Shadow of Temptation (Asylums for Magical Threats #2.5) by Jessie Donovan Page A

a negative reaction to Neena’s drugs?”
    Neena. The crazy woman’s name brought him back to the present and what had happened. He did another quick scan of the room, but he didn’t see Neena anywhere. “I’m fine. It was just a bad dream, don’t worry about it. What happened to Neena? Tell me what happened after that woman drugged me.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look fine to me.”
    “Sabrina.”
    She put up her hands. “Fine, I’ll drop it for now. As for what happened, you’re probably not going to like it.”
    Now that his heart rate had calmed a little, his head ached. He slowly stood up and realized the sluggishness from earlier was gone. “Tell me anyway. It’ll give me a chance to try to pull myself together and shake off any aftereffects of the drugs Neena pumped into me.”
    She also stood up and watched him for a second before she finally replied. “Well, Neena and I had a chat.”
    “A chat? Seriously? With the crazy lady who drugged me unconscious?”
    She shrugged. “Hey, I was ready to knock her out cold until she said some things that forced me to take her seriously. Did you know she can see visions of the future? The woman has abilities I can’t even name.”
    He took a step toward Sabrina. “I may have heard something about that, but enough about Neena’s abilities. Just tell me what she said.”
    She crossed her arms over her chest. “She gave me the information we needed to take down Watkins tonight.”
    “Exactly how is this supposed to happen? I can’t even shift until tomorrow morning.”
    She shook her head. “You’re wrong. I don’t know how your abilities work, but if you can ‘check’ on your power levels, they should be at full capacity thanks to a mystery drug.”
    He gave her a skeptical look. “I’ve never heard of a drug like that. If it existed, I’m sure the Collector would’ve used it.”
    “Just check, okay? For me? If what Neena told me about this drug recharging your powers is true, then I’d feel more confident about using the other information she gave me.”
    He stared and she stared back. He could tell the woman wasn’t going to back down.
    The human had guts; he’d give her that. Human. He’d nearly forgotten about her earlier revelation, but for some reason it didn’t seem to bother him as much as he’d expected. Probably because of the way she’d looked at him when he’d fallen to the ground earlier. It’d been a long time since someone had shown any concern or worry for him.
    He just needed to be careful not to read too much into it.
    He sighed. “Fine. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I have a feeling you’ll argue with me until I do what you ask, so in the interest of saving time, give me a second.” He closed his eyes and focused on the hum of power he drew on whenever he used his shadow-shifting abilities. Normally, this close after using them, it would be nothing more than a whisper. But Sabrina was right—his energy was pulsing at full power.
    He opened his eyes. “Usually shifting so close together would put enough strain on my heart to kill me, but my energy levels are back to full. I can shift again without killing myself. How is that possible?”
    “The drug I mentioned was the one Neena injected you with, and it seems she was telling the truth about it speeding up your recovery process.”
    He opened his mouth to ask how, but decided that wasn’t important right now. Instead, he said, “But there must be more you aren’t telling me because as awesome as I am with my abilities, they alone won’t capture Watkins.”
     
     
     
    Sabrina couldn’t get the look of horror she’d seen on Jorge’s face when he’d jumped up from his bad dream out of her head. She wanted to wrap him in a hug and push him to tell her what it’d been about, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t say a word—if anything at all—until he knew everything Neena had told her.
    Since it was only early afternoon, she just needed