Chapter 12
TWELVE
EMMA
Caden’s head snapped back like he’d just been struck. “What? How?”
I leaned back against the wall as I stared up at him, this beautiful, infuriating man who had gone farther for me than anyone ever should. He’d fought, bled, risked everything without ever needing a reason other than me.
And now… Would all of it vanish? Would the fragile thing between us snap the moment he realized the truth? Would his loyalty evaporate if he found out he wasn’t Alek’s father, or that the chances he ever was had been laughably small from the start?
“He told me as soon as I portaled into Cyclos,” I said finally, the words tasting like ash.
Caden moved to the windowsill on the other side of the room, bracing himself against the frame. His jaw flexed once as his eyes stormed, an entire tempest I couldn’t get a hold of. “Tell me everything.”
A little over two months ago.
Leaving Crown behind was a lot harder than I’d ever imagined.
I found myself crying real, aching tears over a place I’d once dreaded stepping foot in.
A place I had only fled to in the first place to escape James, the man I had believed, with all my heart, would be the love of my life.
But Crown had changed me in ways I hadn’t expected.
My time over there had forced me to confront truths I’d buried for too long, and one of those truths was this: I had never been truly happy in Cyclos. Not like I’d been at Crown.
James was the man who had opened the door to this world for me, the one who’d held my hand through the storm until I could stand on my own, and I would always love him for it.
But he was also the man who never let me go. Never let me grow. Never let me discover who I could become without him by my side. And with whom I’d never known true partnership.
He was not the man who brought out the best version of myself. Who could challenge me enough to grow into the badass version of myself I knew I could be.
In bearing all his responsibilities and keeping his lies, he had become a man who had wanted to keep me small, to keep me safe.
I could forgive him for the lies and deceit, but not for that. Never for that.
And I needed to tell him.
I portaled into my old room, the familiar scent hitting me harder than expected.
Everything was right as I’d left it, except for the glowing message from Jackson already waiting.
I quickly nexed him, telling him I would prefer to meet James first by myself if the all mighty Leader of Cyclos could find the time to come grace me with his presence.
Which he did, no more than a minute after my arrival.
The knock on my door was soft, tentative, but it reverberated through me like a thunderclap. My chest tightened as I swallowed back the flood of emotions threatening to spill over.
“It’s open,” I called, sounding steady, though I didn’t feel like it.
There was a pause, long enough for doubt to creep in, and then I heard the faint click of the handle. The door eased open, and there he was.
Time seemed to stop as our eyes met. All the distance, all the silence between us, disappeared in an instant, replaced by something raw and unspoken. He stood there, framed in the doorway, looking at me as if I were the answer to every question he couldn’t bring himself to ask.
And I felt…nervous. On edge. I was glad to see him alive and well, but there was no rush of joy, no overwhelming relief like I’d thought there would be after five months of nothing. Instead, something else gnawed at me.
Because in those five months, he hadn’t reached out. Not once. No nexing, no texting, not anything. This man, who had lied and deceived me throughout our entire relationship, had had the audacity to ignore me completely.
“You’re back,” he said, his statement breaking the silence first and catching me completely off guard.
I tilted my head. “You sound surprised.”
“I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” he admitted, stepping forward hesitantly.
I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. “Well, if you’d bothered to nex me once or twice in the past months, you’d have known this was always the plan.”
He swallowed hard, his gaze darting away from mine. “Emma—”
I cut him off sharply. “If you come up with some bullshit excuse about being busy, I swear I will scratch out your eyeballs, feed them to an Australian snake, wait for them to pass through its system, and then shove them back into your sockets.”
James blinked, his mouth parting slightly.
Okay, fine, maybe the threat was a bit much.
I let out a long, controlled breath, feeling some of the tension bleed out of me. Without a word, I crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, motioning for him to do the same.
He exhaled audibly, relief washing over his face as he stepped inside and shut the door.
The bed dipped under his weight, but his focus never wavered. “You look stronger. Fiercer. You look good, Emma.”
Not going to lie, that felt good to hear. A small part of me, the part that still cared, warmed at the compliment. “Thank you. You don’t look bad yourself, which I’m sure you already know.”
He grinned, and despite myself, I felt my lips curve into a smile. For a brief moment, the weird atmosphere between us cracked, replaced by something warmer. But the ache in my chest and the anger coiling inside me wouldn’t let go.
“Can we please talk?” His tone was uncharacteristically soft. “About everything?”
“Well, I didn’t come here for sightseeing,” I muttered back, unable to hide the sarcasm.
My ex-boyfriend stilled, clearly unsure how to start, so I took a deep breath myself and decided to dive in headfirst.
“When I found out about Julian… About everything you knew and let him do to me, I was so angry with you.”
James didn’t interrupt. He didn’t rush to defend himself, didn’t throw out half-truths or justifications to lessen the blow. He simply nodded, his attention on me.
I pushed to my feet, and started pacing, my hands gripping the edge of my sleeves, grounding myself in movement because sitting still seemed to suffocate me.
“Fleeing to Crown was the only way I could…” I shook my head. “I didn’t know how to handle my anger. It wasn’t just rage, it was—”
I exhaled harshly, raking a hand through my hair. “My love for you wasn’t the first thing I felt anymore when I thought of you, and that was such a mindfuck.”
James inhaled through his nose, his shoulders rising and falling with the weight of it. “I can’t blame you for that.”
I turned toward him, forcing myself to meet his gaze, refusing to let this be another conversation we half-finished before shoving it into a dark corner of our minds. “I need to know,” I said, quieter this time. “Why? Why did you lie to me for so long?”
James’s jaw tensed, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. For a long moment, he said nothing. When he finally spoke, the words were roughened by something that sounded dangerously close to regret.
“I wish I had a valid reason to give you.” His fingers rubbed against his temples before he dragged them through his hair.
“I think when the Radicals attacked us with the Amplifier, and you almost died on me, everything felt so out of my control, I panicked and I did what I always do: I shut out everyone else, and kept it all in.”
“But we were finally in a good place,” I said softer than I intended.
James dropped his face into his hands. “I was out of my depth. My love for you, my position on the Council, the Radicals attacking Crown…and then Maurice died, and I just—”
“Shut down,” I finished for him, the words thick with understanding.
He nodded, his hands falling away from his face, his green eyes clouded with something I wasn’t sure I had ever seen in him before. “I am so sorry.”
The sincerity in his voice cracked something inside me, something I hadn’t even realized was still raw.
For all the anger, all the frustration, all the nights spent trying to make sense of what he had done, the truth was simple: He had been overwhelmed. He had failed me, not out of malice, not out of cruelty, but out of fear.
And for the first time in a long time, I understood.
“I get it,” I murmured, as I sat down beside him, no longer filled with resentment, “and I forgive you.”
Hope flickered across his face with such intensity it was almost painful to look at.
It was the kind of hope that clawed its way out of desperation, the kind that saw the smallest sliver of light and clung to it.
And for a moment—a fleeting, gut wrenching moment—I hated myself for giving him even that much.
Because I had forgiven him, but my heart wasn’t ready to go back.
“I forgive you for lying James, I do but…there’s more.”
I took in another deep breath, forcing myself to lay it all out there.
“Five months, James. Without a word. After everything…” My voice quivered, and I hated how vulnerable I sounded.
“I’m so sorry about that.” He hesitated, his throat working as if the words were caught there. “But—”
He closed his lids, and I saw the faint shimmer of rippling light rising from his hands, his haze itching to break free.
James took a deep, steadying breath. “When you left Switzerland with Caden, I was angry and hurt. But most of all, I lost hope. I thought I’d lost you forever, especially after Stephen told us one of us would father the Krait, and you’d be his mother.”
“Alek,” I corrected instinctively, the name falling from my lips like second nature.
James’s eyes snapped open, the sheer intensity of his gaze almost knocking me off balance.
“My son’s name is Alek, not the Krait,” I said firmly. “And, honestly, I don’t even understand how one would earn such a nickname.”
James clenched his fists, his knuckles whitening before he slowly released them. Then, as if unable to hold it in any longer, he blurted out, “My real name is Alexander.”