Page 17 of A Warrior's Fate

Silks billowed to the ground, and the shifters began their transformations all in one motion, the faintest glow of eyes and ink among raising fur, drawn claws, elongating teeth, and bending spines. Isla embraced her tawny wolf in full: feeling its power surging as she molded into an apex predator. Stronger, faster. Her senses heightened. Instincts sharpened.

When Isla turned her head, she found Kai further down the line. He was much bigger than everyone else as expected, and his coat was a shadowy black laced with the blood-red sheen where his lumerosi once lay. That, in combination with the intimidating hue in his eyes, was the true sign of an alpha.

As she looked at him now, gone were her human desires. Instead, there was a sense of solidarity. Not possessiveness, but…protectiveness. Like, even if a terrible fate befell him behind the Wall and her soul and physical body remained intact due to their rebellion, she’d still want to tear apart the world in retribution. She didn’t feel lust. She felt a duty. Like she was meant to do right by him in all senses. She wondered if he felt the same.

The sound of clanging metal took Isla out of her contemplations. She followed the noise, turning to find everyone had shifted, except for one. The trainee from Tethys that she’d been talking to at the feast hadn’t changed. Under the silks that he’d stripped, he’d worn battle leathers. A warrior brought him a helmet and a sword, and Isla realized to her horror that the man was unable to shift, or at least, unable to complete one. He was one of the few who attempted to go into the Wilds without a wolf.

Most of them never made it out.

A loud howl rung in the air, bellowed from the maw of the Imperial Alpha, who along with Isla’s father, had shifted. The Imperial Beta followed it with his own call, and the hunters echoed in response.

With the signal, the Gate’s heavy lock was wrenched open, breaking its ward of protection. It took several warriors to pry it open, the metal groaning, almost as a warning not to enter—but this was the Hunt.

And so, the pack of wolves descended into darkness.

CHAPTER 6

The bak were solitary predators—Isla had that in mind as her paws padded along the murky terrain of the Wilds. They did not dwell near the Gate or drift close to the Wall. They resided deep in their forest, blending in with the dead thickets and ever-present fog, their scent shrouded by a pungent vapor that seemed to emit from the ground in wheezes everywhere she turned.

No amount of training, not a single novel-length tale, could’ve prepared her for what the Hunt was truly made of. Not for the time, the effort, or the sheer force of willpower she’d need just to keep her head on straight. Her senses were so overtaken by the new world around her—besieged by foreign sights and sounds and smells, by the heaviness of the atmosphere and the unfamiliar texture of the earth—that she’d felt blind the second she entered. Like a newborn unable to walk, think, or exist without assistance or guidance, she had to learn if she was to survive.

In time, she adjusted to the sinking earth, dizzying odor, and piercing shrieks of some bird-like creature that taunted her with its incessantness, but how much time, she couldn’t tell exactly. Maybe a few days, but it was hard to judge as mornings and nights shared the same absent sky, eternal grayness, driven by the heavy hang of overgrown forest. Or some may have argued, a lingering essence of dark, destructive magic.

Isla didn’t know when she’d last seen true sunlight, let alone her family, friends, civilization, or any of her fellow hunters, including her mate. Kai had stayed out of her way as she’d asked, or maybe just by happenstance.

As he’d said in his reassurance before they parted, the Wilds was expansive, and as a result, all the wolves seemed to have spread far across the treacherous wood. She’d been alone with nothing but a lingering sense of doom and her thoughts for Goddess knew how long. And though the beasts were plenty, they weren’t the easiest to track, so it seemed the spinning wheel would never end. She’d be cursed to either face the dishonor and shame of returning without a kill or to die here when the ravages of starvation claimed her. There was very little suitable to eat in this region, and much fewer safe sources to drink, and even those, cursed as they were, would eventually kill her if she consumed enough.

But maybe there was hope.

Isla’s ears pricked at a rustle in the nearby trees: the first sound that wasn’t birds or hissing soil.

This had to be it.

Isla turned in the noise’s direction, her adrenaline surging, and crouched with teeth bared in a silent snarl. As she stalked along the forest floor, repeating the mantras of how to deal with the beast quickly and efficiently in her head, she tried to catch a scent. Need this one somehow evade her, she’d, at least, have a better chance to track another. But the odor she caught—though nearly indiscernible, so incredibly faint and mixed with the ground’s almost-sulfuric odor—was familiar.

Very familiar.

She rose from her bend, snout high in the air, and sniffed again. Her eyes were wide as she deftly pressed through the decomposing shrubbery, stopping just before reaching a clearing. She had to rein in her excitement as her eyes fell upon a man—but not just any man.

A man with auburn hair beneath a helmet that mirrored his leathers and a face coated with grime. A man with a blade gripped tight in his hand and a look of intensity in his tired chestnut eyes.

The trainee from Tethys. Or just “the Trainee” as she’d now dubbed him.

He fully turned his back to her as he crept forward, his steps heavy yet delicate across the forest floor. His gaze was focused in front of him as his thick boots sunk into the muck.

Isla couldn’t decide what emotion to feel—disbelief, elation, confusion. He was alive, that’s what mattered. One of the few who’d attempted this tribulation unable to shift completely, and he’d survived this long.

She may have only known him through the pieces she’d gathered at the feast—and she’d have to remember to catch his name—but he suddenly felt like her greatest friend. So, there was a life outside of what felt like eternal damnation.

The Trainee came to a halt in his path, something on the ground seeming to catch his attention. As he bent to it, resting his arm on his knee and stabbing his blade into the dirt to stabilize himself, Isla took the chance to inch closer. She watched as he dipped his fingers into the mud and pulled out a sphere. The orb was coated in dirt and appeared to be rotting from its crater-like edges. He let go of his sword’s hilt and tried to clean it with his fingers.

Isla dared move in closer, any sense of a hunting ability gone out the window as she carelessly stirred the foliage.

The Trainee jolted and whooshed around, his eyes bright as he took his sword in his hand. He’d spun directly to Isla’s location and lifted the weapon in front of him, firm and ready to strike. “Come out, bastard!”

Isla wasn’t sure if it was a sign of her declining mental state that she’d found his threats amusing. She laughed to herself before slipping out of the bushes.

At the sight of her, shock flashed across the Trainee’s face, and his grip loosened. He was silent, eyes darting over her wolf’s features frantically. She waited on edge for him to say something, eager to finally engage in some form of interaction.

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