Page 217 of A Warrior's Fate

Slightly more reassuring.

Isla began fiddling with one ridge at a curve of her chair. “Do you think he knows where she is?”

“Maybe. But we won’t get much from asking again. He knows there’s no coming back from this, that he’ll never regain my trust, and that he’ll be replaced, and—” A darkness shone in Kai’s eyes, one that made Isla remember that intensity she’d seen as he’d stared down Ezekiel. One it seemed even the beta felt bearing down on him, making him squirm.

What would be done with Ezekiel after? How would he be dealt with? He’d lied to Kai, his alpha, about something as serious as this.

More precarious lines for Kai to walk.

He wouldn’t just be cutting such a strong tie that the beta had historically maintained with his family, but he’d also be upsetting Ameera’s life.

Kai didn’t elaborate on any plans or offer any options. He only moved on to say, “I suspect he’ll be moving, a lot, and doing everything he can to ensure whatever the plan is works out. So, we’ll watch.” Another downturn of his mouth. “And I’ll need to talk to Ameera.”

“You’re going to have her trail him?”

He raked a hand through his hair, tugging at it so much that some of its curls loosened, curving towards his temple. “I don’t want to have to, but who else is there?”

Isla gazed down as she thought. Who else was there?

For a moment, she found herself in Ameera’s shoes, ones she also wore. The beta’s daughter.

If Isla had been assigned to spy on her father and watch how he moved within Charon, what he was doing—even with any hostility she’d felt, even if she’d wanted to defend Deimos with everything she had, it was her father. She’d be terrified of what she’d find, what she would have to do upon an unfortunate discovery.

With another shot of desperation, Isla lifted her head. “They’re—they’re no longer working on the witch’s accord, the killer.”

She caught the way Kai flinched at the mention of the one who’d actually delivered death upon his family, as if an old wound had been re-opened now, knowing the whole truth.

She continued carefully, “She wouldn’t want them warning us about her as they are, so maybe they’re no longer in league together. Maybe they know, too. They could tell us.”

“That’s possible,” Kai said, righting himself in his seat. “But it’s not like we can go ask them.”

And with their luck, an answer would be another riddle for them to crack. In another fresh language that they couldn’t understand. Probably from the world of old gods and rulers. It was hopeless.

But trying wouldn’t hurt. “I could go to the house and see if they show up.”

“No.”

Isla blinked at the quick refusal.

Kai sighed, his frustration mounting, draining. “Maybe if you weren’t alone.”

Isla bit the inside of her cheek, recalling the last time she’d been in the killer’s midst. “They run from everyone else.” And then it dawned on her. “They…trust me, for some reason.”

She wondered what was going through his head as he went quiet and then shook it a few moments. “No. It’s too dangerous. I don’t really want you to be anywhere alone right now. Not when things are like this.”

“Hurting me also hurts you,” Isla argued in favor of Ezekiel’s sparing her in his plans.

She felt rage simmer at the other end of the bond, within Kai, at the thought of anyone laying a finger on her, as he maybe remembered how it had felt. Her in trouble, her in pain, when the only way he could reach her was this tether between them. When it strained and pulled, while a part of him, intentionally or not, kept her rooted to the world.

They fell into silence, and she felt Kai again, watched him drift into that place of solitude. Sparing her from all of this, what she shouldn’t have had to deal with to be with him.

Without a word, she pushed up from her seat and circled the desk. Once at his side, his eyes flicking her way, she leaned down, pressing her lips to Kai’s forehead, his temple, his cheek, and as a small grin bloomed on his mouth, he tugged her down to sit on his knee and she lay another on his neck.

Isla wrapped her arms around him, as he did her, and with her head leaning against his, Kai closed his eyes—and breathed. Breathed in her scent, embraced her touch, the bond coiling around him, grounding him.

Time slipped away while they sat in the quiet as he continued to think. She waited, not pushing, knowing that eventually—

“I spent my entire life telling myself I’d never be like my father,” Kai began, tracing an idle circle over her thigh. “And then I became alpha, and that’s all I’ve done. I thought adopting his council, his beta would make it easier. For me. For the pack to adjust and feel secure after so much—change. Fast change…forced change. But I’ve been alpha for three months—three months—and we’ve been attacked by rogues, bak are slipping through the Wall, and witches are using our territory to hide and hurt other wolves. Who hurt you.” His circling ceased. “There were—are—plans for an attack that I don’t even know about. I’ve made everyone more vulnerable than they even know.”

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