Page 269 of Scarlet Wars
“And what,” I asked, tightening my grip on both weapons, “is supposed to stop me from killing you right now?”
“The simple fact,” he replied smoothly, without a hint of urgency, “I am the only one who knows where they are. If you kill me, whatever chance you have of finding them dies with me.”
I didn’t blink.
“WhenI kill you,” I said evenly, “the bubble collapses. They’ll have their own energy back to portal out themselves, and I won’t need your cooperation to find them.”
“Ah,” he said softly, tilting his head as if indulging a clever child, “but then you’ll never get the answers you want so desperately, answers you crossed worlds and bodies to reach.”
“That’s an assumption,” I shot back. “Not leverage.”
His gaze sharpened then, the deliberation unmistakable, and after a beat a fuckingsmirkcurled across his mouth. “Then let’s compromise, shall we?”
I pressed my blades closer to his throat, close enough to feel his pulse jump under the steel. “You don’t get to renegotiate from a positionyoucreated. And you have no compromise to offer, when your survival solely depends onmyrestraint.”
“I’ll heal them,” he offered, still infuriatingly calm, “but you agree to let them wait out our conversation in the cave beneath the Bastille, where they’ll be safe, watched, and very much alive. Once we’re finished, I’ll return them to you myself.”
I hesitated for a second, hating he’d bought even that much time. But their wounds mattered more than my pride. “You letmeheal them first,” I said carefully, “and I’ll honor your deal.”
He gave a curt nod in agreement, and I lowered my weapons—slowly—without sheathing them.
“This is why you took them?” I asked as he tore open a portal, green light spilling across the stone floor and climbing the walls like something alive. “To make sure I’d hear you out?”
“Well, that…” He smiled as he took a few careful steps toward me. “And I had to get your attention somehow.”
“Ever heard of a Nexus?” I asked dryly, angling my body toward the portal as its pull tugged at my skin. “I hear they’re pretty effective.”
He chuckled, then gestured with a courteous little flick of his fingers for me to go first. “I bubbled in an entire country,” he said lightly. “I assumed that would be effective enough to make you hunt me down. But clearly, I miscalculated. My guess is, a simple nex wouldn’t have done shit.”
The portal hummed. I didn’t look back as I stepped through it.
The world folded.
Cold stone slammed under my boots as we emerged in the cave beneath the Bastille, the air damp and heavy with mineral rot and old magic. The ceiling arched low, jagged with shadows, green light bleeding in from the portal behind us before it snapped shut with a sound like breaking glass.
Caden and James hung exactly as they had appeared on the screen. Chains cut into their skin so thoroughly it felt like a vacuum in my chest.
Without hesitation, I unleashed my golden haze—on both at the same time—letting it rip through me like a dam giving way. Power poured out of me and into them, flooding shattered nerves, sealing torn muscle, knitting bone and magic back together as I gave them everything I had.
“Please don’t tell me you bubbled in an entire country just to get myattention,” I muttered over my shoulder as I worked my magic, my focus split between keeping these men alive and not turning around to kill the one who put them in this position.
The cave filled with light, gold reflecting off wet stone, my hands shaking as I anchored the haze to their bodies and refused to let go. I healed until it hurt, until my vision blurred, until the world narrowed to the sound of their heartbeat growing stronger beneath my palms.
“No.” Gordon’s answer came easily. “That wasn’t the reason. Though after the future I showed you in New York, I didn’t expect you to simply…walk away. Not without continuing your search for me. Especially when you knew you could translate beneath the bubble.”
He gave me a quick once-over. “But apparently getting comfortable with Mr. Colt took precedence.”
“Which is exactly what you wanted,” I shot back as the last threads of my haze faded. “Isn’t it?”
Gordon’s smile deepened. “Let’s say I’d hoped my portal to the future would counteract the Chiefs’ threats enough for you to make your own choice.”
I jerked my chin toward the men—alive now, healed, still bound—ignoring his last statement until more important things were settled. “Cut them loose.”
Gordon shook his head once. “That wasn’t the deal. You said to allow you to heal them. You never said anything about cutting them down. You did what you wanted. Now you go back with me, and we talk.”
“You can keep them here,” I snapped, stepping closer, “but not with them hanging unconscious like livestock in a slaughterhouse.”
“Honor your word, Ms. Thompson.” His tone hardened, the warmth instantly gone.
