He walked up the dock road with that long, easy stride, coat catching the breeze off the lake, and disappeared.
Rafe stood on the deck with his hands gripping the rail and his wolf howling.
"Cap," Dex said quietly.
"Not now."
"Rafe."
"I said not now." He let go of the rail. His knuckles ached from the grip. He went below, changed his shirt because the one he was wearing smelled like caulking compound, came back up, and walked off the ship without a word to anyone.
He knockedon her door too hard. He knew it the second his fist hit the wood but he couldn't calibrate right now. His wolf was driving and the best he could do was keep it pointed in the right direction.
She opened the door. Her hair was down, loose over her shoulders, still damp at the ends. She was in a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows and her feet were bare on the stonefloor. She saw his face and whatever was there made her step back without a word.
He came inside. She closed the door behind him.
"He came to you," Rafe said.
"This morning. At the river."
"What did he say?"
"A lot." She crossed her arms. Guarded. But not against him, or not entirely. She was holding herself together the way she held weather, with effort. "He knew about Ardenmere. The date, the details, all of it. He said he could help me shape my gift into something respected instead of hidden. He called what I do extraordinary."
"He called it a resource when he talked to me. A commodity."
"That tracks. He also talked about you."
"I'm sure he did."
"He said you held the Kellert contract by undercutting every bid on the channel. That you used port officials to lock competitors out. That you're a territorial alpha who eliminates threats instead of competing with them." She paused. "He made you sound like someone who'd keep a stormcaller close for the same reason he would. Just with better manners."
"Do you believe him?" Rafe asked.
"I'm asking you."
He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat. Not because he was comfortable but because standing over her while she asked hard questions wasn't the right posture for this conversation.
"The Kellert account was mine for four years because I earned it. I ran the best route, delivered on time, kept my rates competitive. I didn't undercut. I outworked. The port officials he's talking about are harbourmasters I've known for a decade because I file clean paperwork and I don't cause problems at their docks." He looked at her across the small table. "Malricklost that account because he couldn't compete honestly. So he stole my bid numbers, my cargo specs, my rate negotiations. Used them to build an offer that looked better on paper than anything I could match because he already knew my ceiling."
"He said no one ever proved that."
"Nobody did. Because Malrick doesn't leave proof. He leaves impressions. He plants ideas and lets other people draw the conclusions he wants them to draw. That's what he's doing here. With the manifests, with the traders, with you." He leaned forward. "Isla, listen to me. This man does not do anything without three motives underneath it. Every word he said to you this morning was designed to accomplish something. The sympathy about your power. The flattery. The casual way he dropped Ardenmere into the conversation like it was public knowledge he just happened to stumble across. None of that was accidental."
"I know that."
"Do you? Because you're standing in your kitchen asking me whether I'm the kind of man who'd keep you close for what you can do, which means some part of what he said stuck."
She didn't answer immediately. "Some part stuck," she said. "Because you haven't told me everything either."
The truth of that hit him hard. She was right. He'd told her about Malrick. He'd told her he didn't regret the night they'd spent together. He'd asked to see her. But underneath all of that he was carrying something he hadn't said, the biggest thing, the thing his wolf screamed at him to tell her every time he was within ten feet of her.
He couldn't. Not tonight. Not when Malrick had just spent a morning planting doubt, making her question every motive of every man who came near her. If he told her about the mate bond now, it would sound like exactly what Malrick had accusedhim of. Another alpha staking a claim on a powerful woman for his own reasons.
"You're right," he said. "I haven't told you everything. And I'm asking you to trust that the things I'm holding back aren't what he's making them out to be."
"That's a big ask."
