Page 82 of A Warrior's Fate

“She lost everything all because of this stupid thing,” she began hoarsely. “That drives us mad or kills us when we don’t respect it. That pulls and tugs and blinds us with how beautiful it sounds and how amazing it feels to have one person in the world who’s ‘yours’, but it’s just a connection to someone no more than a stranger—who could very well be the most awful person on the planet—that we let hold our lives in its hands. That we let torture us from the minute we come of age and society, even interpretations of our Code tell us that’s all we’re meant for.”

She was rambling. Rambling and ranting, but she couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to. This was the release she needed from the emptiness, from the bitterness she still felt over the nothing she’d found on the other side of the bond. She was angry, so incredibly angry, but most of it was with herself. How could she let herself feel abandoned again, let herself feel alone? This was their choice. Her choice.

“This thing that expects me…” Isla paused, choking on the words, feeling pieces of her fracture. “That expects me to completely upend my life. To give up everything I’ve worked for. To renounce my membership to my pack, my home. To leave my family, my friends, and move to this place where I’ll have no one. Nothing. Where I’m stuck for the rest of my life with a man who I don’t love—who I don’t know—and who doesn’t know or love me either. With people who probably don’t want me there anyway, who would hate having me there. Where I’m a mockery in a role I’m nowhere near qualified for.” Her chest felt heavy, the corner of her eyes stinging, but she kept her voice as even as she could. And when the first break of tears stung her cheeks again, she wiped them quickly.

“He didn’t ask for this,” she finished. “For me to be the one. If there’s that much cost—that much risk with a bond, with a kingdom—Kai’s better off getting to choose someone. Someone he needs and deserves—that his people do—after all the shit they’ve gone through.”

“And what about you?”

At Adrien’s immediate response, Isla lifted her head, surprised to see a gleam of their own shock and worry on both the boys’ faces for all she’d just laid bare. It was the most, she realized, she’d ever poured out in a manner so raw to anyone. She was so used to wearing a mask, throwing on her facade, and having her guard up.

She blinked back another wash of tears—the final cascade—at the question. What about her? She had her plan. Be a warrior and when the time was right, choose a man to settle with, and start a family.

Isla wouldn’t let the image of Kai being that one materialize in her head, all an illusion purported by the bond. She beat it away swiftly, then visualized ripping whatever remnants of the tether remained within, that tainted her mind, and chucking them off the cliffside.

It wouldn’t be him. It couldn’t be him. And that was okay.

“I’ll be fine without him too,” she said.

And hated that she felt like a liar.

Isla had been in her apartment for all of a few hours—enough time to stow away the book, marker, and dagger, sit in a bath until the water ran cold, and then, when the sky completely succumbed to darkness, decide to get herself dressed up to head to the bar in the heart of Market Square to blow off some steam.

The man she’d found to help her do so—a swaggering, muscly, dark-haired, lower member of the Imperial Guard who she’d watched sweep the floor with his comrades at pool from afar before he’d noticed and approached her—was named…something.

His name was something, and she couldn’t remember it for the life of her as they fumbled their way up to her apartment door.

He kissed her hard, his tongue parting her mouth, his hands greedy as they roamed her body. She welcomed him, even if she had some tender spots from her injuries. Even if it felt so…wrong.

Because she wanted it to be Kai. His hands, his mouth, his touch.

It pissed her off how she couldn’t just throw away the bond. How no matter how much she needed this, to let herself get lost in booze and sex for just one night, he found her.

Isla hadn’t lingered by the ravine for much longer after her declarations to the boys. In fact, it had only been a few heartbeats before she hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and stalked off, leaving them—still stunned—with the simple parting words of “you can’t tell anyone.” They didn’t follow, knowing it best to leave her be.

It was pure adrenaline that had powered her through the territory, across the city. Adrenaline that had dipped steeply the minute she’d reached her apartment door. She practically collapsed into the alcove at the entrance once she’d gotten her shaking fingers to turn her key, and after that, she’d remained on the creaky wooden floor for Goddess knew how long, enduring a maddening cycle of silent crying and cursing. She’d finally gotten a grip of herself when she’d heard movement down the hall that she figured was her neighbor, and from then, she’d decided that was it.

So, she’d picked herself up, gone through her motions—her stashing, her bath, her dressing—and now she was here, tangled with a man she hoped to the Goddess was decent in bed.

She was going to forget Kai. She would. She had to.

And it started with…this…person.

Goddess, what the hell was his name?

When they eventually made it to her landing, the man tried to hoist her off her feet, but she stopped him, peeling away to reach for the keys in her pocket. But as soon as she extracted them and brought her hand to his face to pull him back in, she stumbled.

Her door was already ajar.

Her heart leaped into her throat, and without a second thought, she moved into action, pushing the man further behind her, slowly. A sneer crossed her likely swollen lips as she moved forward, inclining her head to catch a scent, hear a sound—but there was nothing. Eyes fixed on the white wood, bearing an askew thirty-four, she bent to her shoe—all slow and careful—and retrieved her tucked scalpel.

Behind her, the man made a noise of both confusion and concern. “Did you always have that?”

Isla raised a hand for him to be quiet.

Inch by inch by inch.

Who could it be? Lukas somehow escaping Valkeric? His benefactor coming to finish the job?

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