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She turned her head, unable to see beyond the fiery plume that stretched so tremendously it nearly brushed the high ceilings. It was beautiful, ferocious, and daunting. Gilding the crystals embedded in the walls around them that seemed to quiver with a resonant lunar aura that could’ve only been divine.
“This didn’t happen last time. To my parents or me,” Kai muttered, and Isla met his gaze, a simmering red beneath his irises. Suddenly, his breath caught, his jaw falling unhinged as his eyes drew over her face.
Isla gripped him tighter. “What?”
Kai cupped her cheek, his gaze glossing over as he fought a too-wide grin. The aura of his wolf overpowered her senses, dominating the room, and the mysterious power within him seemed to caress her bones with phantom hands, considering her in a way it never had before.
“Your eyes,” he whispered in wonder, in disbelief.
Isla blinked. “My eyes?”
Kai tilted his head to the side, and Isla followed to where the ivory marble of the altar had been so polished that she could see a blurred version of herself, her eyes illuminated a deep shade of violet.
“Oh, Goddess.” The words fell on a breath, a near-choked sob.
She closed and opened them again. And again. Still, the shade remained.
This was…real.
Tears sprouted too fast, and for a moment, she ignored everything else around her. With her eyes finally alight, her lumerosi burning, she had to see, to know. She tried to shift.
Her back arched, but not from the pain of her wolf taking hold, but from the agony of being dunked in an icy lake, her wolf trapped behind a patch of frigid darkness, like bars of a cage of her own making.
“No,” she panted, her features twisting. “No, please.”
Kai placed his fingers beneath her chin, turning her head to him. “Give it time.” His throat bobbed, and his jaw tightened as she still glowed and burned. “You’re incredible.”
The rasp in his voice, the simplest truth of all this, washed away any disappointment Isla had felt.
She leaned forward, thankful for the altar that shielded them from the crowd, for the fire that still crackled as it began to dwindle. “You’re not alone anymore.” She brought her hand up to his face. “Never again.”
“Never again,” Kai echoed, and the kiss they shared, the small sound she’d made as his lips moved along hers, as his essence dug into her skin, was less than chaste. They weren’t in that throne room anymore. They were somewhere else—somewhere more extraordinary above the world—within themselves, crafted by darkness and cut through by burning light. Eternal, ever-present, and powerful enough to rattle the realms if they wished.
The flames died to a steady smolder by the time they broke from their embrace, and when they rose, Kai offering Isla a hand, the room beheld them with reverence. Maybe even fear.Puzzlement. Even the elders and priestesses looked surprised.
So, blood spawning a bonfire mustn’t have been common at all.
Isla watched the elders at last smother the basin, leaving nothing but their blood and ashes behind. Then Kai’s hand left hers as he stepped back, then up and up to the step just below the dais. Isla remained where she was as a new priestess emerged from the antechamber. The back of her eyes stung as she beheld what lay in her hands. A crown crafted of silver and obsidian gemstones, as magnificent as the one Kai wore, sat on a velvet pillow.
Hers.
The final piece. The last adornment.
Isla bit back against the tears.
The priestess ceased her steps a foot from Isla, bowed to her, and then shifted the curtsy to offer the High Elder the ornament as he stood at Isla’s back.
“May the goddesses take witness,” the High Elder proclaimed. “May the wolves of the north, south, east, and west take witness. May the beings beyond hear this call.” He reached for the crown, holding it firmly between his spiderweb-veined hands, and leveled it above her head. “Isla of Deimos, do you swear to give your life, body, blood, and soul to this kingdom and its people.”
Isla swallowed, her gaze fluttering to the crowd where she found her family. The boys still with those smiles, maybe even glassy-eyed with threatening tears, and her father…
Her spine locked up.
The only way she could describe how he looked was distressed like someone had him pressed against a wall with a knife to his throat. As if he hadn’t truly grasped the reality of this coronation until this oath.
Isla ofDeimos.
Their stares met, held, as they had from the day she was born. As they had throughout her life. With every word of wisdom, every word of affection, every admonishment. They may have fought and disagreed, and she may have felt lost, trapped, and misunderstood, but she never questioned how much he loved her. Never questioned that he always wanted to be her greatest supporter. His fighter, his little warrior. Especially after her mother had…gone away.
