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Unable to shift and having not trained with the guard in years, Jonah wouldn’t be going with them. Neither would Davina. Their small pack consisted of him, Isla, Ameera, Sebastian, Rhydian, and Magnus who Rhydian had also recruited. Notentirelyclued into what was happening, the guard could finally live out his warrior dreams and see what the Hunt was made of. His one job—kill bak and have their back…and tell no one about the pup.
Isla had leveled that threat with glowing violet eyes and an extended dagger while the pup wagged his tail in her arms.
Magnus and Rhydian were the only two who hadn’t gone through the Warrior Rite, and Kai couldn’t deny that it had only bolstered his own unease. Especially when he saw the way Davina clung to Rhydian and the way she’d been shaking. He knew what it felt like to lose a mate—and he hadn’t evenlosther. But any soft request or mention to Rhydian that it was okay for him to stay behind had been met with vehement opposition. By him, byeveryone.
No one else will get hurt,Kai could at least affirm it in his own head.
Kai leaned back against the broken frame of the threadbare chair, destroyed by the bak who’d chased Isla through this house when they’d first discovered it. The bane had entirely left his system now, and given where they were heading, he wasn’t going to risk hindering himself even a tiny amount.
He could really feel it now, the Wilds’ twisted call. His ancestor’s past…what could be his pack’s future if they didn’t figure this out. If that was actually what was happening.
He shook away the idea, his power, almost angry at being suppressed, writhing with his fear. Pulsing with a thought that had nagged him since they’d spoken with Verena.
The storms. The manifestations of chaos.
He could sense one brewing now in time with the roiling within him as if his body had always known what had truly been happening, and he’d just never drawn the connection. How far did these senses of his go?
“This path will likely be your best bet,” Jonah said through an exasperated breath, his finger gliding along the map. “But it’s risky. You need to be sure that this first marker you got is meant to be the opening into the Wilds.”
The first marker. The one that Isla’s mother had left for her and Lukas. A hint. A clue.
She’d supposedly been helping them all along—it was a decent leap.
Isla nodded, stroking the back of the pup’s ears. “I’m eighty percent sure.”
“I’ve been up against worst odds,” Sebastian said from where he’d been with Ameera and Magnus, discussing strategies to handle the bak with some overexaggerated hand motions.
No one else seemed sure they should be roused by the gambling man’s opinion.
Jonah placed his finger somewhere on the map. “Once you’re above ground, potentiallyhere,then you get to the Pack Hall, which is, to my estimation,here,closer to the western coastline, it’ll likely be a one or two-day trip, depending how much you attempt on foot or...” Jonah hesitated, and Kai knew he was about to sayshifted.
“Isla will be on my back,” he said, and her eyes flashed to him. They’d already discussed it between themselves—and she’d already made the cheesy quip about already being “great at riding him.”
Around them, everyone seemed surprised. Not because of some foolish joke rolling through their heads, but because it was unheard of for analphato allow anyone above them, to allow them to use them like that.
But this was Isla.
“I don’t know if we’ve decided this yet,” Sebastian began, adjusting the fabric of the guard uniform they’d given him. “But that witch is there, right? Who gets to kill her?”
Ameera, in her warrior’s garb, folded her arms. “Well, she killedKai’sfamily.”
Kai’s hands clenched and released from fists.
Sebastian’s jaw ticked. “But she took my…” He snapped his mouth closed and ran his tongue over his bottom lip as his eyes flickered to his sibling across the room. “Sister.”
A truth—and it had been more reason for Kai to want to rip the bitch’s heart out.
Unspoken words passed between the three of them who knew the entire truth—he, Isla, and Sebastian—and then came the unspoken agreement. The person who got the revenge would be the one who landed the shot first. No one cared as long as she was dead.
“And what about everyone else we come across?” Rhydian asked. “She has the other witch.” Raana—if she’d turned to the witch’s side. “And then the rogues and we think Callan, too. What do we do about them?”
Silence befell them.
One beat. Two.
“Win the battle,” Kai said, and suddenly, everyone’s eyes were on him intently, seeking something. Looking to him for orders, for guidance.
You are no…
