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And there stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
All who had been sitting, including him, rose to their feet, turning to Isla, who waited at the cusp of the room. The two powerful wolves given the honor of escorting her, one of them Rhydian, yielded into low bows.
Isla was meant to step forward, to continue the path, but she froze, her eyes sweeping the crowd. Her family. She clenched and unclenched her fists before she clasped her hands. She was nervous.
“Isla.”
He didn’t think his call had made it to her, but something surely had. Isla lifted her eyes to his, and any distance between them vanished. They stood upon the broken road they had crafted once before, just a handbreadth away from embracing but enough for a phantom touch.
With a smile threatening his lips, Kai said,“Just focus on me.”
Isla’s head dipped in the slightest nod, then she straightened her spine, knocked her shoulders back, and moved. Her cape trailed her like a sea of stars as she passed each observer, all of them gawking, dropping into bows, and not rising until she was well away.
Perfectly in sync with each of her movements, Kai descended the steps as she climbed.Ask and answer.Beginning and end.Until they met, finally, at the altar’s edge, where he took her soft hand in his.
As the two of them united, the choir ceased, the room, theworldon bated breath.
The High Elder descended from where he had lingered just below Kai on the sixth step and threw out his arms. “Let us begin.”
CHAPTER10
ISLA
Isla had never been to a coronation. She’d never been great at visiting the temples to worship the goddesses either, and during her lumerosi ceremonies, any stories from the Elders were of strength, power, and promise. But she’d never heard so much of thebeginning.
She listened from beside Kai behind the altar as the High Elder, a portly and astute-looking man, told the tale of Selene, theGoddess. A woman who once walked upon the mortal realm as flesh and blood in defiance of the higher deities to live amidst those they’d created. He told of her sisters, Destinare and Aeterna, who soon joined her. But before they were united, amidst the treacherous, uncharted land that was the world of those who would come to pass, Selene had been attacked by a demon from the realm of the damned when all paths between the worlds were open, only to be saved by a wolf in what became known as the Forest of Selene. A location Rhea was able to tout as belonging to them.
As the story was recounted, and the High Elder explained her creation of the wolf shifters as protectors of the mortal world from those of the others, Isla’s eyes trailed over the spectators. They were mostly high-ranking officials and other elders, and then there was her family. Her father sat beside Sebastian, who sat beside Adrien, her brother and best friend failing to keep grins off their faces, while her father…
He wasn’t watching her. His eyes were fixated on her side, on her mate. He trailed across the rest of the throne room, his brow pinched.
Isla felt her wolf rise in a way she hadn’t in a while, in a way that would’ve thrilled her if she wasn’t so uneasy. He was acting so strange—too strange.
She felt the brush of a hand against hers, the interaction hidden behind the solid marble. Both she and Kai did well to not make it obvious, not flinching or paying each other any mind. Though Kai’s pinky twisted around hers as if to say,what?
Isla breathed, her eyes dropping from her father’s roaming ones to the material on the altar as she tiptoed across the bond she’d worked at reforging all morning. But even if she could find a way to communicate with him, she wasn’t sure what she’d say or if she even wanted to acknowledge it.
The Elders began shuffling, and Isla turned her head to watch as a box was brought forth. No more than a hands-breadth in height or width but long enough to expand beyond the chest of the young woman who held it. Given the way her blinks timed with each of her steps and how her hands trembled, she was eager, anxious. The metal-worked body of the box seemed heavy, too.
Slowly, Isla pulled her hand from Kai’s as they, not the story, became the center of attention.
It was almost time.
Heart in her throat, Isla watched as a heavy fabric was lifted from the altar, revealing a golden basin, its shell swiped in intricate details and patterns of dark paint. Inside were two crossed pieces of muddy-colored bark, dried enough that the small limbs must’ve been cut free long ago.
“Wood from the Forest of Selene sprouted from our goddesses’ spilled blood.” She recalled that from Marin’s lessons, as well as the oil in the palm-sized carafe that the High Elder lifted, harvested from the tree’s labors.
Isla counted off her fingers to banish the downward spiral of her following thoughts, briefly contemplating her next moves if this went horribly south. Because this moment, this ritual, would changeeverything.
She hadn’t gone through the Luna Rite—she wouldn’t have survived it without her wolf, even with Kai as an anchor—which meant her wolf’s eyes had not yet shifted from their common blue hue to a queen’s signature amethyst.
If she stood before this crowd and the shift didn’t happen, not only would her mating bond with Kai be called into question, but her inability to shift would be wholly exposed. But there hadn’t been time to wait for any of this, not for her to be able to heal or shift again. They needed their strong, united frontnow,according to everyone around them.
Kai had entirely taken hold of her hand now, stroking his thumb over the back of it as she fought to keep her breathing even. The Elder who held the box undid the latch and slowly pried open the lid.
What the hell?
Isla started, clamping her lips shut to prevent the words from falling out of her mouth. She blinked a few times to make sure what she was seeing was real, giving Kai’s hand a tight squeeze.
