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The Alpha of Deimos craned his head against the musky current, glimpsing the starless sky, the silver winks blotted by thick gray storm clouds, as he scented the shift in the weather on the wind.
A storm was coming.
It seemed the world was as off-balance as he had felt these past few days, weeks.Months, really. It had been an endless chaotic cycle of torrential storms amidst periods of blaring sunshine lately. Just this morning, they’d awoken to the barrage of rain before a glare of sunlight greeted them. Though he didn’t mind, and he knew his mate loved it.
Isla walked beside Kai now as they headed east off the boardwalk, away from the winding canals and river towards the stretches of lawless land that bracketed their borders.
Rogue territory.
Kai had to give Eli more credit, apparently. Nearly three hours had passed while he and Isla sat at a corner booth of the new tavern, and the general had not yet emerged from Lysa’s apartment, despite Kai’s predictions. He’d put his money on a half hour, and Isla gloated for the ninety-plus minutes that followed. Sometime in the next few days, he owed her a back massage. Though, with the way those ended, he hadn’t necessarily lost the wager at all.
As their investigation fell more fruitless with every passing, uneventful minute, Isla’s smile faded, and Kai couldn’t have that. So, he proposed a switch in objectives. They’d been out anyway and close to the borders, too. Any hour now, if they hadn’t already, his scouts would be returning from the rogue lands. Hopefully, with some intel about what was occurring within them or the dominions beyond—Charon, in particular.
Cassius had already planted his eyes there, and Kai, despite the laws against it, needed his own.They’d been playing defense passively for far too long, and though he had no plans to launch an attack and incite a war, he needed to be more proactive in protecting his people. He had to pinpoint exactly where the threat was and build their defenses against it.
It didn’t help that there was danger in every direction. On one front, there were Cassius and Locke in Charon, and then there were the rogues slipping into the southeastern territory, a tale as old as time. But they also had a murderous, vendetta-driven witch who somehow was able to control the minds of said rogues and also deadly monsters. Who didn’t want themdead, according to what she’d told Isla, but still had nearly killed them both. The fact they didn’t fully understand her motivations, other than the fact she wanted to kill Cassius—who fuckingdidn’t—probably made her more dangerous than anything.
But Kai didn’t have the resources to trace her true objectives or to track her at all. So, defense was their only option. He’d only recently lifted the curfews and had offered Alpha Verena of Mimas a good sum to get as much nightsweet shipped up the river to them as soon as possible. When the flowers were woven in twine and soaked in salt water, they could be used to protect one against a witch’s magic. It was given to every wolf in Deimos, kept in every home.
“You’re doing it again.”
Kai turned to find Isla’s azure eyes, curious and seeking. “Doing what?”
Her stare scaled down his face, his body, and back up, then around him, as if she detected something rippling off his skin.“I can sense you. Not through the bond, but theother way.”
Kai blinked, and the world gaped before him as he became aware of exactlyhow awarehe’d been of all there was, why the earthy scent of the approaching storm was so potent, and why he could detect the trail of insects working through the dirt a few feet away.
He didn’t exactly knowwhatthis power was, but at its simplest, it heightened his already keen senses, and at its peak…
The image of Brax’s corpse on the arena stones, bleeding out from his ears, eyes, and the scratches he’d gouged into his own skull to claw Kai out of his mind flashed, made what he refused to call magic stir.
Isla’s gentle hand ran over the skin of his cheek, and whatever had been churning became docile, soothed. She’d always been able to do that—quiet the roaring of his thoughts, the roiling of his emotions.
Kai gripped her hand and placed a kiss on her palm. “I’m fine.”
She gave a flat, doubtful look though a smile quirked her lips. Pinching his cheek lightly between her fingers, she spoke softly, “Stay with me, Alpha.”
Stay with her when the darkness threatened to swallow him whole. When the overwhelm threatened to carry him away.
“I’m with you.” He brought their hands down and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tugging her close to his side as they continued to walk. “Warrior.”
Isla sucked in a sharp breath, tucking into his warmth and lacing her fingers through his, where they draped over her shoulder. “For now, at least.”
For now.
He was going to be a fool when he saw her in a crown. Just the thought of her in the adornment, sitting on the throne beside his, the queen she was always meant to be, made him want to drag her into another alleyway and sink to his knees before her.
“You son of a bitch!”
The ringing curse wrenched their attention forward.
Kai immediately recognized the voice, a smirk sliding across his mouth. The expletive had been directed athimquite a few times in that tone.
They scaled a final gentle hill before the landscape opened to the sprawling borders protecting them from the rogue territory. And there, before the network of stone and vines, two forces collided on a patch of drying grass.
Goddess, spare them.
Kai could barely hold in his laugh as Rhydian and Magnus, clad in their guard uniforms, hands locked on each other’s shoulders and biceps, knees bent with snarls on their faces and eyes and lumerosi glowing, tried to knock the other down.
