Page 205 of Scarlet Wars
Yikes.
My hair looked like I’d lost a fight with a blender. My eyes were bloodshot, my skin a shade somewhere between “zombie” and “washed-out paper towel.”
I groaned dramatically and splashed cold water on my face, before I closed my lids, focused, and let the familiar golden haze rise over my skin like mist.
Warmth tingled across my body. The headache faded. The nausea peeled away like old wallpaper. The ache in my joints dissolved until I could stand up straight without wanting to die.
Gods, that wassomuch better.
After a much-needed shower, I grabbed my clothes and dressed quickly: Boots. Belt. Knives. Jacket.
Mission-ready Emma. Or close enough.
As much as I blamed my boyfriend for not letting me die in bed with a hangover, my pulse quickened at the thought of finally going to Sisu. For weeks, Caden and Rachel had been chasing something there. Some lead even Jackson had been asked to keep an eye on.
And I was dying to find out what all the fuss was about.
As I opened the bathroom door and stepped back into my room, energy buzzed under my skin like static.
Caden was leaning against the wall near the window, arms crossed, looking entirely too relaxed for someone who was about to go out on a possibly fatal mission. His gaze flicked up the moment he saw me.
A slow smile spread across his face. “You look every bit the queen you are.”
I rolled my eyes, trying to suppress the smile tugging at my lips. “Are you going soft on me, Colt?”
Before I’d even finished the sentence, he pulled me against him and thrust his hips against mine, the evidence of his arousal unmistakable.
“I don’t think ‘soft’ is a feeling I’ll ever experience when I’m around you,” he murmured crashing his lips hard against mine.
I moaned into his mouth, and he answered with a low, desperate groan. “Fuck, baby, don’t do that. We need togo.”
Gods, I wanted nothing more than to prove him wrong, but he was right.
Reluctantly, I pulled away, still a little breathless.
“This better be worth skipping some very hot sex,” I muttered, grabbing my pack from the floor and slinging it over my shoulder.
Caden grinned.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said, flicking the Nexus. Green light flared as a portal opened beside him. He held out his other hand. “Now let’s go.”
I took it before we jumped through into the portal, neither of us knowing the horrors waiting for us at Sisu.
FORTY-SIX
EMMA
Apparently, Rachel’s idea of “funny” was to send me on a mission with Caden and James.
Nothing says efficient mission planning like throwing an emotionally constipated ex, a homicidal boyfriend, and the girl the whole world was apparently hunting, into a desolate building, probably used by Collabs, without a plan.
What could possibly go wrong?
The three of us portaled out to Greenland—a few miles from the border between the Human World and the Scandinavian Collective, Sisu—ten minutes after I’d stepped out of the shower.
Caden walked ahead, shoulders squared, posture relaxed.
James trailed behind me, a quieter version of himself I hadn’t quite figured out yet.
