Page 139 of A Warrior's Fate

“He’s mated,” she said, and Kai’s attention returned to her. “He chose someone else after I ended it with him.” She shrugged. “I suppose I knew there were better things out there for me.”

The comment did rouse the side of his mouth, but the small grin was short-lived.

Back to quiet and brooding. Isla held in her sigh.

“What does he want with you?”

“Want with me? Nothing,” Isla said. “What do you mean?”

“When I arrived, I was formally introduced to the warriors,” Kai began to explain. “After I inquired where the sixth one was, the female, I was told very bluntly that you were late—apparently, you’d been missing this morning at departure—and were finishing running the trails outside the grounds. You were the only one remaining out here. He seemed surprised, and suddenly, the man who wouldn’t stop talking about himself had nothing to say. When I saw him leaving the building, I knew where he was going.”

As Kai had spoken, Isla could picture the situation perfectly: Callan boasting how ever he could in front of those of higher status, even if from another pack. He almost needed validation as much as she once sought.

Kai wasn’t wrong. It did sound strange. But she couldn’t think of what Callan would want. They hadn’t spoken, truly spoken, since their brief interaction at the feast. She was about to ask Kai what made him care enough to follow him—if Callan had said something suspicious or off-putting—but then the realization hit. It wouldn’t take much for distrust to manifest for Kai when it came to Callan.

Because he was of Io.

“He left Callisto after the feast,” Isla told him, squashing whatever idea Kai had before he could verbalize it. A touch of nausea bubbled in her stomach at the rising of the possibility someone in her pack could turn against her. But the message was here… “I saw him board the vehicle and leave that night. He wasn’t there when we emerged.”

“Where did you run off to this time?”

Isla’s features turned sour. It was a reminder, the most bitter kind, of the immediate danger at hand. To him.

Isla wrapped her arms around herself, saying softly, “I called home to see what I could find out about the challenge.”

“You what?”

Isla sighed through her nose. “The Imperial Council deliberates with the Alpha about approval of challenges. A Council that includes my father. I knew I couldn’t get to you to ask what was happening—and I wanted to see if I could stop it. I couldn’t reach my father, so I talked to Adrien and Sebastian. They hadn’t heard yet, but they were going to see what they could do.”

She had a hard time gauging Kai’s reaction. Couldn’t tell if she was happy that she’d tried to interfere or if he thought it had been a mistake. When he was silent for far too long, Isla filled in the gap with her own question.

“Do you know who the challenger is?” she asked. “Is it really who…killed your father?”

Isla could see the emotions written clearly now as Kai scowled. As the ire threatened to color his eyes. “No.”

Isla straightened. “It isn’t?”

“No,” Kai repeated. “No matter how many times he says it and tries to claim it. It’s just a no-name rogue trying to make something important of himself after being exiled. It’s all a joke, a game. Inciting fear and riling up the pack for no reason.”

“As rogues do,” Isla muttered. Though a challenge seemed like a lot in terms of the lengths gone to cause the chaos and strife they craved. Even if she was losing that lightness to that rage brewing as he hashed it out to her, what he’d said made her hopeful. “So, you don’t think they’ll approve it?”

“I don’t know what to expect with your alpha,” Kai said, simply and honestly. The cool tone was almost unnerving as he went on, “My bloodline has ruled over Deimos, over this corner of Morai, since the Goddess still walked among us. Before the Pack of Io even existed. To even risk throwing away that history by considering it, to put my pack in a position where they’d be under a rogue wolf’s control…it tells me enough.”

Over this corner of Morai.

Deimos. Phobos. The brothers. Kai’s ancestors. Many great grandfathers and uncles down the family line. The packs took, or had taken, most of the western quarter of their land.

It tells me enough.

The words rang in her head again. “Enough about what?”

Before Kai could answer, a strangled cry sounded in the air. Like that of a wounded animal. But there was something different about it. Unsettling, yet beckoning.

Both Isla and Kai had turned to look in the direction in which it came. Isla’s brow raised in perplexity while Kai’s lay flat over narrowed eyes. In time, they swiveled their heads back to face each other. There was a moment of pause before the tension between them lightened. Kai’s face fell as Isla bit her lip, holding back a devious smile.

“Don’t do that,” he said.

Isla inclined her head. “Do what?”

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