Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
EMMA
Present.
I stared at James. Then at Julian.
“You forced the True Bond on me when I was a baby?” I asked as dry as possible, trying to ignore my stomach churning.
Julian swallowed hard, then rubbed the back of his neck, before he gave small nod.
I never saw it, only heard the sudden sickening thud of Caden’s fist slamming into Julian’s face.
My body convulsed as I doubled over, retching violently, my stomach emptying itself in heaving waves.
“Shit,” James cursed, quickly translating a bucket into my hands. The metallic rim was cold against my trembling fingers as I clung to it, my body still racked with uncontrollable spasms.
When I had nothing left to expel, my stomach continued to churn, forcing out dry heaves as if trying to rid itself of the overwhelming truth I had just absorbed.
My mind felt numb, unable to keep up with the torrent of revelations.
My whole being was in revolt, struggling to cope with… Well, everything.
“Calm the fuck down,” Stephen hissed at Caden, his manner severe. “You four are the only chance we have to save our kind and our entire world.”
James reached out to hold my hair back, but I swatted his hand away with a force that surprised even me. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed, my voice hoarse and raw. James recoiled, his eyes wide with shock.
Caden translated a bottle of water into my hands, which I gulped down desperately, barely pausing to breathe. The soft liquid was a brief comfort, but it did little to nothing to soothe the cyclone of emotions raging inside me. Tears burned in my eyes, but I fought to keep them back.
Don’t you fucking cry, Emma.
Not here. Not now. Not in front of those responsible for the worst things done to me.
I needed to breathe.
James was a bubbling pot of fury again, his anger impatiently waiting for its release. Julian was a sickening sight, his smirk now replaced by a look of resigned discomfort. Caden, on the other hand, was indecipherable—his face a mask of unreadable calm.
Stephen cleared his throat, trying to regain some semblance of control. “It seems all our work to uncover the reason behind your untraceable translation was unnecessary.”
Really? That’s what you have to say about that?
I turned on him, my tone a raw snarl. “Oh, I’m so sorry all that effort to abduct and experiment on me didn’t pay off.
Really, my heart bleeds for your wasted hours.
” I could almost taste the bitterness on my tongue.
“Why don’t you write Caden and his minions a scathing Yelp review: ‘Zero stars, terrible execution, wouldn’t recommend’—you know, to get it out of your system. ”
Caden snorted, but I didn’t so much as flicker. I kept my focus trained on Stephen, forcing myself to block out James and Julian—because right now, I couldn’t fucking deal with either of them.
I needed… Fuck, what did I need? I had to deflect. To not think about my former best friend and my boyfriend, lying about me being fucking raped. Twice.
So I stared at the man responsible for the plan from hell, homing my emotions in on him.
“You know what I don’t get? Why not hand me over to Caden, instead of James as soon as you found me?
Why not explain everything up front to me?
Why not ensure my cooperation instead of abducting me?
Bleeding me out against trees? Mangling my fucking arm?
” I almost yelled that last part, swirling away the Skindo tattoo to show off my horrible scars.
Caden averted his gaze and swallowed, a kind of sickened look crossing his face. Yeah, doesn’t look good, does it asshole?
Stephen nodded, his whole frame seeming to sag under the burden of remorse.
“I had a lot of reasons to do what I did. I wanted you to receive the best training possible, which Cyclos could offer. I wanted you close to James, thinking back then he’d be the father.
I needed you to feel threatened, become a victim, so he could feel like a hero, driven by his destructive past to seek you out. I needed him to fall in love with you.”
He paused when I gasped, my heartbreak intensifying. “It wasn't until you moved into Cyclos, I realized there were two other possible fathers.”
I stared at him, disbelief and rage coiling inside me. “So you manipulated us into loving each other? Treated us like livestock to breed? Like some sick love-experiment?”
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to, his silence spoke volumes.
“Are you sure those Trackers are the bad guys?” I continued, my voice trembling with anger. “Because from where I’m standing, you could give Himmler and his Lebensborn project a run for his money.”
Stephen’s face went ashen, and I could see my words hitting him hard. I shook my head in disbelief, feeling a wave of despair wash over me.
My line of sight landed on the three other men in the room.
“So, what? I’m supposed to have a baby with one of these three? Those are my options?” I spat, choked up with disgust and desperation.
“The one who was manipulated into loving me and lied to me more than the all the presidents of the U.S. combined? The one who abducted, tortured, and maimed me? Or…” My throat tightened, nearly choking on the words, “the one who mind-raped me as a baby…”
My stomach twisted violently again, though there was nothing left to give.
I doubled over, racked with dry heaves, each one dragging through me like a tide of nausea I couldn’t escape.
The convulsions came again and again, relentless—as if my body were trying to purge the horror and trauma inside of me.
Then, in an instant that felt both surreal and painfully vivid, everything changed.
One moment, I was hurling; the next, Caden moved with lethal precision, translated a sleek curved blade with a serrated edge near the tip and, with a swift, brutal motion, sliced Julian’s head clean off his neck.
Clean. Off. His. Neck.
Stephen gasped in horror. James jumped up and yelled, “What the fuck?” and Caden sat back down in his chair, his features relaxed as he watched Julian’s head roll onto the table, as if decapitations were an everyday occurrence. Maybe in his life, they were.
“What the hell did you just do?” Stephen shouted, his voice a mix of outrage and fear. “If he was the father, you’ve destroyed our only hope for the future!”
“Why?” James asked dryly, betraying little emotion at Julian’s demise.
“He fucking forced the True Bond on her!” Caden snapped, his first bout of real anger finally showing. “You think she was ever going to have sex with him? Willingly? So if he was the father, how do you think that happened?”
The room fell into stunned silence.
“Yeah, I figured you might not be so concerned about the future after realizing mind-rape isn’t the only type of rape he would’ve resorted to,” Caden spat out, his stare cutting through everyone in the room.
Stephen closed his lids briefly, as if wrestling for control. James translated another bottle of water into my hand, and I took it, hoping the coolness would calm my fraying nerves.
Caden’s attention flicked to me, and though my feelings toward him hadn’t softened, I managed a small nod of acknowledgment. His jaw tightened, but he returned the nod, then with a smooth gesture, translated his weapon away.
“Was that a Chela?” James asked, motioning to the spot where Caden’s blade had been.
Caden’s response was a single, sharp nod.
“I thought those were banned.”
“They are.”
For a moment, everyone remained quiet.
“I need…” I began hesitantly, my voice quavering.
“What, sweetheart? What do you need?” James leaned in slightly.
I turned toward him, feeling a mixture of frustration and resolve. “I need to talk to you. In private.”
Caden stood up first. “We’ll be back in an hour. Give you two a chance to talk. Then we need to form a plan.” He translated Julian’s head and body away with a flick of his wrist, his black haze darkening the room for only a second.
On some level, I wished I could muster any sympathy for my childhood friend’s gruesome end, but after everything I’d learned these past few hours, the sight of the decapitated body had barely stirred any emotion in me.
I didn’t feel a single ounce of grief for the man who had—Nope, not hurling again. I forced the wave of nausea back down.
Stephen rose from his chair, silent and composed, before following Caden out of the room without another word, leaving James and me alone in the thick, suffocating quiet.
I turned to James, my heart aching as I took in the full gravity of his betrayal.
He had lied to me for months—not just throughout my entire first year at Cyclos, but even throughout our whole relationship.
He had possessed knowledge about my past, about every facet of my existence, and had chosen to keep it hidden.
Despite professing his love for me, he had opted for silence on subjects that were closest to my heart—and his. How could this be love? How could this be real?
Dread filled my stomach as I realized how time and again, the person I had considered the love of my life had prioritized secrecy over our relationship.
His gaze, filled with a desperate plea for forgiveness, bore into my soul as I stared back, silent and unmoving.
My heart pounded in my chest, and numbness gripped my body, as though I had been injected with a powerful sedative, rendering me incapable of uttering a single word.
“I’m so sorry for keeping this from you. Please tell me you understand why,” he whispered, sounding filled with regret. But I didn’t understand why. Not even a little bit.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You knew I was mind-raped as a baby, and you didn’t tell me,” I choked out, my stomach rebelling as I hurled again. This was going to take every ounce of effort to process. “Mind-raped, James! And that’s not even it, you knew everything!”
And now I was yelling.