Page 137 of A Warrior's Fate

Her cough tasted vaguely of blood as she careened around a tree on the trails alongside the campus—her punishment. Every fifteen-minute increment she had been late meant an extra mile on top of the usual two-mile warm-up.

She’d arrived one hour behind everyone else—thanks to the slowest driver in history who could only get her within a twenty-minute walking distance of the mountain terrain. A walking distance she also ran.

She didn’t even want to think about what the rest of the day held, but the peaks of the mountains taunted her through the trees’ canopies.

Ten miles up and ten miles down.

While the higher-ups met to discuss updated strategy pertaining to the newly emboldened rogues, the guard and warrior units were going on a long, long hike starting promptly when the sun reached its peak. Isla knew if she missed that start time, she was a dead woman. No doubt forced to hike an extra five miles herself or have an extra ten pounds added to her pack.

So, she pushed her tired and sore muscles further, faster, groaning and gritting her teeth. The trees were becoming a blur—either because she was moving so quickly or because she’d barely had a chance to eat. The food in the mess hall wasn’t the best, but still, at the thought of it, her mouth watered. Everyone else was likely finished their drills, recuperating, and enjoying a warm meal.

Meanwhile, she was alone—very alone—in these woods.

As she tried to focus her eyes on what she passed, whatever false confidence she’d had earlier in the town square waned. Paranoia settled in. She swore there was a figure behind one tree. A message written on another. Diamonds at the foot of another.

There was a murderer after her.

One capable of taking down an alpha and his heir.

One supposedly bold enough to claim it and take on her mate.

She was vulnerable out here…a fact proven by the eerie sound of cracking branches behind her.

Isla stumbled but didn’t stop.

The twigs had been snapped by a foot too heavy to belong to any creature that dwelled here.

More branches cracked louder from another direction. A few seconds later—again. Closer.

She was being followed—or chased?

Shit, shit, shit.

Forcing herself not to panic, Isla took a quick inventory of her surroundings. Some close-knit trees with low-hanging branches lay ahead on the trail’s path.

Those became her target.

Timing it just right, she skidded around the bend and threw up her arms, catching onto the bark and using her core to swing up her body to perch on a limb’s surface, ducking into some of the brush cover. It groaned beneath her weight, and she prayed the sound of that, and its brother she also snapped from the trunk as a makeshift weapon, didn’t give away her location.

Her chest was on fire, and her strangled panting sawed through her throat. It was a struggle not to choke on the coarse air as she fought to settle her breathing.

But then came that feeling. Not the fear or the adrenaline, but that intoxicating, exhilarating relief.

Moments later, she felt something warm touch her back. But when Isla jerked and spun to her mate standing below her at the tree’s base, any reprieve she’d felt trickled away. The question of “what was he doing here” was dead on her tongue.

Kai was shaking his head, concern flecking his eyes and a tenseness drawn in his face as he lifted a finger to his mouth, telling her to be quiet.

CHAPTER 29

With Kai’s firm hands on her hips to slow her descent, Isla slid from her spot to the waiting ground below. The dead leaves prematurely fallen ahead of the upcoming Equinox barely whispered beneath her feet. Kai didn’t remove his grip once she’d stood stable, instead, he pulled her to him, hugging her body to his and backing them a few more steps into the brush.

Though not done by means of affection, Isla still leaned into the embrace, letting her arms settle around him, listening closely to the steady drumming of Kai’s heart below her ear, catching her breath and letting his scent invade her nose. It was a battle not to simply melt into him. After the morning she’d just had, with the message and the news of the challenge…

Isla lifted her head to look at Kai’s face, confirming the notion that keeping her this close was more a method of shielding her than anything else. His eyes were focused on the woods beyond their cover. Whatever that second noise was, or the first. One of them had to have been Kai, and the other—

The blood-red markings on the wall flashed in Isla’s mind, but the paranoia didn’t manifest as horribly as it had been.

Maintaining their proximity, Isla dared to turn, cautiously stepping her feet and pressing her back to Kai’s chest. Her hand came to rest on his forearm, his grip remaining loose around her middle as she surveyed the empty trail. Waiting…and waiting and waiting until something—whoever had been following her—broke into their vantage. Kai’s hold became tight when she jumped. Though it wasn’t out of fear but surprise and confusion.

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