A Warrior’s Fate (Wolves of Morai #1)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

T he Wall of Niesle loomed menacingly above the mass of shifters as they moved along its base. The feat of stone stretched so high that it disappeared into the low-hanging fog, a consequence of the bout of rain that had ceased just before the group set out to their destination.

Isla lifted her head to it and squinted despite the shadow that cast gray upon her face. Her narrowed eyes took in the barrier’s surface, all the crevices and shallow cracks it had gathered over its centuries-old existence. Behind the border lay some of the more horrendous things she’d likely see in her lifetime—beasts known as the embodiment of fear itself.

Her body tingled with nerves and excitement. This was it. Today was the day.

“You know what to do, right?”

Isla snapped her attention from the Wall to Adrien who was walking by her side. Sebastian had been on the opposite side at one point—offering his own warrior and big brother guidance—but then bounded off, jabbering something about a bet.

“Stay low,” she recited.

“And?”

“Keep it in front of me and go for the legs.”

“Good.” Adrien’s expression was serious, though still at ease. “They’re massive and dumb as shit, but that’s what makes them dangerous. They can only think of one thing, and it’s killing you. It won’t stop fighting until it’s dead or you are.”

Isla swallowed and looked over at the Wall. She reached out and ran her hand along it, stone dust accumulating on her fingertips and flecks of rubble falling to the earth.

She knew all the details. She’d heard them countless times in the scary stories told to her in her youth and the endless hours of instruction barked in training. But hearing them now, so close to the grand barrier that shielded her people’s greatest nightmares, the warnings held new weight.

“Got it.”

She dropped her hand and opened her mouth to add on but was cut off by a heavy thud on her back accompanied by warmth around her shoulders. There was no need for her to turn to know who it was, but she did anyway.

Sebastian had wedged himself between them, his hair, which held a more golden hue than his sister’s, a wild mess atop his head. The curls poked at Isla’s face as he leaned down to speak lowly.

“Alright, Pudge. I really need you to lock in here.”

Pudge was a nickname given to her by her doting brother during her rounder days as a child.

Recalling Sebastian’s utterances before he’d gone off earlier, and knowing her sibling all too well, Isla gave him a dead stare. “What did you do?”

Sebastian flashed a snake-oil grin. “I have a lot of money on you being second in this thing, so you have to—”

Second ?

Isla shrugged him off. “You think I’ll be second ?”

“You think you’ll be first ?” Sebastian scoffed. “And you say I ‘have a complex’. You’re hunting with an alpha.”

“So?” Isla snapped, but then she processed.

An alpha?

She assumed Sebastian meant a future alpha, an heir. Actual in-power alphas never entered the Hunt, save a select few, but those had long passed.

It wasn’t a requirement to go through the warrior rite to rule a kingdom, though it did help prove an alpha’s strength to his people, which in the end only boosted morale, solidified trust, and instilled just enough fear never to cross them. But the immense dangers of the trial, which made a victory so exalted, were what made the participation by those in the highest of places avert it.

To compensate, heirs were trained and ran in the Hunt before they came to power—same show of strength, same effect, but with less hierarchical risk. As horrible as it sounded, there could be another offspring waiting in the wings to take the fallen’s former place, or there would be enough time for the alpha and luna to produce another.

There hadn’t been any talk of an heir in this year’s running. Though they typically trained separately, the news would’ve spread.

“What are you talking about? There are no heirs this year,” Isla said.

“No, there isn’t,” her brother confirmed, then realization took over his face. “No one’s told you?”

“Told me what?”

Sebastian couldn’t keep his smile at bay. She wasn’t sure if it was a universal trait of siblings, but he found such joy in delivering news that would make her angry. “The new Alpha of Deimos is in the Hunt.”

“I’m sorry?” Isla almost stopped moving from the shock. She thought she’d heard him wrong.

“Goddess, help me.”

The words were uttered in a breath beside her, and Isla snapped her head from Sebastian to Adrien. The Heir’s face was laden with guilt.

“Did you know about this?” she asked, fury in her gaze.

Adrien hesitated. Not fear but wariness was in his eyes. He knew her wrath well. “He told me yesterday at the dinner. He hadn’t told anyone else but my father and his beta and asked me to keep it in confidence.”

Isla resisted the urge to knock Adrien upside the head, Imperial Guard be damned.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said, even though he’d already stated his case. Her fingers wedged into the tresses of her hair that she’d twisted into a high bun. “I can’t believe this.”

Participating in the Hunt wasn’t just a split-second decision. It required contemplation and planning, as well as approval by the Imperial Alpha. To get anything to his attention took time, even if one was another leader, so this had to have been weeks in the making.

This meant Kai knew last night when they spoke in the garden that they’d both be descending into the earth-bound hell at the same time.

I’m going to kill him.

“I did it,” Adrien offered, pulling Isla from her thoughts. “Other alphas have. It’s a rite of passage for everyone. If you’re second to an alpha, that’s still pretty damn—”

“I don’t care about being second,” Isla breathed, shaking her head and looking towards the ground like it would offer some solace.

I care about staying alive.

She’d finally managed to get the alpha off her mind and scrubbed him enough from her senses so that she could think straight. It may have required a late-night shifted run through the woods and addressing her pent-up frustrations by her own hand when she made it back to her room, but it was done. As she wrapped the customary hunter’s cloths around her wrists and ankles and draped herself in the traditional silks when the sun rose that morning, her focus was on herself and her objectives.

But who knew if her mental fortitude would hold?

When she lifted her head, Adrien and Sebastian were looking for some elaboration. Not in the mood to divulge, she conjured a lie.

“The Hunt isn’t a requirement to be an alpha, and only two actual alphas have competed in it. The rest were just heirs, and he doesn’t even have one of those.” Isla found herself becoming increasingly irate as epiphanies hit. “If he dies in there, there’s no leader of that pack. His bloodline ends. It’s…it’s reckless and stupid and—”

“Do I hear Isla questioning an alpha?” Sebastian heckled, maybe saving her from saying something that could be misconstrued as treasonous.

Isla threw him a scowl.

“You care a lot about the Alpha of Deimos,” Adrien quipped, and she glared at him, too .

“I don’t,” she snipped. “It’s just going to be an absolute disaster for the Hierarchy if he dies in there.”

“Well, alpha was never his to take,” Adrien said. “He’s proving to everyone that he’s worthy of it.”

As angry as she was, Isla understood.

Forged and welded with labyrinthine patterns, protected by the wards and blood-runes of witches, the Gate into the Wilds didn’t extend as tall as the stone in which it was set. Isla had her eyes fixated on it as she sat alone on the grass, stretching and trying to put herself in the right headspace again.

As the strength of its mystical reinforcements waned with time, it had long been debated whether to remove the passage entirely, bringing down the wrought iron and filling it with rock. But those who proposed the notion had been shot down. Despite the fact that it had been centuries since its glory, people still clung to the fact that before the Wilds became the accursed region that it had, it was another kingdom full of their brothers and sisters that had been leveled, destroyed, and hexed by the most powerful witch their world had ever encountered. No other spellcasters from the witches’ continent across the ocean had been skilled enough to break it. At least, not the ones willing to do dealings with wolves. Which wasn’t many, if any of them.

Isla had learned that the world hadn’t always been so divided. That there was a time when wolves and witches, the dwellers of the night and the sea, and even the immortal fae lived amongst each other through the five regions of the mortal plane. But that history was so ancient, thousands of years in the past, that they barely taught it anymore. All that mattered now was the wolves had settled and flourished on their own continent, and the veil between the four realms—the mortal, immortal, divine, and damned—had been entirely sealed, the fae banished along with it.

As Isla looked away from the Wall, trying to ease her mind of images she’d envisioned of what horror she’d be stalking into, she spotted him .

Kai walking past in his hunter’s silks. Midnight-black—one of Deimos’s signature colors.

She scowled.

He was surrounded by a horde of people—councilmen, guards, other warriors, the respected reporters who’d gained entry to cover the revered event. Isla couldn’t imagine having so much commotion hovering around her just before she was to look death in the eye.

She continued to watch from afar as the group began to disband. Kai broke off even further with a man she vaguely recognized but couldn’t put a name to. The two stopped a good distance away from the crowd, so far that they were almost specks.

Isla bit her lip as her annoyance mingled with the presence of opportunity. The Hunt would not begin until sundown, and she knew she could not descend into the Wilds with unspoken grievances on her chest. So, before she could second-guess herself, she jumped to her feet and made the trek over, keeping her steps soft and scent masked. But as she neared them, she slowed and then stopped. The men were locked in a heated discussion, about what exactly, she couldn’t tell.

“If this is true then it will require immediate action. I can relay your thoughts to the council while you’re behind the Wall for what should be done, or I can devise a plan until you better settle into the position.”

“No, this is my call now.” Although his back was to her, Isla saw Kai’s hand raise to rub his forehead. “Disperse the covert guard into pockets of the city. Have them investigate if the threats are legitimate. I don’t want to raise unnecessary alarm. And just in case, put a heightened detail on my mother. If this is really what killed…”

Killed?

Kai had trailed off as the familiar man he spoke with lifted his hand to silence him as respectfully as one could cut off an alpha. Whatever they were saying, he didn’t want Isla to hear. His eyes narrowed as he probably wondered who would be bold—or stupid—enough to linger in their vicinity.

Isla, however, didn’t cower. She pulled her shoulders back to exude the confidence—or lunacy—a commoner would need to disturb an alpha in conference.

When Kai spun to face her, Isla was surprised to see the scowl he was wearing soften. Not to a full smile but enough to instill her with the smallest amount of irritation and signal her to do what she was about to.

She stepped forward. “Alpha Kai, may I speak with you?”

One would think she’d smacked the older man across the face. He strode up to her, making sure to stand where he blocked Kai from her view. “Alpha Kai is preparing for the Hunt.”

His tone held an air of condescension that made her blood boil.

“As am I.” Isla gestured down to her own maroon garb. “I’d like to speak with him.”

“Many dames would like an audience with the alpha. However, the Hunt is not the—”

“I’m not ‘ some dame’ ,” Isla sneered.

The man bit back with equal harshness, “Then who are you ?”

“Isla of Io.”

They turned to find Kai, having answered for Isla, advancing towards them, his small smile now a full grin. He met the eyes of his destined mate and co-conspirator against Fate, amusement tangling with her aggression and breeding smugness. “Daughter of Imperial Beta Malakai.” He halted a couple of feet away, then glanced at his confidant. “Can we have a minute, Ezekiel?”

The man—Ezekiel—looked stunned. His eyes darted between them before raking over Isla as if sizing her up. “With all due respect, Alpha, but Imperial Beta’s daughter or not, this isn’t—”

“Beta,” Kai commanded. “We need a few minutes. Relay my message to the council.”

With a clench of his jaw, the beta bowed his head. “Yes, Alpha.” The words sounded almost out of place in his mouth, seemingly decades Kai’s senior. He shot another dagger-filled stare at Isla before leaving, which she reflexively returned.

There was a pensive frown on Kai’s face as he saw him off before he scanned the length of the Wall. When he lifted his gaze to follow the sky’s overcast clouds, Isla fought the nagging urge to ask if everything was okay, especially after what she’d overheard. But she knew it wasn’t her place, so she refrained.

Though, speaking of her place …

“You let me speak to a beta like that?” she seethed, drawing Kai’s attention. “I was so out of line; you should’ve said something!”

“I was distracted,” Kai said. “You’re very attractive when you’re angry.”

Isla ran her tongue along her teeth. Not this shit again.

She refused to be swayed by the beguilement. “Were you too distracted last night to tell me you’d also be in the Hunt?”

“Honestly?” Her glower, in return, elicited a soft chuckle. “I didn’t tell anyone.”

“So, I’m just anyone?”

“So we’ve chosen.”

“You don’t think I deserved to know?”

“Are you now entitled to all of my secrets?”

“Just the ones that put my life at risk.” Isla squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Goddess, I can barely think when I’m near you. What’s going to happen in there?”

“You seem to be mouthing off pretty well right now.”

She looked at him hopelessly. “This isn’t a joke.”

“I never said it was.” Kai let out a long exhale. “You were dealing with a lot last night; I didn’t see a need to add to it.”

“You don’t know what I can handle,” she reminded him. “You don’t know me.”

Kai folded his arms, and Isla tried to ignore how his muscles looked beneath the silks. “Do you want to back out?”

“What?” The question took her aback. “Of course not. I can’t.”

“And neither can I,” he echoed. “The Wilds are expansive, and the beasts are plenty. You stay on your side of the wood; I’ll stay on mine. It’ll all be fine.” He began to swing and stretch his arms. “I shouldn’t be long anyway. I hear there’s a wager going around in my favor.”

Isla’s face went flat.

So, Sebastian’s betting was really going around. Only he could make such a hallowed tradition into a gamble.

Isla crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her head. “Yes, well, I guess everyone will be in for a surprise when I’m the one who ends up on top.”

Kai laughed as he began fixing the wrappings along his forearms. “I’ve admittedly dreamt of a few situations where that happens,” he met her gaze, “and this isn’t one of them.”

She’d walked straight into that one.

Isla clenched her teeth as she fought away the images his insinuation had conjured. Images that had flashed in her mind while she’d been splayed across her bed last night. As much as she’d tried to banish his presence from her fantasies, his touch, though unknown to her, had been the one she craved and the only one her body would submit to, tangible or not.

At the reminder, her body thrummed, and she could tell from the mirth in his eyes that Kai could sense it.

Isla glared, quashing the feelings with a quickness that she impressed herself with. “You have the power of a deity on your side. You’re not nearly as charming as you think you are.”

With those as her parting words, she turned to walk away.

But then–

“Isla.”

Isla spun back, expression like stone. “Yes?”

Kai’s face was somber. “Be careful out there.”

Isla swallowed and nodded, a form of returning the sentiment. She twisted to continue back, but before she moved, she threw plainly over her shoulder, “Stay out of my way.”

As the sun finally set and the goddesses raised from their slumber, the moment they all had been anticipating was imminent. The hunters said their final goodbyes to those they knew in attendance, and Isla was lucky that the small group of people she was closest to were all able to be with her. Adrien and the Imperial Alpha had been the first to wish her well before seeing off the others.

Isla remained with her father, who stood in front of her with his hands on her shoulders. His green eyes, which only Sebastian had inherited, were glassy. That was enough to clue Isla in on his emotions. The hulking Beta wasn’t about to break down in tears in front of his subordinates, even if he was sending his only daughter sailing off into perilous waters .

“Your mother would be so proud of you,” he said, voice gruff. “She’ll be watching over you while you’re in there.”

“I know,” Isla said, smiling softly, becoming very aware of that hollow place in her heart that had lingered since they’d lost her. Though it had been nearly a decade, the hurt of her mother’s absence hadn’t gone away, only dulled.

Isla could only imagine how her father felt. Even now, she remembered his cries of anguish so vividly when he felt the bond between them break. He’d been destroyed, become a ghost of his former self when she’d died, his soul ripped apart, leaving him to wither beneath the heaviness of his grief. And even now, as he stood before her, recovered enough to regain his wolf, to continue as Beta, there was something duller about him.

That was when her doubts about the mate bond had begun. Was a connection like that truly worth putting herself in the position to hurt so deeply? If she’d be lucky enough to love whoever was on the other side of the bond, the death of her mate would be the literal breaking of who she was.

Isla resisted the urge to look for Kai, curious what he thought about all of this. Sure, he wanted to spite Fate, but if they had met at a different time, under different circumstances…

Sebastian came over and slung an arm around her, completing the family union. He gave her a shake. “Come on, big money, Pudge.”

Their father eyed him skeptically, to which his eldest child responded with a pseudo-angelic grin.

As the moon reached its peak, the temporary farewells ended, and the hunters lined up facing the Gate. Isla could hear her blood rushing in her ears, her body buzzing as the call came to shift.

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 and 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 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 would attempt to go into the Wilds without a wolf.

Most of them never made it out.

A loud howl rang 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.