Page 226 of A Warrior's Fate

Isla hoped to the Goddess that was possible.

As everyone began grabbing their coats, sneaking alcohol beneath the fabric, and shuffling towards the shop’s door, Kai came to Isla’s side and set her jacket on her shoulders.

She held him back as he moved to walk with her and called to the rest of the group, who’d nearly all exited, “We’ll meet you outside in a minute.”

“Well, I should’ve expected that,” Kai muttered before taking a few steps back to sit on the table, settling in for whatever she had to say.

“My rule stands!” she heard Jonah yell from the street.

“What rule?”

Isla winced, hoping Sebastian never got the answer.

Adrien, too, who she also realized had been exceptionally quiet. Though her brother typically overpowered any conversation, the Imperial Heir didn’t tend to shy away within a group.

The final one to exit, Adrien paused in the doorway, one hand on the handle. He turned to look at her and Kai, mouth moving like he was about to say something before he shut it. “See you outside,” he eventually offered, before closing the door.

Weird, Isla thought before becoming very aware of the eyes boring into her back.

Her brows flattened as she spun slowly—so, so slowly—to find Kai flashing her one of those disarming grins. Her deadpan look didn’t waver.

He reached out to take her hands, his touch warm and inviting, as he pulled her close. “Have I ever told you,” he began, his voice as languid as the movement he made to wrap his arms around her waist and bring her to settle in a spot between his legs, “how beautiful you are?”

Isla held her scowl, though her heart skipped at the feeling of his fingers dancing over a small sliver of skin he’d begun tracing beneath the hem of her shirt. “Not going to work.” She placed her hands on his forearms, loosening a heavy breath. “You should’ve told me.”

“It was a surprise.”

“This isn’t something you surprise me with. I told you I didn’t want them here. That I didn’t think it was safe.”

“I won’t let anything happen to them,” Kai assured, continuing his ministrations on her skin. “And they were just going to end up here anyway. Alpha Cassius wasn’t keen on his only Heir being here, but Adrien knew he could sneak away for a few days. They called me with a plan, not to ask permission.”

Not surprising on the Imperial Alpha’s part. Isla didn’t bother querying how Adrien felt he could “sneak away”.

“You’re the alpha,” she argued. “They need your permission.”

“Not when the goal, if all else fails, is getting arrested here for trespassing.”

Get arrested and thrown in a Deimos prison. That was one way to do it.

“You can’t be serious,” Isla said to which Kai nodded. “How are they so Goddess-damn stupid?”

“They love you. I can’t say I’d go to any lesser lengths in the circumstances.”

“But I told them I didn’t need them here.”

“Maybe you don’t, but maybe they do.” Kai swallowed, hesitating. “Maybe I do.”

At her questioning expression, he removed one of his hands from her back to brush a hair from her face. He focused on it, the way he tucked it behind her ear and drew his fingers down her neck, avoiding her eyes as he confessed gently, “This entire week, meeting after meeting, has been about preparing for the worst-case scenario. What we can line up to make any transitions easier in case I…” Another hard gulp, but Isla felt the unspoken words like a punch in the stomach.

In case he died.

“And I realized I hadn’t been taking care of the most important part of my life.” He met her eyes now, his stare shadowed. “If anything happens to me…if anything happens, I want you to be okay. I need to know that you could be. That you have people here.”

Isla’s heart leaped into her throat, her chest left hollow. She felt like she’d suffocate on it. In a blink, she became the man kneeling before the body of his dead wife in the courtyard after the rogue attacks, her limp hand in his, Zahra at his back, the only form of comfort as he dwelled in the deepest darkness he’d ever come to know. The greatest, most maddening silence and emptiness all wolves were cursed to one day endure.

Three days.

There were only three days before that could become her reality. And as strong as she’d try to be, she knew it would shatter her, and she’d need the boys, need anyone, to get her through that moment. When their future could be snuffed out as quickly and easily as a candle.

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