Page 69 of A Warrior's Fate

Isla’s heart was in her throat. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Not yet. She would. She just needed to think. Focus. Calm. He was angry with her. Maybe she could talk him down.

“I’m sorry,” she panted. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you.”

She swore something in his eyes changed, though quickly, they became endless depths of fury again.

“He said if I killed you, he’d let me out, and then I’m on my own. But if I bring you back—they’ll let me stay.” The blade was pressed further into her side, and Isla held in a scream as it pierced her skin and burned in a way that it shouldn’t have. Her insides had gone watery.

Kill her. Kill her?

It was with the slightest jerk of his elbow that Isla knew she had to act fast, and it was with it that her wolf took over.

Claws breaking through, she swiped them across his body, wherever she could reach, meeting flesh deeper than she’d intended. His cry out mixed with her own as he keeled over, dragging his blade through her shirt, across her skin as he went down. She followed suit as pain took hold, falling a few feet away.

Isla hissed as she shakily reached for her side, the warm stickiness of his blood coating her fingers while her own leaked through the torn fabric of her shirt. The wound left in the wake of his weapon was shallow but still lit her insides on fire. Like a venom had seeped in and was coursing through her veins.

Breathing so hard and so fast that she was becoming light-headed, she darted her eyes to Lukas who was curled in a ball, putting pressure on the large gash she’d drawn from his back to his stomach. Crimson leaked from between his fingers, pooling beneath him. His eyes were shut tight while his teeth were bared as he sneered at the pain.

Isla noticed the book he’d been reading, fallen to the floor, smeared in blood as with the marker and the dagger, and she saw red when she realized the scribblings in it weren’t in the Common, not in an alphabet she recognized.

There was no way.

But she didn’t have time to question, not like this. She only had the facts in front of her.

Someone had given that book to him, someone had given him this dagger, and allowed him to get free. Told him to kill her.

Temper flaring, she reached for the knife, hilt dipped in his blood and blade slicked with hers, and fought to her knees, one arm wrapped around to hold her burning side.

She brought the blade to his throat. “Who gave you this?”

He didn’t answer.

She pressed it to his skin, forcing out again, “Who gave you this?”

As she had at the metal’s contact, Lukas recoiled like it burned, and Isla balked with it.

He became pale, and as his eyes opened to look up at her, Isla saw they were clear. Clearer than they ever had been since he came back from the Wilds. He blinked, as if seeing her for the first time before they fluttered closed, and he went limp.

Isla fell back, jaw unhinged as a wave of clarity washed over her. “No,” she muttered, her eyes darting across his body. His breathing was slow, his heartbeat fading. “No, no, no, no. Lukas!” She dropped the knife to her side and crawled over to him, struggling as whatever the knife had been made of, whatever laced its surface, wreaked havoc on her.

As she pressed firmly against his wounds to slow the bleeding, the room’s doors burst open. It was Adrien, the guard, and a nurse. Everything that happened next seemed to move in slow motion, yet so fast that all she could do was run on autopilot. She gathered everything. The marker, the book, and the dagger.

And left Lukas bleeding on the floor as Adrien carried her away.

CHAPTER 18

Whatever had been on that blade had to be some kind of liquid fire. It seared through every bend and curve of Isla’s being and had her cursing anything and everything in the universe.

At how she was jostled with every step Adrien dragged her down through the stairwell. At the glow of the lights they passed on their descent. At how loud it all seemed around her—his footsteps, her heartbeat, his breathing, the echoes, the opening door. Her wolf was fighting—against what, she wished she knew—but the battle was leaving her body oversensitive and on high alert. And not only that, but she could’ve sworn that with the trauma, those lost pieces of herself reformed. Recaptured in a tether desperate to keep her rooted to this earth.

Or maybe she was going crazy. Whatever was on that knife was working through her. Poisoning her mind, driving her mad.

Either way, all of it was good—the pain, the odd sensations—because they distracted her from what lay above.

What she’d done.

The hallway Adrien had brought them to was just as dark as the one they’d left. Either the third or fourth floor, she assumed. Not her room.

He pushed open one of the doors and brought them inside, clicking on the light on the wall. Isla cringed at the sudden brightness and groaned as he placed her on the cold surface of an examination table. She dropped all she’d taken on the metallic tray sitting at its side, the items clanging as they met it. The ring of the blade hit her hardest, making her wince.

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