I doubted we’d ever understand.The idea of running or standing idly by during a fight wasn’t in our nature.Standing from my chair, I lifted her into my arms.“It’s their choice,” I said as I inhaled her scent.
“I was too terrified to live before my Warrior came out,” she said softly against me.“They’re willing to simply die.It angers me, but more than that, it saddens me.There must be a way to fix what happened so long ago.No one is alive from that time, and we must find a way to meet in the middle.”
I had my doubts.The women had another mindset, and they separated from us long ago.They were no longer part of the Shadow Warrior world.They would keep their peaceful ways in a non-peaceful world, dying with their moral integrity intact.The person Marinah had been before she changed still bothered her.She saw herself in these women.If she would have been raised among them, she would most likely be one of them in thought and action.That she had been weak and too terrified to live, haunted her.It would also drag her down if she didn’t shake off her old mantle and realize she was no longer that person.She wasn’t a Shadow Woman.She was Warrior.
“You forget, as human, you gave your life for Che’s.It was the ultimate test, and even as a human, you passed.Your father sheltered you, and as much as I admired the man, he did you an injustice.”
“My mother and father knew what I was,” she said, steel entering the words.“They tried to make sure I never shifted or understood.I can’t shake the past and I carry a lot of anger over what they did.”
I inhaled deeply, her scent calming my beast while I rocked her gently in my arms to comfort us both.“They could never have kept your Warrior hidden.Sooner or later, you would have ignited into the incredible person you are now.”
“The women, my closest ties to the past, will die if I cannot help them.”The sorrow in her voice nearly broke me.
It wasn’t in her nature to simply let them die.If anyone could save the world, it was my queen, but even so, I had to tell her the truth.“It’s their decision.We’re Shadow Warriors, but we still have choices.”I hesitated for a moment.“You know there must be a safe place in this fucked-up world.We could simply walk away and go search for it.”
She lifted her head, her eyes blazing with the spark I needed to see.This was the Queen she was meant to be.“We will never walk away from this fight,” she said, her voice carrying the weight of the entire world in each word.“We will keep the island safe.If my grandmother’s people choose death, so be it.”
I tipped her chin up and lowered my head.Our kiss was brief, just enough to remind me why I loved her so deeply.Right now, we had an island to protect, and Marinah carried the heaviest weight of all.
Chapter Eighteen
Marinah
We were exhausted, and it didn’t matter.King insisted we take the motorbikes out at midnight to tour the island to double-check our defenses.He was doing it to calm my nerves because I had been climbing the walls.He stayed seemingly calm, while his expression resembled granite.I wanted to punch him in the face.
Civilians were hunkered down at the citadel or in the surrounding buildings, filling every imaginable space.It was crowded, but the evacuation itself had gone like clockwork, which meant all our drills and prep work had paid off.Seeing the faces of the women and children as I passed through the endless halls had been hard.It reminded me of the fear and uncertainty I’d lived with after my father died under the Federation’s rule.King had been right.I needed to settle my nerves with more than meditation.
We headed to the southern part of the island where the Federation’s underwater hellhounds made their creepy dance.We took the highway curves at breakneck speed, and exhilaration filled me.Piloting a motorcycle had been another learning curve.After my first crash, where I’d sailed over the handlebars and landed in a heap ten feet away, I’d stopped worrying about injury.Instead, I learned to shift my body with the bike like it was a part of me, and now, I loved every second.
We passed Shadow Warriors stationed in strategic locations along the road, armed with weapons and radios to alert the towers if we read the Federation’s signals wrong and they attacked from this direction.We were fairly certain their soldiers would come straight at the citadel, but we’d planned for every contingency we could think of.
When we reached the southernmost location, we turned the bikes around and headed back the way we came.We stopped where Cabel and his team were doing their gruesome job of beheading the underwater circus.For the strangest reason, it seemed wrong somehow.Maybe it was because they couldn’t fight back, and I wasn’t someone who could kill systematically.Or at least right now I couldn’t.I changed more each day.Who knew what I may or may not do a year from now.
Cabel’s unit had at least fifty watercraft, everything from smaller military boats to repurposed fishing vessels.We couldn’t see far into the distance, but King radioed ahead, and Cabel soon steered his boat to shore.
“Do you need more men?”I asked him.
“We’re good,” he assured me.“We’ll have this location cleared in an hour and move on,” he replied confidently.“We send divers down, attach hooks to their chains, and drag them up so we can behead them from above.The Federation’s been planting hellhounds for months, and we’re only scratching the surface.I promise we’ll make a dent in their plans.”Death gleamed in his eyes.
We left Cabel to his work and headed back toward the citadel.On the way, King veered off the road, and I followed him to one of our favorite spots.He took my hand and led me to the edge of the cliff that overlooked the ocean.The waves splashed against the shore below, and the sounds of the night filled the air, wrapping around me.
I knew this spark of peace was a lie, but I took just a moment to simply be.The Federation was coming.They wanted us dead.They wished to annihilate us for the simple crime of being different.They wanted the human men and women of this island under their control or dead too.
“Waiting is the hard part,” King murmured, breaking the quiet.He circled his arm around me, pulling me close.I leaned my head against his shoulder, inhaling his familiar scent.Ms.Beast rumbled softly in approval, and King’s Beast responded in kind.Sometimes, his Beast appeared like some type of aura, and our beast energy flowed seamlessly between us.It felt too steady, too calm, boring even.I felt most alive when King challenged me.
“What if only one of us survives?”I asked quietly, voicing the fear that gripped my heart.It was the one thing I didn’t want to face, but it had to be said.
King smoothed his hand across my back, his touch calming me even before he answered.“The survivor will continue the fight,” he said gruffly.
I looked up at him and held his gaze.“I can’t lose you.”
His mouth curved into a wicked smile, the scar across his cheek catching the moonlight and making him even more imperfectly wonderful.“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”
“I won’t try, then.”Rising to the tips of my Doc Martens, I kissed him.His savage taste filled something raw and untamed inside me, coaxing out Ms.Beast’s wild side.She purred in response, her primal satisfaction sending electrical pulses through me.The shadowed presence of Nova lingered, waiting just beneath the surface.
When we finally came up for air, I asked, “Do you ever think about what will happen when there’s no one left to fight?”
He tilted his head down, his eyes locking onto mine.“I think there will always be war.It’s the blight of mankind.”
