Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
EMMA
Not being particularly skilled in the whole relationship department—aside from the faint trauma flashbacks of what I’d had with James once upon a time—I had no idea what to expect from it.
Being with Caden though, was a whole lot different than being with James.
For starters, I was lucky if I could leave his room long enough to pee.
In the three days after I’d finally womanned up and told him he was the one I wanted, we’d had sex for roughly ninety percent of that time.
My body was wrung out.
I was covered in bite marks I could’ve healed with a thought, but erasing Caden from my skin felt…wrong.
That being said, my poor pussy was so wrecked I’d started walking with a small gap between my legs. I looked like I was auditioning for a godsdamn cowboy movie.
A fact Caden, of course, found absolutely hilarious.
He’d also spanked my ass so much I could barely sit, which hadn’t exactly escaped Jackson’s notice when he stopped by that late afternoon to talk about his abduction.
“Are you okay?” His tone was so genuinely worried I almost felt guilty about it.
“Yes, yes. I just…” I swallowed hard. “Burned my ass cheeks.”
Caden snorted from across the room, and I could feel my face catching fire.
“You burned…your ass?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding way too earnestly. “Stood too close to the fireplace.”
Wow. Really an A plus lie. Groundbreaking work.
Jackson blinked. Then smirked. “Why didn’t you move?”
“What?”
“From the fire. Why didn’t you move away?”
Oh great. An interrogation.
“Because,” I said slowly, “I was…looking for something.”
Brilliant. Truly inspired.
“You were looking for something…in the fire?”
I nodded.
“Ass first?”
Fuck.
He grinned. “You do realize that me being bonded to Sean means I know everything he does, right?”
Across the room, asshole Caden chuckled from his corner, so I did the logical thing and threw a shoe at him.
“Sorry,” I muttered to Jackson. “Didn’t mean to lie. We’re simply…keeping things quiet until we figure out how to deal with the Chiefs.”
Jackson nodded. “I understand. No one will hear it from me.” Then he smiled, a little too innocently. “Which doesn’t mean Sean and I won’t discuss it at length.”
I threw my other shoe at the black-haired foul-mouthed Orator, then winced because of the abrupt movement.
“So,” I said, dragging the word out, “tell me, my friend, to what do we owe this pleasure?”
Jackson took a seat on Caden’s bed, ignoring the fact that Caden was still lounging in his chair like a smug cat.
“I know you guys probably had…other things on your mind these last few days,” he said, shooting me a look, “but have you by any chance thought about the people behind our abduction a.k.a. the bubble?”
I glanced away, a sudden wave of guilt tightening my chest. Right. The war. The whole saving the world situation. Hadn’t exactly thought about any of it lately, except for—Caden.
Who, for the record, didn’t look remotely guilty about any of it.
No, that son of a bitch looked nothing but positively gleeful.
I cleared my throat, forcing myself back on track. “I’ve actually been working on this theory,” I said slowly. “That the person behind the bubble—the one who showed me that future—was trying to do me a favor.”
Jackson’s jaw dropped. “A favor?”
I nodded. “I know the whole sedating-and-abducting-you part was…objectively villainous,” I admitted, “but when you really think about it, no one got hurt. You were all properly fed. All they wanted was for me to see a future where Caden and I might conceive the Krait. And when I did exactly what they asked, they let us go.”
Jackson went still. “When you put it like that…”
“And now we know the creator of the bubble built in some kind of safeguard so Emma can translate beneath it,” Caden added, clearly convinced by the same conclusion.
I lifted one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “Which still doesn’t bring us any closer to figuring out who they are.”
Jackson bit the inside of his cheek, thinking. “Before the humans declared open season on Emma Thompson,” he said carefully, “you guys had other theories about who created the bubble. Any of those leads ever pan out?”
Caden shook his head. “No. I heard James tried to nex Cara again, but I don’t know if he managed to reach her.”
I frowned. “Who’s Cara?”
Caden blinked at me like I’d asked what oxygen was. “Cara Sinclair. Rachel’s sister?”
I blinked right back. “Rachel has a sister?”
Jackson and Caden exchanged a look. “We must’ve talked about this while you were still out,” Jackson said.
“Riveting,” I deadpanned. “So who is she? Do we like her?”
Caden hesitated. “She’s… Rachel’s unhinged sister. Currently leading the Radicals.”
My jaw dropped. “The Radicals? As in the magi who stole an Amplifier last year and tried to blow up our Collectives?”
“The very same,” Caden said, looking way too calm about it.
“Yeah, okay. Not a fan,” I muttered. “So what does she have to do with the person behind the bubble?”
“She claimed to know his identity,” Caden said. “Said it was a Collaborator, the same one who handed the Radicals the Amplifier, once upon a time.”
I chewed that over for a beat. “Then why don’t we haul her in? Interrogate her like we did that human about my arrest warrant?”
Jackson’s brow went up. “You want to leak her?”
I made a face. “Leak her? Ew, no. What the hell, man.”
Caden laughed softly. “’Leaking’ is what Orators call the Offensive style of interrogation. They pretend mind-reading is immoral, which is fair. Though, I’m a massive fan of the technique myself.”
“Big surprise there,” Jackson mumbled under his breath.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, sharper than I intended, irritation bubbling up from somewhere I didn’t even know existed until that moment.
Jackson’s brows lifted in surprise, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. “Only that Caden—being First Offensive and all—would naturally stand behind an Offensive method,” he said carefully. “That’s all I meant.”
“It better be,” I replied, edged with enough frost to make the air between us go taut.
Jackson raised both hands in mock surrender, an easy, apologetic smile tugging at his mouth as if he had no idea how he’d managed to piss me off; from the corner of my eye I caught Caden’s smirk, slow, indulgent, and clearly delighted by the way my defensiveness had already started doing most of his work for him.
“So, aside from Jackson’s obvious moral high-ground and tasteful squeamishness about mind-probing, is there any substantive reason we shouldn’t haul her in for questioning?
” I asked, letting the rhetorical flourish hang in the air.
“You know, maybe apply a little pressure, scare tactics, emotional amplification until she confesses or, I don’t know, implodes? ”
Jackson’s expression tightened for a second, thoughtful and careful.
“Rachel didn’t seem keen on us contacting her sister,” he said slowly, choosing his words like someone balancing explosives and diplomacy, “but that was then; it’s been months since the bubble went up, and honestly, it might be time we started being more proactive. ”
“Agreed,” Caden said, the single word low, measured, and heavy with the kind of certainty that usually meant he already had a plan and zero intention of sharing it.
“Do you think Cara might also know who was behind my first warrant?” I asked. “If we’re right—and the person behind the bubble is friendly—they wouldn’t have branded me a terrorist.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call them friendly,” Jackson said, his tone rather severe. “If they imposed the bubble, they’re still responsible for the deaths of those kids in Cyclos.”
“I meant friendly to me. Not in general,” I muttered, heat creeping up my neck, feeling quietly scolded.
Jackson leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees. “I honestly don’t know. If you want answers to that, you’ll have to find the first warrant.”
I raised a brow and let out a sharp snort. “You don’t think I’ve been trying? It’s not like I can simply hack the US federal database and pull it up.”
Caden tilted his head, studying me. “You can’t,” he said evenly, “but Saoirse can.”
I blinked. “She can?”
How the hell did I not know this?
“Yeah,” he said, completely unfazed. “When we first learned you were on the run, she’s the one who figured out why. She dug it up. You should ask her.”
I nodded slowly. I will.
We talked for a few more minutes before Jackson finally stood, muttered something about checking in with Sean, and headed for the door.
He was barely out of the room when Caden scooped me straight out of my chair.
I yelped, clutching at his shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“You defended my honor,” he growled, voice dark and rough against my ear. “You have no idea how much I need to be inside you right now.”
I couldn’t help it, I giggled, then broke into a laugh when he tossed me onto the bed and started ripping my clothes like patience was a mortal sin.
“At the rate you’re going, I’m not going to have any clothes left,” I chided, glancing at the shredded remains of yet another buttonless shirt.
“I’m fucking devastated,” he rasped sarcastically, and then he kissed me hard, hungry, and with absolutely no room left for talking.
I didn’t need words either.
“You sore?” he muttered, voice thick with need and satisfaction.
“You care?” I teased, brushing my fingers down his chest.
He smirked. “Not enough to stop.”
I pushed him back, sudden and fierce, and he let me, his body hitting the mattress with a low, eager grunt. I climbed on top, straddling him, my thighs trembling from how wrecked he’d already made me.
His hands found my hips, but I grabbed his wrists and pinned them above his head.
“Then let’s play,” I whispered.
I tore open the button of his pants and freed his cock, thick and hard and already straining for me.
He groaned—deep, wrecked—when I lined him up to my center and sank down on him. Slow at first, dragging out the stretch, making him feel every inch.
Then I slammed down hard.
He cursed, hips bucking up into me as I rode him without mercy. Fast. Deep. Desperate. The room filled with the sound of skin slapping skin, our ragged breaths, the frantic rhythm of my body taking what it needed.
“Fuck, baby,” he groaned, eyes wild. “Just like that.”
I moved faster.
His hands broke free, gripping my ass, pulling me down harder with every thrust as he drove up to meet me.
We were nothing but heat and sweat and filthy, feral need, and we were both right there on the edge.
It was fast, and hot. Desperate.
He pinched my nipples, hard enough to make me cry out, then shoved two fingers into my mouth.
“Suck,” he growled.
And I did, wet, eager, my tongue curling around him as I moaned around his fingers. His eyes burned into mine, wild and possessive, as he fucked up into me like he owned every inch.
“Come with me,” I gasped around his hand, body clenching tight, shaking.
And when it hit—white-hot and blinding—I came undone around him.
He followed a heartbeat later, slamming up into me one last time as he spilled inside, a guttural growl ripped from his throat.
I collapsed against his chest, breathless, slick with sweat, both of us shaking, wrecked in the best possible way.
We stayed like that for a while—me still on top of him, him still inside me—as I listened to the steady thrum of his heartbeat against my ear.
Every night for the past three days, I’d fallen asleep like this: spent, safe, dreamless. No nightmares. No ghosts clawing their way in. Just him.
And Gods, I was addicted to it. To him. To the silence that only seemed to exist in his arms.
With a lazy flick of my wrist, I summoned the covers, draping them over us like a shield. “I should go sleep in my own room,” I mumbled, though even I didn’t believe it, as my voice slurred around a yawn, my body already melting back into his.
Caden chuckled, low and warm. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
I lifted my head just enough to meet his gaze. “If we keep this up, people are going to find out about us.”
“How?” he said with a smirk. “I soundproofed the room, and you’ve got a permanent hologram and alarm system rigged in yours.”
I yawned for real this time, then rolled off him and tucked myself into the space between his chest and neck, my favorite place to be.
“Fine,” I muttered. “I didn’t want to leave anyway.”
He laughed, that deep, gravelly sound that always made my stomach flutter. “Then stay right here, love. Stay with me.”
“Always,” I whispered, lids already drifting shut.
The last thing I felt was his lips on my forehead and the way he pulled me closer, like letting go wasn’t even an option.