"I'm not going to break," she said.
"I know you're not."
"I'm telling you, not asking for confirmation." She pushed off the counter. "I spent the last hour holding that storm. Guiding it. The rotation over the lake is mine and it's controlled, Rafe. I tightened it from a full discharge system to a directional wind pattern without a single bolt of lightning. I did that before you knocked on my door. Before I heard your voice. Before I felt you on the path."
She stepped closer to him. "That was me. My discipline. My choice. Whatever this bond is between us, whatever instinct or recognition or biological truth you've been carrying since the inn, it didn't do that. I did. I am not afraid of what I carryanymore. And I am not going to let Malrick or anyone else use my past to turn me into a weapon."
His storm-gray eyes showed her what it cost him to stand there and listen instead of act. His hair dripping, rain still running down the lines of his face. Every muscle in his body was coiled for a fight he couldn't have because the fight she was describing was hers, not his.
"You can't blame the past for me anymore," she said. "I can't either. The fear, the running, the years I spent making myself small so the sky would stay quiet. That's over. Not because of you. Because I'm choosing for it to be over."
"I never tried to fix you."
"I know. That's why I'm standing here telling you this instead of packing a bag."
The rain was was back, the storm pulling back from the cottage, the rotation over the lake widening and losing energy as her own emotional state leveled out. The charge in her hands had dimmed to almost nothing..
"I was scared today," she said. "When I saw those letters. When I thought about what they meant for you. For me. For whatever this is between us." She was close to him now, and could see the way his hands hung at his sides like he was holding them there by force. "I sat on the rocks and let the storm take over because that was easier than feeling all of it at once. That's what I've always done. That's what he's counting on."
"And instead?"
"Instead I came home and I sat at my table and I held the storm. All of it. The grief, the anger, the wanting. I let myself feel it and I directed the power instead of hiding from it." She looked up at him. "I don't need you to save me from this, Rafe. I need you to see that I can save myself."
"I see it," he said low, like the words had to travel through something to get out. "The sky over the lake was yours and it was clean."
"Yes."
"You're terrifying."
"Good."
The space between them had closed to almost nothing. She could feel the heat coming off his body through the wet jacket, could smell the rain on his skin, could see the effort it was taking him not to reach for her. His wolf was right there, she sensed the intensity of his attention like a physical force pressing against her chest.
"I'm still angry with you," she said.
"I know."
"You should have told me sooner."
"I know that too."
"And I'm not done being angry about it."
"Okay."
"But I don't want you to leave." She put her hand on his chest. Felt his heart slamming under her palm and the vibration of the growl he was holding back. "Stay."
His hand came up and covered hers pressing it harder against his chest. His eyes were dark and his whole body trembled with restraint.
"Isla," he said. "If I stay, I'm not sleeping on the floor."
"I'm counting on it."
28
ISLA
She kissed him first. Again. Because it mattered that it was her choice. Because after everything, the letters, the bond, the storm she'd held in her own hands for an hour before he knocked on her door, she needed this to start with her.
