Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
CADEN
That night, I almost told her.
I almost said those three little words that had been true almost from the first moment she crashed into my life.
She deserved to know.
But I wanted it to be right. Wanted to tell her without the Chiefs’ threat hanging over our heads. Without the world waiting to tear us apart the second we chose each other.
When I left her room after James’s urgent nex, I found him pacing the hallway, tension bleeding into his every move.
The moment he spotted me, he went rigid, shoulders snapping back as if bracing for impact. “Did you just come from Emma’s room?”
I didn’t break stride, didn’t blink. “That’s none of your business anymore.”
His jaw ticked, hard enough to be visible, a muscle jumping like he was holding himself back from lunging at me. “So that’s it?” he said, taking a slow step closer. “She’s yours now?”
I halted. Hell yeah.
“For as long as she’ll have me.”
Something flickered in his eyes—anger, jealousy, something sharper, more dangerous—but instead of acting on it, he went completely still. “Don’t hurt her.”
I held his stare, chin tilting up enough to challenge him. “She’s not yours to protect.” I let the words sit between us, then added, quieter, “But I won’t.”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, exhaling through his nose as he forced himself back into control. When he snapped up his head, the Leader was back in place.
I stepped in beside him, posture more relaxed again. “I’m guessing this charming little chat isn’t why you nexed me so urgently?”
He shook his head. “I got a text.” His voice was low, stretched thin. “From Nino.”
That got my attention. “Your First Offensive? What did she say?”
James’s focus was on the far end of the hallway like he was checking for shadows, then pulled out a human phone.
“‘High Chiefs at Cyclos.’”
“What the fuck? When did she send you this?”
“Half an hour ago. Maybe less.” His knuckles were bone-white around the phone. “I don’t know where she even got a human phone, but if she went through the trouble of finding one—”
“She’s sending you a warning.”
“Yeah.”
I dragged a hand down my face, pulse kicking hard. “All right. Let’s get some caffeine in us and figure out what the hell’s going on.”
James translated two cups of coffee and handed me one, like he was bestowing a sacred gift instead of, you know, snapping his fingers and translating it into existence.
“Don’t say I never gave you anything,” he muttered, already halfway into his own mug like he deserved a medal.
I gave him a flat look. “Careful, someone might think you’re becoming civilized.”
He snorted before replying. “If that ever happens, kill me.”
“Gladly.”
We stood in silence for a moment, the kind that only ever came from mutual exhaustion and too much shared blood. The coffee was hot. Bitter. Perfect. For once, everything felt still.
Then we heard it.
A scream, raw, guttural, and so full of agony it sliced straight through bone.
We froze.
Stared at each other for a split second, terror flashing between us in the same heartbeat.
Because we both knew that scream.
Emma.
The mugs hit the floor at the same time.
We were already running, sprinting down the hallway so fast my heartbeat drowned out everything else.
Another scream tore through the air, broken enough to peel skin off bone.
I slammed into her door shoulder-first, bursting inside… And froze.
The love of my life was on the floor.
Curled in on herself like she was trying to keep her body from splitting apart. Sobs tore out of her in ragged, soundless heaves, her chest shaking, her breath hitching like she couldn’t get air. Her hands were clamped over her head, nails digging into her scalp hard enough to draw blood.
She looked like she was coming apart at the seams.
James skidded in behind me and stopped cold, all the color draining from his face.
“Emma.” I dropped to my knees beside her. “What the hell happened?”
Her breath came in broken bursts, fists clenched tight in my shirt like it was the only thing keeping her anchored. Her whole body shook with it—rage, grief, horror—all of it ripping through her.
“Baby,” I whispered, fucking frantic with worry as I pulled her tighter against my chest. “Talk to me.”
“Glad to have you join us, gentlemen.”
My head snapped up so fast my neck nearly cracked.
The High Chief’s reflection flickered through Emma’s Nexus, hovering right above her like some smug, omnipotent specter come to watch the destruction he’d orchestrated.
A split screen.
And in the second feed: a headless body slumped in a chair.
My heartbeat slammed against my ribs, pounding out a vicious rhythm that drowned out everything except the merciless realization clawing its way through me.
Saoirse.
All the air punched out of my lungs at once, leaving me cold—subzero cold—with a kind of frozen fury I hadn’t felt in years, something feral and long-buried ripping itself awake and stretching through my veins like wildfire.
“Remember this,” I said, each syllable sharp enough to carve steel, “when you’re begging me for death.”
“Mister Colt,” the High Chief drawled, unbothered and infuriatingly composed, “your lovely but empty threats will have to wait.”
A third screen flickered to life beside the others, the image snapping into clarity with a sickening inevitability.
Another woman.
Black hair.
Strapped to a chair.
Bruised so badly her skin looked mottled.
Blood was smeared across her collar like someone had left the crimson there to dry.
I didn’t recognize her face, but I didn’t need to.
I knew exactly who she was.
James stepped forward, shoulders squared, voice dropping into something so cold it made the air feel thinner.
“You touch my First Offensive,” he hissed, the words shaking with every ounce of violence he was barely keeping chained, “and you die faster than you ever thought possible.”
Emma’s head jerked up—like she’d been underwater and the world finally broke through—and her eyes widened in horror the moment she saw Nino strapped, bruised, bloodied, helpless.
“So,” the High Chief said smoothly, “let’s give this another try, shall we? Mister Walker. As you can see, we have already killed Crown’s temporary First Offensive due to Ms. Thompson’s refusal to comply.”
He paused, smug as sin. “Luckily for us, you all have no shortage of people you care about. So this can go on for as long as you want. Or,” he smiled like he was offering a gift, “you can stop all of this right now by forcing the True Bond on your mate.”
A low growl ripped out of me before I knew I was making the sound, my Chela manifesting instantly in my grip, the blade humming with raw murderous intent.
“You want me to force the bond on Emma?” James’s question cracked the air, disbelief, horror, and fury all colliding in one breath.
The Chief gave a pitying sigh. “We regret this is the only way you’ll come to your senses.
All we are asking is you to honor a deal you brokered with us.
” His attention flicked to Emma, then to James.
“You are Cyclos’s Leader. A powerful magus.
And Ms. Thompson is weakened as we speak, due to a terrible loss only she’s responsible for. ”
Emma whimpered in my arms, a broken, agonized sound that felt like someone drove a spike straight through my spine.
“Forcing the bond on her right now,” the Chief continued, “will be easy.”
“I’ll cut off your head before you make a single move,” I promised in a low, lethal voice I barely recognized as my own.
James straightened his back with the kind of rigid, unbreakable resolve I’d rarely seen in him, his gaze locking onto Nino with a tenderness so sharp it hurt, before shifting back to the man issuing the threat.
“I will not mind-rape Emma Thompson,” he said with unwavering conviction, “nor any other person in this fucking world.” He stepped forward. “And you will die for this illegal order.”
“Then prepare to watch your First Offensive suffer.”
James’s jaw tightened—every muscle in his face locking down—but he didn’t cave, didn’t blink, didn’t give the Chiefs the satisfaction of even a flinch.
The dark-hooded man beside Nino lifted the Corona in a slow, deliberate arc, the glowing edge hovering inches from her neck, humming with the promise of a death that would take seconds and haunt us forever.
And then, before I could move, before James could protest, before the blade could finish its arc, Emma yelled, voice raw and shredded and ripped straight from the deepest place inside her: “WAIT!”
EMMA
I was breathing hard—too hard—like my lungs couldn’t find the air fast enough to keep me upright. I was wrecked, trembling, furious beyond anything I’d ever felt, grief tearing me apart from the inside out, panic clawing at my ribs like it wanted out, but underneath all of it, I was determined.
Not again.
Not like this.
Not on my fucking watch.
“He won’t have to force it,” I choked out, every word scraped raw. “I’ll bond with him.”
“You bond with him right now, Ms. Thompson,” the High Chief replied smoothly, as if my entire world wasn’t bleeding out on those screens. “While we’re watching. You’ve had enough chances to do it on your own. Time’s up.”
My stomach lurched. My vision blurred. Rage and grief and terror collided so hard I thought I might pass out from the force of it.
“Okay,” I whispered, because there was no other choice left, because the world had backed me into a corner and expected me to die in it. “We’ll do it right now.”
“Over my dead fucking body,” Caden growled beside me, voice full of fury and hate, so much it made my heart twist painfully in my chest.
I closed my eyes—not to shut him out, but because looking at him hurt too much—because this, this, was exactly why I had fought my feelings for him for so long, why I had buried every spark and every pull and every goddamn truth, why I had run from him every chance I could.
Because loving him meant standing here now, torn open, forced to choose between him and the rest of the world, forced to let the Chiefs carve into the places I loved most.
This horrid heartbreak had always been the only outcome.
I should’ve known the Chiefs would outplay me. I should’ve known they’d go for the ones closest to me. I had too many people they could reach, too many they could twist, too many they could hurt, too many I loved with everything I had left.
I knew with a certainty that went beyond any limit of knowledge, if I didn’t comply right now, Caden would be next.
Even though that man had been worth every risk, every reckless second, every stolen moment, every breath, I knew it was time for me to pay the price for all of it, and that price could never be him.
He was the one price I could never pay.
So I turned to the man I loved with more than my heart, more than my magic, more than my fucking life.
“James and I will form the bond,” I said, forcing the words out even as they tore something inside me. “And you and I are over.”
Caden’s voice dropped to something that shook the godsdamn air. “The hell we are.”
“Caden,” I said, swallowing hard. “You heard him. They won’t stop. They’ll kill Nino. They’ll kill you next, they’ll kill everyone. I have to do this.”
His jaw flexed. “And I said no.”
“You don’t get a vote.”
“The fuck I don’t. You don’t get to throw us away because they’re pointing guns at people.”
“This isn’t about throwing us away,” I whispered as my entire body trembled with emotion. “This is about making sure you live.”
“I don’t care about me.”
“Well, I do!” The words ripped out of me, and his body jerked like it had taken a hit.
But he still shook his head.
Still refused to break.
Still stood his ground like the stubborn, amazing man he was.
“You’re not doing this,” he said. “I won’t let you.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I said, more clearly now. “This isn’t a negotiation. You think I want this? You think I want to break us? I’m doing what I have—”
“No,” he snapped. “I won’t let them force you into this.”
Tears burned in my eyes. “Caden. Please. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
I had to do this.
Gods, I had to.
“They killed Saoirse,” I whimpered, the words shaking out of me like they were tearing skin on the way out. “They got through the Layers at Crown somehow. They broke through every wall we built. What’s to stop them from coming after you next?”
“Let them try,” he said instantly, without even a heartbeat of hesitation, and terrifyingly sincere.
I shook my head, feeling something inside me tear clean in half. “I can’t risk you. I won’t.”
“You don’t get to decide—”
“Colt.”
Just his last name. But it broke both of us.
I stepped back from him, and his entire face collapsed, not visibly, not dramatically, but in the tiny, devastating ways only someone who loved him would notice.
“No,” he breathed, like he was watching me walk into a fire.
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice trembling so hard I could barely force the words out. “You need to go.”
“I’m not leaving you here—”
“Caden Colt,” I said, and every word shook like it was held together by splinters. “I am asking you to leave my room. And you…” my breath hitched, “you no longer have my consent to hold me, or even stand beside me. So, I am asking you to respect my choice and leave. Now.”
He went still.
Completely, utterly still.
Like I’d stabbed him.
His chest rose once.
Twice.
Then he turned toward the door.
Stopped.
Looked back at me with an expression that shattered something inside my ribs.
“Don’t do this,” he said quietly. “There’s always another way.”
Then he walked out.