Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
CADEN
“You’re a fucking coward, Emma.”
The door swung open with an echoing bang before I even realized I’d moved. My pulse stayed steady. My hands didn’t shake. But the way his head snapped toward me told me he’d already figured out exactly how this was going to end.
I stepped inside, my gaze sweeping the room, taking in Emma’s wide stance and his stormy glare. I locked on James. “What the hell is going on here?”
The latter didn’t even flinch, his focus back on Emma. “Stay out of this, Colt. It’s none of your business.”
My jaw flexed once before I spoke again. “You talk to her like that again, and I’ll fucking end you.”
That finally got his attention. His glare shifted to me, full of venom. “She’s not yours to defend.”
My vision narrowed to only him. “She’s not yours to insult.”
“Caden.”
Emma’s voice rang out, firm, carrying a calm authority that made me pause. I turned toward her, meeting her eyes, and what I saw there wasn’t fear or gratitude, it was fire held in restraint, the kind of strength that didn’t ask for help but expected to be heard.
“I can handle this.”
Every instinct screamed at me to stay, to end this bullshit right here and now, but the quiet determination in her nod made me hesitate.
My fist clenched as I forced myself to take a step back, but not before I pinned James with one last warning.
“You touch her without her consent,” I said, my threat razor-sharp, “and I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you ever do.”
Without waiting for his reply, I turned and portaled out, the taste of restraint bitter in my mouth.
Pacing my dorm, I tried to calm myself down, but it was useless. Every fucking fiber of my being still roared at me to go back. To rip James’s head clean off, grab Emma, and portal her straight to Crown.
To hell with the Human World, the Chiefs, Cyclos, this mission, to hell with everything.
My chest heaved as I dragged a hand through my hair, my pulse hammering like I’d just sprinted a marathon. This shit was becoming too much.
Seeing her every day, so close and yet completely out of reach, was nothing short of torture. Not being able to kiss her, touch her, make her mine, it was eating me alive from the inside out.
And James? The asshole didn’t deserve her. Not after the way he treated her, the way he looked at her like she was some broken thing he needed to fix. She wasn’t broken. She was a godsdamn force of nature.
And I was an idiot for thinking I could keep pretending I didn’t want her more than my next breath.
The door flew open, slamming into the wall with enough force to rattle the hinges. Emma stormed in, her energy crackling like static, wild with frustration.
“You!” she yelled, all high-pitched and furious. “Mister ‘grow some balls and talk to Walker,’ were you applying for a Nobel Prize in terrible advice? Because congratulations, it seems like you won!”
Right. Not entirely undeserved.
I tried to suppress a smirk, already feeling ten times lighter now that she was in my room. “I guess a career switch to relationship-guru is officially out of the question?”
She rolled her eyes, crossed the room in a few smooth strides, and dropped onto my bed with a dramatic sigh. Her hair spilled over her shoulder as she flopped back, one arm draped across her forehead like the weight of the world was trying to crush her. “You’d still make a better one than James.”
Fuck, she looked good on my bed.
“That bad, huh?”
She let out a laugh—dry and humorless—her hands raking through her hair before sitting back up. “Well, we’re definitely not getting back together.”
Oh no. I’m devastated.
“He called me a coward for not wanting to fake the bond. As if placating the Chiefs doesn’t make him the coward.”
She refused. She fucking refused.
The moment the words left her mouth a weight I hadn’t known I’d been carrying unclenched from my ribs, like someone finally cut the rope around my throat.
“And then,” she went on, oblivious to the sudden wash of relief flooding me, “as if that wasn’t already completely out of line, he looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘You’re mine,’ like I was some kind of prized possession.”
I clenched my jaw so hard it felt like my teeth might crack. She was not his. Where the hell did he get off telling her she was?
But fuck, she wasn’t mine either…
She rose from my bed and walked over to the window, her back to me as a bitter laugh escaped her lips. “Who even says that?”
My hands curled into fists. It sure as hell shouldn’t have been James.
“I mean,” she said, spinning back toward me, laughter edged with something raw, “not even you—with all that alpha-hole energy you ooze—would say something as caveman-like as that.”
My pulse spiked, my heart pounding hard enough it echoed in my ears. Her eyes found mine, and the genuine curiosity there nearly knocked me flat.
Was she asking me…? Did she want to know if I would ever call her mine?
Fuck me. Did she realize what kind of fuse she’d just lit? Did she have any idea what it would mean if I answered her honestly?
My body moved before I could even think, instincts overriding any reason I had left.
I let my words drip with a growl, dark and raw, as they left my lips.
“If you were mine,” I began, as I took a slow step, drawn to her like gravity itself was dragging me closer, “I wouldn’t need to say it.
If you ever needed a reminder, I’d have you sitting on my face, my tongue buried inside of you, coming over and over again until you screamed my name so much, it’d be the only one etched in that beautiful mind of yours. ”
Her lips parted, her eyes wide with shock at my rough words.
But I could see the battle within her, torn between disbelief and the pull of what I was saying, like she couldn’t decide whether to run or lean in closer.
I took another step, my voice dropped even lower, raw and possessive.
“If you were mine, I’d worship every inch of your body, every thought in your mind, every beat of your soul.
I’d sink my teeth into that flawless skin of yours, leaving my mark on you, so every time you looked in the mirror, you'd see the proof.
My claim on you—my stamp—branded into your flesh. "
Her pupils dilated, her chest rising and falling faster now, her body betraying her. She liked it… She liked the way my words were unraveling her. Desire flickered beneath the surface, barely concealed, and it only fueled the fire roaring inside me.
I took the last step, standing now dangerously close to her.
I could almost feel the heat radiate off her body.
“If you were mine, I’d fuck you so hard, drive my cock so deep inside you, so often, you’d feel me with every step you took, so deliciously sore, you wouldn’t be able to forget me even if you tried. ”
She didn’t speak, couldn’t speak. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard, the sound of her heartbeat filling the charged space between us.
The power I had over her in this moment was intoxicating, and the more she trembled, the more I wanted to push her further, to see how far I could go before the line between control and surrender shattered completely.
“I’d have you begging for me. No teasing, no holding back. Only me, giving you exactly what you crave, and you knowing no one else could ever come close.”
I leaned in slowly. “If you were mine, I wouldn’t need to tell you that…” My lips ghosting over the shell of her ear, my breath hot and low. I felt her shiver, that sweet quiver of anticipation as she waited, helplessly, for the next words to fall from my lips.
"But I still would," I whispered, my voice dark and intimate, like a promise.
The tension between us was a tight, pulsing thread that I could feel pulling us closer, threatening to snap. For a moment, I let it hang, savoring the way her body reacted to every word, every breath.
She was unraveling, losing control, and it made me go insane with need.
But before I could give in, before I pinned her against the wall and followed through on every dark thought flooding my mind, I forced myself to step back.
With every ounce of control I had left, I turned on my heel and left the room, my heart hammering, my blood roaring with everything I wanted but couldn’t have.
Not yet.
EMMA
Holy crap on a cracker.
What. The actual. Fuck. Was that?
I was pacing my own dorm, blood still hot beneath my skin, my mind refusing to settle.
Between the almost-kiss when I left Crown, the one right before the visit of the High Chief, and whatever the hell this just was, there was no denying it anymore: I was very, very attracted to Caden Colt.
The dark prince of deception himself.
The man responsible for my scars.
Would he say stuff like that to all women? He was known to be a quite the player, but…
I groaned, collapsing onto my bed and burying my face in my hands. My brain was short-circuiting.
If you were mine…
The way he’d said it. The heat in his voice, the certainty behind it.
Gods, why had that sounded so hot?
How was it that when James said it, it made me want to punch a wall, but when Caden said it—even hypothetically—I was two seconds away from scaling him like an ovulating squirrel?
A strangled sound escaped me as I flopped backward onto the mattress, arms sprawled out, staring at the ceiling like it might have the answers I desperately needed.
This obsession with him, or attraction—whatever the hell it was—was becoming a problem. I really had to stop lusting after the guy responsible for my physical scars if I ever wanted to find my way back to the one responsible for my emotional ones.
Which I didn’t.
Because everything that happened today had made another thing abundantly clear: I no longer loved James Walker.
But even if James felt impossibly far away now—even if the thought of going back to him made my skin crawl more than it comforted—I couldn’t erase what he represented. Couldn’t ignore the fact that Alek could be his son. And I couldn’t erase the threat hanging over us.
The Chiefs had laid down the law: no bond, no mercy.
If I didn’t come back to James on their timetable, anyone I cared about would pay.
If I so much as let this pull toward Caden become real, that would be the excuse they’d use.
The noose would cinch, and the people I loved would dangle in the balance.
I wanted to fight them. Gods, I wanted to stand up and burn their rules to ash.
But could I really be that selfish?
Reality slid across my face like a wet cloth. I saw the cost. I felt it: the sick lurch in my stomach, the cold sweat at my temples, the way my hands trembled at the idea of dragging everyone I loved into open war when I didn’t even know how to win one.
I wasn’t ready to martyr people for my rebellion. I wasn’t ready to be the person who said, “follow me” and led them straight to slaughter.
Which is exactly what would happen if I gave in to this urge, into this attraction to Caden.
If I crossed that line, it wouldn’t stop at a single moment, or a single touch. It would unravel me. It would tether me to him in ways I couldn’t afford, not when the consequences of my choices echoed so far beyond my own skin.
I knew that with a certainty that surpassed want. That surpassed doubt. That surpassed every self-serving instinct still clinging to the idea of happiness.
It had to stop. Immediately.
Before I did something stupid. Before I did something reckless.
Before I made this worse.
Or worse than worse, before I made it real.
I exhaled sharply, running a hand over my face. Damn it, I needed sleep.
I rolled onto my side, curling beneath the covers, squeezing my eyes shut as if I could will my body to relax, force my mind to go quiet.
But it was useless.
Because no matter how hard I tried, his words were still there.
“If you were mine, I’d have you sitting on my face, my tongue buried inside of you, coming over and over again until you screamed my name so much, it’d be the only one etched in that beautiful mind of yours.”
I clenched my thighs together, heat pooling low in my stomach, but it wasn’t enough.
My breath came faster, my pulse a slow, lazy thrum beneath my skin, building with every whispered memory of his words.
“If you were mine, I’d sink my teeth into that flawless skin of yours, leaving my mark on you, so every time you looked in the mirror, you’d see the proof. My claim on you—my stamp, branded into your flesh.”
My fingers drifted over my stomach, teasing the hem of my sleep shorts, slipping lower. My skin was flushed, my entire body hypersensitive, desperate for relief.
I squeezed my eyes shut, letting the images take over.
Caden’s hands, rough and sure, pinning me down. His mouth, hot and unyielding, dragging over my skin, his teeth sinking into my shoulder, my neck, marking me—owning me.
A soft moan slipped past my lips as my fingers slid lower, brushing over the damp heat between my thighs.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
But damn it, I couldn’t stop.
“If you were mine, I’d fuck you so hard, drive my cock so deep inside you, so often, you’d feel me with every step you took, so deliciously sore, you wouldn’t be able to forget me even if you tried.”
A loud gasp left me as I pushed my fingers inside, my hips rolling into the sensation, chasing the friction, the heat, the ache.
I imagined his weight pressing me into the mattress, his body flush against mine, his voice a growl in my ear. “I’d have you begging for me. No teasing, no holding back. Only me, giving you exactly what you crave.”
A whimper escaped me, my movements growing desperate, the tension inside me winding impossibly tight.
It was his hands, his mouth, his body pushing me to the edge, his name curled on my tongue as the pleasure built, coiling tighter, hotter, until—
I came apart.
A choked cry of his name slipped past my lips as waves of pleasure crashed through me, my body arching, trembling, pulsing around the ghost of his touch.
I lay there for a long moment, my chest rising and falling in uneven breaths, the heat slowly ebbing from my limbs. But it didn’t bring relief. It only made it worse. Because even now, as the last tremors faded, I wanted more. More of him.
And that?
That was a big fucking problem.