*Isla*
Poppy groans as I help her sit up in bed, her face twisting with discomfort. While my magic was about to heal the stab wounds across her belly, she is still recovering from the black and blue bruises that cover her entire abdomen. She looks terrible, but I do my best not to make a face as I lift up her shirt to look at the… carnage. That’s the only way I can describe it.
“I’ll live, Isla,” she rasps, rolling her eyes as she playfully swats my hand away.
“Pardon me for being worried about you, Poppy,” I tease, sitting down on the edge of her bed with a sigh. I glance at the warrior sitting on a stool by the door, his legs crossed and his head hanging as he sleeps.
We made it through the day. No one else had been attacked. But I can’t help but feel like this is far from over.
“Did Isaac make it safely?” she asks in a whisper, her eyes drifting to the warrior by the door.
“Yes,” I reply, the word sticking to my throat. I fight back the rush of grief welling in my chest as I run a comforting hand over Poppy’s leg, but she takes my hand, seeing the look of pure desperation behind my eyes.
“You’ll see him again.”
“I know,” I reply. “I just hate that it had to be done.”
We both glance over at the sleeping warrior. Poppy squeezes my hand. We are in silent agreement that we have no idea who we can trust in this castle, other than Ben, Mystica, and each other.
Neither of us can speak of where Ben took Isaac and Mystica in front of the warriors. All I know if he is safe in some distant village under the care of a pack under the control of an allied Alpha. I know little information for a reason, even though I hate it.
The less I know, the better. The less I know, the less information someone can torture out of me.
I close my eyes for a moment, willing the tears to stay put and not roll down my cheeks.
“I’m going to sleep in here tonight,” I say after a moment, sniffing. “If it’s all right with you.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Poppy replies, chuckling as she pats the left side of the bed. I plop down, sinking into the pillow, which smells a lot like Antony.
Speaking of him…,
“Have you decided?” I ask, rolling over to turn out the lamp on the bedside table. Darkness envelops the room as Poppy lies back on her pillow, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. She knows exactly what I’m talking about.
A few moments pass before she says, “He’s my mate, so in a way I’m… obligated to go with him back to his pack.”
I roll over to face her, and she does the same, much slower since she likely feels like she’s gone through a meat grinder.
“Why did you decide to come back with Maddox?” she asks, a sliver of pain in her voice.
“I love him,” I say, tucking my arm under the pillow. “That was really what it came down to. I set everything else aside and asked myself what really mattered to me, and it was… that I love him more than life itself, and it had nothing to do with the mate bond. I love him to the point that the idea of spending my life without him is unthinkable. Every time I envision my future, he is there.”
“Do you still feel that way now? After all that’s happened?”
“And currently happening?” I chuckle, shaking my head. “I do. I wish he were here, but otherwise I feel good about my decision.”
She hums, considering.
“Is there something holding you back about Antony?”
“Not him in particular, more so his… past. Everyone says the mate bond is final, you know? That only death can break it. But love is… fleeting. What if I go with him, and he falls out of love with me? We settle down, have a few pups, and that initial excitement fades and he… regrets it?”
“Antony is obsessed with you, Poppy–”
“That is my point, Isla,” she whispers. “What happens when that fades? What am I supposed to do for the rest of my life in Maatua with a mate who fell out of love with me?”
“How could he possibly fall out of love with you, Poppy? There’s nothing unlovable about you.” She makes a face at me. “Okay, so you speak your mind. So what? So does he. And he already knows that. He’s lucky to have you!”
“Thank you. Be it as it may,” Poppy says in a lifted, dramatic voice, “that’s my concern. He doesn’t really… say much about how he feels about me. I didn’t realize I needed that from him until recently.”
“But I’ve heard him say he loves you–”
“I want him to say he’d hang the moon and stars for me! That’d he slay dragons and ride across continents to be by my side! Instead, he teases me and thinks sarcasm is a form of flirting.”
“This is because you’ve been stuck in bed reading your filthy romance novels all day, isn’t it?” I snort, trying not to laugh out loud. “Do you think Maddox even says those things to me? If he did, I would question his sanity. These are men we’re talking about, Poppy.”
Poppy gives me a look and sighs, shaking her head, but a hint of a smile touches her lips. We fall into comfortable silence for a moment before I finally say, “He loves you.”
“I know. I’m being… silly.”
I flinch as the door to Poppy’s room opens, and a warrior comes inside, his face shielded by the near total darkness in the room. He gently wakes the other warrior. I look at Poppy, both of us silent and still as the warriors exchange their posts.
The stool creaks as the new guard takes his place. The door closes.
Neither of us speak, but I hold Poppy’s gaze. I feel an odd prickle of adrenaline course through my body, my fingertips tingling as I listen, and listen, and listen through the dark.
My hand slowly moves beneath the sheets toward Poppy as the stool creaks again, like the warrior is only getting comfortable.
But something is off. Something is… wrong.
I shove Poppy with all of my strength, her body thudding against the floor in a tangle of sheets just as the warrior jumps onto the bed, the glint of a dagger catching the moonlight before the warrior slams it straight into the pillow where my head had just been.
Poppy screams in pain and shock as I roll off the bed and land on top of her, grabbing her around the shoulders and dragging her away from the bed. But I’m not fast enough. My mind hasn’t even caught up to what’s happening before the soldier is off the bed and standing in front of where we’re cowering on the floor.
I move in front of Poppy, shielding her with my body.
“Get out!” I shout, looking up into an unfamiliar face. The man just smiles at me, a wicked gleam that sets my blood on fire as he takes a teasing step forward.
I’m up on my feet again before he can swing, and I catch his arm as the dagger comes down, grazing my chest. But the force of the impact and his pure brute strength sends me flying across the room when he swings his arm, my back slamming into the dresser.
I try to cry out, but my lungs are screaming for air. I turn my head, watching as he turns his attention on Poppy, who is desperately trying to move away from him.
He has her cornered.
“Should we finish what we started?” he rasps, and I feel like I might puke. Poppy hadn’t told me much about how and why she’d been so viciously attacked, but her injuries had been numerous and severe before I healed her.
He grabs her leg and pulls her to him.
I reach up, feeling along the dresser as I fight for breath and clutch something solid and heavy in my hand. I chuck it across the room without a second thought. It bounces off the man’s back, and he arches against the pain, dropping Poppy’s leg.
“You’ll have your turn,” he growls at me, pointing the dagger in my direction.
“Help!” I say through the mind-link to anyone who might hear me. “It was a man pretending to be one of our soldiers. He’s in Poppy’s room. Please–”
Poppy screams again as the man grabs her by the waist and tosses her on the bed. I get to my feet, my body screaming in protest. I rush him, throwing my full weight against him, but he thrusts his elbow back and knocks me straight in the nose. I claw at his shirt, my nails tearing through the fabric. He finally turns around and jabs me with the knife, the tip of it just above my navel.
“Poppy,” I say hoarsely, standing as still as possible. “Run.”
“She makes one move, and you’re dead.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway. Why keep her here?”
“Because I was promised something for my troubles,” he says, his voice like gravel as he whispers the words across my cheek. “And I mean to have her.”
“Poppy,” I say again, swallowing thickly. “Go–now–”
He presses the dagger harder, the tip breaking the skin this time. I wince.
“Who are you?”
“Nobody.”
“Who do you work for?”
“I think you know that by now,” he sneers.
“Seth,” I say cooly, his name burning like acid on my tongue.
“Your Alpha’s not coming back,” he whispers, twisting the dagger. “He made sure of that.”
“You’re lying–”
He shoves me away, and I hit the ground, my head bouncing off the floor. I choke, the air stolen from my lungs for a second time as I arch my back and fight for breath. Poppy’s scream is a distant ringing in my ears, as is the sound of the bed creaking under the warrior's weight. Poppy is trying to get away, I can hear them fighting. I can… I have too…
Power tingles through my body, like little pricks of electricity thrumming over my skin. Can I still use the powers I used to kill the witch? Did me dying, then coming back to life again, change anything?
I think of that day in Maatua, of that blue light flowing from my hands. I will it forward, Antony’s voice from that distant memory ringing through my ears.
Concentrate, Isla. Concentrate.
I scream as the first gleam of blue light springs from my palm, ribbons of powers shooting across the room. I try to sit up, my hand still outstretched as blue-hue light turns the night to day.
The warrior screams in panic and rolls off the bed. Poppy covers her face with her arms and lies down as the power rips through the curtains on the four poster bed and sends the posts crashing down on top of her.
I get to my knees, my jaw clenched as I look for the warrior. He’s gone. I can’t see him anywhere.
I drop my arm and the light goes out.
“Poppy?”
“I’m here,” she squeaks, and I hear her trying to free herself from the curtains and splintered bed posts littering the bed. “Where did he go?”
“I don’t know–”
“Poppy!”
I whirl to the door of the bedroom as it comes down, wood breaking off and flying through the air as Antony rushes inside. He’s soaked, covered in what looks like blood, and naked from the waist up.
He looks at me for a fraction of a second before he rushes to the bed. My eye’s catch movement from the shadows and suddenly Antony sprinting across the room, his feet leaving the floor as he throws all his weight on the warrior who had just come out of the darkness.
I don’t have time to scream to Antony to warn him of the dagger.
It catches the light of the moon coming through the window, then disappears into Antony’s chest.