*Isla*All the information that Mystica is giving me is too much for my mind to process all at once. I’m going to need a few moments to get it all into my brain. For now, I’m still stuck on trying to grasp the idea that I'm pregnant.I’m pregnant, and my child was not only exposed to the wolfsbane that that horrible bitch Zabrina poisoned my body with, but who knows what kind of damage the medications Mystica gave me in an attempt to heal me could cause in a body so tiny and undeveloped?Maddox is telling Mystica to stop filling my head with nonsense when I finally begin to pay attention to their discussion again, and the healer looks horribly offended. “Your Majesty!” she declares. “I am not filling her head with nonsense! It is about time that you came to understand the truth of the situation. You have to accept the fact that your beloved breeder here is more than just the title you have bestowed upon her! She is, in fact, a princess! She is from Maatua! And she does have capabiliti

*Isla*“I just don’t understand how he can be so confident about the existence of this curse but not be willing to budge an inch when it comes to the discussion of the fountain.” I take a bit of my piece of toast and shake my head, not sure if I’m actually going to be able to eat much of what Poppy has set before me on the table this morning. All night, I tossed and turned, thinking about Maddox and the discussion we’d had right before I asked him to leave the night before.“Well, he is very protective of you,” Ben says, still chewing. His appetite has definitely not been affected by this situation. He came back to check on me after he was certain Maddox was gone last night, and I’d told him I was pregnant and needed to get some rest. He’d been ecstatic to know he was going to be an uncle again. My sisters have kids after all, but he never gets to see them because they live so far away, and even though I do, too, now, my brother and I are very close, much closer than he is with anyone

*Isla*“We need to talk,” I say to Poppy, and she stops fluffing the pillows on my bed long enough to look over at me.“Oh? Now you would like to talk?” She sits down on the edge of my bed and crosses one leg over the other one so that her foot is dangling. She kicks it around in a circle, her hands folded over her knee. “All right. What would you like to discuss? What do you think about the rain we got last night? Oh, did you hear that Barbie in the kitchen found her true mate? Do you think Beta Seth plucks his eyebrows?”Letting out a sigh, I walk over and sit next to her. “Stop it, Poppy. I understand that you’re upset. You feel like I should’ve told you what was going on, and you’re not wrong. I just… I didn’t know anything until last night. And after I talked to Maddox about it, I was so exhausted, I just wanted to go to sleep.”“I understand.” She pops up off of the bed and crosses to where she left her duster earlier. Picking it up, she begins her aggressive dusting motion agai

*Isla*Maddox gives the signal for the condemned prisoners to be killed, and someone in the back of the crowd watching shouts, “Now!”Immediately, chaos erupts in front of the gallows as dozens of shifters leap up and change into their wolf forms. Women, children, and some men scream and try to get out of the way, but the wolves plow through them, trying to get to the gallows.The guards react immediately, also shifting to fight back. I hear Maddox shout. “Drop them!” and the hangmen do their job even as the wolves that are either from Hill Country pack or Zabrina’s pack–Maple pack storm the gallows.“Seth! Get Isla inside, now!” Maddox shouts over his shoulder just as he shifts and takes off down the stairs toward the fray.Seth turns to look at me, obviously upset that he’s not running, too. I want to tell him to go on, that I’ve got this, but then I remember I am carrying a baby, and I’m not so brave anymore. It looks like the wolves that have started the chaos are not just in fron

*Maddox*It’s too much.I have too much to take care of right now, too many things to think about and do, to sit here and consider the possibility that Isla’s brother has just died, gone to the island of Maatua, and then been brought back by her tears or blood or both. No, with the uprising that just happened in the courtyard, I can’t even begin to process it right now.I know that I will come across as an absolute jackass if I even try it at the moment. Isla is staring at me, waiting for me to acknowledge what Ben has just said, but all I can do is nod my head. “Is there anything you need now?” I ask instead. “Are you hungry?”“Hungry?” Mystica repeats. “I think he’d better stick to IV fluids for a while, Your Majesty. We did just sew his stomach back together.”I have no idea which parts of him were split apart. What I do know is I can’t comment on his adventure to the isles at the moment.Isla games my arm. “Are you okay?” she asks me, looking concerned.“I’m fine,” I tell her. “An