Page 219 of A Warrior's Fate

She’d call them, they’d talk about the challenge, and she could offer nothing else. Maybe she could ask if they’d heard anything about Lukas? Ask what was going on at home? Or—just Io, as it was now.

She clenched her teeth.

Would sharing things with her put them at risk? Be some sort of treason? Now that she and Kai were officially mated, now that she’d be crowned the Luna of Deimos, would they distance themselves?

Isla’s throat was too dry to swallow again, but shakily, she spun a number in, getting through all the arduous, necessary networks and hurdles to cross pack lines and reach Sebastian’s townhouse.

Then the phone rang and rang and rang, and they didn’t answer.

Isla put the receiver down and didn’t try again.

There was no music playing when Isla entered the library. No other sounds but the ruffle of turning pages and faint mumbling of a singular person.

Jonah had been moving when she turned the corner of the stacks into the common area. She noted that his pile of books had grown substantially, and he was also still in the clothes he’d worn yesterday.

Kai had been right. He hadn’t left.

“As much as I appreciate it personally, you will need to stop at some point,” she called to him, adjusting the box settled under her arm. And change. And bathe.

Jonah glanced at her—no surprise in his features since he’d heard the door—before returning to the tome before him.

Isla sighed. “Who’s taking care of the shop while you’re here?”

“I’m not the only one who works there,” Jonah said.

Isla slipped the box on the sliver of space on the table, left after she’d nudged a book over, to his annoyance. She popped open the lid to reveal it was full of pastries she’d gone back to the House and grabbed before coming here.

Jonah’s nose twitched, and he glanced up at the food. Then back to the book. “You know we shouldn’t eat in here.”

Isla flashed him a blank look, even if he wasn’t looking. “You’re welcome.”

She could’ve sworn the corner of his lips raised in some semblance of a smile. “Luna now and making your own rules.”

“What’s the point if I can’t?” she mused before taking the stack of napkins from her pockets. She plucked one from the top before grabbing one pastry and placing it on it to present to him. “Eat. As your queen, I demand you don’t die in my library.”

Jonah laughed and stopped what he was doing. He stood up straight, twinging a bit, likely from being hunched over for so long. On cue with his reach for the treat, his stomach growled, making Isla smirk. He snickered and said before his bite, “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

Isla rolled her eyes. “Have you even gone to the bathroom?”

“There’s one on the second floor.” Jonah jutted his chin upwards, and Isla followed his eyes to the mezzanine.

She hummed before turning back and ripping off a piece of pastry for herself. “Anything new?” She popped it in her mouth and took in the spread, eyes sliding to the artwork of that woman on the far end of the table, the diadem beside it. Her chewing slowed, and swallowing was difficult. “Anything about her?”

Jonah clocked the reaction. “I haven’t gotten anywhere with that, but maybe the journal.” After downing his pastry in three impressive bites, he shuffled through some documents. “Most of the knowledge of Phobos, for the public, was destroyed but—”

“How?” Isla cut him off. Her stomach twisted, having a hunch of what the answer may be.

Jonah ceased his movement and straightened again. “There are no confirmations—those who had done it were quick and eerily effective—but there is a strong chance that it was Io.”

Of course.

Isla didn’t have the energy to ask why. Didn’t think her mind could handle the why. Maybe never wanted to know, at all.

So, she urged him to continue as he was.

Jonah eyed her cautiously, but then began again. “Knowledge of Phobos was destroyed, but I could piece some things together from texts of Deimos chronicling the same timeframe before the decimation. I figured out what the dates were of the entries and mapped them to these fragments here. Colliding with Io seems to be a popular pastime.”

At Isla’s heaved breath, he added, “Though it’s not just Io, it’s other packs, too. We tend to ally with the more southern territories, further from Io’s reach in the north. From the language in these speeches, from what I can translate of our native dialect, it seems like some territory war. Io had the strength—a lot of warriors deemed from those coliseum trials and battles. And they had bigger numbers, too, even with Ganymede, since Io’s population was surging once they’d recovered from the eruption. Deimos, Phobos, the allies in Mimas and Tethys were outmatched and outnumbered. But Aneurin…” He pointed to a line of text in Deimos’s native tongue that Isla had no hope of translating. “Apparently, Aneurin had a weapon. A great one. Big enough that he had personally come to Deimos and traveled to those other packs to assure them of their victory, and even persuaded Iapetus and Rhea to join the fight.”

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