew out of town. Worry weighted their gazes when they regarded Devyn. No, Indy. To them, she would always be Indy.
 

When the shock of the day fell away, she’d hate that they’d seen her like this, but Dagan couldn’t think about that right now. He studied the menagerie of urchins who’d drifted from the shadowed corridors over the past couple of hours. The never-ending parade of worried people—none older than twenty as far as he could tell—remained silent, giving him measured, leery regard before each crouched beside Devyn and whispered softly, as though their words would rip her from the comatose state she’d slipped into shortly after the explosion.
 

“I’ll work on it from this side. I’m thinking some of Indy’s followers may know something.”
 

“Work your way in there. Figure out what we can do to fill in the gap until Indigo Order is back up and running. These kids rely on them a hell of a lot more than I’d realized.”
 

“Yeah.” Dagan ended the call and shoved his cell into his pocket.
 

Fuck. It’d been a shit day. He didn’t want to deal with this. All he wanted was to carry her off to his pad, lay her out like a feast, and pass out for a year with her beneath him. He’d kept his distance, wanting to focus on the task of keeping the perimeter secure, but his current vantage point offered him a great view of her long, blonde hair tumbling around her. Curled into a ball like a sexy-as-fuck kitten, she slept like the dead. She was so fucking small he’d think she’d disappeared if not for that gorgeous-as-fuck hair—the kind he could sink his fist into and use to hold her in place as he pounded into her from behind.
 

He studied the newest vagabond group that had drifted in. They did what the others before them had done—paused several yards away to look over at the tall guy with spiked black and blue hair. Clad in ancient-looking combat boots, baggy jeans and no shirt, he handled the growing crowd with ease, acknowledging each entrant with equal fervor. Kaeden would be impressed. Tattoos sleeved the guy’s arms, spreading upward to run along his upper chest and down to his lower back.
 

Dagan waited for a few moments and then headed toward him. The kid was twenty at the most. He offered a chin lift as he stood to his full height and puffed out his chest. The obvious posturing made Dagan want to grab the punk and tuck him into bed where he belonged. Jesus, this shit was not his comfort zone.
 

“Thanks for your help today, man,” he said instead.
 

“It wasn’t for you, Shadow. Indy’s the shit. She’s the street. We back her and her crew. No matter what.”
 

“Name’s Dagan.”
 

“You’re all the same to me. A Shadow is a Shadow.”
 

“Fair enough. You got a name?”
 

“Depends on why you’re asking.”
 

“I don’t trust people without a name, first, and I need your help securing De…Indy. Conver’s turning up every rock and inspecting every cracked sidewalk. I need her out of the area stat.” Damn, but he hated relying on others to do what he’d rather handle. “I need a ride, something that’ll blend in.”
 

“Indy’s man Rider keeps rides at a garage a ways down the road. Word hit the street about her being jacked up with Conver’s crew. I got some peeps situated down that way. Just in case any of her crew called out for help. Call never got made, but they’re still there. Ready.” He yanked a phone from his overly baggy jeans. “I’ll let ’em know.”
 

“It clean?”
 

“Far as I know. Rider don’t take risks. It’ll have whatever’s needed ’cause he’s on top of shit.” The punk grimaced and looked over at the still sleeping Devyn. “Indy don’t care for us cussing, especially me. Says I gotta set an example for my crew.”
 

“She’s probably right.”
 

“Yeah.” The guy’s fingers flew over the phone’s tiny keyboard. “Name’s Diaz. I tried out Flash, but Indy said it made me sound like a perv.”
 

The young man’s features softened, his tight hold on his thoughts loosened enough for Dagan to glimpse his fear, his love for Indy. She was like a big sister to him. “Thanks for the help, Diaz. I owe you.”
 

“Nah, it’s cool. Like I said, the street’s got Indy’s back. We take care of our own.” He shoved the phone into his pocket and emitted a shrill whistle. Everyone hustled toward him. “Our man Dagan here’s gonna get Indy off radar. Send word to your crews. We need eyes on the street, from here to the edge of town. Secure a path. Keep it breathing until our girl’s gone.”
 

Everyone moved out. A buzz of low-level conversation echoed through the catacombs as they headed to the surface. The tightening fist of concern he’d had lodged in his chest loosened.
 

He hadn’t realized how tense he’d become over the need to preserve Devyn’s safety. It had been four years since that horrid night when his team’s world imploded. Four years since Nevada and Sage had been killed. Their loss had destroyed Kaeden and Trent. Hell, it had destroyed everyone.
 

The twins had been the glue that held their shit together. Without them, the team had fallen apart. Because of Conver slaughtering them, Dagan and the others had finally done what needed to be done—escape the militant stranglehold they’d lived in since birth.
 

That’d been the last time he’d felt this determined to keep someone safe. Female Shadow operatives were rare. Something about Devyn’s gritty determination, her resolve, and leadership abilities reminded him of the twins. Fuck, he missed them every day.
 

Now wasn’t time to dredge the still waters of past fuckups. He’d need weapons, survival gear, and enough provisions to last a few days. Terrain on the outskirts of Chicago was more suburban than he’d like. What they needed was rural—raw, untouched wilderness. Remoteness was the key to outlasting Conver.
 

Conver’s men were spoiled, too acclimated to relying on technology to offer an edge. It’s why they were still with Conver. Well, that and greed. The fools actually bought into the general’s twisted vision of the future, one where he alone reigned supreme.
 

Dumbasses.
 

“ETA five minutes,” Diaz stated as he handed over a cell. “Blasted this burn phone’s number to the feet on the street. They’ll guide you out whichever way works fastest. You’ll be on your own from there. Numbers for all Indy’s crew that I’ve got are on it, and mine. You make it southwest enough, to Normal, get in touch with Tricks. Her crew’s tight with ours, and she’ll back Indy without question. Should have enough peeps to keep eyes out for y’all if needed.”
 

“Appreciate it.” Dagan offered his hand to Diaz. “I’ve gotta say I’m impressed. You’re organized and think ahead. You ever want it, I’m sure we’ve got a place for you at SEO.”
 

“Nah, man. It’s all on Indy. She, Dare, and Rider crawl up and down my ass with protocols and shit more than I’d admit, saying I have to know that stuff to keep my crew clean, fed, and free. Their shit’s finally sinking in, you know?” He gave Dagan a fist bump. “Keep our girl safe.”
 

A few moments later Dagan found himself alone with Devyn. He knelt and gently wrapped her petite frame in the blanket he’d found beside her. She almost came across as angelic when asleep. Alabaster skin creamier than he’d imagined. Sexy-as-fuck waves of golden hair came to rest just above the fullest, most gorgeous tits he’d seen in a long time.
 

The T-shirt someone had changed her into molded against her like a second skin. He doubted Devyn would like the clothes on her. But Dagan sure as fuck appreciated them. Blood surged southward, making his dick harden to a painful throb. Long, wrap-around-your-hips legs were accentuated in short, tight shorts.
 

Someone had put tennis shoes on her. Hopefully they’d fit well enough to be comfortable if they got into a full-on sprint later. He’d have to add different clothes to the provisions list. No way in hell she’d go unnoticed in this getup.
 

Her body tucked into his arms, as if she was meant to be there. And there it was. The bitter, downright cruel reminder of why female Shadows were a bad thing. Psychic genetic coding made Dagan and the other male operatives possessive to the point of lethal. Females like Devyn were their drug of choice.