Page 16 of A Queen's Shadow

“Marin made sure I was aware of that,” Isla told her, lowering her voice. Some of their guests were eyeing them, eyeing each other, as they hovered nearby, unsure who would make the next move. Would Isla approach them, or would they dare interrupt her and Zahra? “I received a list of potential requests and how to respond.”

Zahra smiled, effortless and stunning. “I expected nothing less. And I notice you’re making them a bit more personable, which is perfect. Better not to sound like you’re a wooden board, or the gossips will talk all about the stick up your ass.” Isla snorted as Zahra sipped from her glass of sparkling wine. “You’re doing great so far. Poised, well-spoken, handling high pressure—Isla?”

Isla wrenched her head back to Zahra, her blood pounding, and she couldn’t stop herself from taking one more glance at her father within the mess of the chatting crowd and weaving servers. Who he was speaking to.

General Eli.

“Who the hell invited him?” she muttered under her breath, narrowing her eyes. Words and smiles were being exchanged, nothing secretive it appeared, but Eli’s hands were clenched behind his back. Her father’s posture was strong, authoritative. What were they saying?

Isla was just about to excuse herself from Zahra when she felt a hand on her back.

She turned to find Kai, who also looked to notice the exchange, but drew his focus back to Zahra. “Sorry to interrupt, Mother, but I need to steal my wife for a moment.”

Isla’s stomach fluttered.His wife.She’d never get sick of hearing that. Though, she wasn’t technically “his wife” until they had their mating ceremony, he’d taken to calling her it.

A twinkle of mischief, of mother’s understanding, flashed in Zahra’s eyes as she looked between them, and a gloss seemed to take over her stormy irises. She’d once told Isla that the only thing that had kept her from being swallowed alive by her grief after the bond and the fabric of her wolf had been ripped to shreds when Kyran had died, when she’d lost her son, was the fact she would never leave Kai to bear the weight of the world alone. But now he had Isla.

“Of course.” Zahra waved her hand. “I’m not unfamiliar with your escapes.”

“This isn’t an escape,” Kai said, not the least bit convincing. “I’ve outgrown that.”

Isla furrowed her brows and glanced up at him. “You have?”

With a smirk sliding across his lips, Kai shushed her.

Zahra hummed. “Do what you must. Just be back to thank the performers for attending before they begin.”

Isla and Kai watched as she spun and walked off, pausing a few feet away to pluck an hors d'oeuvre and a new glass of wine from a platter that swept by.

Isla furrowed her brows. “Did your mother just encourage us to sneak away to have sex?”

Kai’s face was an equal mix of perplexity and perturbation. If he had been in any type of mood, that probably killed it. “She’s hinted to me on more than a few occasions that she wants grandchildren.”

Isla pursed her lips. She’d mentioned it to her, as well.

“Well, until it doesn’t feel like our families are two seconds from clawing each other to death, everyone needs to be patient. We could never bring a child into this.” Isla met his eyes, seeing some solemn agreement in them. She knew he wanted a family—and the thought of that melted her—and they’d agreed to wait a year, at least. Hopefully, things didn’t get worse. “But that’s not why you need me, though, is it?”

Kai frowned. “Meet me in the Warrior Galley in five minutes.”

“What is it?”

Kai looked up and away, scanning the crowd with a soft smile on his lips like she’d told him something endearing. They still needed to put on a show. “If I tell you, you’ll leave now, and I need you to wait so it’s not obvious.”

Isla resisted the deadpan on her face. “You act like I have no self-control.”

Kai leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Five minutes. Schmooze one more guest.”

Then he walked away—and Isla schmoozed no one.

She waited a minute, sure, but then she was gone. Snuck out, easy and inconspicuous, with the help of a strategically maneuvered waiter, a friendly guard, and some heavy night-dark curtains blocking one of the many secret doorways within these walls.

Every Pack Hall had a Warrior Galley, meant to honor the wolves who’d gone through the perilous Hunt and survived, as well as those who hadn’t. Here, the galley lay within the North Hall, the original hall that had stood on these grounds since Deimos was founded a millennium ago. The history chiseled into these walls would take Isla a lifetime to learn.

The double doors that hid the galley displayed Deimos’s insignia, a representation of Kai’s bloodline, two wolves,twinwolves, lunging for the moon. Thinking about it now, after what she’d learned about Deimos and Phobos, their connections, and how they’d been one pack of Ares, she wondered if there had been a reason for it.

She pressed a hand to the warrior’s crescent below the symbol and pushed the heavy doors open. Moonlight barely edged through the windows, trickling beyond the latticework of stone slabs and columns, etched with countless names, a long legacy of strength, ferocity, and triumph. Ebony silks were folded in underlit glass cases, those of warriors past, taken and embroidered with their names and when they’d succeeded. Beside them were the sharp claws of bak, their razor-sharp teeth. Trophies and proof of their victories.

And at the pinnacle of the cases, displayed grandly on the back stone wall, Isla caught a flash of red amidst all the obsidian. There, hanging beside a silk of black that belonged to the Alpha of Deimos, was that of the first warrior luna in the pack’s history. Hers.

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