Page 143 of A Warrior's Fate

Callan countered her question with another. One she hadn’t been expecting.

“How long have you been fucking the alpha?”

Isla started. The query shouldn’t have made her as uneasy or feel as exposed as it did.

“Did you think I hadn’t noticed you sneaking around since the day we got in? Or that I wouldn’t hear him in your room last night?”

Isla forced her face to remain neutral, even if every muscle in her body had tensed. The sheer invasiveness Callan’s words alluded to seemed to edge out any aggravation at herself for being so careless in her actions, or for being so naïve to think no one would notice.

“Are you stalking me?” she bit out, her pulse thrumming violently in her ears. Even if Callan’s assumptions were incorrect—sleeping together was the only thing she and Kai hadn’t done—for some reason, it felt better than him believing the alternative.

“No,” Callan said, his laugh bitter. Not jealous but sore. Over what, she wasn’t sure. He was mated. He couldn’t have still felt some ridiculous claim over her somehow? “I was told to look out for you. To make sure you didn’t get into any trouble.”

Isla furrowed her brows. “By who?”

“The Imperial Alpha. Your father,” Callan rattled, mirroring her by crossing his own arms. “It seems their assumptions that you’d make a mockery of yourself—out of us—were warranted. I don’t know why the general would make such a bid for you. Put his reputation on the line bringing you here. Regardless of breeding and bloodlines and getting into our pack, I’d want a better mate than someone so ready to whore herself out.”

Isla could barely mask her disgust, but she couldn’t let him see that the words stung. Not the unnecessary and hateful jab at the fact she wasn’t the pinnacle of purity—which had told her part of this confrontation was that Callan felt he still held something on her—but the supposed fact her father thought of her so low…

Alpha Cassius having those sentiments, she’d believe, with all the resentment she still held towards him since that day he’d lied to her about Lukas. But her dad…a mockery of herself, of the pack, her family? It couldn’t have been true.

“How long has it been?” Callan asked before she could retort his worthless comment. “Did you somehow keep in contact after the Hunt, or the moment we arrived, you were ready to open your legs for him?”

She’d nearly stepped forward to slap him, a scowl on her face, but her features faltered when she felt it. Felt him. Kai, through the bond. No scent. No alpha’s aura. He was here, close, amongst the brush, hidden. Watching. Ready to strike if Callan tried anything funny.

Isla wondered if he’d also picked up on the eagerness in Callan’s questions. A little bit of desperation behind them.

The answers she gave were important. Not just for him and that ridiculous inkling of possessiveness, but for something greater. Someone.

Isla found her fingers curling into fists.

She was being used as bait yet again. Not by Kai this time, but for Kai.

Her aggravation leaked into her voice as she spat, “My personal choices, especially who I sleep with, are no one’s business but my own.”

“Not when they reflect on the pack.”

“I’m not the pack.”

“Here, that’s all we are,” Callan said as he moved close enough that Isla had to crane her head. “You don’t feel it every time we walk through this base? How these people look at us.”

Isla bit down on the inside of her cheek, thinking beyond the base. Thinking of the banquet, of the call center, of the whispers and glares that trailed her like a bad smell. From the people she was destined to lead.

Her chest tightened. “They hate us.”

“Because they want to be us.”

“Only because they don’t realize we’re no different than them.” She bared her teeth, feeling something cruel rise in her, and stepped in closer. Her next words were drawn out, cutting like knives. “And that the biggest difference to being a part of our pack is obligatory blind loyalty and the raging, unearned superiority complex of most of its members. You being a prime example.”

Callan’s stare was blazing and dangerous, but he remained quiet. He would continue to, even if it killed him. He wanted her to keep talking. She wasn’t sure what he was expecting her to know or what he was hoping to find out, but if he wanted something to report back to whoever, she’d give it to him.

“I bet Alpha Cassius didn’t even tell you why you’re supposed to watch me. Why he doesn’t trust me. It has nothing to do with me fucking the Alpha of Deimos—but if you did want to add that joke to your report, please, go ahead…do you know what really went on behind the Wall during the Hunt?” She caught the way Callan clenched and unclenched his fists, the confusion flashing in his eyes. “Do you want to know why I had to kill so many bak? Why—”

Isla stopped when the sound of rustling leaves came from behind her, and both she and Callan whipped around as Kai emerged from the brush. His wolf loomed large in front of them; his shadow-black fur gilded by the sun and crimson glower honed on them as he stalked closer. A few seconds later, he was himself again, and Isla noticed the faintest smears of dark blood over his body—his neck, hands, chest, and jaw.

Callan had taken a step away from her, his head lowered. Regardless of what pack they led, all alphas commanded the same respect.

There was an intimidating and regal air to Kai as he moved towards them, and somehow, the coolness he conveyed was more threatening than any snarl or outright warning. “What are you two doing so far from the main campus?”

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