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“Were you even in the Hunt?” Ameera chastised him. “Keep your voice down.”
“They’ve killed a million bak between them,” Rhydian drawled back at her brother. “If they want to make out in the cursed woods, let them. Everyone has their thing.”
Isla scoffed, not able to deny appreciating the tactic, the lightness in so much dark.
“It’s unsettlingly quiet,” Magnus commented through a cough, still getting used to the Wilds’ atmosphere, the suffocating magic. Isla would admit she’d been impressed by him so far. His years of training had prepared him well. She could imagine his frustration, being denied year after year when he’d deserved to enter the Hunt, to become a warrior.
“The Hunt took me nearly a week, I think. The whole purpose is tohuntthe bak; they usually keep to themselves,” Isla said, pulling out the map, thinking,or they used to.“It’s only been a day, and we’re making good time. We should be to the hall soon.”
“Or now,” Kai said, and everyone followed his eyes to where he’d been gazing beyond. He must’ve sensed it first because it took a few more paces before Isla finally saw it. The cracked spires, the shattered window, and the rubble—the corpse of Phobos’s Pack Hall. Isla’s blood iced, and she felt her wolf try to rise. The hall, the crown, and the heart of this territory seemed to pulse with the deepest, darkest magic. Perhaps that was why not many hunters had ever glimpsed it, having been so repulsed by its energy.
It was exactly as Isla had dreamed it.
Kai’s steps stuttered, and Isla braced him. Before she could ask what was wrong as his hand went to his forehead, the hall’s great double doors creaked open.
They all came to a halt; not wasting a moment, they all shifted. All but Isla, who drew her sword and called her wolf forward enough that her eyes and lumerosi glowed. Raana’s magic—hermagic—ghosted across her fingertips. But she had no control, she had to leash it, save it until there was no other way. She couldn’t risk becoming as depleted as she had been on the beach.
But keeping her wolf tempered became a feat when a figure crested the staircase of the Pack Hall. Even from the distance, Isla knew the witch. Her anger boiled, and her wolf’s howls for blood nearly sent her charging forward.
They needed to be smart about this. The witch knew this territory better than any of them. Isla took quick stock of what lay around them. Where was her army of rogues and monsters? Where was Raana? Where was Callan?
“The Alpha and Luna of Deimos,” the witch trilled in that sickeningly melodic tone. She appeared more haggard now than Isla had last seen her. Sallow skin, brittle hair, and sunken cheeks like the life had been sucked from her. The scar Isla had left her was an angry pink over her features. “I meet you together, at last.”
Isla felt a presence beside her. Not Kai on her right, but Sebastian had appeared on her left. His wolf towered over her, a snarl over his maw, murder flaring his eyes.
“Wait,” she commanded through gritted teeth, but she felt like she’d already lost him as he felt the long ten years.Ten yearsher mother had been tortured and forced to work against her will. Had been forced to commit the highest treason. The reason she could never properly come home to them again.
Ice cascaded over Isla’s body, but she forced it to calm.Not now.
“Is that your brother?” the witch called across what must’ve once been the palace courtyard. “How fun it would be to have a matching set. It’s been so long ago now, but I remember your motherramblingabout wanting to see you two again.”
Sebastian exploded.
Isla had no time to lunge for him as he darted across the clearing, malice and slaughter powering his swift strides. Malice and slaughter blinding him as a bak appeared and cut him off. It gave one powerful swing of a claw-tipped paw, and Sebastian went soaring back. He landed a few yards away, his wolf letting out a whimper.
Not a death blow.
Not a death blow.
Isla hadn’t realized she’d been running for him, that they all had. Hadn’t realized she’d lost her hold on her magic. Shadow rippled off her body, threatening to take form. Threatening to carry her away. When they’d all surrounded her brother, shielding the member of their pack, her darkness swept across their feet.
No one was dying. They were all making it out of here alive.
Attack. Defend.
They all stilled again as the witch’s battalion, at last, emerged. Three rogues. Seven monsters. No, eight, nine…
Isla swallowed hard as several more bak poured from the trees, and lined before the hall like soldiers.
How could she be this powerful?
“Veryinteresting,” the witch cooed, and genuine shock seemed to ripple across her face as she took in Isla. “I see Raana is as careless with her power as she is with her own body. Did you know that there are covens who have settled in the fae’s ruins of Naerel, hoping the land will gift them power as the immortals once could. As they once did. It’s all a trick though; even a trickle of faerie magic is too much for a mortal body to contain. A seed that blooms to become an uncontainable wildflower, destroying you from the inside.”
Isla bit down on her shock, her fear. She couldn’t care right now.
But beside her, Kai bristled. Isla sensed the bond tug, release, fade, and she turned her head to find he’d moved a step before them all, stopping himself there. He leveled his crimson stare across their opposition.
Death incarnate.
