Free A Shadow's Embrace by Cara Carnes Page B

small sofa. Lodged between Dagan and Kaeden, she blinked a few times before sighing and snuggling into the warm blanket draped around her.  
    The crash afterward was always hardest. She’d gotten by with it earlier because she’d been charged fully. She’d never managed to stay in as long as she just had. Dagan had calmed her, kept her energy reserves in the safe zone somehow. Or maybe it’d been one of the other Shadows in the room. Rather than surrender to the biting cold within her veins, she focused on Ace, who was talking a hundred times too fast as he darted from one computer bay to another.  
    “Boss, you have no idea what she did.” His gaze widened as he regarded her with a reverent glow in his gaze. “You are the bomb.”  
    “Ace, dial it down, dumb it down for me.” Kaeden smirked when he looked at her. “He gets wound up easily.”  
    There were new people in the room. The realization unsettled her for a moment as she looked around. Dagan squeezed her arm and took control of the room.  
    “Before we proceed, everyone, this is Devyn. Dev, this is Kaeden, Ace, Rex, Corbin, Cash, and Trent.” Dagan motioned around the room. The twin with the longest dark blond hair was Corbin. Trent was the latest entrant into the room. She recognized the name. He was Kaeden’s second. His Rider.  
    “Thanks for your help,” she said lamely. They nodded. She looked over at Rex. “Thanks for the lift the other day, by the way. You make a hell of an elevator.” A couple of guys on the other side of the room chuckled. Twins, probably Corbin and Cash. Word on the street had them as the be-all, end-all when it came to seeing the past of an object or person. Rex sat beside them, silently regarding her without comment.  
    She leaned her head back on the sofa as the guys chuckled. “I tried to sort as I dumped, but I’m not sure how effective I was there toward the end. I got a little gleeful when I saw that huge trough of space appear. It was like Christmas.”  
    “It’s all good. I couldn’t keep up with you, but I tagged most of it. I’ve got the footage of Rider up and ready to review.” He paused, concern evident on his face. “You sure you want to see this? We can handle this part.”  
    “No. He’s my team. I’m in.”  
    “So, check this.” Ace whirled in his chair and began tapping keys. A display popped up on the largest screen. Multi-colored scraggly lines appeared. “That green line is you. I took cues from Kaeden when you started so I could train Matilda.”  
    “Matilda?” she asked.  
    “His computer,” Dagan whispered. “They’ve had a love affair going for a few years.”  
    Hah. He and Cadence would be hilarious when put in the same room. Definitely needed to hook them up. Their little geeklets would be legendary.  
    “After a few minutes Matilda used your heightened pulse rate and other physical cues to tag the sectors of footage around those incidents. I’m bringing them up first. Then we can work back to the others if needed. There are thousands upon thousands of days of footage here, and that’s if we all look at it. I’m not sure how we’re going to process it all.”  
    The fact that her body responded to the data even when she hadn’t recalled pausing to review it astounded Devyn. They’d never thought to analyze her physical reactions.  
    “I’ve gotta admit I’m crushing on your geekdom, Ace.”  
    Crimson rose in his cheeks. The guys chuckled, and one of the twins slapped him on the back. Dagan squeezed her thigh. She looked up and saw the heat in the depths of his eyes as he studied her.  
    “Just a little bit,” she whispered. “I crushed on Kaeden, too, earlier. Just a little bit.”  
    “Thinking I need to stake my claim and give you a reason not to crush so easily, little bit or not,” he whispered.  
    Kaeden cleared his throat, causing Devyn to jump. Embarrassment flooded her. Had she really admitted to crushing on him when he was right