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“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 its large concession box Ameera had stolen to stow it off the island. It peppered the air with the scent of the ocean and death. “You did this much damage 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 was when Ameera had dragged its body back to the ocean, letting it carry away. She’d felt it better to keep the head separate—not knowing if it had some capacity to “put itself back together”—and to also show Alpha Verena what had been washing up on 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 of 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, and she’d left out the magic, but it worked well enough.
“Impressive is one way to put it,” Kai grumbled, dragging a hand through his curls.
Isla simply responded by kissing his cheek.
From where she sat on the chair opposite them, Ameera’s blanched expression had been a mix of perplexity and disturbance. Isla had caught her and Kai up on everything within the past thirty minutes. Each tidbit of information they lacked—Kai on the happenings here in Mimas, and then Ameera learned all else. 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 Wildstonight.”
Isla huffed, slumping back in the seat. Her limbs still felt off-kilter and wobbly, her head foggy from the magic’s use. And yet, even if it drained her…she wanted to pull at her wolf again. Wanted to see it, feel it, and be complete again in whatever way she could.
“I know 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 had been, like we’ve been thinking.” She gestured between herself and Kai. “This could be the final piece we’re missing. This woman can show us. We see it, understand what it is, and learn how we can possibly beat it.” She knew she sounded vague but felt it only further portrayed their desperation for answers.
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. They want us for something. We just have to stop avoiding them and see what it is.”
Ameera shook her head. “This is insane.”
Neither Kai nor Isla denied it.
Kai said, his voice deep and authoritative. “We’ll at least get through breakfast first. See what Verena truly wanted by inviting you here, 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’re not going in entirely blind. 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 for me to die.”
Ameera seemed to absorb her words with lethal focus. “You’re not going as just the two of you, and we’re not going as just the three of us. We should get more people. 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, risking your life by yourself.”
She rose to her feet and squared herself to 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, let Jonah, and Davina. Let anyone else who fucking wants to,” Ameera seethed, her words holding the weight of months, of years behind them. “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, and she swore she could hear his heartbeat, swore she 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 firmly, 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, and he clenched and released his fists. Isla could see the thoughts, the fears pelting him. “Tell him to get who we trust, and that we need his maps and food; we’ll eat before we leave. We shouldn’t bring anything in there with us. We’ll all 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 had been haunted, clouded by visions she was sure of a grim future, where a horrendous fate befell them behind the Wall.
