A Shadow's Embrace by Cara Carnes Page B

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 was 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.  
    Conver backhanded Sage, who tumbled to the floor in a mass of limbs. Nevada drop-kicked him and yanked on her downed sister. The second guard grabbed them both, only to get slammed into the wall. Blood sprayed on the wall.  
    The women stared down at the carnage they’d created. Son of a bitch, Dagan hadn’t known they were capable of something like that. Judging from the silence and shocked auras around him, neither did anyone else. They watched