Chapter 48
ISLA
Isla had never imagined she’d have to enter the Wilds again. And yet, here she was, with her family at her back, and her mate’s hand occasionally brushing hers. Finally able to touch him. So different from the way things had once been. Everything was so, so different.
She was no longer a Warrior of Io.
They’d been traveling for almost a day, sensing that night approached beyond the dense canopy.
Isla remembered well the disdain of not knowing the minute, the hour, or the day here—the Wilds’ endless gray.
Thankfully, the map of the tunnels—the path her mother had given them through the markers—had been right.
She’d consider it a blessing from the Goddess if it hadn’t felt like something much worse was coming.
It took everything to maintain her steel will and composure. Panic was an ever-present knot in her throat, and every now and then, magic would tingle along her skin. She still didn’t know how to wrap her mind around it.
She had magic.
And it wasn’t the magic of witches; Raana’s shadows were immortal in nature. This power, and how they’d wielded it, had been part of the reason fae were viewed as heinous and cruel. So horrible that many had sacrificed their lives to lock them out forever.
Isla glanced down at her hand, narrowing her eyes as if to will darkness to her fingertips, but nothing came. The shadows must’ve only been within her wolf.
At her side, Kai suddenly flinched. She twisted to look at him as he rolled his shoulders.
The two of them led their unit as Sebastian and Ameera took the rear, while Rhydian and Magnus, their honorary warriors, stayed protected in the middle.
Kai had promised them that if they both made it out alive, he’d tattoo a warrior’s crescent on them himself.
“Are you okay?” she asked, feeling the gentle brush of his aura against her as he cast his senses out, clearly needing an outlet.
He, like the other wolves, had been alternating between his shifted and human form to conserve energy, while Isla alternated between getting on and off his wolf’s back, keeping her shadow wolf in her back pocket for now.
Kai took a breath, and her eyes dragged over the scars beneath his guard’s uniform. “It feels different here.”
“Different?” she echoed. “Like worse?”
“Like different.” He cast his eyes around them, checking the forest. “Or maybe it’s just me.”
“Your senses,” Isla suggested before lowering her voice. “You didn’t take the bane, so—”
“So, this thing is mad at me for trying to suppress it.”
Isla felt a chill and nodded in consideration. “You, uh, speak like it’s something else entirely.” And she remembered the night of the Equinox, when he’d transformed into something else right in front of her.
“It feels that way.” Kai’s throat bobbed, darkness and uncertainty passing over his face as though he was becoming uncomfortable in his own skin again. “There’s so much to feel out here. I don’t know. I’m just on edge.”
She was, too, but it didn’t hurt to attempt to be a grounding force. She took his hand in hers and tugged him down into a kiss.
“Goddess above, can you two give it a break up there?”
Isla whipped around to where Sebastian had called from his position. She flipped him off.
“Were you even in the Hunt?” Ameera chastised him. “Keep your voice down.”
“They’ve killed a million bak between them,” Rhydian drawled back at her brother. “If they want to make out in the cursed woods, let them. Everyone has their thing.”
Isla scoffed, unable to deny appreciating the tactic, bringing some light in so much darkness.
“It’s unsettlingly quiet,” Magnus commented through a cough, still getting used to the Wilds’ atmosphere, the suffocating magic.
Isla would admit she’d been impressed by him so far; his years of training had prepared him well.
She could imagine his frustration, being denied year after year when he’d deserved to enter the Hunt and become a warrior.
“The Hunt took me nearly a week, I think. The whole purpose is to hunt the bak; they usually keep to themselves,” Isla said, pulling out the map. At least, they used to. “It’s only been a day, and we’re making good time. We should reach the hall soon.”
“Or now,” Kai said, and everyone followed his eyes to where he’d been gazing beyond.
He must’ve sensed it first because it took a few more paces before Isla finally saw it. The cracked spires, the shattered window, and the rubble. The corpse of Phobos’s Pack Hall. Isla’s blood iced, and she felt her wolf try to rise.
The hall, the crown, and the heart of this territory seemed to pulse with the deepest, darkest magic. Perhaps that was why so few hunters had ever glimpsed it, having been so repulsed by its energy.
It was exactly as Isla had dreamed it.
Kai’s steps stuttered, and Isla braced him. Before she could ask what was wrong, the hall’s great double doors creaked open.
They all halted.
Shifted.
All but Isla, who drew her sword and called her wolf forward enough that her eyes and lumerosi glowed. Raana’s magic—her magic—ghosted across her fingertips.
But she had no control over it and had to leash it, saving it for use only as a last resort. She couldn’t risk becoming as depleted as she had been on the beach this deep into the Wilds.
Keeping her wolf composed became a feat, though, when a familiar figure crested the staircase of the Pack Hall. Even at this distance, Isla knew the witch. Her anger boiled, and her wolf’s howls for blood nearly sent her charging forward.
They needed to be smart about this. The witch knew this territory better than any of them.
Isla took quick stock of what lay around them. Where was her army of rogues and monsters? Where was Raana? Where was Callan?
“The Alpha and Luna of Deimos,” the witch trilled in that sickeningly melodic tone.
She appeared more haggard than when Isla had last seen her.
Sallow skin, brittle hair, and sunken cheeks, as if the life had been sucked from her.
The scar Isla had left was an angry pink over her features. “I meet you together, at last.”
Isla felt a presence at her left. Sebastian stepped forward, his wolf towering over her, a snarl across his maw, and murder flaring in his eyes.
“Wait,” she commanded her brother through gritted teeth, but she felt like she’d already lost him. Their mother had been tortured and forced to work for this witch against her will for a decade. Had been forced to commit the highest treason—the reason she may never be able to come home to them.
Ice cascaded over Isla’s body, but she willed herself to calm. Not now.
“Is that your brother?” the witch called across the palace courtyard. “How fun it would be to have a matching set. It’s been so long now, but I do remember your mother rambling about wanting to see you two again.”
Sebastian exploded.
Isla had no time to lunge for him as he darted across the clearing, fury powering his swift strides. Fury blinded him as a bak appeared.
In one powerful swing of a claw-tipped paw, Sebastian went flying backwards.
He landed a few yards away, his wolf letting out a whimper.
Not a death blow.
Not a death blow.
Isla hadn’t realized she’d been running for him, that they all had. Hadn’t realized she’d lost her hold on her magic. Shadow rippled from her body, threatening to take form. When they’d all surrounded her brother, shielding their pack member, her darkness swept across their feet.
No one would die. They were all making it out of here alive.
Attack. Defend.
They froze as the witch’s battalion, at last, emerged. Three rogues. Seven monsters.
No, eight, nine…
Isla swallowed hard as several more bak poured from the trees and lined up before the hall like soldiers.
How was she this powerful?
“Very interesting,” the witch cooed, and genuine shock seemed to ripple across her face as she took in Isla.
“I see Raana is as careless with her power as she is with her own body. Did you know that there are covens who have settled in the fae ruins of Naerel, hoping the land will gift them power as the immortals once could? As they once did. It’s all a trick, though.
Even a trickle of fae magic is too much for a mortal body to contain.
A seed that blooms into an uncontainable wildflower, destroying you from the inside. ”
Isla bit down on her shock, her fear. She couldn’t care right now.
But beside her, Kai bristled. Isla sensed the bond tug, release, and fade, and she turned her head to find he’d moved a step ahead of them. He leveled his crimson stare across their opposition.
Death incarnate.
She couldn’t let that power sweep him away.
She tugged him back.
Stay with me. Stay focused.
“I didn’t come to listen to you talk.” Isla firmed her grip on her sword. “You’ve already subjected me to enough of that. Where is she? You’re working with her, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “As it turns out, everything about you is true. I suppose I should be thanking you, Luna of Deimos.”
Isla scowled. “Thanking me for what?”
She readied herself as the witch took out a small blade and pressed it to her palm. She cut deep, crimson pooling and pouring onto the cracked Pack Hall stones.
The earth trembled as a rush of wind swept through the forest, kicking up the foliage and sending Isla stumbling into Kai.
Then came the mist, a blend of light and dark, swirling around them, burning her skin. The scent of magic flooded her nose. Magic that fused with her blood, her essence.
A howl of pain rang out from behind her along with the sound of tearing flesh, but Isla had no time to see who’d been attacked.
Nothing could’ve prepared her for the plummet.