Chapter 18 #3
Kai handled the first piercing of his skin, at the top of his cut near his collarbone, remarkably well, though he did take a long drink of whatever bitter alcohol Jace had found.
As Isla moved down his skin with expert precision, each stitch brought a vision of her mate taking on three of those horrendous creatures and surviving.
“That’s seven bak you’ve killed now,” Isla said, gnawing her lip between her teeth.
Kai chuckled, then drank. “You were beating me by one; I couldn’t have that.”
Isla snorted. Prick. “Don’t make me laugh, or I’ll mess this up.
” She narrowed her eyes in focus as she pulled the thread tighter.
Given the depth of the wounds and that it had taken them so long to heal, he’d probably end up scarring.
Frankly, she didn’t think he cared. There was a phantom pinch at her shoulder, where the twisting vines of her injuries lay from the Hunt.
Halfway down his chest, Isla couldn’t resist asking—she needed to know more.
And so, Kai explained how he found the three bak all tucked together like they’d made the tunnels their home. Their den.
So strange.
Kai’s voice softened, and his eyes drifted to the gashes in his chest. “They were so not like bak that I thought I was hallucinating, but I could scent the Wilds so clearly. And once they realized I was there, they didn’t attack at first.” His jaw tightened.
“It almost seemed like they were yielding.”
“To you?”
Kai nodded. “And I truly thought about walking away, but the idea of yielding or leaving didn’t last long for either of us.”
Isla listened as he broke down every maneuver of the fight, every duck, lunge, and weave, each landed blow, because he knew she’d want to hear it and knew she would stow the information away for future strategy.
He told her how that power had pushed, how he thought it may have helped him, gave him an edge in an impossible battle, as if he could predict every move as they cornered him.
His trek home after he’d cleaned off in a lake and gotten the bleeding to subside had been hell without his wolf.
“All I wanted was you and a fucking bath.” Kai tilted his head back to rest on the wall behind him. Isla had just finished her work on the largest slash marks and observed the one below it. It was shorter, cutting just to the top of his abdomen.
She met his gaze as he repeated, “I’m sorry. I’m sure today’s already been a lot.”
“I feel like this is the most relaxed I’ve been.
Probably because you’re home, but…” Isla sighed.
“I would take on three bak, or I would stand before that witch and rip out her throat, but the crown… I put on a decent front, but I’m scared.
Of the coronation, of ruling, and then being the queen every moment after.
I’ll do whatever I can, whatever I must, but I can’t guarantee I’ll do it right. ”
“You can’t do it wrong.” Kai reached out a hand and brushed her cheek. She most definitely could, but she appreciated the sentiment. He added, “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been scared, too, regardless of my bloodline.”
“What made it easier?”
“I met a beautiful woman with a smartass mouth and legs for days.” Isla was beaming and needed to put the thread down as Kai continued, his thumb stroking her cheek.
“And everything that had scared me just became challenges. Challenges I wanted to face. Even without doing anything with our bond, I wanted to become a better man because you were out there. A woman who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. Who loved her family and her home so much that I could see it in her eyes and could hear it in the way others spoke about her. Who loved as fiercely as she would fight for anyone, regardless of who they were. I wanted to feel that if we found our way back to each other, I would deserve to call myself your mate. I wanted to deserve you.” He paused, and his eyes trailed over her once as if in disbelief that she was sitting there.
“All of the things that make me love you so much that I can barely breathe when I look at you are exactly why you will be an unbelievable queen.”
Isla wasn’t sure where she’d thrown the needle as she lunged for Kai, careful of his injury, of the blood, and crashed her lips to his.
That ember within her sparked again, sending heat pounding through her blood as her fingers tangled in his hair, as his hand gripped her hip. There was such a deep, fundamental need for him that it was maddening.
“I love you,” she murmured over his mouth, their breathing ragged. “And not that you needed to, but you have earned every bit of my heart.”
Once Kai was patched up, Isla let him guide her through the tunnel system to the kitchens and the source of that divine smell.
To say the cooks were surprised was an understatement, but they were more than happy to give them the first taste of the beef stew they’d been preparing, before they had the rest of the night off for the coronation and holiday.
Bowl in hand, she watched as Kai and the cook discussed cutting techniques before Isla and Kai found a corner of the kitchen to talk.
On her short stool, set before a small wooden table, Isla dunked a piece of bread into the hearty broth, while a symphony of pots and pans echoed around them.
“Before we seal up the tunnel, I want to see it, map it, and look for any more markers. I don’t know if you got to talk to Jonah last night, but he figured out the pattern of the symbols on the ones we have, and it looks like if the tunnel connects to us, it’s etched into it.
I know we have more pressing problems, and more just got thrown at us last night, but it’s good to know. ”
Kai, now on his third bowl of stew, scraped the bottom with his own bread. “We can go tomorrow night.”
Isla’s brows shot up, her prepared rebuttal for his absolute refusal dying on her tongue. Just the other day, he didn’t want her walking around rogue territory alone. “You’ll be well enough?”
Kai rolled his shoulders. “I already feel better, thanks to you.” Finished with his meal, he leaned back in his seat, a healthy flush having finally returned to his face. His eyes slid across the kitchen, the blaze of the oven gilding his irises, his brow pinched.
“What are you thinking?” Isla asked, bringing a chunk of beef to her mouth.
“Too many things.” He fell forward again, resting his elbows on the table. “Did you find anything in your search of the stars?”
“No.” Isla pursed her lips, setting down her spoon as nausea stirred in her gut. “A part of me is hoping this is just some elaborate lie from Cassius to scare us. This is the last thing we need.”
“Or maybe it’s exactly what we need and explains why everything’s going to shit.
” At Isla’s confusion, Kai elaborated, “Patterns. Five hundred years ago, a cosmic cataclysmic event sent the mortal realm spiraling. Five hundred years ago, a pack was destroyed like never before—all ties and traces of it allegedly erased by the Hierarchy. Cassius is the only one who knows. Maybe his ancestors have always been the only ones who knew and used it to their advantage. Now, the creatures created in that time are acting strange, everything is being covered up again, and the whole world just seems off, and I…”
“You?”
“I have no idea what’s going on with me, but I can feel something wrong.
It’s as if my ancestors are trying to tell me to be cautious.
To watch out.” Kai’s jaw tightened, and he tapped his finger on the table, thinking, debating.
“Aneurin was the final Alpha of Phobos. He was my blood, and he went up against the Hierarchy—or tried to—and he was destroyed by the Imperial Alpha. Through a witch.”
Patterns, patterns, patterns.
Isla swallowed, the stew sitting heavily in her stomach. “You think history is repeating here, with us?”
“It’s a theory.” Kai’s mouth thinned. “Fate apparently lacks originality.”
Fate also apparently hated her.
Isla couldn’t stop her fingers from curling into fists. The disdain she’d once had for the deity reared its head. This all completely tracked with the goddess’s wicked games.
The phantom scent of ash lilies tickled her nose, and her hands felt sticky with blood that wasn’t there. Despite the oven’s heat, an unnatural chill settled in her bones as she recalled a battlefield, a war, a dagger over her heart, and a voice.
If you fail, they all fall.