Page 35 of A Warrior's Fate

Instead, he sighed and began in a way one would to a friend—or lover—they’d done wrong, “Isla…”

“No,” she repeated, this time sharp, dagger-like. “Don’t Isla me. You don’t get to Isla me.”

“How…” Now Kai went quiet as if picking over his words carefully. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough.”

Another hush followed her snapped response. Amidst the silence, Kai’s long and careful deliberation, Isla fought to keep her temper in check. She’d let him know how pissed off she was, but she wouldn’t let him take her poise.

“I’m trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?”

Isla whipped her head around, her breath catching slightly at the sight of him. But she buried that feeling of connection deep down, hid it away in some corner of herself to shrivel and rot.

Her fingers constricted around the railing until the metal pulled the skin of her palms taut. Until it burned. Until it hurt. “None of this has been about ‘protecting me’. Just yourself and your stupid title and bloodline. What you told Ezekiel is the truth, right? You can’t have me—no, you don’t want me—as your mate because if I became your luna, it would be a disaster.”

“I didn’t say that.” A technicality.

“I must’ve missed you disagree.” She scoffed. “Questions, unrest…how unstable is your pack if I could screw it up so easily just by existing?”

“Enough.”

Isla had winced even before Kai growled at her through gritted teeth. She knew she’d gone too far the second she finished the sentence.

With his eyes narrowed and a sharp line appearing on his cheek, Kai stepped closer, dangerously close. Close enough that a strong gust of wind could throw all their efforts of the past week out the window. Enough that Isla could see the bright flecks in his eyes, like stars managing to peek through a horde of stormy chaos. Enough that his breath was warm on her face, tickled at her nose, her cheeks, her lips.

Her skin prickled, and her heart pounded with ire and that maddening “something else” that only he could draw out.

“I know it might be difficult for you, but you’re going to listen to me.”

The stern, guttural words full of assertion and power, mixed with his proximity, proved to be something cruel.

Isla couldn’t stop herself from becoming locked in place, hanging onto whatever left his mouth, focusing on the way it moved. That essence of their bond she’d tucked away was reviving and leaking back through her invisible armor. Kai had to have known what he was doing, or he wouldn’t have risked the distance.

“I don’t know exactly what you heard or what conclusion that mind of yours is running to, but everything I said in there was for a reason and in your best interest,” he told her slowly, so she could absorb every part of it.

“But he’s your beta, and he figured it out. Why not just tell him the truth?” As she stated her inquiry, Isla scanned his face, going back on her vow to never scour for his emotions or thoughts again.

When she reached his eyes again, the windows to that piece of him that she innately recognized, that had supposedly been split from her before their time, she concentrated. Followed the dark clouds and starlight until, much to her surprise, for the first time, she felt she found success.

Nerves.

He was nervous about something.

She would’ve thought that it was due to the fact she’d figured out his true intentions. Fear that, out of spite, she’d touch him just to reject him—because it had, admittedly, crossed her mind at the peak of her fury.

But that wasn’t the answer because she also found honesty, truth. The same conviction she’d seen during the most certain fact spoken between them—that they were destined for each other.

Everything Kai had said to his beta was purposeful, and it had all been with her well-being in mind. Which made everything so much worse.

“Why do I have to be nothing, and why do I have to be ‘handled’ for you to feel I’m protected? This isn’t just about what I want, and it’s not just about that public unrest either. You’re keeping the truth from your beta. There’s something else—bigger. What am I missing?”

Kai’s jaw clenched again, a signal she was on the right path.

“It’s not your concern.”

Isla blinked, dumbstruck. “Not my concern? Are you—no.” She shook her head furiously. “No. Not acceptable.”

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