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Kai nodded, fighting his urge to ask what she was leaning towards—a yes or no. “Very well.” When Ameera began descending the dais to leave Kai and Isla alone, as if sensing they needed to talk, Kai blurted, “We’re going to visit your father tonight.” Ameera halted, wincing as if he’d struck her. She still hadn’t turned when he supplemented, “There are some questions we have for him. Do you want to come with us?”
Maybe he was asking for selfish reasons. If Ezekiel saw his daughter, if she pleaded with him, he may have felt more willing to confess. Kai wouldn’t have to push those extra steps and risk anything.
Ameera spun, finally, and the shades of emotion in her eyes were nearly impossible to decipher. Beats of time went by, and for a moment, Kai thought she’d agree. “No.” Her tone was hollow, and she twisted away. “Don’t mention me becoming beta to him,” was the last thing she added before leaving the room, closing the grand double doors of the chamber behind her.
Isla’s eyes had been fixed on where she’d disappeared. A few silent breaths passed before she said, “She wants to see him, but she’s afraid she’ll say something that she’ll regret and ruin everything between them.”
Kai studied her. “How do you know?”
“Because I do.”
Kai pursed his lips, seeing that mask now obliterated from her face. He wasn’t sure if it would be best to bring up her own father now or try to distract her from it. “You handled that beautifully, by the way. I thought Afalin was about to soil himself.”
A small distraction seemed to work; the corner of her lips ticked up slightly when she drew her attention back to him. “He wasn’t entirely wrong, though. Iamvery new.”
“And you weren’t wrong either. You’ve done everything you could to prepare yourself.”
Isla leaned back, her eyes gazing up at the council room’s ceiling. A scowl slipped across her features as she observed what was painted there, what had been painted long, long ago. As they had been in the throne room, the three goddesses loomed over the council chamber.
“Always watching,” Isla mused darkly.
Kai laid back, too, casting his eyes over the three women that seemed to hold their existence in their hands. “Yes, they are.”
CHAPTER21
ADRIEN
Shadows danced over the steel entrance of the High Ground, courtesy of the roaring pyres lining either side of the imposing stone pathway. Two guards, clad in armor that bled into the night’s darkness, stood at either side. Not rigid and at attention, but joking with each other as if the mountain castle-like prison stretching its talons up through the peaks didn’t hold some of the most notorious and vicious criminals that had ever walked Morai.
Lying flat on his stomach on the rust-colored rock, elbows nudging him through the plumes of stone dust, Adrien crept closer to the edge of his shadowed hideaway, ensuring his scent was masked.Sweat dripped down his brow, courtesy of the humid night and exertion of the summit.
Yes, he was the Goddess-damn Prince—still, for now, thankfully, he hadn’t seen his father once since he’d returned to Io. And yes, he should’ve been above sneaking around his own kingdom, but he couldn’t risk Cassius knowing he was here. Whatever meeting the Imperial Alpha was holding must’ve been vital and too dangerous to expose if he was having it within the prison’s confines, away from the hall that was typically swarmed by gossips or filled with other officials and pack members.
He wasn’t sure what would’ve been worse, coming home to his father’s reaming or what he actually got—absolute silence. As if Adrien didn’t matter or exist…as if he’d given up on him.
So, Adrien had called in a favor. Now, he had to hope Park, one of the Imperial Guards he watched on patrol now, honored his word.
He ducked as the watchtower light swooped nearby, grazing but never hitting this particular crevice. It never would, and the stalking guards would never reach it, either. He knew this area was too much of a risk for them to survey with its needed climb, where one fumble would send you falling and possibly tumbling off the mountainside. One would need to be desperate to attempt it—it said much about himself—and most in the High Ground had burned every bridge in their lives.
His thumb ran over the pads of his rock-torn and now-healing fingertips, his body still sore from the ascent. He’d known he would be okay, though, since he was exceptionally good at getting into places he shouldn’t be. Either way, it was worth the risk. He couldn’t chance his father leaving him out of anything if he wanted to protect Isla. She and Deimos were most certainly Cassius’s target, and if war was coming, if there had been rebellions, then Eli's death had only stoked the flame—only poked at a sleeping, bloodthirsty giant.
It was two nights later, and Adrien hadn’t been able to shake the image of the general’s corpse from his mind, his body shredded to bits. Not by the claws of a bak but another wolf’s.Thatwas the only minute comfort he had when he remembered Raana’s blood-splattered face. She wouldn’t be capable of something like that—but what had she been doing in Deimos?
On his long drive to Io alone, since Malakai detoured elsewhere himself, he pondered if Raana had been an illusion. But then he remembered the shadow pulling him, the shadow that, even now, settled at the base of his neck on his sweat-slicked back, curled like a cat. Slumbering but alive.
He’d never had his emotions war so heavily as they had in that moment. He’d been relieved and stunned to see her again, but then the body…
That was twice now she’d fled from him, and though it was a logical conclusion, he refused to believe that he’d lost her entirely, that she was working with the witch that most definitely wanted his father’s, and likelyhis own,head on a spike. Butwhy elsewould she be in Deimos, covered in the blood of a dead general, if not to work on the witch’s accord, stirring the wolves into a frenzy?
Not caring for the dirt, he dropped his head to the rock. He should’ve told Isla what he saw, especially after the pain in her eyes as she questioned Malakai. He’d been away from them briefly, yes, but Adrien didn’t believe for a second that the Beta could’ve killed the general. In the short time he’d spoken to Sebastian before his departure, he hadn’t thought so either. He’d give Isla some time to cool off before he talked to her about it.
When Adrien lifted his head, Park pulled out his pocket watch. Adrien glimpsed at the time to see it was an hour to midnight, the time he and Adrien had agreed he’d distract the other guards. The prince peered down at the drop he’d need to make as soundless as possible and then to the rock-reminiscent doorway at the front eastern tower’s side—an escape tunnel that only a few knew about. And his way in.
* * *
Adrien brushed his hands over his newly acquired uniform, eyes trailing over the guard’s laundry room lit softly by a singular dimming lamp on one of the work tables. Conveniently, strategically, the tunnel had fed right into it, hidden behind piles of threadbare linens and blending into the bleeding red stone and metal walls. Thankfully, the guards within the prison wore helmets that shielded their faces, some tactic to seem more intimating and to make the prisoners feel more removed from society.
Brushing off one of the tunnel’s lingering cobwebs, Adrien crept out of the room and into the hall. He needed to move fast; this hall wouldn’t be clear for much longer.
