She crossed her arms. "And the note at my door?"
"Same source. I'm almost certain." He stood in her kitchen, hands in his jacket pockets because he didn't trust them anywhere else. "There's a man on the river named Malrick Sloane. We have history. He's been running a courier into Hollow Oak, planting letters with traders, building a narrative that ties me to weather magic. The timing lines up with everything, your note, the manifest, the whispers."
"Why?"
"Because I'm stranded here with a damaged ship and he sees an opportunity to take my routes while I can't defend them." He paused. "And because he knows what you are. He tracked you the same way he tracks everything, through records, through leverage, through patience."
She was quiet. The stove ticked in the corner. Outside, the lake was going dark.
"I wanted you to know," he said. "So you're not dealing with the town shifting under you without understanding why."
"Thank you." She said it simply.
He should leave. He'd said what he came to say. The information was delivered. But his feet weren't moving and she wasn't opening the door.
"I don't regret the other night," he said.
Something moved behind her eyes, quick, then controlled. "Neither do I."
"Good." He should stop here. He knew he should stop here. "I'll be gone in a few days. Ship gets finished, I'm back on the water. That's the reality."
"I know the reality."
"But while I'm here." He met her gaze. His wolf was pressing forward, the pull toward her so strong he felt it in his teeth. "I don't see why we can't spend what free time I have getting to know each other. Outside of storms and forged documents." He knew what the town would say, especially with the rumors, but he couldn’t help himself.
Her expression flickered. Surprise, maybe. Or the effort of not showing surprise. She studied him for a long moment, arms still crossed, her back against the counter.
"Getting to know each other," she repeated.
"Unless that's too civilized for you."
"I just want to be clear about what you're asking."
"I'm asking to see you. Not because of the storms or the ship or whatever's happening on the river. Because I want to." He held steady under her gaze. "Simple as that."
It wasn't simple. Nothing about this was simple and they both knew it. His wolf was howling. The mate bond was a live wire in his chest and the words were right there,you're mine, I knew from the first touch,and every second he didn't say them felt like holding his breath underwater.
But there was something open in her face. Relief, maybe. At being wanted for herself rather than managed for what she could do.
That look stopped him cold from admitting anything else because saying there was a bond between them would kill that look in its tracks.
"Okay," she said. Quiet. Almost careful. "Okay, Rafe."
He nodded. The wolf settled. Not satisfied, never that, but settled enough that he could think straight.
"Tomorrow," he said. "After the dock work."
"After the dock work."
He left before he could say anything else. The birch path was dark on the walk back, the lake throwing moonlight through the trees, and his wolf paced behind his ribs with something that felt dangerously close to hope.
16
ISLA
The next morning, Corin waved Isla through the orchard gate without stopping his work on the hives, Chloe beside him in the tall grass checking root systems on the clover that bordered the eastern row. No hovering. That was the gift of this place. She showed up, they let her work, the meadow held whatever she put into it.
Today she was working narrow. No broad sky formations, no attempts at full cloud architecture over the ridge. Just wind. Pressure. The feel of air moving across a fixed plane and the ability to shift its direction without calling anything else to the surface. Lightning was the showpiece of stormcaller magic, the part people wrote about, the part that killed. But lightning was a symptom. The real skill lived underneath, in the ability to read pressure systems, redirect them, hold a front in place or push it through without the sky deciding to announce every adjustment with a bolt.
