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Isla nearly jumped out of his hold. “What?”
Olyvia was the alpha estate’s appointed healer. She’d been the one keeping an eye on Isla’s recovery, one of the few who knew the truth of her shifting.
Kai let out a breath. “Somehow, this made me lose control of my wolf. My ability to mind link is how I’m able to get into people’s heads. If I can keep that tempered with bane, maybe I can keep this under control.” His jaw tightened. “I was moments away from using it on your father to get the truth. If I hadn’t been so drained, I might’ve, and I could’ve killed him.”
Despite the heat of the shower, of his body, Isla shivered. Kai frowned.
“But if you take wolfsbane,” she began, “you won’t have your wolf. You won’t be able to shift.”
“I feel like I’m more of a danger with it, withthisthan a liability without it.”
So, he’d clearly already assessed it. Isla found her fingers dancing over his shoulder blades, feeling the etching of his tattoos. “If you think it’s best.”
Kai nodded. “I do. At least until I can figure out how to control it. I can’t have another day like today.”
“Today was a disaster all around.” Isla stepped back and grabbed the shampoo. She poured some into her palm while Kai bent slightly, and she returned the favor, lathering it into his hair. “Even with my nightmare this morning and you jumping out of bed. We were doomed from the start. And then I heard that woman again during the storm.”
Kai wrenched up from her moving hands, her nonchalance, blinking just before he got soap in his eye. “You what?”
Isla waved him off, telling him to get under the current. After he rinsed out the shampoo, she explained, “In my dream, there was music, and in the craziness of the storm, there wasmore musicand her voice. And I may have…felt her touching me. Felt her in my head.”
“Touching you?” Kai asked, flabbergasted while shaking out his hair. “In yourhead?”
Isla flinched away from the flying droplets. “That is what I said, yes.”
She didn’t even need to hear his confusion about why he couldn’t feel it through her; he only groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. Isla couldn’t stop herself from taking the opportunity to appreciate what a finely crafted man he was, with the water glistening off every solid plane of muscle, rivulets trailing down, down, down…
“Are we narcissistic assholes to assume that we’re something…more?” Kai dropped his hands, noting Isla’s gaze snapping back to his face. He smirked, though continued, “Or at this point, is it more than clear that we’re fucking weird?”
“I think the universe has made its point.”
“Wonderful. Glad that’s settled, then.”
Isla had never been so grateful to have his jaded sense of humor back.
Kai suddenly stepped forward, getting close enough that the peaks of her nipples grazed his chest as he placed a hand beneath her chin to tip her head up. He kissed her once. “Happy Coronation Day, Luna.”
Isla’s lip curled. “What a great start to my rule.”
“One for the history books,” Kai bemused, giving her one last peck on her lips. “Come on. We’re going to have a long next few days, and I’m ready for you to hog the bed.”
CHAPTER19
KAI
Forget a long few days; it had been a longnight. Kai didn’t think he’d gotten even an hour of sleep, nor had Isla. It hadn’t been because of nightmares, though. There wasn’t any opportunity for that. Instead, the moment both of their heads hit their pillows, their minds ran away from them.
There was just too much to discuss and figure out, and Rhydian was right: they were stubborn workaholic bastards.
For a little, into the darkness, they spoke of the upcoming conflicts, the other packs, these rebellions that had been growing, and all Eli had said. Then came the contemplations of who’d killed him, what Callan’s bloody shirt meant, and that whoever had him, dead or alive, had been taunting the general.
“It could be the witch,” Isla had whispered from where she’d been sitting cross-legged on their bed, unable to lie down anymore. “Even if she doesn’t have…certain people…doing her dirty work for her anymore, we know she has control over some rogues.”
That would’ve meant the rogues had found a way to slip out of their territory and walked through the packagainwithout being noticed. But if she already had them with her in the Wilds…
Not understanding the full scope of the tunnel system between Deimos and Phobos was going to be a problem, especially if she was hiding behind the Wall. Kai had ordered searches for tunnelopeningsand had those discovered sealed up or guarded, but he hadn’t sent anyone on excursions deep within to truly create a new map. It was too dangerous, especially as there weren’t many trained enough to handle the bak or the effect of the Wilds’ dark magic and brutal atmosphere.
“We’re caught in the middle of two battles,” Isla had said. “She hates Cassius, Cassius hates us, and we’re trying to fend off them both.”
