A Warrior’s Fate (Wolves of Morai #1)

Chapter 42

CHAPTER 42

I t was a strange feeling to know that one was dreaming. Conscious enough to be aware it wasn’t real, but still sensing everything as if it were.

Isla’s bare feet took her across a field of ash lilies, and though that meant she was in Io, she was cold. The leather of her warrior’s uniform whispered as she wrapped her arms around herself.

Above, there was no moon. No stars. The sky was a rippling void, a shimmer of nothingness so unnervingly…peaceful.

She smelled the sweetness of wine first, then the smoky scent of lilies, and then the bitterness of utter despair. Hopelessness.

In the distance, there was a girl. For a moment, she’d thought it was a corpse, unmoving, but then came the sobs. Isla moved, the lilies kissing her ankles as she advanced on silent feet. Even without glimpsing the wild blonde hair, the emerald gown, and the near-empty wine bottle, she would’ve known that she was staring at herself and that this skyless abyss was a memory. Her lowest point in a darkness she could not see a way out of. Caged by expectations that she failed to meet and never wanted to meet, time and time again, screaming into the nothingness that no one would hear her from.

Escape lay in a distant forest, one she knew she’d walk into and never out of again, but she’d take that over this. Physical danger and trials over a fight against her own mind that she was painfully losing.

“ Help me. ”

The words she’d uttered to the sky shattered her.

“Give me something. Give me an answer, please. There has to be more. I don’t know what I’m doing.” She just knew she couldn’t make it much longer like this.

The moon, the stars, and the endless night—the goddesses gave no answer. There was no breaking of the heavens, no divine moment when the world cleaved just for her. No one was listening. She was not meant for more.

Or so she’d thought.

In the momentary bliss of wine-soaked oblivion, an ember sparked to life, burning just bright enough for her to notice when she awoke. But it wasn’t planted by the Goddess, by Fate, or by Eternity.

It was her.

Because no deities would save her, no one would save her. Only she could save herself. Only she could pick up and piece together every fragment she’d become and drag herself anew to the heights she wanted to reach, that she’d make sure she reached. Because her life was hers , and it would be exactly what she wanted.

And in the distance, southward, another ember glimmered, waiting.

Isla stretched out a hand to the weeping girl, but in a blink, she was a wisp of smoke, and Isla’s palms, clothes, hair, the ground—all of it was coated in blood.

At the metallic stench so potent it stirred her insides, her wolf roused for battle. But here, she could not shift. Isla whipped around, her eyes adjusting to the shadows as the ground shook below her with the heavy beating of drums.

No, not drums. Paws, feet.

Then she was ensconced in a melee of swords, fangs, claws, iron, ash, rot, and rubble.

Death. Death was everywhere.

It was icy and unforgiving as the world fell around her. Her scream had no sound as darkness swept over her. As she fell, fell, and fell . And then, at the end, there was…music .

A cry of a violin so familiar it gnawed at her mind, the lilting notes tugging her back, back, and back to see, see, see.

“Warrior Heart.”

An echo from the void.

Isla spun and spun until her feet had wedged into the ground below. Stuck. She was trapped. Here in this…place. A new cage.

“Warrior Heart.”

That voice again, and now, Isla could see her through a rush of wind and sand. A woman advanced towards her; her movements smooth through the brutal torrent, her elegant gown whipping around her. Thunder crashed, lightning struck.

As the woman drew closer, the chaos slowed, and Isla recognized her moon-white hair flowing behind her and deep violet eyes. A dark crown sat on her head stark against its lightness.

The woman from the artwork with the dagger—Kai’s ancestor.

She tried to recoil, but the woman took hold of her arm, the grip so tight Isla couldn’t wrench away. A chill took over her body, starting from that place on her skin. It burrowed so deep that it imprinted on her bones, stilled her wolf.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you,” the woman cooed, her voice ancient and edged with lethality in its ease.

“Who are you?” Isla tried to move again, but her grip tightened. Panic rose in her chest, but after she opened her mouth to call for Kai, a sharp pain ran through her head. “What do you want?”

She needed to wake up. She needed to wake up right now.

But something about this didn’t quite feel like a dream anymore.

Icy spiders crawled underneath Isla’s skin, cast webs over her mind, and skittered along mental walls , but they avoided one thing, one dark and forbidding thing—the bond, Kai, a lifeline. Isla reached for their connection but hit what felt like a wall.

“Kai!” No response. Nothing. Just a battling, shadowy cold. Isla pushed, clawed, and dug through ice and shadow to reach that familiar darkness. “Kai!”

“I know you probably won’t listen to me; the last hadn’t wanted to. Not until you see,” the woman lamented and did not answer Isla’s question. A labored but even breath passed her lips as if she’d been straining, as if she were working against Isla to make sure she couldn’t get to Kai. “But know you will lose everything in this war, and he is the reason. He is always the reason.” Her nails dug into Isla’s skin. “They’ll try to stop him, and they’ll fail. They always fail.”

There was a pull at the bond and an overwhelming sensation she’d felt once before. When she and Kai first used their connection to communicate. She winced at the strangest feeling of breaking she didn’t understand before trying to break free again.

But the woman snarled. “It’s the fate we’ve been dealt. A burden we must carry. It can only be us. It’s only ever been us.” Suddenly, her hand snapped up, gripping Isla’s chin, her nails like spears, her touch like ice, and yet, Isla felt something colder press against her throat. “This time, it must end with you.” A dagger, the dagger that hummed and sang to her. She brought the point of the dagger down over her heart and pushed just as Isla felt the illusion shatter. “If you fail, they all fall.”

Isla gasped, eyes snapping open as warmth eddied through her trembling body from the firm hold on her shoulders. She blinked against the soft firelight and practically sobbed when she could not only move but also found Kai’s face hovering above hers.

They’d been on the floor of their bedroom before the fireplace, their bare bodies tangled and swathed in blankets, the two having spent the final night before the challenge sharing a bottle of wine by the hearth before getting lost in each other. The last Isla remembered she’d drifted off with her head on Kai’s chest, his heartbeat and eased breathing like a lullaby.

It’s the fate we’ve been dealt…

Power radiated from him, the bond between them strung taut as thunder and lightning crashed outside their bedroom windows. One of his hands went to her cheek as his eyes, tinged the slightest hue of crimson, furiously darted over her features. “What the hell was that?”

Isla put her hand over his, happy to have the touch, barely able to catch her breath. Immediate answers eluded her. Both because she had no idea, and her mind was still fuzzy and jumbled, trying to recover. “A dream, I think. ”

Or rather, a nightmare.

The muscle in his jaw pulsed as the hue of his eyes dulled. “Are you alright?”

“I think so.”

Kai nodded, kissing her once before he rolled to lay beside her. But there was something off about the embrace. Something that Isla also picked up from the way Kai ran his hands over his face, pushing back his hair, before he folded them on his stomach. His gaze focused on the ceiling. Silent.

Isla sat up, leaning on her elbow. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” Kai began, his voice gruff. He winced. “I don’t feel right.”

Isla’s eyes tore over him for any evidence of injury. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just this feeling,” Kai answered quickly in a way Isla figured was meant to abate her worry.

But it only made her question more. “What kind of feeling?”

He breathed deeply, slowly in and out as if preparing himself. “It’s always been there, but it’s got…worsesince I became alpha. Since I went through the Rite. And somehow, even worse recently…I can’t describe it.”

Isla blinked. “Can you try?”

Kai turned his head to look at her, his expression pained and almost frightened. It seemed he was not looking for anything but for her judgment. It was a different kind of vulnerability.

He averted his gaze back up.“Power. Out of nowhere. That I don’t understand and can barely control—if I’m even the one controlling it. I just get pushed to this tipping point, a triggering point, and suddenly, I just…”

“Just?”

“Feel.”

“Feel what?”

“ Everything . From whoever I’m…I don’t know, focused on.” Kai’s jaw clenched. “But it doesn’t stop there.”

Isla resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, feeling like if she did, whatever door had been opened, that had him sharing this, would close. And frankly, she didn’t understand what he was talking about. All she could do was ask the questions that felt right to ask. “How do you know?”

“Because a part of me wants to push further, knows that I can, but that’s when I realize what I’m doing and try to hold back. I felt it with Ezekiel the other day,” Kai confessed, and Isla’s mind reeled back to when the beta had been sitting across from Kai, under his scrutiny, stirring in his seat. The way he’d shaken his head, the same way…

“It happened with Eli at the banquet—and I feel it sometimes with you, or felt it with you when the bond wasn’t fully there or working. It had been so weak, and you were so new to me that I thought it was just part of us being mates. But just now…” He looked at her again. “Your dream…I was there . I heard something or someone, and it wasn’t you. It felt like I got to it—that voice I think you were hearing— through you . And it didn’t feel like it was because of the bond. It was something else. And I know you felt it. Me.”

Isla opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. That breaking she’d felt…

As if he could sense her unease, Kai’s features fell in shame, and he turned his head.

Isla frowned. “Why—why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“What was I supposed to say? I’m freaking out because I feel like I’m getting into people’s heads? I don’t know what’s happening to me. And I’ve looked into it. I know it’s not an alpha thing—and I’m afraid I’m going to hurt someone because of it.”

The silence that followed the statement settled in the room, settled in between them like a thick, dark cloud. Isla didn’t know what to say and wasn’t sure what to do with the kernel of fear planted in her chest. Not of him, but for him. It certainly didn’t sound normal.

Kai suddenly sat up and moved to put distance between them, but Isla reached to grab his arm. She leaned up to take his face in her hands and press her lips against his, long and slow, before pulling him back down on top of her.

When they broke away, Kai trailed his eyes over her face and down her body. “I don’t want to hurt you, Isla. I—I can’t…”

Isla shushed him, bringing him back to her mouth and cutting him off with another kiss. “You could never hurt me.”

He is the reason…

Isla pushed her nightmare to the back of her mind as she ushered Kai to touch her again, to let him know, let him feel that she was there and going nowhere. As they settled back down, Isla’s head back on his chest, she focused on his heart and breathing as she watched until the flickering flame dulled to cinders.

You will lose everything…

No. She wouldn’t lose this. Wouldn’t lose him.

She’d fight like hell to make sure of it.