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“No.” The word ripped from her so viciously she swore the room trembled. Even the lantern in the room’s corner seemed to sputter, sending their shadows writhing. Isla felt something twist inside her, right where her wolf had tugged before, but this time, it wasn’t an outward force but something entirely her.“I’mprotecting you. No one else is getting hurt because of this.”
His bitter laugh chilled her bones. Or maybe it was that cold that always lingered now. “I’m dead in the water anyway, Isla. I’ve said too much, questioned too much. And you don’t test the Hierarchy. After you send the warriors back home, I doubt you’ll ever hear from me again.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth,” he said with the finality of a man who’d come to terms with his own demise. “We’ve had our times of peace, but the continent is tearing. The divide between the packs is getting deeper. Mimas, Tethys, half ofIapetus, my own home is split about the power Io holds.” His voice lowered further, but his tone remained firm. “You are a warrior. Top of your class and one of the smartest fighters I know. I always respected you for that, and I know thatyou knowwar is coming. AndDeimos…” He gestured around them, beside her, as if Kai were there. “Led by the alpha who made history in the Hunt, who practically spat in the Imperial Alpha’s face, and his destined queen that followed him. His queen, a daughter of Imperial blood, awarrior—Fate couldn’t have made it clearer. You found each other now for areason. It’s time for change, and you two will lead it. Or at least be called upon to.”
Isla remained rigid, staring.
She didn’t want to hear more of this but knew…knew she needed to.
But first, she needed to think,breathe.
Could she even truly trust Eli? Was this some kind of setup?
“Mimas, Tethys,” she left out Iapetus, considering, “how do you know any of this?”
“Missions to the southern territories to break up rebel groups.”
Rebel groups?
No, that shouldn’t have been surprising. The Imperial Alpha had always had his opponents. It came with the territory, the power.
“I was on one in Tethys a few years ago,” he continued. “It turns out that this has been brewing for a very long time. To the point that rebels were trained from childhood for the sole purpose of entering the warrior program as a front for easier passage to the north. To infiltrate Ganymede, then Io. It’s why the Imperial Alpha has been so scarce in approving trainees from the southern territories. Cassius knows what’s been happening.”
Magnus. The light-haired guard had tried entering the Hunt for years, denied again and again until he’d given up. Isla had told him there were no other motives behind it, she’d been a prick about it, but…maybe he’d been right. Cassius would’ve never let him through.
Another vicious pull at her wolf so intense Isla keeled over. Her cry was lost in the thunder that boomed so fiercely that the antiques rattled, the lantern nearly sputtering out entirely.
“Isla!” Eli rushed forward to brace her as the thunder rumbled again,again.
Then came the wind strong enough to slam shutters and set rocks, twigs, and who knew what, slamming into the store’s glass windows.
The rush of the onslaught of rain sounded like the breaking of a dam.
“What the hell?” Eli muttered.
But Isla paid no mind to the storm, to him, to the guards who apologized as they entered the store for refuge along with some of the festival-goers outside, drenched like they’d been dunked into a lake.
No because the bond was taut. Pulling,straining.
“Kai,” she murmured under her breath. Something was wrong—very, very wrong.
“Isla!”
Eli called, but she was already moving, weaving through the frantic and confused crowd until she reached the door that the guards had struggled to close against the wind, past Ameera and Davina, who had just missed noticing her.
* * *
Everyone in the city had fled for shelter.Everyone. The streets were barren except for the carcasses of vendor’s stalls, their wares sacrificed to the monumental storm that tore through the city. Barren but for Isla, who cut through rain so vehement it seemed like the sky was shedding its stars, her legs nearly as useless as the branches snapping from nearby trees as she battled through the downpour to find her mate.
She was drenched, her soggy clothes, her hair heavy and fallen from its clip, no better than weights slowing her down. Still, she pushed. Still, she dug for that flickering essence of Kai within her, using that piece of their bond like rope, like a measly thread, to string herself along to wherever he was.
Too thin. Too small. Too distant. Too fuckingdistant.
“Kai!” she shouted into the abyss of sound, battling the howls, the crashing, the rush. She lifted her hand above her eyes, hoping to protect them from the speeding droplets that serrated her arms, legs, and face like shards of ice cutting across her skin.
Further and further away he drew.
