Chapter 50 #2
I also realized, in doing this, Rachel would probably put two and two together about the nature of my relationship with Caden.
But fuck it. At this point, subtlety could go die in a ditch.
I manifested my Nexus in my palm, blue drops hovering over it, rearranging themselves into the lingering text Caden had sent me earlier, telling me to stay cunning and beautiful while he went off with Sean to dig up more information about Gordon.
I flicked my fingers, dissolving his message and pulled the drops back together into a new pattern: a text for Rachel, asking her to meet me in her personal training room.
Figured the conversation would go down a lot better if we were both physically occupied in an environment where neither of us could pretend we weren’t equals.
She was already waiting for me when I walked in, stretching her arms over her head with the casual grace of someone who could probably take down a small militia before breakfast.
“Morning,” she said without turning.
“Hey.” I stepped inside and let the door slam shut behind me, because my subconscious felt dramatic.
Rachel glanced over, one brow raised. “You look like someone who woke up and chose violence.”
I shrugged. “Or cardio.”
“Same thing,” she deadpanned, tossing me a staff.
I caught it easily, twirling it once to hide my nerves.
Without waiting for another useless second, Rachel lunged first.
Our staffs collided with a loud crack that echoed through the room. She pressed forward, testing me, pushing my balance. I slid back, pivoted, and swung low toward her legs. She blocked and spun cleanly.
I gritted my teeth and launched into a series of fast attacks, controlled, precise, maybe a little furious. Rachel countered each one with the ease of a woman who had lived her entire life expecting to be attacked.
She swept my leg. I caught myself on my hand, flipped, and landed with a thud.
Rachel gave an appreciative nod. “Fancy.”
“I’m versatile,” I said, lunging again. She blocked, but not fast enough, I clipped her shoulder. She barely flinched.
“Nice,” she said, then lowered her staff, her focus sharp. “Okay. Enough preamble. What’s going on?”
I lowered mine as well, letting the end tap lightly against the mat. “You. Caden. And the fact you…like him.”
Rachel’s brows shot up—high, almost comically so—like I’d spoken in fluent nonsense.
I pushed on before I lost my nerve. “I know you think he could be for you—"
“What?” she cut in as she took a half step toward me, confusion tightening her features. “Hold on. That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”
I nodded, already feeling my cheeks heat with humiliation.
“Jesus, I thought you were coming in here to accuse me of mass murder or something.”
“This is worse,” I muttered under my breath.
Rachel planted a hand on her hip, staring at me like I’d sprouted an extra head. “Emma. I am not interested in Caden like that.”
My face went volcanic. “I saw you flirting with him, and I heard you wanted to ask him out.”
Kanata C’s First Offensive let out a noise somewhere between a scoff and a laugh.
“Well, that’s embarrassing. Caden and I have history.
I figured I could use that to my advantage to form a strong alliance with Crown’s First Offensive.
We’re at war. Alliances are what keep us alive.
But it was never—ever—about anything more than strategy. ”
“Are you saying you don’t want him?” I pressed, because it seemed as though I needed the words carved into stone.
Rachel’s mouth curved into an amused smile. “Emma, Hillary is my wife. And we’re in a very monogamous and committed relationship.”
My jaw dropped so fast it nearly hit the floor. “Holy shit… You’re married?”
Rachel nodded, and suddenly everything rearranged itself in my head.
Every touch, every smile, every moment she’d “flirted” with Caden…
She hadn’t been marking territory.
She hadn’t been pursuing him.
She’d been pursuing an alliance.
With his Collective.
Not with him.
And just like that, I saw her in a very different light. Strategic, calculating, always ten steps ahead.
Not unlike Caden.
“Why don’t you tell people you guys are married?”
Rachel shrugged, rolling her staff between her palms. “I’m First Offensive, Emma. I have a permanent target on my back. If people know I have a weakness…”
“They might exploit it,” I finished. “Still. Seems harsh to keep your own wife a secret.”
Rachel straightened her spine. “The people who matter, know.”
“And Hillary’s on board with this?” I asked, the earlier yelling through her study door now making a whole lot more sense.
“Reluctantly.” A small smile tugged at her mouth. “But she understands.”
My stomach plummeted.
Not because of her words, but because of what I saw behind them.
Hillary.
Always in the background.
Always second to Rachel’s role.
Always quietly accepting the secrecy that came with loving someone powerful.
Suddenly it hit me like a punch to the gut: I was doing the exact same thing to Caden.
Hiding him. Asking him to hide us. Letting fear dictate what he was allowed to claim. Who he was allowed to claim.
Forcing him into the shadows even though he’d never once hesitated to stand in the light with me.
Fuck.
Rachel tapped the end of her staff against the mat, jolting me out of my internal spiraling. “Caden is all yours, Emma. I’m sorry if I’ve caused any kind of friction, that was never my intention.”
I blinked a few times before hastily lying, “Oh, no. We’re not together.”
Rachel deadpanned at me in silence so thick it became its own form of judgment.
“Right,” she said finally. “And I’m a fucking houseplant.”
I stared at her, completely thrown, unsure how to even begin climbing out of the hole I’d dug myself.
“It’s okay, Emma,” Rachel said, waving a hand like she was soothing a child. “I understand wanting to keep a relationship between the bedroom walls. No one will hear it from me.”
I hesitated for a second before I spoke. “The United Chiefs… As you know, they believe James to be the father of the Krait. Why they’re so sure of it, I have no idea. When they came here, they threatened to kill everyone I love if I didn’t bond with him.”
My throat tightened. “I bought myself a year, but that was months ago, and I’ve never been further away from wanting it. If they find out I—”
Rachel didn’t let me finish. She tossed her staff aside with a sharp clatter and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward her with a grip that was terrifyingly fierce.
“No one,” she said, every word clipped, “not even the fucking High Chief, gets to dictate who you bond with. If they so much as try to threaten you into it again, we’ll raise arms against them.
All of us, together with every Collective that has the smallest sense of decency. You have my word on that.”
My breath caught. She looked like a fighter, a leader, and someone’s deeply protective wife all at once.
And for the first time, I saw her fully.
Thus, I did what I’d been wanting to do for quite some time. I stepped forward and hugged her.
She chuckled, surprised, but her arms came around me without hesitation.
Which is exactly how Hillary found us a second later. “Okay. That’s a lot of touching.”
Rachel sighed into my shoulder. “Hillary.”
“No, no, don’t ‘Hillary’ me.” My Healer stepped inside, squinting at our embrace like she was assessing a suspicious rash. “So first you want to go to dinner with Colt and now you’re cuddling his are they or aren’t they disaster? Really?”
Rachel groaned. “Honey, please—”
“No, it’s fine,” Hillary said in a tone that indicated it was certainly not fine. “You know what? I get it. She’s adorable. Trauma-riddled. Has big blue eyes and a tragic backstory. Of course everyone wants to hug her.”
I blinked. “You think I’m adorable?”
“Don’t push it,” she warned.
Rachel pinched the bridge of her nose. “Babe, I love you. Please hold off on threatening the woman who’s been through enough trauma to fuel a five-season TV-show drama.”
Hillary huffed, but the territorial glare softened. Slightly. “Fine. But future hugging requires a consent form. Signed by me.”
“A what?” I asked.
Rachel muttered, “Ignore her.”
Hillary pointed at me two-fingered, like she was marking her next confirmed kill.
“She’s mine. Not in the fun way. In the touch her wrong and I’ll end your bloodline way.”
I smiled. “Thank fuck my whole bloodline’s already gone, then.”
Hillary paused before snorting. “Gods. That was dark even for me.”
Rachel groaned into her palms, and I chuckled.
Hillary’s smile had barely twitched into existence when Rachel’s Nexus flared—hard.
A violent surge of blue drops shot up from the device, crackling like static chewing through metal.
Hillary’s hands immediately flew to her hips. “If that’s another woman nexing you—"
“It’s Cara,” Rachel snapped, already reaching into the shimmering thread of her Nexus link. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of her for the last few days.”
Hillary’s eyebrows climbed so high they nearly exited her forehead. “Your sister Cara? The one who ghosted you for—”
“A decade,” Rachel cut in. “Yes. Her.”
The whole room washed blue as the latter accepted the connection.
A floating translucent panel snapped into existence, projecting Cara’s face: hair scraped back, eyes wild and unamused, mouth already set in a hard line.
“Why have you been stalking me every five damn seconds after a lifetime of radio silence?” Cara demanded before Rachel could even open her mouth.
Rachel didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Didn’t even shift her breathing.
“I’m not interested in your inadequate emotional responses,” she replied, cool as frostbite. “I have need for your knowledge of the person behind the bubble. And if you’d care to elaborate on your experience with the Collaborators, that would be much appreciated as well.”
Cara blinked once.
Then burst out laughing.
Loud. Unhinged. Echoing off the reinforced walls like she’d just heard the funniest shit of her life.
“My experience with Collabs?” she repeated, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “Well. Your timing is fucking impeccable. Why don’t I show you?”
The screen expanded with a flick of her fingers, ballooning outward until it swallowed half the room, and the smell hit us instantly.
A thick, wet stench of blood.
Antiseptic.
Rotting bodily fluids baked into concrete.
And underneath it all, the panicked sweat of people who had been terrified for far too long.
My stomach flipped so hard I had to breathe through my teeth.
Cara stood inside a building, dark, concrete, splattered with old blood that had dried in rusty streaks down the walls. There were puddles on the floor. Some with footprints dragged through them.
“Where the hell are you?” I whispered before I could stop myself.
Cara’s focus snapped straight to me. “You’re Emma Thompson.”
I nodded once. “Thank you for saving me a trip to the mirror. Now answer the question.”
Her jaw-muscle jumped like she was holding herself together by dental pressure alone. “We’re somewhere in South Africa. Let me show you what we found.”
The Nexus panned to the first room, and the smell got worse.
A metallic punch of blood and the sour tang of vomit, hitting us as if we’d stepped into the room with her.
Rows of beds.
Rows of women.
Human women.
All of them chained to their beds with cuffs that had rubbed their skin raw.
All of them visibly pregnant. Unnaturally synchronized in how far along they were.
Most of them crying. Some screaming. All of them hollowed out with terror while Cara’s men cut their chains and tried to soothe them.
A woman on the closest bed had dried blood between her legs.
Another had bruises around her throat like someone had held her down.
A third kept repeating, “Don’t take her, please don’t take her…” until her voice broke.
The whole scene hit my lungs like fire.
Hillary swore viciously beside me, one hand flying to her mouth.
Rachel’s grip tightened on her staff until it cracked.
Cara didn’t pause. She flicked her hand again, and the feed yanked into the second room, where the stench of torn flesh slammed into us all at once.
Ten more women.
Their bodies pulsing with unstable energy hazes that flickered and sputtered like dying stars.
Magae.
Every single one of them was pale. Shaking. Hooked to machines, humming with a sick, mechanical hunger.
“Is that…egg harvesting?” Hillary whispered as she stepped closer to the projection, tracking the tubes, the vials, the slow drip of glowing essence. “Holy fuck, they’re stealing their eggs.”
“They’re robbing them,” Cara said. Her tone was harsh now. “Over and over and over.”
Then she turned the Nexus back to herself. Her face looked carved from stone. Fury-stricken.
“We found a camp a few miles south of here,” she said. “We’re going to annihilate whatever—or whoever—we can find there.”
The image began to flicker; she was preparing to disconnect.
“Cara, wait!” I surged forward instinctively. “Do you need me to portal in for backup?”
She froze. “You want to back up Radicals?” she asked slowly, like she needed to confirm she hadn’t hallucinated it.
“They’re hurting women for their bodies,” I snapped. “I don’t give a fuck who you are.”
For a single heartbeat, Cara didn’t move. Simply stared at me through the shimmering projection, as if she were reassessing the entire world.
Then—softly, almost grudgingly—she said, “I’ve got it handled. Don’t need backup. But… I appreciate the offer.”
The projection collapsed in on itself.
Rachel exhaled first. Hillary swallowed hard.
And me?
I was already shaking with the kind of fury that promised I wasn’t staying out of this for long.