Page 119 of A Warrior's Fate

But she couldn’t.

Because she’d collided with something.

And though the surface she’d met was solid…it wasn’t a wall.

Walls didn’t have hands. Didn’t grip tight.

One thought.

Only one thought rolled through her mind.

One word that reeled over and over and over again as her wolf writhed within her. As her blood rushed and fire erupted over her skin, through her body.

Mate.

PART III

THE BECK OF BONDS

CHAPTER 26

Isla straightened against the warmth, against planes of solid muscle. The heat gave way to a chill and then fire again as she felt the hold on her loosen and then constrict. As she felt calloused fingertips run over the skin of her hip, slipping under the slit of her dress, finding the lace lining of her underwear cutting over her thigh. Tracing it. Another hand sat at her waist, palm spanning across the rise and fall of her stomach, the exposed skin there, thumb raising to stroke just below the curve of her breast.

Kai held her like she’d vanish if he let her go, and Isla’s body yielded to him. Every curve melding to every bend of his. His heart thundered against her back, through the fabric of his jacket which she still adorned until, with each passing beat, hers found the same rhythm. Intertwined and in time.

Mate, mate, mate.

“Isla.” Kai’s breath was hot on her neck as he dipped his head into the cradle of her shoulder.

She shuddered. His voice—desperate, aching, fighting—cut through the repetitions like a mind-numbing melody.

Mine, mine, mine.

Just as she was about to allow her head to fall back into his chest—to crane and expose the space meant just for him—clarity rang like a bell in the form of horrified screams.

Rogues.

They were surrounded by rogues.

Being attacked by rogues.

People needed help.

Isla forced herself to rise. To turn and meet Kai’s eyes.

She choked down a breath.

It was as if she were seeing him for the very first time. As if, now that they’d touched—now that she knew the feeling of his body against her own—she’d met him all over again.

And he was familiar—something was familiar. From a time before Callisto, before the terrace and the garden.

Touch me, her body screamed as the initial rush—not wholly faded—began swelling like a wave ready to crash and wash her away. As it consumed the surroundings again, threatening to drown them out. Touch me, touch me, touch—

“Alpha!”

The cry came from a distance.

Both Isla and Kai—mildly dazed, chests rising and falling in the same heavy cadence—whipped around to find a man powering from the masses towards them. The movement seemed to take every bit of the older guest’s energy. Isla searched his worn glassy eyes for anything she’d recognize, but there was nothing. Nothing but terror, denial, and—grief.

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