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PROLOGUE
KAI
Kai couldn’t sleep.
His skin was covered in Isla’s dried tears. In the crook of his neck, his shoulder, on his chest.She’d woken a couple of hours ago, panting, trembling, and shooting up to search their bedroom to discern where she was as she tried to grasp reality again.For weeks, these nightmares had chased her, ever since his challenge to remain alpha against Brax. Since he’d been in that arena, away from her, while the witch that had stolen her away poisoned her, tortured her.
He still felt the cold of her skin that day against his sometimes. Like that moment he’d found her, with her features pallor, breathing shallow, teetering on the edge of death, was forever an imprint on his mind, his bones, his soul. When the memories emerged, he did his best to banish them, to calm his rage. Especially while she was clinging to him, sobbing and wordless but for apologies.
Apologies.
To think she would apologizeto him. For waking him, for breaking down. When, really,hewas the one who should’ve been apologizing toher. He should’ve been there. He should’ve protected her.
Kai allowed the smoothness of her slumbered breathing to ease his own as he stared up at their ceiling.
Hismate.Soul-bound. Eternal.
His mate—he had her now…and he let this happen.
That dark, destructive, and twistedly intoxicating power of his dug at him now, and as horrible as it was, he was thankful for his and Isla’s weakened bond so she wouldn’t be roused by this chaos he felt inside. It was something beyond his wolf, beyond the shifting. Another entity, but still him.
He winced as his head throbbed—just as it had in as many nights as her nightmares—and his mind became a mess of shadows and…blood. All that part of him wanted was blood, not of the witch who’d killed his family, though that day would come, but of Imperial Alpha Cassius.
He was a coward. A goddess-damn coward.
Every vengeful, wicked part of him—the part that terrified him—was ready to scale the territory and kill the Imperial Alpha with his bare hands. Every part wanted to tear him and everything he loved to ruin. To make him feel and experience every horrendous thing he had, that his family had, that his people had.
Isla’s breath caught, and Kai tensed.
He looked her over as she wedged further into his side, taking over more of his share of the bed, but Kai didn’t care. For all the nights of hollowness he’d felt glancing over at an empty pillow, she could have as much of this bed, of him, as she wanted.Despite the movement, Isla’s features remained neutral—and beautiful, always beautiful—and finally, she relaxed again.
And as if in answer, that power within him did, too.
PARTI
A QUEEN’S DAWN
CHAPTER1
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 at 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—within forty-eight hours, in fact—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 a hold of her mug of ale, the glass slippery 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 after another having a steep effect, so much so 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, howling a great 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 from the ruckus, 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 enough, nudging back at her inner reach as if accepting the care.
Isla sighed, not in disappointment but in relief, in gratitude. At least it was there.
