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“Have we met before?”
The slurred question came from Isla’s left side.
She glanced up to find a dark-haired man looking her over, his bushy brows raised above glistening drunken green eyes. Decently attractive—perfect for anyotherwoman in this bar to snatch up for the night.
He couldn’t have known who she was. And if he had, then maybe he had a death wish.
Isla forced a polite smile and calmed the thundering of her heart. “Can’t say we have.”
“You’re right. I would’ve remembered.” He took an uninvited seat on the other side of the booth. “Finley.”
A soft laugh spilled from Isla’s mouth as she folded her hands on the table. If Finley was observant, he’d notice the paler patch of her sun-kissed skin where her mating ring sat—and then he would’ve run. “I’ll save you the trouble of having to repeat these lines later tonight.” Isla flipped her hair to the side.
The spot where Kai had sunk his canines into her neck, claiming her as his and his alone, couldn’t be missed. In fact, it had darkened again after he’d marked her a few days ago, a result of Isla’s own sensuous taunts as he took her against the wall of his office.
“You—you’re mated?” Finley’s eyes had widened, and his entire body was rigid. Isla could practically taste his fear as he glanced around, the small beads of sweat on his brow catching the low tavern lights. “Is he, uh…is he here?”
“Lucky for you, he’s outside.” Isla adjusted her hair again, masking the spot.
It wasn’t a lie. Kaiwascurrently hiding amidst the shadows of Abalys. She couldn’t even call him an overprotective bastard about it. If the roles had been reversed, if he’d wanted to go out tonight to scale the seedy rivertown, she would’ve done the same. They were a team now, the two of them.
“Outside.” Finley let out a breath before rising to his feet. “Outside. Uh, have a good night, then.”
Isla lifted her hand in a gentle wave. “Have a good night.”
For a moment, Finley lingered, perplexity coloring his features. Like he recognized her fromsomewherebut couldn’t quite place where. For his own sake, Isla hoped he couldn’t figure it out, only to spare him the mortification of knowing the woman he’d flirted with, who’d turned him down, was not only his future queen but the mate of his alpha.
Given how his nostrils flared, how he stepped back, and the fear became a tangible coat on her tongue, he’d become the wiser. He left her without another word, just the slightest bow of his head.
“Well, then,” Isla muttered to herself, going for her ale again, wishing she could tug at the bond and share her amusement with her other half. But like her wolf, with it, her soul connection to Kai had been wounded. She couldn’t feel him anymore. Not in the way she once could.
Back to Eli, she supposed.
Turning her head, Isla sought the general out—but he was gone.No. Not gone.Leaving.
Isla stood too fast to be subtle, catching the eyes of several surrounding patrons, but she didn’t care. The general moved towards the exit with his hand pressed to the woman’s lower back as they weaved through bodies to the door. Isla reached into her cloak, brushing the hilt of the dagger strapped to her hip as she went for the money in her pocket. The coins clanging on the wooden table were her farewell as she followed them.
Humidity and a rolling, briny mist greeted her when she stepped onto Abalys’s wooden streets. Her fingers went to the clasp of her cloak, loosening it before she put up her hair and threw on her hood. It was one of the warmest summer nights she’d faced since she’d come to Deimos. Though still nothing like the heat she’d grown up amidst in the north of Morai, in Io.
Eli was several yards away now, moving quicker than expected along the winding canal’s edge, heading towards one of the many bridges that crossed the spidery, golden-aura-speckled waterways. Isla hung back, pressing into the shadows, counting her heartbeats. And then, tapping into a warrior’s grace, a predator’s instinct she’d honed to use even if she was as good as merely human for now, she followed them.
Unlike Deimos’s royal city of Mavec, where nightlife trickled out of the clubs and gambling dens into the crystal-laden cobblestone squares brimming with music and life, many of Abalys’s frequenters remained inside, their liveliness nothing but a muffled rumble across the air. There were still a few loiterers she passed who offered leery glances her way, and to that, she responded with a flash of the weapon attached to her side. Nods of respect were given in return.
It was strange how this town worked. Even stranger how much her mate, beingroyal-born, was so fond of it.
When Eli and the woman slowed to a stop in front of a three-story apartment building, Isla fell back into a darkened alleyway as she canvased and cleared the space. She pressed her fingers into the cool brick of the building beside her and peered around its corner.
As the woman appeared to go for something in her bag, Eli shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced around. And for a moment, Isla swore she glimpsed the poise of a warrior general—ready and at attention, not the bumbling drunkard she’d seen at the bar.
Hehadbecome inebriated unsettlingly fast…
There was a sudden warmth at her back, and for a moment, Isla tensed, her fingers twitching to draw claws that would not emerge—a time-stealing reflex that could lead to death in the wrong situation—before they went for the hilt of her knife.
But a steady touch kneaded into her muscles, feeling that tension, her nerves, her fear. Then she felt Kai brush back her hood to press a kiss to her neck in a silent apology for sneaking up on her.
Isla relaxed against him, breathing and relishing in the feel of his body against her and the subtle things. His scent. The softness of his beard, his curls over her skin as he dipped his head. How gentle he was with her when everything about him was so…hard, steady, stable.
Not a rogue. Not a witch. Not a monster. And yet still, she was…disappointed.
