Page 142 of A Warrior's Fate

Isla stepped back. She’d been so relieved it was dead, that she hadn’t thought to ask why. Who had done this? Who had taken on the bak and defeated it?

Another pass over the creature. No other scents lingered. Not even a drop of wolf blood. They’d done it without getting hurt themselves.

She ventured back to the cave’s mouth.

“Isla.”

The tug at the bond, her name in her mind, was sharp.

“I’m just checking the woods,” she said.

Kai took a few steps towards her. “What if there’s more?”

More.

Goddess. She hadn’t even thought of more.

But the question was just to test her.

Kai wasn’t worried about there being more; the chances of multiple slipping through the cracks was too improbable. Otherwise, they wouldn’t still be in the cave. He’d likely already have the entire pack on lockdown.

“Then I’ll howl,” she said, and she wondered if this was where a line would be drawn.

He’d let her fight against the rogues, but bak were an entirely different monster.

Isla didn’t even want to picture the streets of Mavec if bak, rather than the rogues, had been unleashed upon them last night. That beautiful blue crystal would be bathed with blood, the river running red. It would be like the times of the past before the Wall was raised. When the beasts could so freely roam and take, destroying towns and taking the lives of entire villages before they could be stopped.

Kai’s silence went on for too long, his crimson eyes darting between her and the creature on the cave floor. As if he was recalling seeing one nearly kill her months ago.

“Don’t go too far,” he finally told her.

Isla nodded and before she left, made sure to brush her head reassuringly against his. Simply to feel him relax, just a bit.

The forest had begun to regain some of its life. The birds had been singing again when Isla stepped back out into the sunlight, halting briefly to allow her eyes to adjust. That meant the bak had been dead long enough that the animals felt it safe to roam again. How unsettling the creatures were that they were able to clear a forest just by existing in it.

She lowered her head and sniffed, finding herself heading eastward down hills, moving downwind. So many questions ran through her mind as she stalked, not realizing how far she was drifting.

How literal was a straight shot?

Did the pass cut straight over and through Mavec’s terrain? Did that mean there was a hole in the Wall?

What had made Lukas say where they stood back in the Wilds was the pass? The marker?

Is that what she had to look for? More markers?

Was she going crazy over nothing?

Isla froze where she stood as a new scent caught the wind, emerging from nothing and disappearing just as quickly. Because the person wanted to be found, but only by her. She spun just as Callan appeared from the thickets.

His smile was self-satisfied and grating. “You’re off your path.”

Isla snarled, lowering on her haunches. They wouldn’t be able to communicate like this. In a perfect world, she wouldn’t communicate with him at all, ever. But he’d found her again. He’d been looking for her. And she wanted answers.

She came out of her shift and folded her arms across her chest, crossing her legs to cover herself.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he jeered, and though he was right, she held the position. Her body was meant for her and the only person she’d wanted to share it with lately.

“Why are you following me?” she demanded.

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