Chapter 148: Chapter 148: refusal
Enzo approached the dark portal that belonged to the black panther. He studied its rippling surface for a moment before slowly extending his hand. The moment his fingers slipped through, a sharp, electric tingle raced up his arm.
His brows drew together slightly, and he held his hand there for another second, testing the strange sensation before pulling it back out. He flexed his fingers once, then glanced at the portal as though trying to figure out what awaited him on the other side.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Reid leaned toward his own portal, eyeing its shimmering surface with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. "If I come back looking traumatized, I’m holding you responsible, Amelia."
"Go inside, Reid."
He laughed under his breath and finally stepped toward his portal. Dean followed without a word, his usual quiet expression giving nothing away about what he might be thinking. He glanced at Amelia before entering, his eyes lingering on her for a moment longer than necessary.
Amy, however, seemed to be having a harder time making up her mind.
She stood before the warm brown glow of the bear’s portal, staring at it as if she expected something to leap out and drag her inside. She rubbed her palms against her clothes, took several deep breaths.
"You’d better be worth all this trouble," she muttered to it.
After one final breath, she squeezed her eyes shut and stepped through the portal.
One by one, the glowing doorways swallowed them.
When the last ripple settled, only Amelia and Caleb remained in the wide green meadow. The four portals continued to hover above the grass, their colored surfaces shimmering quietly in the sunlight.
Caleb stared at them for a while before lowering himself onto the grass without a word. He rested his forearms on his knees and looked out across the meadow, his expression closed off enough to discourage conversation.
Amelia watched him for a moment before sitting down a short distance away.
"I’m surprised."
He didn’t respond.
She tilted her head. "From what I know about you, shouldn’t you also be looking for a divine beast to bond with?"
Caleb’s eyes remained fixed on the grass.
Amelia straightened her back and lowered her voice into a rough imitation of his. "’For the sake of the Moonfist Territory.’"
Caleb turned his head and gave her a flat look. "I don’t sound like that."
"You do."
"I don’t."
"You absolutely do. You probably say it in your sleep, too."
His mouth tightened, and Amelia grinned at the small reaction.
"No one else will tell you," she continued, "well, apart from my partners. It seems they’ve known you for a while. Like, from childhood."
Caleb’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly. He looked away again, but that tiny change was enough to confirm her suspicion.
Amelia’s smile softened. "So, you really have known them for that long?"
"It’s also not an invitation to keep asking."
For someone who spent so much time demanding answers from others, Caleb certainly wasn’t generous with his own.
"You can move freely here, though," she pointed out. "Nobody’s stopping you from finding a divine beast."
"I’m not interested in getting any divine beast."
Amelia blinked, genuinely taken aback. She had expected him to argue, question her, or demand to know more about the bonding process. She hadn’t expected him to dismiss the opportunity so quickly.
"Why?" she asked. "That doesn’t sound like you."
Caleb finally looked at her, his expression turning cold.
"It’s none of your business."
Amelia stared at him for a second, then shrugged and pushed herself to her feet.
"Fine. Stay there and be as cranky as you want. I’m going to get our supply bags. I’m hungry."
She brushed the grass from her clothes and walked away, casting him one last sideways glance before approaching the white wolf that had been lying patiently some distance away.
The creature lifted its head as she approached, its ears pricking up. It made a soft sound in its throat, and Amelia reached down to stroke its thick fur.
"Don’t mind that guy," she murmured. "I think he was born grumpy."
The wolf huffed, almost as though it understood her, and shifted closer so she could climb onto its back.
Amelia settled herself comfortably and patted its side. "Come on. Let’s find our bags before I starve to death."
The white wolf rose and loped off across the meadow, carrying her toward the place where their supplies had been left.
Caleb remained alone with the four glowing portals.
For a while, he didn’t move. He simply sat there, his gaze drifting over the empty meadow before returning to the strange doorways. Eventually, curiosity got the better of him, and he rose to his feet.
He approached the nearest portal, the dark one Enzo had entered, and reached out cautiously. His fingers stopped against an invisible barrier before they could touch its shimmering surface.
Caleb frowned and tried again, pressing his palm against the unseen obstruction. Nothing happened.
He moved to the next portal and repeated the attempt. The same invisible wall stopped him. He tried the remaining two, but neither allowed him through.
His jaw tightened.
It shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did. He had no intention of bonding with a divine beast, and he certainly had no desire to follow the others into an unknown dimension.
He had never encountered anything like this before.
And that bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
Caleb had been raised to know things other people didn’t. He was expected to recognize hidden dangers, uncover secrets, and understand the details others overlooked. Knowledge was an advantage, and having that advantage was what allowed him to remain one step ahead of everyone else.
Yet Amelia had brought them to a place he hadn’t even known existed. She understood how to enter it, how to summon its divine beasts, and how to open portals leading to dimensions he couldn’t begin to comprehend. She moved through all of it with a familiarity that made him wonder how much she was still keeping from them.
For the first time in a long while, Caleb found himself standing in front of something he couldn’t explain, with no way of forcing an answer out of anyone.
He hated it.
But his reluctance to bond with a divine beast had nothing to do with his pride or his frustration with Amelia. There was another reason.
His gaze drifted back to the dark portal.
The hard line of his mouth softened, and something painfully vulnerable flickered across his face before he could suppress it. His fingers curled slowly at his sides as memories he rarely allowed himself to revisit stirred at the back of his mind.
He lowered his head, speaking so quietly that the words barely carried beyond his lips.
"I hope you’re doing all right...I’m missing you way more than before."