Page 259 of A Warrior's Fate

Kai didn’t know what she was planning but nodded. Her cold touch went to his chest, over his heart. “What are you doing?”

Raana met his eyes, hers a dark rich brown. “You two are a part of each other. I’m using you to find the piece you’re missing. That she has.”

Hope in the form of Isla’s light he held sparked. “It will work?”

“It should. If she’s still—”

“Don’t say it.”

Raana took a long breath and then closed her eyes. Kai glanced at Adrien, who was watching closely, before doing the same.

He felt something like small pinpricks over his skin, spanning from that spot where the witch’s hand lay. Spreading and retreating. Spreading, retreating. She was mumbling something under her breath in a language he didn’t understand.

“You need to relax,” she interrupted her chant. “I can’t get through.”

Kai’s eyes snapped open. “Relax?”

Raana’s remained closed, her brows pinched in focus as if she had a hold she didn’t want to lose. “Think of something else. Go somewhere else. Think of her.”

Think of her—he’d done nothing but that for months.

Kai swallowed before shutting his eyes again. He forced his shoulders to ease, and he focused on that light again, traced it back to the memories it held.

“The moon. Beautiful.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Are you from Callisto?”

“No…Io.”

The feeling of magic spread further over his body. From his chest, over his shoulders, down his back, up his neck, but a piece of him fought against it. Only a piece. But the other…

“You did not mesmerize me.”

“The pounding of your heart says otherwise.”

The other part of him, the void, seemed to like the magic and called him to embrace it.

To take it.

Kai battled that piece away, focusing on Isla. Only Isla.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect when I realized my mate was at that dinner, but you definitely weren’t it.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“You didn’t.”

Not at all.

She’d woken him up that night on the terrace like a new morning—a new beginning—and stoked a flame, encouraged it to burn, just enough, when it was ready to simply go out. Finally, with her, he could breathe. He felt hopeful. Saw a future.

“I was blind to what was actually happening.”

“What?”

“I fell in love with you.”

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