Read Shadow of Temptation (Asylums for Magical Threats #2.5) Online

Authors: Jessie Donovan

Tags: #FICTION / ROMANCE / PARANORMAL

Shadow of Temptation (Asylums for Magical Threats #2.5) (14 page)

BOOK: Shadow of Temptation (Asylums for Magical Threats #2.5)
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Sabrina was more aware of what wasn’t being said rather than what was—Santos couldn’t guarantee he’d live, but she’d let Sabrina know what happened regardless.

Of course, if Sabrina contacted her office, it was more than likely they’d relocate her and she’d never know what happened to Jorge. But if it meant Jorge at least had a chance, she would do it.

She nodded and pulled out her burner cell phone. Before she dialed, she said, “You might want to start getting your people out of here. The
Feiru
Liaison office will probably arrest all of you if given the opportunity.”

Santos nodded and motioned some people over to where Jorge was lying on the ground. Sabrina waited until he flashed back to flesh before she risked caressing his cheek and said, “You’d better survive, Jorge Salazar. I have a thing or two to discuss with you.”

Santos gave her an apologetic look and said, “Sabrina, we need you to move so we can try to transport him.”

She gave one last long look at Jorge and nodded before she stood up and moved to a quiet corner away from the noise of the DEFEND soldiers’ retreat. She kept Watkins in her sight—he was still unconscious with his hands secured behind his back with plastic ties—and watched as Santos and the others fashion a stretcher out of an old blanket. Thankfully, the blanket didn’t turn into shadow when he did. The next time she saw Jorge—she
would
see him again—she’d have to ask him about that.

When Santos and her team hoisted Jorge up and walked away, Sabrina turned on her phone and dialed her boss’s number.

It had been foolish to hope, but it looked like Neena’s promise to keep her from being relocated had been a lie.

 

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

 

Jorge’s eyes popped open as he drew in a deep gasp.

Bright lights. Pain. Noise.

Everything jumbled together inside his head, and he tried to concentrate. But the pain coursing through every nerve in his body was so overwhelming a part of him just wanted to die. He’d do just about anything to make it go away.

Isabel Santos’s face came into view and she frowned down at him and said, “I need you to stay awake and concentrate for me. After the next partial shift, we’re going to try to remove the knife in your thigh. We think that is what’s causing your uncontrollable shifting.”

“How can a—” He flashed from flesh to shadow and back again. The pain was worse than he remembered from before, but somehow he managed not to scream.

When he was solid again, he managed between pants to say, “I can’t take much more of this. Let me go back to sleep. Please.”

“I’d never thought I’d see you ask for anything nicely, but no, you can’t. Whatever substance coats that knife will probably kill you. The sooner we get it out, the sooner we can try to neutralize the effects.”

He wondered how she knew so much about medicine, but a different realization hit him. “Where’s Sabrina? Is she safe?”

Santos nodded. “She’s fine. And if you ever want to see Sabrina Ono again, you’re going to do as I say.”

A small sense of relief flooded him, but then he felt another shift coming on and he focused on that. “It’s going to happen again. Tell me what to do.”

“Okay. Right after the shift, use every bit of energy you have to keep yourself solid. It’s imperative that we get the knife out of you to keep you alive. After all, you can’t get into Ono’s pants if you’re dead.”

He wanted to flip his middle finger, but he wasn’t about to waste what precious energy he had, so he let it go. He could piss off Santos later.

He let the shift happen and clenched his jaw against the pain. As soon as he was flesh again, he used every last bit of his energy to imagine himself solid. He could feel his body wanting to break down, but he pushed it back. He wanted to see Sabrina again and to do that he needed to live.

Someone started pulling the knife out of his leg. The pain was unlike anything he’d ever experienced, as if someone were squeezing his heart with a clamp; he gripped the sheets with his hands as he groaned through his clenched teeth. Once the blade was free, the driving need to shift his body into shadow lessened at the same time as an excruciating flash of pain coursed through his body. Before anyone in the room could say a word, the world went dark again.

 

 

 

Sabrina stared out the sole window in her room and wondered for the thousandth time if Jorge was still alive. After her phone call back at the takedown site, her boss had taken Watkins and led a team to bust the other high-ranking members of the Fed League scattered across Mexico. For all intents and purposes, the Fed League was no more, at least in Mexico.

She should take some satisfaction in knowing that her undercover assignment had been a success, but unlike when she’d finished her job in Rio two years ago, Sabrina was anything but happy. And it wasn’t just because of not knowing what had happened to Jorge.

The room where she sat might look like a hotel room, but in reality, it was her prison cell. She’d been sequestered here for the last two days while the higher-ups decided what to do with her since her identity had been compromised. True, Watkins and the Fed League in the area were gone, but the mysterious Collector woman was a constant threat. Especially since the
Feiru
Liaison office had never heard of her before Sabrina’s report.

In all likelihood, she would soon be relocated. She’d never be able to see Jorge or her sister ever again.

The lock clicked and her door opened to reveal one of the rookie
Feiru
Liaison officers who’d been assigned as her guard. She’d seen his face around before he’d become her guard, but she didn’t know his name, and since she didn’t really care, she hadn’t asked.

The man motioned for her to come and said, “Marquez and Garcia want to see you.”

She stood up and followed the man down the hallway. Jose Garcia was the head honcho of the Mexico City office. No doubt they’d be telling her about her future today.

They arrived at one of the meeting rooms and her guard motioned her inside. Sabrina stepped into the room and nearly did a double take at who was sitting at the table. Marquez and Garcia were there, but so was Neena Chatterjee.

Neena gave her a small wave and said, “Come in, my dear.” She motioned to the seat across from her. “I saved you a cookie.”

Sabrina snapped out of her disbelief and took the seat. Sure enough, there was a cookie sitting on a napkin, but she wasn’t hungry. Instead, she looked from Neena to Marquez to Garcia. DEFEND wasn’t exactly a designated enemy, but neither was it an ally. She asked, “Anyone want to tell me what’s going on here?”

Her boss, Marquez, gestured toward Neena. “Ms. Chatterjee here has been in deep talks and negotiations with us over the last two days, and we’ve come to an agreement.”

She raised an eyebrow and couldn’t help but be sarcastic. “Oh really. Did she promise to save the world? Or give you the information you need to catch one of your most wanted
Feiru
criminals?”

Marquez opened his mouth, but Neena beat him to it. “We have made a temporary agreement to work together. Someone is circulating nasty rumors about my organization, and I’m out to prove to Mr. Garcia here that the rumors aren’t true.”

“And what does this have to do with me?”

Neena waved for Garcia to tell her. The head of the
Feiru
Liaison office didn’t look pleased at the gesture, but he looked at Sabrina and said, “We had originally slotted you to be relocated, to protect both you and our office. However, thanks to Ms. Chatterjee here, you have a second option.”

Anything that involved working with Neena would be a headache, but it could give her a chance at freedom and finding out if Jorge was still alive. “What does it require me to do?”

Garcia looked to Neena, but she didn’t say anything, so he continued. “You will be our trial go-between. You’ll spend most of your time working with DEFEND—that will make it easier to hide your identity—but you will periodically report to Marquez, as well as take requests from him to pass on to Ms. Chatterjee and others inside DEFEND. Technically, you will still be working for me, but Ms. Chatterjee has the final say in what you can do and with whom you can interact with.”

Neena Chatterjee in charge of her life. Fantastic. “And what happens if the temporary trial period doesn’t go well? What happens to me then?”

Garcia spoke up. “You’ll have the option to resign from our employ and work for DEFEND permanently, provided you sign a nondisclosure agreement and take a new identity. Or, you can be relocated with other outed agents. However, if you choose to stay with DEFEND, we will no longer be able to protect you. If DEFEND does something illegal, you’ll be as liable as every other person involved.”

Sabrina looked to Neena. The woman was folding some kind of origami figure. “Neena, before I agree to anything, what happened to Jorge?”

Neena finished her paper crane with a flourish and smiled. “Say yes, and I’ll take you to him.”

Marquez said, “We haven’t processed the necessary paperwork and—”

Neena interrupted him. “You and your paperwork. Sabrina has been doing a bang-up job at keeping it together. Let her see her fellow and make sure he’s okay.”

Sabrina’s two superiors gave her looks, but she kept her shoulders straight and expression calm. They wouldn’t shame her for falling for a
Feiru
. “Before I sign anything, I have a few suggestions I want you to implement, but I’m in.” She looked to Neena. “Now, take me to see Jorge.”

 

 

 

Jorge tried to concentrate on the movie on the TV in his room, but the distraction wasn’t working—he kept thinking about Sabrina.

Santos and the others watching over him refused to let him out of this room. They kept saying stuff like, “We need to monitor your vitals” or “We need to keep running blood tests.” Yet when he asked them about Sabrina, they would suddenly shut up and mutter something about Neena would tell him about her when she was ready.

A small part of him was afraid that now the danger and heat of the moment had cooled down, Sabrina didn’t want to see him. But remembering the feel of her in his arms, kissing him, or how he’d heard of her sacrifice to turn Watkins over to the authorities instead of running away with him for a chance at freedom, he knew that no matter what she felt for him, she would confront him if given the chance.

He still couldn’t believe she risked giving up her future so that Santos and the other could whisk him away to safety. He owed her his life.

Hell, she’d saved his life before that when she’d given him a reason to live. Because of Sabrina, he’d been able to rescue Luciana. Who knew how many other people he could help simply because one woman had found a way into his heart.

He turned off the TV. All of this thinking and wondering was making him soft, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

Someone approached the glass window next to his door. Then Santos—who he’d learned had been a nurse before joining DEFEND—entered his room and looked at the machines hooked up to him. “Everything looks good. I think we’ve flushed the chemical cocktail that was causing your uncontrollable shifting out of your system. Just in time for your visitors, too.”

He’d only been half-listening up to that point, but at the word “visitors” he looked to Santos. He was careful not to let his hope show on his face. “Who?”

“Neena and her friend.”

And his hope died. If Sabrina had accompanied Neena, not even Santos was cruel enough to keep that from him. “The last time I saw Neena, she drugged me. I don’t trust her. Do I have the option of getting security in here to watch over me?”

Santos rolled her eyes. “Somehow I don’t think you’ll want security in here with you.”

He was about to ask her to clarify when Neena walked into the room. Alone.

Jorge decided bluntness was his best strategy. “If you’re here to talk me into working for your organization, the answer will be ‘no’ until you let me see Sabrina.”

Neena waited for Santos to leave before she said, “Are you certain she wants to see you?”

For a second, he doubted himself, but then he pushed it away. “Of course she does. Now, stop with your games and get to why you’re here. Then we can talk about letting me out of this damn room.”

Neena clicked her tongue as she placed her hands on the chair next to his bed and leaned forward. “I think Sabrina’s first assignment is to condition you to some manners. I’m sure she can think of some creative ways to get you to say please.”

He blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Neena smiled. “Your new partner, of course.”

“My new partner?”

“Really, my dear, did that drug mess with your mind as well as your latent abilities? I know that your shadow-shifting abilities may never return, but let’s hope your brain does, or you’ll be next to useless.”

When Jorge had learned his abilities might not return, he’d felt a mixture of relief and sadness. But if what Neena was saying were true, and he’d be working with Sabrina, then the lack of his abilities might endanger her life. Would she not want him anymore? After all, she’d never responded to his advances when he’d been without his abilities.

BOOK: Shadow of Temptation (Asylums for Magical Threats #2.5)
8.78Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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