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He cut off the destructive thought and swallowed, his eyes meeting Isla’s, who gave a soft smile.
They were going to be okay.
Kai leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “If it becomes you or them, you’re the one walking out. We try saving who we can—if there’s even a chance of saving them.” He broke down the plan again. “We go in there, we make it to the Pack Hall, we find our answers—”
How ever they’d do that.
“We kill the bitch—”
How ever they’d dothat.
“And then we all come home, alive and safe.” His stare slipped to Davina’s, who’d been nodding, crying. Then across everyone else. Everyone who’d been trying to get him to let them in for far too long. “No one’s dying on me.” He nearly choked on the words.
A smile slid across Ameera’s mouth as she smugly agreed, “Yes, Alpha.”
An echo of the words followed, a lightness between them all before they entered an eternal dark.
Sebastian suddenly jumped to his feet, shaking out his shoulders in antsy anticipation. “Let’s get this over with.” Kai knew he was powered by the opportunity to slay the witch. “To hell we go.”
To hell, indeed.
CHAPTER40
ISLA
Isla had never imagined she’d have to enter the Wilds again. And yet, here she was, with her family at her back. Here she was, with her mate’s hand occasionally brushing hers, finally able totouch him. So different from the way things had once been. Everything was so,sodifferent…Isla, no longer the Warrior of Io.
They’d been traveling around a day now as they sensed night approaching yet again beyond the trees’ canopies. 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 had been right, at least the path her mother had given them. She’d consider it a blessing from the Goddess if they hadn’t ended uphere.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 pinprick along her skin. She still didn’t know how to wrap her mind around it—magic. Shehad magic. And it wasn’t the magic of witches; Raana’s shadows wereimmortalin nature. This power, and how they’d wielded it, had been a reason fae were viewed as heinous and cruel as they were. So horrible that those of the past had sacrificed their lives to lock them out forever.
But Raana, though onlypartfae, didn’t seem so bad. Adrien certainly couldn’t get over her. But, although Isla would admit she owed Raana her life, she hoped she was with the witch at the Pack Hall so she could scream at her for giving this to her, and then hopefully get some answers. Some guidance on how to control it—or how to get rid of it.
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 lived within her wolf.
At her side, Kai suddenly flinched, and she twisted to look at him as he rolled his shoulders. The two of them led their unit while Sebastian and Ameera held the rear, and Rhydian and Magnus, theirhonorary warriors, stayed protected in the middle. Kai had incentivized them that if they both made it out alive, he’d tattoo a 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, as all of the other wolves, had been alternating between his shifted and human form to save energy, while Isla, her sword as her weapon—as well as her shadow wolf in her back pocket—alternated getting on and off his wolf’s back.
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?”
“Likedifferent.” 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, thisthingis 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 feeling that, the night of the Equinox, like he’d been transformed into something else when he was right in front of her.
Kai’s throat bobbed. “It feels that way.” Darkness and uncertainty passed over his face as though he was becoming uncomfortable within 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 try being a grounding force. She took his hand in hers and tugged him down to kiss him.
“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.
