Page 128 of A Warrior's Fate

Kai snorted. He and Rhydian were eye to eye, but the guard held just a bit more bulk.

As Rhydian had done, Kai brought his hand down on his brother’s shoulder.

“I’m not you, Rhyd,” Kai said, and Isla caught the innuendo, feeling Kai’s fingers tighten against her back. A reassurance. A promise.

He’d surely want and would take more than a few minutes with her when the moment arrived.

If it ever arrived.

“Let’s go, boys,” Ameera sang, hand on the doorknob. “I’m not dealing with this dominant bullshit today.”

Kai and Rhydian shared narrowed stares before the latter went to bid Davina farewell. Once they were as alone as they could get, Kai leaned down, lips brushing Isla’s cheek as he went to her ear. “Tomorrow night after your training and whatever mess I have, I’ll meet you here, and we’ll…talk.”

Talk.

About the bond. About what they’d do.

As he stepped back, Isla blinked up at him and then simply nodded.

“Goodnight,” he said.

She was disappointed that he hadn’t moved in to kiss her again. “Goodnight.”

Once the three of them left—but not before Ameera could offer a shocking “good work, new blood”—Isla went and locked the door behind them. When she turned, she found Davina’s cheeks tinting as red as her hair and looking like she was about to explode.

Isla waved a hand at her. “Go ahead.”

Davina screamed and Isla winced. “What was that?” she blurted in excitement.

Fighting to keep a smile at bay, Isla folded her arms again. She spoke honestly when she answered, “I wish I could tell you.”

With the lockdown still in place, Davina couldn’t leave the hotel and return to her and Rhydian’s home in Ifera. Isla offered for her to stay the night, which Davina all-too-exuberantly agreed to. She’d scraped together a makeshift pajama set from pieces of staff uniforms she “borrowed” since the clothes Isla offered were the improper size.

They stood on either side of the bed with the room solely illuminated by moonlight.

Isla brought her cup of water up to her mouth, saying before her drink, “When are you going to stop looking at me like that?”

Davina, who had been staring, didn’t avert her eyes. “Once I get over the fact that you’re actually here.” She pulled back the covers on the side of the bed closest to the window, the side Isla always left occupied so she had clear vantage and access to the door.

Isla lowered the glass with a raised eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

Davina took her place on the mattress. “I…I know you all have your gripes with the Goddess and Fate—you, Kai, even Rhydian and Jonah—but I do believe that they do good, and everything happens for a reason. That it all happens how it’s meant to, in the end. Like Kai becoming alpha—which he probably doesn’t want to hear, given how it happened—and him…finding you when he needs you most. And I don’t mean because he needs you to rule. I have never seen him look at anyone like that, never seen him look like that—even when he was happy.”

Isla started at the word “happy”, at what it implied. It wasn’t completely out of scope, given everything Kai had gone through, but…

She remembered seeing him before the message. Remembered seeing that facade fall and the mask crack. All the pain he kept buried.

Davina swallowed, swinging her legs around to get them under the blankets. “The day he left for that Hunt, we hadn’t known what he was doing. And then when we found out, we weren’t sure if he was coming back,” she began weakly, and Isla felt like there was something deeper in the words. “The whole pack knew when he went behind the Wall. We kept up with it through the radio, the papers, and every day he didn’t emerge…I don’t think I’ve been that afraid in a long, long time. And I’ve been afraid many times in my life.” Davina cleared her throat as if fighting back tears. “When we learned he made it out okay, even Ameera cried—and don’t tell her I told you that. Kai came back a couple of days later and surprised us at Jonah’s, which was the first flag that something was up. We barely saw him after everything happened.” The side of her mouth twitched up. “He still seemed a little off, but Rhydian made some dumb joke and Kai laughed. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d heard him do it or even seen him smile. That’s how we knew something had to have happened, and he didn’t care about the glory part of things. About winning whatever. It was something else. Then we figured out he met you.”

Isla bit the inside of her cheek so hard it nearly bled. She drew her gaze out the window, to the lights of the hall she could see.

“I didn’t want to say that to scare you or make you feel—” Davina scrunched her nose, not quite knowing where she was going with it. “I just thought you should know how grateful we are to you. You guys may decide not to do anything with your bond, but just the fact that he knows you’re out there…that you exist.” She shrugged. “It brought him back a bit.”

Isla didn’t know what to say, her chest feeling heavy. Wordlessly, she placed her drink down and got into the bed. Her back was against the headboard as she pulled up the covers.

“You were right, fated bonds are selfish,” Davina began carefully, and Isla realized she was alluding to her earlier confession. “Because it’s ourselves that we recognize in the other person, that piece they’ve been holding. And all we want innately is to feel whole again, to get it back. But when that changes, if it changes—when we really see the person on the other side…there’s nothing more magical.” She paused, letting the words sink in. “I wasn’t always in love with Rhydian from the start. Not when we first mated, not when I moved in, not even after plenty of great sex.”

Isla mustered a laugh despite the uneasiness. “When did it happen, then?”

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