Page 59 of A Warrior's Fate

“It would do you well not to forget that fact. That I’m choosing to forgo my role,” she seethed, pushing slightly to emphasize her words. “Because maybe one day, I’ll change my mind. Maybe I’ll come to your precious pack to claim what’s rightfully mine, and you won’t be able to do a damn thing about it while you’re down on your knees, bowing to me.” She threw the branch down at his feet and turned on her heel. “I can go the rest of the way myself—Beta.”

As she began her walk, Ezekiel’s laugh rumbled behind her. “Maybe they don’t teach this in the Imperial Pack.” The name was filled with pure, unbridled malice that made her pause. “But it would do you well to remember, Luna, everything given can just as easily be taken away.”

And though his words sent a chill down her spine, possessing the faintest air of a threat, Isla continued forward.

CHAPTER 16

Isla groaned as she pressed the side of her forehead to the cool tile of the shower wall, letting the water fall onto her back in a near-scalding stream that flushed the skin leeched of its tan from being shrouded so long in the Wilds’ darkness. Droplets from her lashes sprinkled onto her cheeks as she snapped her eyes shut. As she breathed…breathed…breathed.

The world was whirling, the universe teetering behind her closed lids, and she wanted to shut it all out. She wanted it to stop. Needed it to. Just for a few seconds. But her mind was still working at a furious pace. Her body, though horribly and thoroughly exhausted, was on high alert.

Lukas. The Gate. The Hunt. The bak. A killer. Her mate.

Her mate, her mate, her—

Isla gritted her teeth, opening her eyes to watch the grime washed from her skin circle the drain, keen on the mud, flecked foliage, and dried blood flowing away and disappearing the way she wished her memories would.

Like she wished the spindly, kneading fingers of paranoia would.

The feeling had nagged her from the moment she’d entered her empty room, so dark when she closed her door behind her that it made her heart drop into her already turning stomach.

She’d pressed her back hard against the entrance, clammy fingers imprinting the wood, as she scoured to confirm she was alone. To be sure whoever had murdered the Alpha and Heir of Deimos hadn’t somehow figured out who she was and had been waiting here for her. If she’d even be on their radar at all.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d remained like that—her chest heaving at the prospect, her eyes flittering back and forth, up and down, back and forth, one time, three times, five times before she’d gotten a handle on herself. Remembered who she was. What she was.

Isla had realized not long after that it had been well over the hour that Adrien had promised to arrive in, almost nearing hour two. And upon that time’s passing, with the thick muck coating what felt like every nook of her starting to irritate her skin, she’d decided she could at least try to do something productive. So, now she sat under the fiery current, standing abandoned after the exhaustion and dizziness had got to her.

“Goodnight.”

Isla grimaced at the voice in her head, the pang in her chest—a stain on her mind, heart, bones, on her Goddess-forsaken soul—as it was followed by one of a different nature.

“Everything given can just as easily be taken away.”

She dragged her knees up to hold them tighter to her body and lifted her face to the water again, allowing it to flood her senses as she scratched hard at her scalp. As she tried to claw out the thoughts.

Kai had been taken.

Her mate bestowed upon her and stolen away by the same divine hand. The one that had pushed him into a role that had never been his, that he’d never expected to have to take, that had put him on a path that she could never walk alongside him on…and she hated that she felt that way.

Hated that she was angry about it. That it mattered to her. That he mattered to her.

What right did she have to be mad? To allow the thought that she would never see his face or hear his voice again—that she would struggle to know if he’d even made it to Deimos safely—to make her want to rid her stomach of the very little she’d been able to keep down since she’d emerged from the Hunt?

A sudden bang echoed into the washroom. One time. Two.

Isla sputtered, bracing herself against the tub’s edge.

It was the door. Soon, the thuds were replaced by the sharp rattling of its handle.

Even though she couldn’t see it, Isla knew that the long metal was being halted by the fabric of the heavy cobalt chair she’d pushed in front of it, fitted perfectly beneath the handle’s curve. A necessary measure as the rooms bore no locks.

Her breath caught in her throat. It could’ve easily, finally, been the boys trying to get in…but what if it wasn’t?

Cautiously, Isla worked her way to her feet, leaving the water running to cover her sound as she peeled back the curtain and wrapped a towel loosely around her body. Stepping over the basin’s lip, her fingers constricted around the scalpel, sitting on the sink’s edge, that she’d stolen from the supply room. The dripping of her hair and the patter of her feet through the puddles forming on the floor still seemed too loud in her ears as she crept forward. Kicking further open her ajar washroom door, the steam billowed behind her.

The blade was up and at the ready in front of her face, her dark shadow stretching tall along the white-washed wall in the dim lighting as she moved. Inch by inch by inch. Step, step, step. The door continued to tremble at the assault on it.

“What the hell are you doing? Relax.”

---