Chapter 19
NINETEEN
CADEN
“Did you, or did you not, cross into the Human World all by yourself and against all orders?”
Not even five minutes after we’d returned from the woods, Rachel’s voice lashed through the War Room, ripping into Emma with no mercy for her choices on the battlefield.
“And did you, or did you not, then proceed to leave in the middle of battle, abandoning everyone on this team?”
I leaned back in my chair and let the cold of the metal seep into my spine as I watched them both.
Emma’s eyes dropped to the floor, shoulders tight, head bowed low. Never thought I’d see Miss Know-It-All drop her gaze for anyone, let alone Rachel Varez.
Never thought it’d turn me on as much as it did, watching her submit.
Fuck. How I wanted her to submit like that to me.
“Did I, or did I not, give you specific orders to stay within the sphere?”
Emma gave the smallest nod, lifting her chin just enough to meet Rachel’s glare.
“And did you not completely ignore my command?”
Emma glanced away again, shame written plain across her face. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, without explaining herself.
I wondered why she didn’t simply tell her what happened. Pretty sure Rachel would understand needing to see that warrant for herself.
The latter let out a sharp breath, pinching the bridge of her nose like she was holding back a headache. “You give me no choice, Thompson. I’m benching you.”
Emma’s head snapped up. “What?”
“From now on, you’ll work with Jackson from here. Coordinate communications, monitor movement—”
“The hell I will,” Emma cut in, standing so fast her chair scraped across the floor. “Those humans are responsible for killing my parents.”
“And I sympathize. I do,” Kanata C’s First Offensive said, tone clipped but not unkind. “But if your thirst for retribution gets in the way of following orders, you become a liability. And I don’t risk my team for anyone’s personal vendetta, not even yours.”
She turned to me. “I want you to take point tomorrow. We’ve got reports of fresh US forces crossing the national border again. I need eyes on the ground. Intel, numbers, potential captives. Bring me something I can use.”
Cute. Like she got to give me orders.
I gave her a nod. “Whatever you need. But Thompson’s coming with me.”
That got her attention. Emma’s gaze flicked to mine, wide with surprise, while Rachel blinked in astonishment. “You’re seriously ignoring a direct order?”
I shrugged. “You told her to stay behind. You didn’t say shit about me. And I’m putting her on my team.”
I turned toward Emma. “Unless you’re planning on disobeying my command as well?”
She shook her head so fast it was almost funny.
“She’s not going out in the field,” Rachel ordered through gritted teeth. “She’s a risk to the rest of the team.”
I exhaled loud enough to make a point, letting the sound cut across the room. If I had to sit through one more self-righteous argument about what to do with Emma, I’d start decapitating people. “Brilliant plan, Rachel. Bench the human expert when you’re dealing with…humans.”
Her jaw locked. She wanted to bite back, I could see it, but she didn’t. Because she knew I was right.
My focus drifted to Emma. Just for a heartbeat, long enough that she’d feel it, before I snapped it back to Rachel. “Especially since Emma’s the whole reason they’re here to begin with. Makes absolute sense.”
The twist in her expression wasn’t lost on me. She tried to hide it, but I knew what it was: concession.
James, of course, had to chime in. “I could argue it would make more sense to keep her away from the fight for that exact same reason.”
Emma’s eyes rolled so hard I thought they might stick. “I could argue you never should’ve trained me to be an Offensive if hiding’s all I’m good for. Seems like I could’ve done that as a lawyer, too.”
I caught the flicker on James’s face, like maybe he had something he wanted to say but couldn’t decide if it should be an apology or another order. Probably the latter.
Rachel groaned, rubbing her temples like we were drilling holes through her skull. “Please, don’t add on with a lovers’ quarrel. There’s only so much bullshit I can handle in one day.”
Lovers. The word had me gripping the table so tight my knuckles turned white.
They were not. Fucking. Lovers.
Control yourself, Colt.
Schooling my features back to neutral, I ended the discussion. “I’m in charge of staffing my own team. You got a problem with it, send one of your own.”
“Fine!” Rachel threw her hands up. “Do whatever the hell you want, then. But if this explodes in our faces, it’s on you.”
“I can live with that,” I said.
What I couldn’t live with was breaking my promise to Emma, that she’d get to face the ones who destroyed her family, that she’d have the chance to lay their blood at her feet.
I’d sworn it to her, and that oath sat heavier on my chest than any chain the Chiefs or Rachel or anyone else could fasten.
One way or another, Emma would have her vengeance.
And I would burn through anyone—humans, or magi—who tried to take that from her.
EMMA
I’d thought he’d be still angry at me. For choosing James over him. For giving in to the Chiefs’ threat, even if only as a stopgap until I could untangle myself from that absurd deal I made in a moment of paralyzing fear for Sean’s life.
For admitting I was drawn to him and then declaring it couldn’t possibly mean more.
But then he’d helped me pry those memories out of that human. And now, here he was, backing me against Rachel, the very woman I’d assumed he’d run to the second my rejection left my mouth.
Before I could speak up again, Rachel’s gaze sharpened, locking onto me. The whole air in the room seemed to draw taut around her next words. “Now… Correct me if I’m wrong, but did your haze appear visible when you translated inside the Metasphere?”
With that, the room changed and my stomach twisted with pure and instant anxiety.
Crap.
Caden was the first to move, a half step forward, instinct pulling him before thought could. James followed suit, then Jackson and Sean, four bodies tensing around me like a shield, their movements automatic, precise.
Protective.
Rachel rolled her eyes, but there was no bite in it. “Oh my gods, you guys are so godsdamn dramatic. I’m not threatening her. We’re all on the same side here, in case you haven’t noticed.” Her tone was dry but edged. “Though your reactions do confirm I’m on the right track.”
I didn’t look at them, only at Rachel, and for one long, charged second—despite the resentment I still carried for how casually perfect she seemed, despite the way she tossed flirtations toward Caden like confetti—I felt it.
That pulse of instinct, that deep, gut-level certainty.
I could trust her.
So, I nodded. “You saw right. And if you checked your LiaPrism, you’d see my haze also registered.”
Her jaw slackened, only slightly. “You’re traceable…inside a Collective?”
I nodded again. “Yes.” I hesitated long enough for James to issue a low, warning grunt beside me. “But not outside.”
The room exploded.
“What the hell does that even mean?”
“All this time?”
“You didn’t think to mention that sooner?”
I took a deep breath, steadying myself as the weight of everything I was about to say settled on my chest.
Then, slowly, I began to recount everything I’d learned about myself since my retrieval from the Human World.
How Stephen and his blue portal had shown us a glimpse of the future.
A future where magi were all but extinct. A future where my son, Alek, would be the only hope left. Not because of power, but because of what he carried: an inherited, untraceable translation which couldn’t be controlled, replicated, or erased.
A future where the Krait was the spark of resistance.
I told them about the Chiefs’ visit to Kanata C. Not about the deal we’d struck—that stayed locked inside me as I’d promised—but I laid bare their knowledge of the future.
The rest—the truth about Julian, the forced True Bond—was too heavy to put into words. And to be honest, I was terrified of what they’d see if I said it out loud. That I wasn’t a “real” maga. That I’d been born human and had been mind-raped into this life.
So, I stayed quiet. Kept my focus on what they needed to know, what felt relevant, what wouldn’t shatter the fragile ground we were all standing on.
When I finally stopped speaking, the silence pressed in thick. My words seemed to hang in the air long after my mouth had closed, echoing softly against the walls until it felt like even the room itself was holding its breath.
Silence followed for longer than a minute. Heavy. Loaded. The kind of silence that could crack open into chaos at any second.
“If people find out about this…” Rachel finally said, focus locked on me, “If humans and their Collaborators realize how different you are…”
James’s expression locked down like steel. “They’ll come for her again. If only to keep her from procreating.”
“According to the Radicals,” Sean offered, “people think Caden is the one with untraceable translation.”
I looked at him, frowning. “Then why would Collabs and humans be coming after me? Why brand me a terrorist?”
The room stilled for a second.
“Emma.” Rachel’s tone dipped into something careful. “We haven’t talked about this yet. But what happened exactly at your parents’ house? What happened when those humans came to their door?”
My chest squeezed at the thought of my parents and all oxygen instantly left the room.
My parents.
The gunfire. The splatter of blood. The explosion of red haze tearing through the house, tearing through the soldiers…
My jaw clenched. I closed my eyes. And then, I breathed. Like pulling air through glass shards.
Because whether I wanted to or not… It was time to talk about it.
“A few days after the bubble was imposed, a group of human militias knocked on the door. They had a warrant for my arrest, and they called me an enemy of the state.”
I swallowed hard.