Page 178 of A Warrior's Fate

“Because they’re still concerned with what happened yesterday, which was the point. Now we get what we’re owed.”

Isla furrowed her brows, a horrible feeling in her gut as her mind ran through the words.

Were these men…

No.

No, they couldn’t be.

Isla pulled her head from the door to shake it but froze. She became stone against the wall.

She was being watched.

A pair of glowing eyes peered at her from the darkness below.

Red eyes.

Her insides turned watery. She couldn’t breathe, fought to blink as if it would make them go away.

But they were still there when she opened her eyes.

Not only that—they were closer.

Goddess, no.

Swallowing any sound, any panic, Isla spun to open the door, keeping one eye on the stairs, more apt to face what was on the other side than what lay below.

But as soon as she touched the metal, shockwaves coursed up her arm and through her body. She recoiled and hissed, shaking away the tingling from her fingertips.

“What the hell?” She couldn’t stop the words from falling from her mouth, her breathing kickstarting in pants.

She tried again. The pain was worse, burning through her now. A whimper slipped out her lips, and she curled in on herself.

What is happening?

A low growl rumbled from the darkness.

Isla didn’t even need to turn to know any time she’d been allotted had run out.

She didn’t have any other option. She slammed her fists against the wood and screamed.

The bak’s responding roar drowned her out quickly, piercing her soul and shaking the surrounding foundations. It thundered up the steps, left shuddering and straining under its weight, and Isla stiffened.

She would die here—it would kill her—if she didn’t move now.

Her head emptied, and in that moment, something within her ignited. Markings and eyes illuminating the darkness, claws emerging from her fingertips, Isla ducked out of the way just as the bak swung its enormous paw—speared by its own long talons—for her head. There was a loud thud as it contacted the door, followed by the smell of something rotting, searing. The bak wailed and stumbled back. Isla couldn’t ponder the reason for the scent, for its pain. She shoved her body into it, driving claws into hardened flesh, and sent the creature tumbling down the staircase.

The steps trembled beneath its weight as the beast tumbled down, down, forcing Isla to grip onto the railing so she wouldn’t follow. It came to a stop with a loud crack, the third step weak and easily crumbling beneath the impact of its size.

Debris spread through the heavy air in a cloud.

Isla breathed.

Adrien’s voice flooded her head, Sebastian’s, her instructors’, all talking her through the steps of the Hunt, offering their warrior advice. But they’d been wrong about the baks’ behavior. Everyone had been wrong.

For Goddess’s sake, what the hell was it doing here?

There was one sole fact that consistently rang true: only one of them was making it out of here alive.

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