Page 151 of Scarlet Wars
“You okay there?” I asked, breaking the silence.
She didn’t look back. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous pastime,” I muttered. Then, louder because provoking her was too much fun not to: “Just so you know, it’s never a good sign when a woman starts thinking.”
She stopped—mid-step—then turned, eyes going hard. With a quick motion she pulled a small knife from her jacket and held it up between two fingers like a warning.
I arched a brow.
“Kissing you—and riding you like a bull rider on crack—doesn’t mean I won’t stab you with this,” she said, flat as a ledger. “Just so you know.”
I grinned. “You always were oddly fixated on my untimely demise.”
She shrugged, already turning back toward the path. But I caught it, the small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, the one she thought I wouldn’t notice.
“A girl’s gotta have a hobby,” she said over her shoulder.
The branches above us creaked in the wind, leaves rustling like dry whispers. And despite the cold, despite the threat waiting wherever we were going, something warm settled low in my chest.
She was still here.
And she was still fighting me with that mouth of hers.
Thank fuck.
“So,” I said, falling into step beside her, “what were you thinking about?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “You sure you wanna know? Wouldn’t want to overload that tiny little brain of yours.”
“Nothing about me is tiny,” I shot back, smirking. “Which, by now, you should kind of know.”
Emma’s gaze flicked downward, with purpose. Then she looked up and raised a brow, deadpan.
“You thinkthat’swhere your brain is?” she said, arching a brow, then paused, frowning like she was genuinely considering it. “Maybe in your case, that’s actually true.”
I chuckled, my chest still warm from the way her eyes lingered, a little too long to be innocent.
“I’m serious, though,” I said, falling in step beside her again. “What were you thinking about?”
She drew in a slow breath as we made our way deeper into the woods, frost crunching beneath our boots, the trees arching above us like silent witnesses.
“Alek,” she said.
The name hit like a gut punch.
“The Chiefs made a point of coming all the way to threaten us,” she went on, thoughtful. “To make sure I’d choose James to create the Krait. I’m just wondering what made them so sure he’s the father.”
I’d been asking myself the same question for weeks.
“Especially since…” she hesitated, brows drawn. “I don’t know…”
“Since what?”
She looked up at me, something unreadable flickering behind her eyes. “You ever heard of the ripple effect?”
I nodded slowly, already catching on where her mind had gone. “You’re wondering which of your choices led to what we saw in the future.”
She gave a small nod. “If any of them did. I mean… How certain is that future of Alek, really? How much of it is already locked in?”
