Page 262 of A Warrior's Fate

Raana nodded before tying back her hair. She pulled at the chain around her neck, settling a smooth crystal, opalescent, over her chest. As she clutched it tightly in her hand, she muttered something in that foreign tongue, and then her eyes closed as her palms hovered an inch from Isla’s body. “I’m starting. Don’t let go.”

There was a near-pleading part of her voice that also said, don’t let me kill her.

The air cooled and pulsed around them, and Kai took hold of Isla’s hand. As Raana murmured, darkness seemed to gather, encroaching on them, circling them. The shadows responded to her, danced with her, and Kai’s thoughts briefly wandered to the scarce amount he’d ever learned of the forsaken fae courts.

His heart was a steady drumming, calling Isla’s to beat in time, and he tightened his hold on her as he pulled at whatever shred of their bond was left, what he could forge.

For a moment, he thought he felt a warmth, that glimmer of light, but the air became sharp. The light fell away.

“Shit.”

Kai snapped his head up. Raana still had her eyes closed, still focusing. Sweat beaded on her brow. “What happened?” he asked.

“Don’t let her go,” she gritted. The shadows began pulling up Isla’s body, her lower half disappearing in time with when Raana’s hands, her forearms, starting from the tips of her fingers, became piercing white light that morphed into the darkest black at her elbows. Kai squinted as the air became hollow. He had a sinking feeling that Raana hadn’t wanted to push this far as she flickered between becoming something else entirely. Darkness like webs crawled up her skin, consuming her. This wasn’t the magic of witches. This was something greater.

And that part of him, that power, responded to it. Rose not to fight but to acknowledge, to greet. Kai blinked at her before feeling a pull.

He looked down, and through the darkness, Isla’s cuts healed and her skin warmed. Yet still, she was fading. Something was happening that he couldn’t see.

“Stop,” he said, reaching out to Raana. Her skin was so cold it burned, and the touch sent a chill down to what felt like his soul. He threw a wall up to it, to fight it away. “You need to stop.”

He was about to lunge at her when everything fell. Darkness collapsed and evaporated like a cloud of smoke, tendrils snaking away but not far as if waiting for when she was ready to call upon them again. Raana blanched, falling forward and bracing herself on her hands as sweat poured from her face, mixing with what seemed to be tears. She shuddered, swallowing hard as if to keep down bile. She met Kai’s concerned stare. “I can’t go anymore,” she panted and flicked her gaze to Isla. For Kai to check, to see.

He looked down, brushing his hand over her cheek. There was color to her face, and her heartbeat was slow but becoming faster. Faster.

“Isla,” he called, not broken but hopeful. And though she did not answer—

She opened her eyes.

CHAPTER 57

ISLA

The first thing Isla registered was pain.

Though not the burning she’d known before everything faded but a soreness. Like her body had been through hell and reworked over. Her mind was swimming in a sea of attempted understanding as she peeled open her eyes, and then she was floating in an ambient blue. Everything was blurry for a moment, and each one of her senses felt dulled. For a moment.

All awareness of her surroundings came at her hard and fast. The craggy, rock-lined passageways with crystals in the walls, the chill in the air, the warmth she was resting on—and the someone who was holding her hand.

She turned her head, wincing, and her eyes fell onto a handsome face backlit by crystal blue. A face she thought she’d never see again.

This was a hallucination. It had to be. The witch’s first method of torment, how she’d break her.

Isla’s heart clenched but she wouldn’t cry. Wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. But she couldn’t stop herself from chancing the word, his name. “Kai.” Her mouth was dry, her throat still raw and she braced for another dose of poison. For the image of the man she loved to fade into mist.

But his touch on her cheek as he brushed it felt so real. The smell of him, the sense of him in a distant way she’d felt before they’d mated, felt right.

There was a line of silver along the bottom of Kai’s eyes, the same storm clouds, and the way the corners of his mouth moved revealed the slight dimples she knew.

If this was a trick or an illusion meant to rip away from her and break her apart, she’d accept it. She’d live in this joy that sparked in her chest. This fantasy where she had him.

“A run,” he said, his voice guttural like he really had been crying. “Really?”

Isla’s heart stopped. Could this be happening?

She released a breath, afraid to make any sudden movements, but she couldn’t fight the tears. “You won?”

His throat bobbed and he nodded. She noticed the blood on his skin over where many cuts had healed. Blood that belonged to him and Brax, and there on his neck, the faint lines of her mark. All of this—too hard to replicate if it hadn’t been true.

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