Chapter 46
ISLA
Isla wasn’t sure which Kai had taken in better stride—her plan to go to the Wilds, the severed head of the ocean creature Isla had killed that Ameera had kept, or her news of the rebel meeting Amalie had taken her to.
“You were gone for half a day. Half a day,” he blurted from the sitting room couch, staring at the vacant black eyes of the creature within the large box Ameera had stolen to stow it off the island. It peppered the air with the scent of the ocean and death. “All this in a few hours.”
“We’re nothing but impressive, aren’t we?
” Isla crooned, the sheepish grin only ever leaving her face when she scowled at the sea creature’s head.
While she’d been unconscious, Ameera had dragged its body back to the ocean, letting it be carried away.
She’d felt it better to keep the head separate—not knowing if it had some capacity to reform—and to be able to show Alpha Verena what was terrorizing their shores.
Thankfully, due to their wild nights and desire to hide from pack gossip, Jax had a more discreet route off the island and back to the Pack Hall.
Ameera, apparently, didn’t have to spin too wild a story, showing Jax the head and saying Isla had gotten too tired after fighting tooth and nail to save his pack from being eaten alive by the monster. Maybe an embellishment, but it worked well enough.
“Impressive is one way to put it,” Kai grumbled, dragging a hand through his curls.
Isla responded by kissing his cheek.
Ameera’s blanched expression as she sat opposite them was a mix of perplexity and disturbance.
Isla had caught her and Kai up on everything.
Each tidbit of information they lacked—Kai on the happenings here in Mimas, and Ameera the rest. About her magic, her dreams, the moon, their thoughts and theories on Deimos’s fate.
And yet, still, she said, “Explain again why you think you need to go into the Wilds tonight.”
Isla huffed, slumping back in the seat. Her limbs still felt off-kilter and wobbly, her head foggy from magic use. And yet, even if it drained her… she wanted to call on her wolf again. Wanted to see her, feel her, and be complete again in whatever way she could.
“It sounds bizarre, I know. But it’s not like everything else hasn’t been,” Isla said. “I think the pack’s in trouble, just like Phobos was. This could be the final piece we’re missing. This woman can show us.”
Ameera inclined her head. “You don’t even know who she is, and you trust her?”
“Yes.” Isla didn’t hesitate. “Not only because we don’t have many other options, but because… because I feel it. This is genuine. She’s done all she could to get to me.”
“But you think that witch is in the Wilds, right?” Ameera asked. “With that…” She furrowed her brows with her next nonsensical words. “With that fae, who's also a witch that gave you magic?”
“Yes.”
Kai, who’d gone silent for Isla to take the floor, added, “She doesn’t want us dead. They’re working together, the witch and this woman, to get to us, I think. At least, both want us for something. We just have to stop avoiding them and find out what it is.”
Ameera shook her head. “This is insane.”
Neither Kai nor Isla denied it.
Kai said, his voice deep and authoritative, “Let’s see what Verena truly wanted from the invitation, and then we’ll skip the party and—Goddess, I can’t believe I’m saying this. We’ll go tonight.”
Isla could feel the unspoken response that choked the room, so she added, “We are facing danger, enemies, and death everywhere we turn. At least with the Wilds, we know the only thing we can do is survive.” She rested a hand on Kai’s thigh, a comfort for her or him, she wasn’t sure.
“And if they need us to stay alive, it would be foolish for her to draw me in there just to kill me.”
Ameera seemed to absorb her words with lethal focus. “You’re not going just the two of you—we’re not even going as just the three of us. We’re stronger as a pack.”
Kai stiffened beneath Isla’s touch. “No. No one else. I don’t even want to risk you in there. You could get—”
“Stop,” Ameera snapped, making Isla jump as the general bared her teeth. Even Kai looked taken aback. “Just stop. No more, ‘no one else is getting hurt.’ No more doing things on your own.”
She rose to her feet and squared herself before him. Kai straightened, too, but he didn’t stand. Isla saw it then, the two forces that they were.
“If you want me to be your beta, let me have your back. Let Rhydian, Jonah, and Davina. Let anyone else who fucking wants to,” Ameera seethed, her words holding the weight of months, of years.
“You are our alpha, and more importantly, you are our friend. Our family. If I die protecting you, so be it. I know what I’m getting into, and it’s my choice. ”
Isla’s hand remained on Kai’s leg. She swore she could hear his heartbeat, could feel the guilt that contracted and released with each pulse. Her own shame coiled in her belly. She and her mate were two sides of the same coin.
Kai’s eyes burned into Ameera’s as if reading her thoughts and emotions, but Isla didn’t feel that power rising from him.
Eventually, he sighed. “Okay.”
Ameera nodded, not showing any mirth or sign of triumph at his reconciliation. “I’ll see if I can get to a phone. Then I’ll call Jonah and get him to relay the message.”
Kai’s jaw tensed as he clenched and released his fists.
Isla could see the thoughts, the fear pelting him.
“Tell him to bring only those we trust, and that we need his maps and food. We’ll convene at the house in the wasteland.
The three of us will go there right from here…
I need Sol, too. Get him to come so I can talk to him.
He’ll be in charge while we’re gone. Depending on how far the Pack Hall is from our entry point, it could be days. ”
It was the Hunt all over again.
Ameera nodded, a warrior and a general to her king, before turning to leave the room.
When she’d shut the door behind her, leaving Isla and Kai alone, Isla rose to carefully close the box with the creature’s head and stow it in the corner of the room.
Back at Kai’s side, she slid in close and kissed him once on his neck, on the mark she’d left there. His eyes were haunted, likely clouded by visions of a grim future, a horrendous fate beyond the Wall.
When she leaned her head on his shoulder, he slid his arm around her waist, tugging her close and resting his head on hers. Then he sighed—a tired, defeated, and determined sound. “This needs to be over.”
Though she’d been thrilled to see him, Isla couldn’t help but wonder if Kai’s sudden presence would undermine her in Alpha Verena’s eyes.
The meeting with her to find out the true intentions of her invitation didn’t take place in her office; instead, the alpha, Isla, Kai, and Ameera traveled through a winding tunnel system until they reached the dungeons and catacombs beneath the hall.
Isla may have clung to Kai a bit tighter than she would’ve liked, but found some joy at the thought of being able to rub it in Adrien’s face that she beat him to discovering this pack’s secret tunnels.
Unlike Deimos, there were no crystals to light their path as their steps echoed across the stone.
Instead, torches cast menacing shadows around them, and Isla blinked every so often when she found herself instinctively seeking her wolf within them, even though she felt it tucked away safely inside her.
She timed her pace with the thudding of the creature’s head against the side of its box that Ameera held.
They’d shown Verena and Theon in the alpha’s office, and upon seeing it, they’d paled and said they needed to show them something. So, Theon had taken over any other obligations for the morning, while Verena had rushed them down here.
When they came to a halt before a solid iron door—which Isla knew from the way her wolf, now laced with fae magic, recoiled—Verena placed her hand atop it.
“On the night of the Equinox, this was caught in Ciryn. It slaughtered several of my citizens, destroyed their homes, and killed my guards before it could be subdued.”
Fear struck Isla’s heart, and it only faded to confusion when they all stepped inside and beheld what lay upon a metal worktable, illuminated by more torchlight. A creature just like the one that attacked them last night. This one was similarly missing its head, now perched on a separate table.
It had also been carved open.
Every organ, its oddly shaped heart and lungs, eyes, tongue, and every other part that Isla had trouble identifying, had been stored in different glass jars perched on various rusted iron shelves. Even its blood—a pearly goo that seemed to shimmer in the fire’s glow—had been collected.
“There were two of them?” Ameera asked, dropping the creature’s boxed head onto one of the few unoccupied spaces, disgust crossing her face.
“Clearly.” Verena, despite her typically settled appearance, seemed wracked with distress. “And now I fear more may have slipped through.”
Isla tried to calm her racing heart. “Slipped through what?”
Kai, his eyes haunted and distant, knew the answer with stunning quickness. “The veil.” His gaze trailed over the vats of tissue and blood before he met Verena’s eyes. “This is fae, isn’t it?”
“That’s our theory, yes,” she said, terror trickling into her voice as it beat through Isla’s chest. “Other than being unlike anything I or any of our Elders have ever seen, it was only harmed by iron, though it was the beheading that killed it. One of my advisors believes that the aurora on the night of the Equinox was a consequence of a tear between worlds.”
Isla’s mind reeled back to that night, recalling how it felt as if the world had broken, had cleaved open.
“The aurora happened here, too?” Ameera asked, eyes wide at the monsters on the table. Verena nodded. “And the storms?”
Verena glided languidly around the table, pulling out a pad of notes with scribbles, diagrams, and drawings of the creature to study herself.
“She believes those are connected as well. If the veil is being tampered with, or the fae, or anyone, have been trying to break through it, then the storms could be manifestations of that chaos.”
Isla’s head spun as she stared at the murky green, desecrated corpse, the creature’s words replaying in her mind.
Is it you whom I seek, mortal?
The bridge, the cursed one, the answer, the key. Which are you, golden one?
Isla shook her head, glancing at Kai, who’d gone silent, tumbling away into his own thoughts.
She asked Verena, watching her study the monster intently, “You didn’t invite us here to speak of rebellions or war, did you? You wanted to talk about this.”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” Verena answered, earning stares of perplexity from them all.
She flipped a page of the notes. “There have been wars of many kinds in our history. It’s an inevitable sickness.
Wars amongst wolves, wars between continents…
wars between realms.” Isla felt her heart stutter as she lifted her gaze to the immortal body draped across the table.
“I fear that in our strife, our rebellions, and our battles, we may be blinding ourselves to an even greater threat, and our division will be our downfall.”
As her words sunk in for them all, the only sound was the low hiss of torch fire.
Verena slipped a hand into the pocket of her coat, withdrawing a folded piece of correspondence. Isla raised her brows at the parchment, thick and marked with a familiar Imperial seal.
“This came this morning,” the alpha said quietly, unfolding it. “From Imperial Alpha Cassius.”
Isla’s stomach tightened.
Verena scanned it once more before lifting it to show them. “He’s calling for a summit in Io—all alphas, lunas, and betas. The subject is pressing matters—regarding an external threat. I’m sure yours is waiting for you when you return home.”
External?
Isla’s eyes slid to Kai, who stood rigid beside her, jaw set, his gaze fixed not on the letter but on the dissected creature sprawled before them.
She knew he was thinking as she was, that the summit was less about unity and more about him—about Deimos, about the power he carried, about what Cassius already knew.
Io… she’d be returning to Io.
Though she couldn’t dawdle much on the thought—on any fear regarding seeing her father or excitement about seeing Adrien—because she was too focused on Kai, still deep in thought.
He finally broke his focus to ask, “When?”
“Five days.” Verena refolded the parchment and tucked it away.
“I won’t pretend Cassius doesn’t plan three moves ahead, or that he’s not cautious of what may be occurring here in the south.
I will go prepared. If he has anything peculiar in mind, I intend to see it coming.
” She leveled her stare with Kai’s, unspoken words lurking in her gaze. “If you strike, we stand by you.”
Isla’s brows lifted. If we strike?
Kai’s features remained set as he nodded, his next words dark and chillingly sincere. “If Cassius tries anything, I’ll kill him where he stands.”