Page 72 of A Queen's Shadow

He drilled his face into neutrality. “Who told you?”

“Warrior General Eli,” Isla said, her stomach pitting as his sunken features flashed into her mind.

No more tears.They would fix this.

Ezekiel scoffed. “Did he still think you’d be on Io’s side?”

“No. He was hoping I’d be against them.”

“Well, that’s unexpected,” he chuckled bitterly. “I should’ve given him more credit. Where is he now?”

“Dead,” Kai broke his observational silence. “Someone murdered him on the Equinox.”

Ezekiel blinked. “Who?”

“We don’t know,” Kai said. “It could’ve been your witch or an order from Cassius.”

At the mention of the Imperial Alpha, Ezekiel’s eyes slid to Isla, who took her spot back at Kai’s side. She fought to keep her features impassive. “Tell us everything you know about the rebellions.”

Ezekiel took a long breath before settling further in his seat. “The peace amongst the packs has been treading a remarkably thin line for a while since Kyran and I began our tenures and from even before that. While Imperial Alpha Eoin was in power, he conspired to get Locke’s line to rule in Charon. Though we’re a landlocked kingdom, the Imperials have had their eyes on Mavec for decades. Absorbing it into any one of our surrounding territories that Cassius has his claws in would give him exactly what he wants. Truly centralized power and better control of the kingdoms. He’d likely hand off Io’s current land to his son and rule over all from new territory.” Ezekiel paused, hesitating, but one look at Kai and the threat of that power, and he continued, “He’s allowed Charon to tear itself apart so he can build it back up into what he needs it to be. Oberon, Callisto, Ganymede, Rhea, they're all on his side…Before I’d been put in here, I’d heard he even proposed a marriage of the Imperial Heir to one of Baldor’s daughters.”

Isla started. Adrien hadn’t mentioned that at all.

“Alpha Verena and Alpha Deacon know about Cassius’s witches. Verena knows your father had a plan, but she hadn’t known exactly what. There are rebel groups in their territories, and it’s safe to say they’re not doing much to discourage them. If war is imminent, I’d imagine they’ll be calling on them soon.”

Isla’s heart thundered in her ears. By this time tomorrow, she’d be in Mimas, standing before Verena. “Are there rebels here?”

“I’m sure they exist, but I have not found them.”

Kai paced a few steps in the room, casually glancing down at his feet as he tucked his hands in his pockets, a picture of effortless regality. “If my father wasn’t afraid of war, why did he stop working with the witch?”

Isla caught the slightest twinge of muscle in his cheek.

Ezekiel might’ve, too, if the spark in his eye was any indicator. “He only told me it was to protect the family…to protectyou.” He presented it as if it were the greatest secret he’d ever kept.

Kai had damned all easy disposition, his body locking up. “Me? Protect me from what? Who?”

Ezekiel smiled like a canary who may have just gotten a second chance at life. “I don’t know. He said he’d tell me when he was sure, but…” He shook his head. “She killed him a week later.”

Whatever Kai had been feeling, despite no longer being visible on his face, Isla could sense it through the bond’s fragments and mist. Something violent and twisted and agonizing churned inside him.

Had Kyran known that Kai was…different? He could’ve been lying.

She fought the urge to reach out to Kai physically, knowing he didn’t want Ezekiel to see the confession’s effect. She attempted to send something through the bond, though.

“You never thought to mention that?” Kai asked with a cock of his head.

“I told you that I was going to explaineverythingto you after the Hunt, but then your mate being theImperial Beta’s daughtercomplicated things. It all became a balance. But now, it’s clear whereourluna stands.”

Isla twirled her blade in her hand. Goddess, him addressing her by that title shouldn’t have made her skin crawl this much.

“How many times,” Kai’s voice had taken on a darkness that made Isla pause, and she swore red began to edge his irises. “did you meet with her after my father passed? When she nearly killed Isla, she said that you were ‘coming around’on her plans.”

Ezekiel’s disposition wobbled, his lips becoming a thin line.

Isla felt Kai’s aura spill into the room, polluting it like ink in water. Ezekiel’s hand snapped to his head.

Had Kai’s abilities still been that potent with the bane in his system?

---