Chapter 6
SIX
CADEN
The road twisted ahead, narrow and mean, hemmed in by jagged hills. I leaned into the first curve, the tires biting hard, the engine’s roar rattling up my arms. My boots shifted against the pegs, ready for the next turn before the first was done.
James’s headlights cut through the fog in my mirror, the low growl of his bike syncing with mine as we carved through the road. For a moment, it almost felt as though we weren’t enemies at all. Just two men chasing the same ghost.
Where the hell are you, Emma?
I gunned the engine harder, weaving through the twists. The tree line pressed in, and I eased back on the throttle as the gravel grew looser beneath the tires.
A handful of narrow paths split off from the main road, disappearing into the woods like veins feeding some unseen heart. I rolled forward, jaw tight, scanning the forks.
“Which one?” James pulled up beside me.
The path to the left was clean, worn down, neat, and obvious. Too obvious. Emma wouldn’t trust it.
The one straight ahead was the opposite. Grass choked the trail, brambles clawing out like warning signs. Riskier. Harsher. Exactly the kind of path she’d take if she didn’t want to be found.
I killed my engine, gravel crunching as I stopped at the split. “We don’t have time to circle every option.”
James braked beside me, visor gleaming in the low light. “So, we gamble.”
“Not exactly.” I dug into my jacket and pulled out a small black earpiece, then slapped it into his hand.
He blinked at it, then at me. “You brought a human comms piece?”
“Stole it off the guys we killed at the border.”
James turned it over, testing the button on the side. “You sure it works?”
“Only one way to find out. Push the call button if you find her,” I said flatly. “We’ll meet back here.”
For a second, he just stared, suspicion warring with reluctant approval. Then he shoved it into his ear. “Fine. Left path is mine.”
“Thought you’d say that.” I revved my bike, vision narrowing at the trail ahead. “Don’t get yourself killed, Walker. Emma will never forgive me if I let that happen.”
He clenched his jaw. “You have no idea what she is capable of forgiving.”
Considering she forgave him for lying during their entire relationship and then ghosting her for months, I had a pretty good idea.
I bit back the words crowding my throat before he twisted the throttle and tore off down the left trail, his taillight bleeding red into the fog.
Gritting my teeth, I faced the overgrown path dead ahead, then tore forward myself, the engine howling into the night.
Branches clawed at the narrow trail, shadows darting across my headlight beam.
I had no idea how long I was riding. Seconds, minutes, it all blurred together. Every twist of the machine felt both too slow and too fast, as if the road itself was stretching to keep her out of reach.
My chest ached with the thought every mile I missed was another mile dragging her farther away.
For a breath, I almost second-guessed my plan.
Second-guessing is a fast way to die.
Until something shifted at the edge of the road. A flicker of movement, right outside the beam of my headlights. A shadow, oddly shaped, out of sync with everything else.
At first, I hardly registered it, too locked in, too focused on the path ahead.
But then the light swept over it, and I noticed a small figure standing there.
Far off. Barely moving. But something in the shape, the way it stood…
My gut seized. I knew that outline. That stance.
Familiar. So violently familiar it hit like a punch to the ribs, as if my body recognized her before my brain caught up.
My hand jerked on the handlebars, the front tire lurching sideways over the gravel. I slammed my foot down, cutting the engine, the sudden silence ringing in my ears as if the whole world had stopped breathing.
And then—there she was.
Emma.
Bare feet scraping the gravel. Clothes shredded into rags that clung to her as though they were the only thing left keeping her together.
Her skin streaked with blood—some dried, some fresh—running down one arm, splattered across her legs.
Her hair a knotted mess, clinging to her face with sweat and dirt.
The sight of her fucking gutted me.
I was off the bike before I even knew I’d moved, boots skidding across stone as my chest tore open with each pounding heartbeat. It felt as if my ribs couldn’t contain it, as if my body was breaking just trying to reach her.
She swayed, lips parting as if she wanted to say something, but no sound came.
I caught her before gravity did.
My arms locked around her waist, hauling her upright, clutching her like I could will her back into herself.
She flinched at my touch—violently— as if she didn’t even recognize me. Her body jerked in my hold as if it seared her, and the recoil told me everything I didn’t want to know.
“Emma, it’s me. It’s Caden.” The words broke out of me, cracked and raw, desperate even, and I knew if I didn’t make her hear me right now, I’d fucking lose her.
Her eyes… Christ, her eyes. Hollow. Vacant. So empty it made my stomach pitch and my throat close.
Her breath faltered as a tremor shivered through her. Her focus dragged toward me but didn’t land, drifting like she was half-gone.
She shoved weakly at my chest, as though she couldn’t tell I was real. I crushed her closer, arm banding tight around her.
“Emma. Look at me.” My command was iron.
Her gaze finally snagged mine. A flicker. A thread. Not whole, not steady, but something reached me through the wreckage.
“Caden?” Her voice cracked on my name, thin and broken, but it landed with the weight of a stone in my chest.
My jaw locked, worry and rage tangling hot and violent under my ribs. I slid a hand to the back of her neck, holding her steady, like contact might fuse her to me, keep her from unraveling right here.
“I’ve got you,” I growled, low and certain, even though my throat was gravel and fire. “You hear me? I’ve got you.”
“Caden,” she whimpered. Barely a sound. Barely a breath. But it fucking wrecked me. “It hurts…”
Her knees buckled.
She collapsed in my arms, limp, every shred of fight ripped clean out of her.
Something in me split wide open and detonated.
My vision narrowed to a black-edged tunnel, my pulse roaring in my ears as her weight settled into my arms.
Every nerve burned, every muscle locked with the violent need to destroy whoever had put her in this state, until every last person responsible was rotting so deep the earth itself choked on them.
There was no more room for rational thought, only raw, primal instinct. My grip tightened around her, teeth gritting as a low growl rumbled from my throat.
Without a second’s pause, I lifted her into my arms. She fit there like she always had, her head lolling against my shoulder, her weight sinking into me as if even in this unconscious state, she knew I’d never let go.
I bolted for the bike, feet pounding the dirt, every jolt a reminder of how light she’d become, and how wrong it felt.
Her broken breath brushed warm against my shirt—small, and uneven, but alive—and beneath the sharp, copper tang of blood, her scent was still there, faint but unmistakable, hitting me like a memory I couldn’t afford to lose.
I swung onto the seat with her still curled against me, one arm locked around her as I gunned the throttle. The engine’s roar vibrated through us both, and I leaned into it, while I pressed her closer so nothing—not the wind, not the cold nor the dark—could touch her.
The road blurred under the tires, the night closing in on either side, but my focus didn’t waver. Every heartbeat against me was one more I refused to lose.
I jammed a finger to the earpiece. “Walker!” My voice tore through the comm. “Border. Now. Open a portal. We don’t have time.”
Static cracked. “Caden? Did you…did you find her?”
“She’s with me,” I snarled, leaning harder into the throttle. “She’s hurt. Badly. Get back to the border and get that portal up!”
“I’m almost there. Half a klick ahead.”
Through the trees, light flared, before a green portal shimmered into existence, wide and unsteady from how fast he’d ripped it open. James stood right beyond, blood streaking down his arm.
My chest seized at the sight, because for once, he didn’t look like the raging, asshole Leader. He looked like a man whose world was falling apart.
I didn’t slow. I tore straight through the portal, Emma’s weight crushing against me, her breath so faint it made my vision blur. The shimmer swallowed us whole, and then we were out the other side, Kanata C’s air hitting in my lungs.
James shot through a second later, slamming the portal shut behind him.
We drove like madmen straight into the Healer’s compound. My arm shook from holding her so tight, but I didn’t dare loosen it.
I glanced down at her face, pale and still against me, too still, until the memory of another night—one where she suffered hypothermia, her body ice-cold in my arms—slammed into me with the force of a tsunami.
Not again.
I wasn’t going to let her slip away. Not ever again.
JAMES
I’d never been a stranger to dark emotions. Rage, revenge, loneliness, they had fueled my actions for as long as I could remember. But guilt... Guilt was new.
Sitting beside her bed, holding her hand, I couldn’t shake the memories of all the times I’d held her like this before. All the things she’d suffered since I had ripped her from the safety of her human life.
I’d dragged her into this world, promising protection I’d failed to deliver over and over again.
My demons clawed at the edges of my mind, threatening to overtake me, and it took everything I had to keep my rage haze from pouring out.
The room was silent except for the steady rhythm of her breathing, too soft, too fragile. My hand tightened around hers, willing her to feel my presence, to know she wasn’t alone. I’d failed her too many times, but this... This felt like the worst of them all. She looked so small, so broken.