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truth.
    The ice cubes clinked in his glass as he began to pace restlessly. “I saw you. During the fight. And I felt…  I don’t know what I felt. But something. When I asked you in the locker room if you knew me, you blew it off.” He stopped pacing to face her. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for someone who knew me from before?”
    “ I imagine as long as I’ve been looking over my shoulder hoping to find you.” Embry was out of scotch.
    “ So we were involved? Important to each other?” he asked.
    “ Very,” she said softly.
    “ Do you know what happened to me? Why I can’t remember?”
    “ Some of it,” she admitted.
    He tipped the glass back and drained it. “Tell me everything,” he said, slapping the glass down with a thunk.
    Embry stared at it in relief. “I don’t have to. You’re about to remember.”
    A vein popped out at his temple and his eyes went wide. One hand flew to his throat as he began to wheeze, the other reached out to her as he stumbled forward. “What…  have…  you…  done?”
    “ Set you free,” she said softly.
    He crashed onto the coffee table. The wood splintered, the tray and the ice bucket flying.
    Even knowing that the antidote wouldn’t kill him, panic pulsed through her at the sight of his purpling face. His limbs flailed, his body bowing as the potion worked its way through every cell, eradicating the memory block imposed there all those years ago.
    At last, he was still, his color returning to normal. With considerable effort, she hoisted his dead weight and repositioned him on the bed. Then she poured herself another scotch and settled in to wait.

Chapter 4

    S weat slicked his skin. He lifted his arm in an automatic block and felt the zing of impact up to his shoulder. A grin stretched his lips as he backed up, circling her on the sparring mat. “You’re getting better, Ember.”
    “ I still haven’t taken you down,” she panted, her sunburst eyes glowing with battle light and with the power she managed to keep just banked.
    “ Keep dreaming, baby,” he laughed.
    “ I’m going to beat you, Gage Dempsey,” she declared, punctuating each word with an attempted strike.
    When she snuck in a blow to his kidney, Gage stopped laughing and corrected his stance.
    He lived for these sparring matches with Embry. He lived for any of the stolen time they managed to spend together, even if she just came to the dojo because she wanted to learn the ways of the Shadow Walkers and her father wouldn’t teach her. He didn’t know how Adan would react to the fact that he was teaching Embry to fight. Or the fact that his protégé was in love with his daughter. And Gage couldn’t afford to anger his mentor. Not when he owed Adan everything. So other than this, Embry was off limits.
    A blast of dry heat knocked him back two steps.
    “ Hey now, you’re losing your cool. Keep the fireworks under wraps, padewan.”
    “ I will burn your ass, Obi-wan.”
    Gage ducked as a roundhouse whispered by his head, countering with a low spin kick that caught and buckled her knee. From the mat, Embry scissored her legs around his and brought him down to her level. She swarmed over him like a monkey, struggling for any kind of hold, but he just rolled and twisted in her ever frustrated grasp. Which was amusing until the friction of her lithe little body rubbing against his caused another problem.
    He pinned her with his body, pressing both her arms to the mat. Her long legs were wrapped around his hips like a vice, and Gage could feel his erection straining against his gi pants toward her heat. His breath shuddered out as he struggled for some kind of control. This was Adan’s daughter . She was practically his sister.
    Gage tried to back up, but Embry’s legs only tightened. He felt himself twitch against her, and his face flamed in mortification. “Uncle,” he muttered, voice rough. “You win. Let me up.”
    Embry tipped her hips experimentally