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She’d never seen a shirtless Alpha this close. Fighting marks etched everywhere, lighter-colored scars against his bronzed skin. A large one curled up his side, and she reached down and ran a fingertip up it. The world around her, including the tent and Lodan, rippled like a pond when a thrown pebble disturbed its surface. She inhaled sharply.

No, she couldn’t have a vision. Not now. Not around him. She needed to hide it. The way she’d been hiding it her entire life. She struggled against it, but it was always useless—the visions came when they wanted, and she had no control over them.

The tent faded away.

She stood on black sand as night pressed heavy and dark, rapid flashes of lightning illuminating a slim wash of beach. Waves crashed hard against the shore, and trees she’d never seen before with tall, slim trunks and strange long fronds for foliage only at their apex, bent before the wind. An odd scent tinged the air, a mineral tang, like sulfur.

A few feet away, the Warlord crawled out of what remained of a boat, struggling to get free of the crashing waves. Inch by inch he dragged himself, his hands raking deep into the sand until he reached higher ground. Groaning, he collapsed, pressing a hand to his side. Another bright flare of light revealed a nasty gash along his ribs, exactly where the scar she’d touched lay.

This wasn’t the same Warlord she knew. His dark hair was longer, and he seemed a little leaner. His eyes closed, and his chest heaved as he gulped in air. She could practically feel the slash of the rain and the coarse grit of the sand herself.

Time behaved strangely in her visions. Sometimes, it seemed to slow, and other times it charged forward, giving her a glimpse of an entire day, maybe many days, in only a few moments. It passed quickly now, the storm fading and night turning to dawn, a pale pink rising from the horizon as the Warlord fought to stay conscious and survive. In her visions she could do nothing. She couldn’t move away, she couldn’t stop it, and she was utterly invisible—a specter held hostage by whatever glimpse of the future she was forced to witness.

Except, she didn’t think this was the future. While the Warlord’s expression was set in pain, he looked younger, as if he hadn’t quite started to hate the world around him yet. Her stomach clenched, and anxiety punched through her. Even if this was the past, she didn’t like seeing him injured. She wanted to fix it. To help.

She shook her head, trying to clear it. He was the Warlord. She didn’t want to be anxious about him.

A whistling drew her attention away from him. An older, wizened man strode down the beach, using a walking stick to poke at seaweed. He had a lean face and the ropey kind of muscles that spoke of long days of hard work. He walked right by Kassandra, so close that if she were really there, she could reach out and touch him. One of his eyes was blue, and the other green.

He froze. “Another one? When will they realize it’s called the Unreachable Isle because it’s unreachable?”

The Warlord groaned and shifted.

The older man gasped, then hustled over, dropping down on the sand. “Well, this is the first time someone’s washed ashore still alive.” He scanned the Warlord. “Well, mostly alive. We’ve got to get you off the beach before the gulls decide you’re a free meal. What’s your name?”

“Va—” the Warlord’s lips tightened. “Lodan,” he choked out. “My name’s Lodan now.”

The other man sighed. “The dragon god who broke down walls, huh? No one names themselves after the god of poetry or the god of literature. It’s always one of the destructive gods.” He put his arm around Lodan. “Well, you’re a big brute, aren’t you? Let’s get you up, I can’t carry you.”

With the older man’s help, the Warlord got his legs under him. “I didn’t give myself that name.”

“Save your breath, you’re going to need it. We’ve got a little walk ahead of us.”

“They told me I charge across the battlefield like a god on fire. Like the dragon god.” His words slurred, and he staggered. “Perhaps in another life, I could have written poetry. In this one, I need to fight. I came because I need your help.”

The other man snorted. “I’m done with that. But I will get you stitched up.”

They staggered to a small home of bleached stone draped with drooping lavender wisteria and grape vines. A well-cultivated garden in the formal style popular in Sarda stretched off to the right, beyond a well-trodden path wending through fruit trees and flowers. Inside, books and scrolls covered every surface but the sitting area and kitchen, and Kassandra was fairly certain the rug on the floor was a genuine Arachne-made creation. They were priceless.

Who was this hermit?

Time flashed forward, the bright sunlight mingling with the darkness of night as days sped by, until slowing again to show Lodan, bare-chested except for a bandage wrapped around his abdomen, sitting across from the older man. He frowned and leaned back against his chair.

“The Sardi are a properly trained military, and I need your help to fight them. My men can fight, and they will fight, but we need real training. Real strategy.”

The older man shook his head. “Even if I thought you’d truly take the time to listen to me, I’m not interested in helping with wars in Anatolia.”

One of Lodan’s hands fisted. “It’s not about war. It’s about righting a wrong imposed on Anatolia for far too long.”

“I see.” But even Kassandra could tell the older man was dismissing Lodan.

Lodan growled, stood up, and paced to the window.

“I mentor people on how to think,” the older man said. “I don’t train armies or help men with their vengeance.”

Lodan turned. “Aren’t you famous for teaching justice and ethics as well?”

Kassandra frowned. Who was this teacher?

The older man’s brows lifted slightly. “And?”

“I seek justice. I seek fair treatment for all, not just for some. You believe in learning. I was forbidden from reading books that weren’t related to farming. The Sardi did everything they could to keep me, and my people, tightly contained. Controlled. They forced our Omegas to lie with them. Or marry those they didn’t love because they wanted to align certain bloodlines. What justice is this? What ethics?”

The other man remained silent.

“You left the Sardi. You refused to teach them.” Lodan swept his arm, then winced and held his side. “There must have been a reason for that.”

“My reasons are my own.” He waved Lodan off. “Now go rest.” But based on the deep crease between his brows, Kassandra suspected he was thinking about what Lodan said.

Who was this man, and why had Lodan practically died finding him?

The scene faded to black, and with a whoosh of air, she was back in the tent.

She lay on her back, the Warlord peering down at her, his brow furrowed. “You all right? What happened?”

Why would she see something from his past? And something like that? She wanted to ask him who the older man was and also about his real name. The one he’d almost given on the beach, but she couldn’t. Not without revealing she had visions.

“I’m fine.” The last thing she wanted to do was tell him, her enemy, about having visions. It was bad enough when her own people rejected and ridiculed her, she didn’t need to hear it from her enemies, too.

“You’re not fine. Your eyes went vacant.” The furrow in his brow deepened, and he reached toward her as if to stroke her face, but he paused, then let it fall back to his side. “I’ll get Greta.”

She struggled to sit up. “No, you don’t need to get Greta.” She shivered. Sometimes after a vision she grew cold, as if it had sapped the warmth from inside her.

The Warlord growled. “Put your shirt back on.” He snatched it off the floor and handed it to her.

As she shrugged it on, he plucked one of the blankets off the bed and slung it around her shoulders. Then he shifted to sit with his back against the bed’s footboard, spreading his long legs along their mat on the floor. “Come here.”

He was acting strangely, and she eyed him.

“What did I say about obeying me?” He growled, seeming angry with her.

She shivered again, and he leaned forward to pluck her from the ground as if she weighed nothing. Then, he settled her against him.

Despite her shirt and the blanket, the warmth of his bare chest still seeped into her.

His scent also seeped into her, wrapping around her the same way his arms now wrapped around her, holding her close. This wasn’t playing fair. It was one thing for him to toy with her Omega instincts by teasing her with his touch, it was another to hold her like this. To let the brush of his skin caress her with every rise and fall of his chest.

She held herself stiff, not giving in to the desire to curl up on him and let his Alpha heat warm her.

“I’ve seen many faint from pain. You didn’t faint.” His voice rumbled, the vibration rolling from his chest through her.

“You have proof I’m a defective Omega. I told you I’m not a suitable partner for you, and you’ve seen it for yourself.” The words were bitter as she said them. It was one thing for everyone else to say she was unsuitable; it was another to say it herself. “You should let me go.”

“Greta said your feet are healing well, so I know you don’t have blood poisoning.”

He’d asked about her feet? “Her salve works well.”

He shifted her about so that her head was tucked under his chin. “I thought you might be faking to get out of touching me, but you weren’t. Even a Sardi isn’t that skilled a deceiver.”

He rubbed her arm slowly.

Already she stopped shivering. “If our roles were reversed and you were my prisoner, your job would be to keep me warm. It’s really the only thing Alpha’s are good for. You run so hot.”

He went still, and she realized she’d spoken aloud. She tensed, expecting him to bellow at her or toss her aside. Instead, he ran his fingers up her throat to her jaw. She shivered, but this time, it wasn’t because she was cold. “I think you’d have other things you’d want me to do for you.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Maybe. “You don’t need to take care of me. I told you, I’m fine.”

“I’m not taking care of you, I want to know what happened. For five minutes you stared blankly, not even blinking. I couldn’t wake you, and your heart rate was slow.”

She shrugged. “I had an episode.”

“Have you had one before?”

This really could be her chance to keep him away from her. She could use her visions to scare him away. It had scared away all the others.

Her father had introduced her to a few Sardi noblemen, all Alphas in their later years, who were widowed and already had heirs, in case any children with her were also tainted with “fits.” She’d rejected them, but they also hadn’t wanted her. Not really. They only wanted the prestige of marrying into the Podarce family.

“Yes, I’ve had fits my entire life.” She turned and locked gazes with him. For a moment, she faltered. While she didn’t want to be his prisoner, for some reason, she didn’t want him to see her as flawed. She lifted her chin. “I told you already. I was placed in the Sardi temple for a reason. I’ve lived there for the past four years.”

His gaze shuttered, as if he put a wall between them. He wasn’t looking at her with disgust, but it didn’t feel much better. “You aren’t telling the truth. You’re trying to pretend you’re addled somehow, so I’ll leave you alone.” He growled. “Typical Sardi, thinking you’re cleverer than everyone else and playing tricks. Your fate is sealed. It doesn’t matter what you say or do.”

His reaction was the same one she got when she told the truth about how she had visions. Disbelief. Name-calling. Anger. She was damned if she told the truth and damned if she didn’t.

The Warlord set her on the ground and got to his feet. “I have no more need of you tonight. Go to sleep.” He glanced at his bed. “Don’t make your nest in my bed.”

As if she wanted to sleep anywhere near him. “Don’t worry, I don’t like your bed.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my bed.”

She sniffed. “You’re an Alpha, what do you know?”

He frowned. “Tell me what’s wrong with it.”

“What does it matter? You said I’m never going to sleep in it.”

He glared at her for a long moment. With a shake of his head, he growled and stalked out of the tent.

Kassandra scrambled to her feet. For several long moments, she stood fixed in place. Everything was off kilter, as if she were the one on the boat in her vision, being tossed around in a storm. Nothing was the way it should be. Instead of a vision of the future, she’d had a vision of the past. His past. Instead of being repulsed by him, she kept touching him.

She dove for her discarded, damp trousers and found the strobile pills, a bit sodden but still all right. Without water, she swallowed one down. No more of this instant infatuation the moment he touched her. If these pills helped ensure an Omega didn’t beg for an Alpha’s bond, it had to help keep him at a distance, too. No Alpha had ever made her act like a hormone-driven fool before, and she wasn’t starting now.

She grabbed some sleeping skins off the bed and moved the rug they’d sat on for dinner to the side of the tent. She’d spoken the truth about his bed; it was big and looked comfortable, but something wasn’t quite right about it. Her fingers curled, clutching at her sleeping skin. Despite what she’d said, an urge to fix his bed, to arrange the blankets and pillows into a proper nest, needled at her. No. If she made a nest there, that meant she intended to sleep there, and that would never happen.