A Queen’s Shadow (Wolves of Morai #2)

Chapter 1

ISLA

One could claim this tavern was no place for a queen, but Isla wasn’t a queen quite yet.

She watched the gathered merry crowd from her spot in a shadowed corner booth of The Obsidian Isle, her tawny-gold hair left in loose, wild waves doing well to shield her features.

Though her rule over Deimos was imminent, not many in the pack truly knew what she looked like. Not yet, anyway. All they had to glean from were blurry grayscale images in newspapers and the lips of gossips whose opinions of her appearance ranged from favorable to brutally harsh.

She took hold of her mug of ale, the wood smooth in her calloused hands, and brought it to her lips.

She cast her eyes on the man sitting at the oakwood bar across the room as she sipped.

He was drinking heavily, chatting up a female patron who seemed very interested in what he had to say, to Isla’s surprise.

The chestnut-haired woman’s pale fingers danced over his palm as she leaned into him, batting her eyelashes.

His movements had become a bit more exaggerated as the night went on, the bourbon he’d been calling for one after another having a steep effect, so much so that the bartender had been watering down his latest rounds.

At one time, the man, Warrior General Eli of Iapetus, had been her commander.

As the woman threw her head back with a howling laugh, Isla narrowed her eyes. Eli had never struck her as particularly funny, not enough to warrant a guffaw like that—unless she counted his poor attempts to court her these past months.

She was too far away to parse what they were saying over the drumming of dancing feet on wooden boards and the croon of the performer goading them on.

So, with a steadying breath, Isla burrowed deep into herself, into a familiar beating of power.

Her wolf was weak, though—still injured—but it reacted to the brush, nudging back at her inner reach as if accepting the care.

Isla sighed.

She was disappointed, yes. But mostly, relieved and grateful. At least her wolf was there.

“Have we met before?”

The slurred question came from Isla’s side.

She glanced up to find a dark-haired man looking her over, his bushy brows raised above glistening, drunken green eyes. He was decently attractive—perfect for any other woman in this bar to snatch up for the night.

He couldn’t have known who she was. And if he had, then maybe he had a death wish.

Isla forced a polite smile and calmed the thundering of her heart. “Can’t say we have.”

“You’re right. I would’ve remembered.” He took an uninvited seat on the other side of the booth. “Finley.”

A soft laugh spilled from Isla’s mouth as she folded her hands on the table.

If Finley were observant, he’d notice the paler patch of her sun-kissed skin where her mating ring sat—and then he would’ve run.

“I’ll save you the trouble of having to repeat these lines later tonight. ” Isla flipped her hair to the side.

The spot where Kai had sunk his canines into her neck, claiming her as his and his alone, couldn’t be missed. In fact, it had darkened again after he’d marked her a few days ago, a result of Isla’s own sensuous taunts as he took her against the wall of his office.

“You—you’re mated?” Finley’s eyes had widened, his entire body rigid. Isla could practically taste his fear as he glanced around, the small beads of sweat on his brow catching the low tavern lights. “Is he, uh… is he here?”

“Lucky for you, he’s outside.” Isla adjusted her hair again, masking the spot.

It wasn’t a lie. Kai was currently hiding amidst the shadows of Abalys. She couldn’t even call him an overprotective bastard about it. If the roles had been reversed, if he’d wanted to go out tonight to scale the seedy river town, she would’ve done the same. They were a team now, the two of them.

“Outside…” Finley let out a breath before rising to his feet. “Outside. Uh, have a good night, then.”

Isla lifted her hand in a gentle wave. “Have a good night.”

For a moment, Finley lingered, perplexity coloring his features.

Like he recognized her from somewhere but couldn’t quite place where.

For his own sake, Isla hoped he couldn’t figure it out, only to spare him the mortification of knowing the woman he’d flirted with, who’d turned him down, was not only his future queen but the mate of his alpha.

Given how his nostrils flared, how he stepped back, how the fear became a tangible coat on her tongue, he’d become the wiser. He left her without another word, just the slightest bow of his head.

“Well, then.” Isla went for her ale again, wishing she could tug at the bond and share her amusement with her other half. But like her wolf, her soul connection to Kai had been wounded. She couldn’t feel him anymore. Not in the way she once could.

Back to Eli, she supposed.

Turning her head, Isla sought the general out—but he was gone.

No. Not gone. Leaving.

The general moved towards the exit with his hand pressed to the woman’s lower back as they weaved through bodies to the door.

Isla stood too fast to be subtle, catching the eyes of several surrounding patrons as she reached into her cloak, brushing the hilt of the dagger strapped to her hip when she went for the money in her pocket.

The coins clanging on the wooden table were her farewell as she followed them.

Humidity and a rolling, briny mist greeted her when she stepped onto Abalys’s plank-lined streets. It was one of the warmest summer nights she’d faced since she’d come to Deimos. Though still nothing like the heat she’d grown up amidst in the north of Morai, in Io.

Eli was several yards away now, moving quicker than expected along the winding canal’s edge, heading towards one of the many bridges that crossed the spidery, golden-aura-speckled waterways.

Isla hung back, pressing into the shadows, cloak clasp loosened, hood pulled up, counting her heartbeats.

And then, tapping into a warrior’s grace, the predator’s instinct she’d honed to use even if she was as good as merely human, she followed them.

Unlike Deimos’s royal city of Mavec, where nightlife trickled out of the clubs and gambling dens into the crystal-laden cobblestone squares brimming with life, many of Abalys’s frequenters remained inside, their liveliness nothing but a muffled rumble across the air.

When Eli and the woman slowed to a stop in front of a three-story apartment building, Isla fell back into a darkened alleyway. She pressed her fingers into the cool brick of the building beside her, peering around its corner.

As the woman reached into her bag, Eli shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced around. And for a moment, Isla swore she glimpsed the poise of a warrior general—ready and at attention—not the bumbling drunkard she’d seen at the bar.

He had become inebriated unsettlingly fast…

There was a sudden warmth at her back.

Isla tensed, her fingers twitching to draw claws that would not emerge before they went for the hilt of her knife.

But a steady touch kneaded into her muscles, feeling that tension, her nerves, her fear. Then she felt Kai brush back her hood to press a kiss to her neck in a silent apology for sneaking up on her.

Isla relaxed against him, breathing and relishing the feel of his body, relishing in the subtle things. His scent. The softness of his curls, his lips, and his beard as he dipped his head. How gentle he was with her when everything about him was so… hard, steady, stable.

Not a rogue. Not a witch. Not a monster. And yet, she was… disappointed.

She’d known he was following her. Could’ve figured it out, even without the vague sense of him at all times.

But he’d gotten a jump on her, just enough.

And she didn’t care that he was an alpha blooded with power and prowess, that he’d made history a few months ago in one of their people’s greatest trials.

She should’ve been more aware of his approach.

Isla didn’t turn or speak until the woman and Eli had gone inside—but not before Eli gave the area around one last look over.

She sighed through her nose, her nails scratching at the building’s brick. “I don’t trust him.”

The words had been hard to get out because of why she didn’t trust him, what he represented.

Her past, her home, her family. She recalled what she’d learned from Ameera this morning about Eli’s movements for the past few days.

It was why she’d felt so driven to witness his doings for herself tonight.

The last member of the warriors they’d caught sneaking around the territory, as Eli had been for the past few days, was Callan…

and he’d been doing so to spy for Imperial Alpha Cassius.

“If it helps,” Kai began, his voice low as he continued kneading at the muscles of her back, sore from her training with Rhydian that morning and likely from hunching over books at Jonah’s these past nights. “I don’t think Lysa is suspicious.”

Lysa?

Isla turned, meeting eyes the color of storm clouds and chaos. Eyes she adored. “You know her?”

“I know a lot of people,” Kai said, his lips twitching upwards.

“The Isle used to be one of our ‘spots.’ She’s worked the floor for years, reading palms, telling futures, guiding wolves towards their mates.

Couldn’t vouch for how good she is, though.

She told me my future was in the bed of a small brunette with hazel eyes. Can’t say I ever made it there.”

“Of course.”

That description sounded a lot like Lysa herself—but Isla couldn’t fault the woman at all. If she’d been faced with Kai, even back then, while he was only the second-born prince, she may have tried the same tactic.

She looked over him now, the “gift” the goddesses had given her. After years and years of agonizing over finding her mate, after giving up and finding herself instead… she’d made it to him, made it here. To a pack, to a destiny that had always been hers.