Page 265 of Scarlet Wars
My pulse hammered as three figures emerged from the opening of the cave, their silhouettes dark and imposing. My stance shifted automatically, weight rolling to the balls of my feet. The blades thrummed in my hand, power licking up my arm like it could already taste blood.
I raised all five of them, angling the steel high as my gaze swept quickly over the hostiles, down to their forearms.
Bare. No Skindo tattoo.
Whoever they were, they were not Cyclos Offensives.
The tallest figure stepped forward, their face hidden beneath a hood.
“Emma Thompson?” he asked, all smooth and disinterested, like he was reading my name off a VIP list at some exclusive club.
I rolled my eyes at him as I suppressed a snort. “No. I’m mothaflappin’ Santa Claus.”
The second man, shorter and broader, crossed his arms, ignoring my retort. “We’re here to escort you below the surface.”
“Funny,” I said coldly. “I was about to say the same thing.”
I didn’t hesitate.
My Skindo pulsed, and a quick flick of my wrist sent it slicing across the lean one’s throat before he even had time to react. Blood sprayed as he crumpled to the ground.
The second one jerked toward me, too slow. I pivoted and slammed the blades into his chest, the five-pronged weapon punching through bone with a sickening crack. He gasped, his mouth forming a silent scream as I wrenched it free and let him fall.
The third one—the tall one—hadn’t moved. His head tilted slightly, his mouth curving into the faintest hint of a smile.
“Was this really necessary?”
I wiped the blood off my hands against my thigh and shrugged. “Nope. Just seems like a one-person job.”
After shooting the Skindo back into my tattoo, I straightened my back and narrowed my eyes into threatening slits. “Caden and James better be alive. Because if they’re not?—”
“They are,” the tall one cut in smoothly. “For now.”
For a split second—barely a breath—I felt something dizzying punch through the rage.Relief.
They were here. They were alive.
But the asshole in front of me, still touched them.
I dropped low without warning and swept his legs out from under him. He hit the stone hard, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs in a startled grunt. Before he could recover, I was on him, one knee pinning his chest, my hand locking around his throat.
“You’re about to regret a whole lot of your former actions. Do you have any idea how hard it is,” I said evenly, as I tightened my grip around his only airway, “to find a guy that’s husband material?”
His hands scrabbled uselessly against my wrist, boots dragging against the ground as he tried—and failed—to buck me off. His face darkened, veins standing out along his neck. “Which—” he hacked, desperate for air, “one?”
I clenched my jaw in annoyance, then slid my hand behind his neck and snapped it.
The silence that followed bought me a few seconds the breathe.
One. Two. Three. Time to get up, and move, Emma.
Once the three bodies were translated away, I turned toward the prison entrance and headed down the corridor alone.
The walls around me were damp, thrumming with the faint hum of old translation, layered and worn thin with time.
Doors lined both sides of the corridor, one after another in an endless stretch of iron-bound monotony, each one rust-bitten, streaked, and deeply uninviting, as if the entire place had been designed to make sure no one ever felt remotely optimistic about what lay behind them.
The heat seemed to thicken the deeper I went, and it took longer than it should have to find my way.
