*Isla*
I roll my lower lip between my teeth as Maddox paces the deck. Nothing about this situation is good. Nothing about this situation is clear, either, and none of us have been able to get a hold of anyone on Maatua in two full days.
Whispers of unrest on Maatua had been coming to us for months now. Maddox and I hadn’t known the unrest was a wizard, however, until four days ago when a frantic call from Antony had us hastily packing and out the door in less than an hour.
We’d just celebrated Isaac’s first birthday the day before.
I lean against the railing and bow my head, ignoring the salty spray of the violent ocean preventing us from moving in on the coast of Maatua. The kingdom is shrouded in black clouds, and the air is thrumming with electricity. I’ve never seen a storm like this before, especially one that is exclusive to the island itself. Where we sit in our boat, the sky is blue, and the water is relatively calm.
Two days ago everything was fine.
“He left,” Maddox barks, stalking over to me. “He left the island–”
“What–”
“I just got through to Mary… Barely,” he says through gritted teeth. “Antony had Poppy sedated and took off to KiloKilo with six warriors in what sounds like a fucking rowboat.”
“What?” I ask again, unable to comprehend.
“Mary told me the wizard said he wouldn’t let up until Antony gave him what he wanted. Antony interpreted that as sacrificing himself to save his Kingdom from ruin. That was two days ago.”
“Oh my Goddess–”
“The port is gone, Isla. Waves washed it away. Half of the island is flooding, and the other half has burned to the ground from lightning strikes–”
I turn back toward the water in preparation to vomit over the railing. “This is why he didn’t ask us for aid—He wanted us to get Poppy–” I surmise.
“We’re supposed to pick her up and take her off the island and back… back home.” Maddox slams his fist into the railing before walking away. I can feel his fury. I don’t blame him for being angry with Antony. My cousin, who is as stubborn as they come, kept us in the dark about what was really happening in his kingdom until it was too late. The unrest that had taken him and Poppy back to Maatua early, seven months ago, had not been domestic. It had been magic, dark, powerful, and unending magic that was destroying Maatua right before our eyes.
And my best friend was stuck there, pregnant and abandoned by her mate.
I want to scream, but I clutch the railing instead.
“Isla,” Emery’s voice cuts through the silent, desperate scream ripping through my body. I turn to the girl, not even bothering to hide the emotions racing behind my eyes.
Seven months ago, Emery was locked in a cell in our dungeon. Now, she runs her own pack made up of orphaned children that are kept safe and cared for in the Willow Pack’s territory, my father’s territory. She used to scare me to death, but now she is one of the strongest allies we have.
She is a beast. Powerful, sharp, and fearless. She isn’t even old enough to shift yet.
When Antony said no aid, Maddox immediately summoned Emery to our castle. She is worth more than fifty warriors, and no one knows that but us.
“Emery,” I reply, finding it hard to catch my breath, “we can’t make it any further than this. The port is gone–” My voice breaks. “I don’t know what to do.”
I hate that we’re in this position. I hate that Poppy is trapped, defenseless, and alone.
Emery gives me that cat-like grin she’s known for and tilts her head toward the side of the massive ocean-worthy cruiser where a smaller, older skiff is fastened to the side.
“Feel like getting a little wet?”
“We’ll die,” I argue, pointing to the black cloud of death swirling over Maatua in the distance.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Emery shrugs. “It’s our only option if you want to go fetch your friend.”
My mind wanders over every possibility we have to get to the island. We can’t get our boat close to shore without a port, but the skiff… we can pull up right on the sand, if we can survive the waves kicked up by the storm.
I think of Isaac, who is safe, warm, and loved back at home. Ben is on summer vacation and standing in for both Maddox and Elijah, who’d come with us, and I’d even left Cindy behind to help Hestia run things.
We didn’t know what we’d be walking into. And we’d walked straight into hell, apparently.
I should have expected something like this was coming. Seven months had passed in peace. We’d watched our son grow and take his first steps, say his first words. We’d celebrated the holidays and thrown parties and attended festivals. We’d visited Ben twice at his school.
I’d once thought I was getting bored.
Now, I regretted it, like I’d almost wished this into existence.
“Maddox won’t allow it,” I say, wrapping my arms around the slight swell of my stomach. Yes, pregnant again. Four months along, to be exact. A girl. “It’s too risky.”
“Then I’ll go,” she offers with a shrug.
“We can’t let–”
“I’m sixteen now,” she continues. “I can drive a car. Why not a boat?”
“Emery–”
Maddox appears on the deck again, his face ruddy with frustration.
“We’re going to take the skiff,” Emery says, but he ignores her, striding over to me.
“We can use the skiff,” he says in a hoarse growl. “The captain said there’s a cove on the other side of the island, and radar shows that it’s out of the wrath of the eye of the storm right now.”
“I just said we could take the skiff,” Emery butts in, but he ignores her again.
“We missed something, Isla. Returning the Diamond to the temple should have prevented this.”
“We’re missing her necklace,” I replied, swallowing thickly. “We never figured it out.” Now we were out of time.
Poppy and I had spoken a week ago about the necklace. She had no idea where it was, or even where to look. If it is on Maatua, no one knows about it. There is no word of it in any texts, no lore or myth surrounding it.
Elijah approaches just as the boat begins to turn. He hands out life jackets with a grave expression. He isn’t happy about being called on this mission, I can tell. He didn’t want to leave Trinity behind.
But we are here now. And we need to rescue our friends.
* * *
The waves rip over the rocky shore as we near Maatua. I can’t see over the spray of the waves threatening to swap the boat each passing second. Elijah has a hold on both Emery and I, the girl refusing to be left on the boat. I didn’t want to leave her alone, either. While I trusted her, she was a warrior with a child's attention span and deviance. She would have made our cruiser, our ticket out of this place if everything went south, into her personal playground.
Maddox steers the skiff over waves taller than most buildings, my stomach dropping and twisting every time. Emery, however, is squealing with delight, her mouth stretched into a wide, beaming smiling of pure glee.
“Hold on,” Maddox shouts over the roar of the ocean as heavy rain starts to pummel us from above.
Another huge wave breaks below us, and we dive down with it, Maddox yanking on the throttle of the skiff as we rip toward the rocky coastline.
I close my eyes and pray to the Goddess that we’re on the right course, that once Poppy… and Maatua… is safe, we can return home to our son.
Heavy, wet silence wraps around us, and the floor of the skiff stops spinning. The urge to vomit is stronger than ever when I open my eyes to slits. We’re coasting into the cove, which is narrow and shaded by thick jungle. I’ve never seen this place before. We must be on the farther stretch of the island, far from where Poppy would be.
But we made it. We made it.
“That was so much fun–”
“Emery,” Elijah warns, “shut up.”
Maddox guides the skiff to shore and jumps out. His hands are shaking, his face pale and clothes absolutely soaking wet. He looks like hell, and I’m sure I look worse. My hair came loose from my braid and is sticking to my skin, tangled and matted from the wind. Maddox looks down at me, sighing with relief as he extends his hand to help me out of the boat.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m going to go throw up over there,” I croak, pointing to a tangle of tropical foliage, “but then I’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” he breathes, some of the color returning to his face as I scurry away to be sick.
I overhear Maddox and Elijah talking as I return to them, feeling a little better but a little wobbly. Emery is bent over, examining the sheltered, pebbled shoreline.
“Did Mary mention whether Antony or the men he took with him have been seen at all since they left?” Elijah asks in a near whisper.
“His boat–” Maddox begins, then stops as I approach. He sucks in his breath and continues, “They found the boat this morning. I called to say we were approaching like Antony had asked. Mary was frantic. The castle is in ruins. Antony is presumed dead.”
“Goddess,” Elijah whispers, running his hands over his face.
I’m too stunned to speak.
“We need to move,” Maddox says. He looks over at me, his gaze raking over my body.
“I’m okay, I promise.”
“We’re just getting Poppy. If Antony is dead, and that’s what the wizard wanted, then this can’t carry on.”
“We can’t leave the people of Maatua defenseless–”
“This is beyond us, Isla, I’m sorry.”
My heart squeezes as Maddox turns and begins to walk away, calling out to Emery to follow him and behave herself.
“The necklace,” Elijah breathes just as I’m about to start following my mate. I halt, looking up at Maddox’s Beta. “This is what this is about.”
“Do you know for sure?”
“What else could it be?” Elijah shifts his weight. “Do you trust Antony?”
“I–I do–”
“Does he have it?”
“The necklace? Why would he have it?”
“Because,” Elijah sighs as we start walking, keeping a small distance between the two of us and Emery and Maddox. “When Maddox and I first learned about what is happening here, before Antony left, he mentioned the wizard had asked for an heirloom belonging to the Kingdom of Maatua. Something that had been passed down in Antony’s line. He called it the Diadem of… Promise.”
“The Diadem of Promise? But the Goddess showed me a necklace–”
“Jewelry can be repurposed. The Diamond of Faith belonged to the Goddess’ crown in the temple from what Maddox said.”
“The wizard from KiloKilo is doing all of this over a diadem? A freaking tiara?”
“If it’s anything like the diamond, it’s not just a tiara,” he says flatly as we start to close the distance between us and Maddox. “Did Antony ever mention an heirloom–”
“No,” I say, choking on the words. Could Antony be hiding something? Had he been hiding something this whole time?
Did he have the necklace we’ve been tasked with finding?