Page 243 of A Warrior's Fate

Goddess, she didn’t want to stop, but—

“Kai.”

Kai lifted his head at the tone; his eyes darkened with lust and hunger that nearly had her saying, forget it. Whatever he had in mind would be hard and fast and deliciously brutal, enough to have her forgetting her own name along with the night, but they couldn’t.

She steadied her heavy breathing, her hand going to brush his cheek. “What’s going on?”

His muscle pulsed beneath her fingertips as a million emotions flashed behind his eyes. And then Isla was left cold as he rolled off her to lay flat on the bed. She didn’t let her gaze linger on the clear outline of what she’d turned down.

Kai ran his hands over his face, pushing back his hair, before he folded them on his stomach. His gaze focused on the ceiling. He was silent.

Isla sat up, leaning on her elbow. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” Kai began, his voice gruff. He winced. “I don’t feel right.”

Isla’s eyes tore over him for any evidence of injury. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just this feeling,” Kai answered quickly in a way Isla figured was meant to abate her worry.

But it only made her question more.

She inched closer. “What kind of feeling?”

He breathed deeply, slowly in and out as if preparing himself. “It’s always been there, but it’s got…worse. Since I became alpha. Since I went through the Rite. And somehow, even worse recently…I can’t describe it.”

Isla blinked. “Can you try?”

Kai turned his head to look at her, a pained and almost frightened look on his face. Not for anything it seemed but for her judgment. It was a different kind of vulnerability.

He averted his gaze back up.

“Power,” he said, and Isla felt a chill down her body. “Out of nowhere. That I don’t understand and can barely control—if I’m even the one controlling it. I just get pushed to this tipping point, a triggering point, and suddenly, I just…”

“Just?”

“Feel.”

“Feel what?”

“Everything.” Kai’s jaw clenched. “From whoever I’m…I don’t know, focused on.” He shook his head. “But it doesn’t stop there.”

Isla resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, feeling like if she did, whatever door had been opened, that had him sharing this, would close. And frankly, she didn’t understand what he was talking about. All she could do was ask the questions that felt right to ask. “How do you know?”

“Because a part of me wants to push further, knows that I can, but that’s when I realize what I’m doing and try to hold back. I felt it with Ezekiel the other day,” Kai confessed, and Isla’s mind reeled back to when the beta had been sitting across from Kai, under his scrutiny, stirring in his seat. The way he’d shaken his head, the same way…

“It happened with that general at the gala—and I feel it sometimes with you, or felt it with you when the bond wasn’t fully there or working. It had been so weak, and you were so new to me that I thought it was just part of us being mates. But just now…” He looked at her again. “I heard something or someone, and it wasn’t you. It felt like I got to it—that voice I think you were hearing—through you. And it didn’t feel like it was because of the bond. It was something else. And I know you felt it. Me.”

Isla opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. That breaking she’d felt…

As if he could sense her unease, Kai’s features fell in shame, and he turned his head.

Isla frowned. “Why—why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“What was I supposed to say? I’m freaking out because I feel like I’m getting into people’s heads?” he said humorlessly. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. And I’ve looked into it, I know it’s not an alpha thing—and I’m afraid I’m going to hurt someone because of it.”

The silence that followed the statement settled in the room, settled in between them, like a thick, dark cloud. Isla didn’t know what to say and wasn’t sure what to do with the kernel of fear that had been planted in her chest. Not of him, but for him. It certainly didn’t sound normal.

Kai suddenly sat up and moved to put distance between them, but Isla reached to grab his arm. She leaned up to take his face in her hands and press her lips against his, long and slow, before pulling him back down on top of her.

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