Page 94 of A Warrior's Fate

Davina laughed; it was bright and melodic. It seemed to suit her well. “Well, that seems about right.” She pulled down the neckline of her dress to show a mating ring—a beautiful stone of emerald—dangling off a metal chain. “Spark just sounds nicer than ‘I was ready to bone you in the middle of a bar and not care who was watching’.”

Isla couldn’t keep in her own laughter, understanding her perfectly. She glanced over at Kai’s picture again, feeling the phantom rush of their first meeting on the terrace. Would that even happen again if they came face to face?

“Can I help you with anything else, Isla?” Davina’s eyes held a sparkle as she said her name, and Isla started feeling a nagging that something was off. Not bad—but that she wasn’t getting the whole picture.

Much like Rhydian, Davina’s look wasn’t filled with any sort of ill or questionable intent. She realized now, for the both of them, it also hadn’t only been with intrigue. There was also recognition.

Isla looked up at the sign hanging from the structure before her, displaying a simple, hard-to-misunderstand name, The Bookshoppe. It was exactly as Davina had said. Very literal and to the point.

Before she’d collected her things and rushed out of the lobby, Isla had cautiously asked the woman behind the desk where she could find a library around Mavec. With the lull in time that she finally had, and given that she was sure sleep would still be hard to come by, she figured now was as good a time as any to continue her research. Deimos was the closest one could get to Phobos without re-entering the Wilds. They had to have something here.

Apparently, the most robust library that Deimos had to offer was in Ifera near its university, however, according to Davina, whoever Jonah was that worked here in this shop was better than any of the knowledge she could glean in that place. The store hadn’t been a long walk from the hotel. Part of Isla had wished it had been a bit deeper into the city, but maybe it was a blessing as she’d since changed into her night clothes, a plain shirt and pants which didn’t give off her identity as a warrior but certainly didn’t help her blend in with Mavec’s lavish night crowd.

As Isla pushed open the wooden door of the shop, a ringing bell sounded above her.

She muttered a wow under her breath as she stepped inside. Though it wasn’t the books that took her breath away, even if the sheer amount of them and the way the shelves had been configured was impressive—some carved it seemed directly into walls and support columns. Instead, it was the other décor that had caught her eye.

She trained her gaze along the testaments to the continent’s feats of innovation, models of the first cars invented around the time of her birth, the recently developed planes, radio bobbles, and odds and ends. They all hung from the ceiling or were perched on countertops and shelves.

Isla lifted her eyes to the second floor the shop carried to, stopping in her tracks when a man appeared at the railing of the mezzanine. Shadows cast on his dark skin as the lights fell behind him.

“Hi,” Isla greeted after a tense quiet, lifting a hand and taking another step inside. “Are you Jonah?”

“Depends who’s asking,” the man said gently from his spot.

“Davina sent me here from the hotel. She said you could help me find some books.”

The man made his way down a spiral staircase that had nearly blended into the bookshelves and crossed the room to Isla. “For her?” For some reason, he appeared both amused and concerned.

“For me, actually.” Isla reached out a hand, flashing him a smile. “I’m Isla.”

Something in his eyes flickered, the brown flecked with amber, warm and smooth as honey…and so damn familiar. Not only because he was giving her that look again. The same as Rhydian, the same as Davina.

“Isla,” he said her name as if testing it on his tongue before grabbing her hand. A normal handshake, no warrior greeting. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d exchanged one.

“And you are Jonah?” she asked as they pulled away.

Jonah nodded with a chuckle before waving her to follow him through the stacks—but not before giving the entrance a leery glance, scouring as though awaiting someone to come through it. “What can I help you with?”

Isla gave the doorway her own quick glimpse before following him. Turning a corner into the shelves, she found herself lost in an ocean of pages. There were sections dedicated to the other packs of Morai. A section about the rest of the world. “Anything related to languages or linguistics or—if you have anything about Phobos, besides literature on the Wilds.”

One of Jonah’s eyebrows rose at the latter half of her request. “I can help with the languages, but most of what our pack had on Phobos was destroyed centuries ago.” He spoke as if she should’ve already known.

Isla’s face screwed in confusion. “Destroyed?”

But she didn’t have a chance to question him further on it or really give it much thought at all as something deep and repressed began to stir in her. All her senses honed to one spot, and she turned in the direction of the door beyond the stacks before the bell of the entrance had even called out an incoming patron.

“Just give me a second,” Jonah said, but Isla put out a hand to stop him from walking away.

Instead, she moved forward, back through the way they’d entered until she found herself in open space again. Found herself face to face with a tall, cloaked figure standing by the front door. She knew who it was before the customer even lowered the hood of his jacket, and Isla’s heart stopped at the sight of dark hair and storm-colored eyes that she’d come to know fairly well.

“Kai.”

The voice hadn’t even sounded like her own, but at it, Kai’s lips parted in a relieved grin—a grin that had both melted and infuriated her more times than she’d like to admit. She could’ve sworn her whole body, down to her foundations, down to her wolf, sighed—just as he had—as if to say finally.

“Isla.”

Hearing him speak had ignited something in her, though not quite the overwhelming urge for him to strip her down and take her against the bookshelves—though that feeling did linger. Even now, from one simple look, she could feel the bond stoking back to life, resurfacing and ready to punish her for trying to neglect it.

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