Page 149 of A Warrior's Fate

“Long,” Isla said. “A lot of time to think.”

“About?”

If she wanted him to have no secrets, she couldn’t either.

“You.” The word made Kai stiffen, and so did the next. “Us.”

“What about us?”

Isla dropped her bag on the ground and folded her arms. She took in a deep breath, steeling herself.

It was time to leave everything on the table. No holding back.

“By accepting this bond, I leave things that I love. The people I love. My family, my friends, my home. All I’ve ever known and found comfort in. I lose everything that I wanted and worked so hard to become.” She quieted, trying to gauge Kai’s expression, but he was unreadable. “But I’ve been so wrapped in believing that I was doing exactly what I needed to and being who I was meant to be, so scared of what it meant to have a mate, to give myself to someone and open myself up to losing them, that I was blind to what was actually happening.”

Another pause, long enough that Kai felt the need to ask, “What?”

“I fell in love with you.”

The gentle words settled in the air between them, and now Kai couldn’t seem to stop the small uptick of the corner of his mouth. Isla could sense his heartbeat pick up, feel his elation through the bond. But he must have read her demeanor, how serious she still was, and forced himself to relax.

“And maybe I was where I was,” Isla continued. “Doing what I was, for this. To be with you. To be here, and maybe you saw me—see me—in a way no one else did. That no one else ever will…I’m not sure I can do it, be a queen I mean, but I’m willing to try if you want me to. I’m terrified, but if that’s what I need to do to be with you, I will…but you need to be honest with me. Because it’s the only way I can help you, and I refuse to spend forever in the dark when you’re the one who’s supposed to keep me out of it. I’ve been in a place like that, and I’m never going back. And I don’t want you to end up there either. I told you that you have me, and I meant it, to and through eternity.”

She took another steadying inhale while Kai was quiet, absorbing everything she’d laid out before him. He gestured to the chair at his side where she could sit, but Isla refused, remaining where she stood.

All of it, their future, wasn’t in the clear until he told her what he’d been hiding.

“Where do you want me to start?” he asked.

“Why do you think it was someone of Io?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have time,” she said, even if she wasn’t so sure that they did. “Start from the beginning.”

Kai’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “The night my father and brother died, I was supposed to die, too.”

Isla’s eyes widened, but she tried her best to keep her surprise contained.

“I wasn’t in Mavec. I’d been in Abalys with Amalie. I'd convinced her to go to an inn for the night…” Kai trailed off, knowing he didn’t need to continue for Isla to understand. “While we were sleeping, there was this…scent, a feeling that woke me up, but Amalie didn’t seem to notice. And then something hit me—not literally, but I remember feeling stuck, and like I was disconnected from my body. From my wolf. And then there was this pain in my side…everywhere…and I swore I was dying. I blacked out, and when I woke up, someone was knocking at the room door. It was Ezekiel and Sol which should’ve tipped me off enough that something was wrong because they can’t stand each other.”

Isla braced herself, knowing what came next.

“They told me what had happened, and I couldn’t recite the exact words to you even if I tried, but I do remember finding a message carved into the nightstand. Those letters and symbols that I didn’t understand and still don’t. I found them again in my brother’s townhouse near the bed where he’d died and couldn’t find any in the House of the hall, where my parents slept. But I had the same feeling in both places, the same one I had in those woods in Callisto. They’d been killed, and I had no idea by who. No idea why I lived and they didn’t.” Shame crept into his tone. “Everything that happened after that is a blur. I remember having no time before the Blood Moon and going through the Alpha Rite to question my being brought to power. And I remember everyone crying while I had to keep it together and pretend that someone hadn’t just murdered my family and was getting away with it. Then came the feast and the Hunt—and you.

“I didn’t think the Imperial Alpha would approve me to enter at such short notice, especially with the risk I could die, and our hierarchy ends up a mess, but he did. Everyone kept saying I didn’t have to do it, but I knew there were people who doubted me and wanted me to do it, especially in the council I’d adopted. My father and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, some choices he’d made for the pack among them. And I know despite the fact he liked to put on a facade that our family was the perfect, united front—even down to me, who wasn’t his heir—knowledge of my aversions made it to his closest confidants, who saw me—see me—as a threat to a system that they’d established to keep them as high on the top of our hierarchy as possible. I miss when I thought they’d end up being my biggest problem during my rule.” He breathed a humorless laugh before his features fell. “When I left Deimos for the Hunt, part of me was ready to go to war when I got back, but another part, one I hated and couldn’t get rid of—hoped I wouldn’t make it.”

Isla felt her heart clench and blinked away a sting of tears. As much as Kai had tried to sound steady, brokenness slipped into his voice.

“The night of that feast, when I realized you were there—my mate—I was furious. I didn’t know what or who I was going to end up with. It felt like the Goddess had already fucked me over in so many ways—my father and brother were dead, my mother was dying, and here I was, bestowed a pack full of lost, confused, and scared people looking to me to guide them out of a darkness I could barely crawl through myself…and then, there you were. I had no clue who you were, what pack you were from, or why you were there, but you were with the Imperial Heir, that trainee, and the warrior.

“I knew you couldn’t feel anything, which makes sense—being an alpha, things happen a bit faster—and then you went off with the Heir. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as feral as I did then. I was ready to tear him apart for touching you, but then I got a hold of myself and left before I did anything stupid.”

He had her latched on every word, and Isla replayed that night. Her conversations with Lukas, the one with Callan when Adrien had walked over. Kai had been in that room, had seen her from afar. He knew what she was before she knew him.

“So I went outside to the terrace,” he continued. “Then I don’t know why, but I felt the bond between us—stronger than I had but still barely there. I tried pulling at it anyway, calling to you to see if you’d answer, but nothing really happened. I was about to head back inside when the doors opened, and there you were again.”

Isla felt her insides melt with the way he looked at her now, in a way no one ever had. With pure adoration.

---