Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
EMMA
Three hours and multiple fucks later, we’d somehow made it to the bed. I was half-asleep in his arms, skin still warm from the last round, when both our Nexuses flared, and Rachel’s signature intensity slamming through the link like a jolt of lightning.
I groaned and buried my face against his chest. “What are the odds of me being excused from whatever war meeting she’s summoning us into now?”
Caden gave a low, amused snort. “Somewhere between slim and nonexistent. She’ll want a full debrief on what we found at Sisu.”
I sighed. “Of course she does.”
He smirked, brushing his thumb along my hip. “You could always pretend you’re unconscious. I’ll tell her you overexerted yourself.”
I shot him a sleepy glare. “Too bad you can’t take credit for it.”
“Not publicly,” he said, lips twitching. “But as long as you know who’s responsible, we’re good.”
I huffed a laugh, rolling off him with another groan. “Trust me, there’s no universe where I could forget. You’ve practically scrubbed my brain clean of anything that isn’t you.”
“Unlikely,” he said, grinning up at me. “Though that is my main ambition.”
Thirty minutes—and one last, hurried shower quickie—later, we were seated in Kanata C’s War Room, looking every bit the disciplined soldiers we definitely weren’t.
Caden sat across from me, James beside him, and Rachel at the head of the table with a cup of coffee and a face full of disbelief.
Rachel cut through the quiet hum of magic and machinery.
“So let me get this straight. You three found one of the Collabs’ hideouts, and you’re telling me they were running experiments on humans and magi?
” She paused, her nose wrinkling slightly.
“To the point where there was, what, blood and tissue everywhere?”
“Pretty much,” Caden said, leaning back in his chair with that effortless calm of his. “Since it’s the first site where they’ve left anything behind, I’m guessing we caught them off guard. They must’ve left in a hurry.”
James gave a small nod. “I just don’t know how they knew. They probably had a LiaPrism hidden somewhere nearby, but Emma was the only one who used translation, so it shouldn’t have triggered.”
“Maybe they saw you coming?” one of the Kanata C Offensives offered.
James shook his head. “Negative. Emma cloaked us from the start. And she did it well.”
I smiled gently at my ex-boyfriend, grateful for the small acknowledgment.
Across the table, Caden’s jaw flexed, subtle but not lost on me. His gaze lingered a second too long before he turned away.
A quiet thrill curled through me. Was he…jealous?
I hid my grin behind a sip of water. Look at how giddy that made me.
Maybe he’d make me pay for it later. Punish me severely.
I certainly hoped he would.
“Do we have any idea who’s leading the Collabs?” Rachel asked, her tone clipped but wary.
Caden leaned forward, elbows on the table. “No. I’ve had feelers out all over the world as soon as we heard of their existence, but nothing’s popped up. No names, nothing about any kind of structure or hierarchy. It’s like they’re completely off grid.”
“But if we’re working from the presumption the Collabs are behind the bubble, then they’re responsible for the blue portal Emma had to jump through as well, since only the bubble’s creator can translate within it without getting hurt.”
I nodded slowly, feeling every set of eyes on me.
“Emma,” Rachel said, softer now. “What did you see, when you jumped?”
Fuck me. I was grasping for something neutral to say while my thoughts tangled themselves into knots.
Because first, I couldn’t tell them without exposing what Caden and I were. And second…it was fucking personal.
“It was personal. But whoever opened that portal,” I replied in a firm tone, “believes Caden to be Alek’s father.”
Rachel frowned. “Which rules out the Collabs. If they truly believe Caden Colt to be the Krait’s father, they would never show you. They’re working alongside the humans; they’d be in favor of those Trackers you told us about.”
Caden went still beside me.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, measured. “Unless the Collabs found out about the Krait—and they believe Walker’s the father, like the Chiefs do—then they’d have more than enough reason to keep Emma and James apart.”
I met his gaze. “So, if the Collabs are behind the bubble, they were trying to convince me you’re the father, to keep me away from James?”
His jaw tightened. “Possibly.”
I stared at him for a beat longer than I should have, the silence stretching between us until it felt like a conversation of its own. Through sheer will—or some pathetic stab at telepathy—I tried to send one clear thought his way: There is no reality in which James is Alek’s father.
He didn’t respond, but something in his expression flickered, and I chose to take that as understanding.
I exhaled, then dragged a hand down my face, grounding myself in motion. “Okay,” I said finally. “What do we really know about the bubble’s creator?”
“Nothing,” James grunted, thrumming his fingers on the table. His chair screeched when he sat up straight, the picture of stressed out. “Except he is very powerful, and probably close to ten cycles old.”
“We also know they grabbed me and James, opened a portal to lure you, Emma, and wanted you convinced Caden is Alek’s father,” Jackson added without hesitation.
“Right,” I said. “Which means we can rule out the Chiefs.”
Rachel folded her arms, exhaustion hanging off her like armor she couldn’t take off. “And the Radicals. They’d never incapacitate their own species by creating a bubble around an entire country. It defeats the entire manifesto.”
Caden’s head tilted, a slow, measured movement. “You cross them off the list pretty fast.” He held her stare. “I agree it sounds unlikely. But let’s not forget the Radicals are currently led by your sister. Maybe you’re too close to it to see the angle.”
Rachel’s jaw ticked. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not accusing,” he replied gently. “I’m only checking blind spots.”
I stepped in before the sparks caught fire. “Caden’s right to question it, but I’m with Rachel. Even with her sister running the show, nothing about this fits their methods. The Radicals want magi to be in power, not paralyzed. A bubble this size? It’s a prison, not a revolution.”
Rachel gave a single nod. Caden leaned back, conceding the point without a word.
“Anyway.” I hesitated, a new thread tugging at my mind. “Has anyone spoken to Cara Sinclair since she tried to rope you all into that alliance?”
“I tried to nex her a while back,” James said, then rubbed the back of his neck. “But she was…” He trailed off, gaze flicking toward me like he was gauging how much honesty the room could handle.
I arched a brow. “She was what?”
He cleared his throat. “Let’s just say she made a few—ah—crude remarks about my physical appearance and then disconnected.”
Rachel snorted. “Utterly useless, as usual.”
“Unhelpful and unfiltered,” James muttered. “Her two most consistent traits.”
I couldn’t help it, the corner of my mouth twitched. “Guess she took an interest in you.”
James narrowed his eyes. “Thrilled for me, are you?”
“Absolutely,” Caden said, stone-faced, entirely unhelpful.
“All right, let’s see what I can coax out of my sister,” Rachel said dryly, as she reached for her Nexus.
Caden raised a brow. “I thought you said she’d do no more than lie to you?”
Rachel gave a half-smile, equal parts resigned and ruthless. “At this point, even a lie has value. A lie tells me what she wants me to believe. That’s still a thread. And a thread’s a start.”
I smiled at her optimism, a flicker of amusement tugging at my lips, but the feeling didn’t quite settle.
Beneath it lingered the uneasy sense that we were missing something. Something big, something obvious, something that refused to be seen no matter how hard we looked.
And it was getting on my nerves.
CADEN
It was the middle of the night when something dragged me out of my sleep.
Instinct kicked in before thought did, and I had my Chela in hand before my eyes were even open.
But all I saw was Emma next to me, tangled in my sheets, her body twisting violently beneath them, her face contorted in pain, her chest heaving like she was drowning in something I couldn’t see.
My whole body locked as I understood what it was.
Nightmares.
And violent ones if her thrashing was any indication.
Seeing her like that—so vulnerable, so visibly in agony, tearing at the sheets like they were binding her, tears tracking down her temples—it punched the air right out of my lungs.
And then I heard it. Barely audible. Cracked in half.
“Caden.”
It wasn’t a scream. It wasn’t even a plea. It was something worse: a reach. As if somewhere in the dark, some part of her believed I could save her.
And it fucking wrecked me.
Because this wasn’t the first time her subconsciousness called out for me, even when the rest of her was barely aware.
“Emma,” I said with a calm I didn’t feel.
I reached out, fingers threading gently through the damp strands of hair clinging to her forehead. She was burning up with sweat, skin too warm, too pale. My thumb brushed across her temple, slow and careful, like she might break if I pushed too hard.
“Baby,” I whispered as I leaned in. “Wake up.”
She whimpered—soft and sharp—like the sound had clawed its way up from her chest without permission.
“Love,” I murmured, my voice soft. “Open your eyes. Come back to me.”
If I could’ve pulled her from that dream with my bare hands, I would’ve torn the entire thing apart, brick by fucking brick.
She jerked again, caught in some invisible struggle, another soft sob tearing from her lips.
I caught her at the waist and pulled her against me, my hand sliding up to her cheek to turn her toward me. “Nightcrawler. Look at me.”
Her eyes snapped open. Wide. Glossy. Haunted.