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“All I wanted was you and a fucking bath.” Kai tilted his head back to rest on the wall behind him. Isla had just finished her work on the largest slash marks and observed the one below it. It was shorter, cutting just to the top of his abdomen.
She met his gaze as he repeated, “I’m sorry. I’m sure today’s already been a lot.”
“I feel like this is the most relaxed I’ve been. Probably because you’re home, but…” Isla sighed. “It’s stupid. I would take on three bak; I would stand before that witch and rip out her throat, but for this, putting on that crown—I put on a decent front, but I’m scared. For the coronation, for ruling and being the queen every moment after. I’ll do whatever I can, whatever I must, but I can’t guarantee I’ll do it right.”
“You can’t do it wrong.” Kai reached out a hand and brushed her cheek. She most definitelycould,but she appreciated the sentiment. He added, “I’dbe lying if I said I hadn’t been scared, too, regardless of my bloodline.”
“What made it easier?”
“I met a beautiful woman with a smartass mouth and legs for days.” Isla was beaming and needed to put the thread down as Kai continued, his thumb stroking her cheek. “And everything that had scared me just became challenges. Challenges Iwantedto face. Even without doing anything with our bond, I wanted to become a better man because you were out there. A woman who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. Who loved her family and her home so much that I could see it in her eyes and could hear in the way others spoke about her how much she meant to them. Who loved as fiercely as she would fight for anyone, regardless of who they were. I wanted to feel that on the off chance we found our way back to each other, I deserved to call myself your mate. I wanted to deserve you.” He paused, and his eyes trailed over her once as if in disbelief that she was sitting there. “And all of those things that make me love you so much that I can barely breathe when I look at you are exactly why you will be an unbelievable queen.”
Isla wasn’t sure where she’d thrown the needle as she lunged for Kai, careful of his injury, of the blood, and crashed her lips to his.
That ember within her sparked again, sending heat pounding through her blood as her fingers tangled in his hair, as his hand gripped her hip. There was such a deep fundamentalneedfor him that it was maddening.
“I love you,” she murmured over his mouth, their breathing ragged. “And not that you needed to prove anything to ‘deserve me’, but you have earned every bit of my heart.”
* * *
Once Kai was patched up, Isla let him guide her through the tunnel system to the kitchens and the source of that divine smell. To say the cooks were surprised was an understatement, but they were more than happy to give them the first taste of the beef stew they’d been preparing before they had the rest of the night off for the coronation and holiday.
Bowl in hand, Isla watched as Kai and the cook conversed about cutting techniques before the two of them found a corner of the kitchen to talk.
On her short stool, set before a small wooden table, Isla steeped a piece of bread into the hearty broth, soaking up the symphony of pots and pans around her. “Before we seal up the tunnel, I want to see it, map it, and look for any more markers. I don’t know if you got to talk to Jonah last night, but he figured out the pattern of the symbols on the ones we have, and it looks like if the tunnel connects to us, it’s etched into it. I know we have more pressing, right-in-front-of-us problems, and more just got thrown at us last night, but it’s good to know.”
Kai, now on his third bowl of stew, scraped the bottom with his own tear of bread. “We can go tomorrow night.”
Isla’s brows shot up, her prepared rebuttal for his absolute refusal dead on her tongue. Just yesterday, he didn’t want her walking around rogue territory alone. “You’ll feel better?”
Kai rolled his shoulders. “I already feel better, thanks to you.” Finished with his meal, he leaned back in his seat, a healthy flush finally returned to his face. His eyes slid across the kitchen, the blaze of the oven gilding his irises, his brow pinched.
“What are you thinking?” Isla asked, bringing a chunk of beef to her mouth.
“Too many things.” He fell forward again, resting his elbows on the table. “Did you find anything in your search of the stars?”
“No.” Isla pursed her lips. Now on the topic of the moon, she dropped her spoon, nausea stirring in her gut. “A part of me is hoping this is just some elaborate lie from Cassius to scare us. This is the last thing we needed.”
“Or maybe it’s exactlywhatwe needed and explains why everything’s going to shit.” Isla cocked her head, and at her confusion, Kai elaborated, “If we’re thinking about patterns—five hundred years ago, a cataclysmic, cosmic event sent the mortal realm spiraling.Five hundred years ago, a pack was destroyed like none other has been before, all ties and traces of it erased by,allegedly,the Hierarchy. Cassius is the only one who knows. Maybe his ancestors have always been the only ones who knew, using it to their advantage. Now, the creatures created in that time are acting strange, everything is being covered up again, and the whole world just seems off, and me…”
“You?”
“I have no idea what’s going on with me, but I canfeelsomething wrong. It’s likemy ancestorsare trying to tell me to be careful. To watch out.” Kai’s jaw tightened, and he tapped his finger on the table, thinking, debating.“Aneurin was the final Alpha of Phobos, he was my blood, and he went up against the Hierarchy or tried to, and he was destroyed by the Imperial Alpha. Through awitch.”
Patterns, patterns, patterns.
Isla swallowed, the stew sitting heavily in her stomach. “You think history is repeating, truly repeating, but with here, with us,” she said the words with such carefulness.
“It’s a theory.” Kai’s mouth thinned. “Fate apparently lacks originality.”
Fate alsoapparentlyhated her.
Isla couldn’t stop her fingers from curling into fists. The disdain she’d once had for the deity rearing its head. This all completely tracked with the goddess’s wicked games. Give Isla happiness, give her the man of her dreams, and then force them to save their kingdom from damnation.
The phantom scent of ash lilies tickled her nose, and her hands felt sticky with blood that wasn’t there. Despite the oven’s heat, an unnatural chill settled in her bones as she recalled a battlefield, a war, a dagger over her heart, and a voice.
If you fail, they all fall.
CHAPTER9
