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“I found it outside the guard base last week. The blood, then, seemed…fresh.”
“Lastweek?” The words cracked from her lips.
“He’s been missing for a while.” Eli clutched the shirt tighter in his fist and explained softly, “About a month ago, he missed training, and when I’d gone to his room that night, his things were still there, but there was some blood, and he was gone. The next day, he didn’t show up again, so I let the High General know immediately. Either he’d deserted…” He shook his head like that had been unbelievable, and if it weren’t for Kai’s threatening of him, Isla agreed that there wouldn’t be much to get Callan to dishonor himself like that, “Or something happened.”
Isla’s eyes fixed on his shirt, drenched in his blood. Part of her wanted to reach out and touch it, to be sure it was real. She’d gone to Callan’s bedroom that night before Eli had. She’d seen the blood on the door, and she’d seen the room in shambles from Callan trying to burn all evidence of him working as the Imperial Alpha’s spy. It was where her mother had given her a piece of the diadem before fleeing.
“I heard from the Imperial Alpha the next day.”
Isla wrenched her eyes back to his. “Cassius?”
Eli sneered at the name, stunning her even more. “He didn’t want me to draw attention to it. He just wanted it to slip under the radar, and if anyone asked, just say Callan got reassigned.” His voice softened in disbelief, and what seemed like pain ripped across his face. “I don’t even think the High General knows what’s truly going on. I had to lie to him, too. I don’t know if Callan was attacked, if he ran away, but the blood in the room, and thenthis.” Eli lifted the shirt. “Someone hurt him. Cassius knows it, too, and now,they’reshoving it in my face. I’ve been looking for him, looking for answers ever since. The other night I went to see a woman who claimed to be some type of mystic, and all she could tell me was that Callan waslost. Of course he’s fucking lost—and she also said I’m in danger. And I…” A bitter laugh. “I might be because I’m not going to let this go. No matter what Cassius or your father may want.”
“My...my father?” Isla’s voice was tight, her fingers trembling.
Any softness and sensitivity in his tone were gone. Now, Eli had become the commander who addressed his warriors. Who addressed leaders. “He won’t listen to me. I tried to tell him yesterday at the gala, and he brushed me aside. I finally got to him now, and he didn’t even care. Told me that if I know what’s good for me, I’ll drop it.”
Isla wasn’t sure if she was still breathing. “He threatened you?”
“As civilly as he could. The calm to the Imperial Alpha’s storm.” The words were acrid. “But I can’t let it go because I swore an oath to the Goddess, whose mark I bear on my spine. I proclaimed a creed. To protect the people of this continent and my men—and women.” He looked pointedly at her. “I don’t work for Imperial Alpha Cassius. I’m not an accomplice in his cover-ups. And I know you no longer serve with us,” his tone eased, “but you still bear that mark, too. You swore the same oath I did. You’re still a warrior.”
The back of Isla’s eyes stung, and her jaw set. “I am,” she whispered into the room that suddenly felt sosilent. Her ragged, recovering breaths rattled in her own skull.
Eli seemed to buckle in relief. “Then help me find him. Dead or alive, wherever he is. He has a mate, a family who are going to want answers.”
Isla’s lip trembled, remembering that family of his who’d doted on her when they’d been together, and she bit down on the fleshhard, tasting the faint metal of her own blood. Nausea stirred her insides as she wholly beheld Eli, the bloodied shirt, and the dirty truths laid bare before her.
It didn’t stop.It wouldn’t stop.The witch. Cassius.
Her mother and Lukas had been lost in this mess. Alpha Kyran and Jaden. Renoir. Sandrine, and Dante. So many lives, and it. Just. Kept. Getting. Worse.
And her father knew…her father probably knew so much.
The calm to the Imperial Alpha’s storm.
Isla braced her hand back against the wooden counter. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe.
And now, they had the dark moon. Now, they had to stop Deimos from being destroyed like Phobos had.
Maybe.Maybe.
“Isla?”
Blinking away the blur of tears, Isla met Eli’s pleading gaze. He was still alive. Still here. He hadn’t been fully swept away by the current of this madness.
“Help me,” he repeated, so soft now it was as if he were speaking to a wounded animal. He stepped towards her. How long ago had it been that she approached him at the feast?
Isla’s tongue felt like sandpaper as her vision shifted to Callan’s bloodied uniform, then her mind flashed to her mother’s face, bruised and beaten, teeth and nails broken, fingers twisted. Captured. Tortured. Lukas desperately clawing for his own memories, lost and scared and confused, bleeding beneath her hands—imprisoned, in Cassius’s clutches right now because he’d—he’d…
“Let it go, General.” Her voice was more steady, more assured than she’d ever thought possible. A queen commander.
Eli nearly stumbled in his shock. “What?”
Isla felt like she swallowed glass. “My father’s right. Don’t go down this road; it won’t go well for you.”
One would’ve thought she’d stabbed him in the heart. Eli took a few breaths to recover before he said with a bit of disgust, “Luna of Deimos, and you’re siding with them.”
Them?
