Page 154 of A Warrior's Fate

Isla smiled up at him when he pulled back and reached to trace the lines of his face, the beads of sweat off his brow and jaw coating her fingertips. Now it felt surreal. Him. This comfort. This happiness.

“I love you,” she said, staring into his eyes, a swirling stormy sea that she’d weather for the rest of time. Kai flashed her a grin, and they melded their lips in a kiss so deep that it skittered down to Isla’s bones.

Hers.

His.

A promise forged in one of the greatest pleasures to endure, in time, the greatest pain.

But it would be worth it. Whatever life they had before them, together, would be worth it. If only for these small moments, of peace, of love.

When nothing else mattered—nothing else needed to—but the universe between their souls.

CHAPTER 33

CASSIUS

Bringing his scotch to his lips, Cassius observed the parchment laid flat beneath the glass plating over the wood of his desk: a map of the expanse of the world. He looked away from Cataea, the continent of the witches and crawlers and other beasts to the west, the barren lands of the banished fae beyond them, and the isles of the sea and sirens below; instead, his eyes honed in on the continent of wolves.

He trailed his gaze along the coast of the territories. From the lower pack regions of Mimas and Tethys to the eastern borders of Iapetus, Charon, and Rhea, up beyond Ganymede until he reached the ridges outlining Adrastea Bay and along the Valkeric Ranges, the formations that held his home. Io—the northern-most pack of the continent. Its head which wore the crown. The mind that controlled and guided, kept peace with reason, kept them protected from those creatures of the lands beyond, of their own.

A purpose not everyone seemed to understand or appreciate, no matter how many times throughout history it had been proven.

The highest monarch dragged his eyes down the piece until he found Morai’s center, its heart. A line of an eight-pointed star denoting the city of Mavec.

He scowled.

Lifting his head, he gazed upon the chair where Deimos’s former alpha had once sat—not once, not twice, but thrice—rambling about some ridiculous tax proposal in some poor excuse of a distraction. As if Cassius hadn’t been aware of how Kyran and his entourage had taken a different route into the city each visit. As if he hadn’t had eyes on his accompanying guard and council members who tended to wander through the streets, through the hall. Noting. Mapping.

So, he’d learned throughout their simultaneous tenures, Alpha Kyran was not a stupid man but one blinded by his own ego. Blinded by a sense of self-importance catered to by a history long forgotten and a lineage whose power had long, long faded since its rise over a millennium ago during its dawn of traitors. A time they were fortunate to have lapsed into nothing but whispers of hollow wind through the pages of books and scrolls in the catacombs beneath the Imperial City. A time that had attempted to return before the head of the beast had been severed and all traces of it eradicated.

But it wasn’t enough.

Obviously, it hadn’t been enough, if it could rise again, hidden so strategically, deviously within the brambles of bloodlines and birthrights. Only revealed when he thought they’d been triumphant, given a small blessing by the Goddess.

But Cassius could see it, had felt it in a warning from the ancestors as he beheld the scene at the Gate, even when the beast could not. And he knew now was the time to destroy it before it realized. Even if it meant he’d be the villain.

They’d thank him someday.

PART IV

THE RISE OF RUIN

CHAPTER 34

ISLA

Isla woke up to a kiss. Not from her mate, but one of incandescence.

Against the backdrop of soft, rhythmic breathing, she peeled open her eyes to be greeted by moonbeams spilling through the window, casting shadows along the hardwood floor, over the edges of the mattress, her body.

For a moment, she struggled to recall where she was or the reason for it. The reason for the comforting warmth at her back. For the intoxicating scent flooding her nose. For the delicious ache in her muscles.

But then she lowered her gaze, noticing the solid arm she’d been using as a pillow. Her bare breasts. Her torso.

Her breath hitched.

Everything came crashing back.

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