Chapter 14 - Ronan
She’s already up and in the kitchen when I walk in, which is new.
Ever since I brought her here, she’s kept to herself in the mornings.
At first, I thought she was deliberately avoiding me, but now that I’ve gotten to know and understand her routine, I realize she’s just not a morning person.
So, to see her standing at the counter in one of my shirts that she’s stopped pretending isn’t hers now, both hands wrapped around a coffee mug and legs that go on for miles, is a surprise.
“You’re up early,” I say.
“So are you,” she replies, not looking away from the window.
I pour myself a coffee and lean against the counter where I can see her face.
She’s beautiful, she always is, but there are shadows under her eyes that aren’t usually there.
I think I put those there. I’ve been so pissed off with the island ever since that email, and I know my wolf can still be a stifling presence when he’s frustrated.
I wouldn’t say I feel bad about it, and I sure as hell don’t owe her an explanation, yet when Emma told me what she’d said about missing her coven, it seemed simple enough to let her contact them.
They can’t save her, anyway, and I want her onside.
I see the upside to letting her talk to them, and I’m happy to take some credit if she’s offering it, but she still looks wary.
“You’re happier?” I ask. “Since you’ve talked to them?”
Her hands tighten on the mug. “I’m relieved they know I’m alive. That’s not the same as happy.”
“No.” I watch her. “But you slept better last night, I think.”
She glances at me quickly, and I see it, the guardedness in her eyes.
A small calculation, like she’s checking herself for what I can see before she lets me see it.
How much of her I’m allowed to see. She’s been doing it since I brought her here, and the only time it dropped was when I was inside her, and she was screaming my name.
“Thank you,” she says finally. Stiff, and it’s clear the words cost her. “For the tablet. I didn’t say it before.”
“You told me you wouldn’t thank me for the bare minimum,” I say, holding her gaze.
“I don’t think that was the bare minimum.” She looks back at the window. “I think you surprised yourself.”
I’ve been so busy trying to see through her that I didn’t notice she was looking through my own defenses.
She’s quick-witted, and I enjoy her rapport, but my wolf responds before I can process it, shutting down and rising up at the same time.
I set my coffee down and walk towards her, crowding her and delighting as she goes still, her pulse fluttering in her throat.
I don’t grab her. Getting in her space is enough. I stop close enough to feel the heat coming off her, and she tips her head back to look at me, but she doesn’t step away.
She stays, and that seals our fate.
“I should go,” I say, but I don’t move.
“You should,” she agrees, staring at my mouth in a way that makes my wolf surge.
So I kiss her.
It isn’t gentle, because I don’t have gentle in me this morning, and I’m not sure she wants that anyway, because the second my mouth finds her, she leans in, her hand fisting in my shirt.
She tastes like coffee, and so much like the night I took her innocence, and the small sound she makes as I deepen the kiss goes straight through me.
I move my hand to her hair, and she gasps before pulling me closer.
For a few seconds, everything else goes out the window, and there is only us.
Then she pulls back.
Her hand is still tangled in my shirt, and she’s breathing hard. She drops her head for half a second like she’s gathering herself, and when she lifts it, her eyes have cleared, and the walls are already coming back up.
“Don’t,” she says, softly. “I can’t do this.”
I could push. I can feel how close she is and how little it would take to claim her again and take what I want.
But I let her go.
I step back and let her go, because I know this can wait; I know she’s going to give in to her desires again. She keeps putting up these walls, but her body betrays what she really wants. So do her eyes, so full of heat.
“Okay,” I say.
She blinks, as though she was braced for a fight, and seems almost disappointed she didn’t get one.
I grab my jacket, and I go, before I change my mind about walking away.
Walking down toward the docks, not even looking where I’m going, I don’t think about the island, the bond, the fight to come.
I only think of her—the sweet taste of her lips, the way her delicate hand fisted in my shirt, and the way she lied when she said she couldn’t do this… she wants it too, and she knows it.
I want her. Not the magic. Just her.
I shove the thought down quickly before it can take hold, but it doesn’t go far. It sits in my chest the whole walk down, warm and thoroughly inconvenient.
By the time I reach the docks, I’ve managed to push it down so I can focus on the work ahead. Or at least pretend.
And the work, this morning, feels bigger than it ever has before, but there’s a strength building in me that wasn’t there a month ago.
It sits just under my skin, almost like my wolf has grown too big for his shell.
I’ve spent my whole life clawing for every scrap of power I have, and now more just keeps coming, building every day.
She thinks she kept the bond from me—so did I, to start with—but now I’m not so sure.
I spot the early morning crews already moving, and the sight of it helps focus my mind the rest of the way. Boats riding low off the overnight runs, the warehouse doors rolled back, Cole out on the dock with a clipboard, running the operation.
“Tell me we’re set,” I say, approaching.
“We’re set,” Cole replies as he falls into step with me, walking the line of boats. “Fuel store, the wharves, in and out before they can scramble. Same as last time. Though if you want my opinion…”
“I don’t,” I tell him firmly.
“…you’re getting it anyway. We’ve hit that same stretch twice now. They’ll be waiting for a third.”
“Or they’ll assume we’ll move on. Either way, we hit them harder than they’re ready for.
” I stop at the end of the jetty and look out to where the island sits low across the water.
“I’m done with living off scraps, Cole. I want the harbor.
The northern ports. The whole top half of that island by winter. ”
Cole goes quiet, looking out at the island. “By winter.”
“Yes, and then the rest of the damn island will follow,” I say it easily, like it’s nothing, and watch him try to keep his face straight. “You think I can’t do it.”
“I think you’ve never said it out loud before, but that doesn’t mean I doubt you.” He sets the clipboard down. “I just question whether we need the island when we have business up and down this coast. We could stop these runs without suffering. We could stop tomorrow; we don’t need it.”
“This was never about needing it.” I look out at the water. “It’s about taking back what should have been mine. That hasn’t changed.”
“Hasn’t it,” he says, but it’s not a question.
I can tell he’s been talking to Ryder; the sentiment is the same, and he’s known me long enough to know when to push and when to hold back.
I know he’s loyal. He’d go to war with me, side by side, but he’s saying his piece.
And now that he’s said it, he can fuck off.
That much he senses, because he picks up the clipboard and gets back to work.
He catches me looking and throws me a salute that’s half cheek.
I give him a flat look that promises I haven’t forgotten the ass-kicking I owe him, and he laughs and goes back to work.
I turn back to the warehouse and see Davey coming out.
He waves, still looking sheepish. I’m not sure what kind of reception he expected, but I didn’t tear him apart; he looked thoroughly shell-shocked and didn’t need to be told where he’d gone wrong.
He’s a good kid, and he’ll make a great beta one day, when he finishes training—the dose of humility he got served by being captured will probably be the making of him.
Ryder finds me an hour later, in my little office tucked away at the back of the warehouse, running through the accounts. He’s wearing the very specific look he gets when he’s been thinking too hard and has decided to make it my problem.
“Half the island before winter,” he says, walking in without even a hello. “I saw Cole, who isn’t sure if you were joking. You’re serious.”
“Dead serious,” I grin.
“Ronan.” He moves in close and drops his voice so the crew can’t hear.
“The plan was a territory. Recognition. We have that now. They know who we are, what we’ve achieved—a thriving settlement, a happy pack, a network, more than we ever dreamed about freezing in that cabin. And you want to risk it all?”
“For what they owe us,” I say plainly.
“They offered us peace, remember,” he reminds me.
“They offered us nothing,” I reply. “A vague apology about how our father treated us and a returned pup, and I’m supposed to roll over and thank them. That’s not peace; it’s them handling me, and I’m done being handled.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “How many men did we lose this year? Ten? Ten good ones, with families up the hill, so you could make a point you’ve already made.
” His jaw twitches, and I see his repressed alpha wolf surfacing, which it rarely does.
“And how many of theirs? You stopped counting those a while ago.”
“They picked the wrong side of a war.” I shrug, even though the words land.
“The fishermen who get in the way? The warehouse workers who are in the wrong place at the wrong time? The families?” He shakes his head, slowly.
“You’ve burnt people out of their homes, Ronan.
Women and pups who never did anything to us.
You know exactly who would do something like that, don’t you? ”
The air in the office suddenly goes very thin around us.
“Say it,” I tell him, very quietly.
He doesn’t. He’s no coward, but he’s not a fool either, and he can read what’s all over my face. But he doesn’t take it back, and that’s even worse than just saying he thinks I’m turning into Ralph.
“You’re strong,” he says instead. “Stronger than ever. That bond magic has affected the whole pack, but you, it’s stronger in you, and I can see it. But if you’re not careful, it could derail you instead of helping.”
“I feel more like myself than ever before,” I admit. “My wolf feels it, too. The witch is working, bond or no bond, and when I’ve got all of it there won’t be a wolf on that island who can stand in front of me. Three alphas. I’ll put all of them on their backs.”
He goes quiet. Not the kind of quiet he uses when he’s thinking, but the other one. The one filled with judgment.
“That’s what scares me,” he says.
“What does?” I snap.
“You. Like this.” His eyes move over my face. “Has it crossed your mind she might not be steadying you at all? That she’s doing the opposite?”
The growl is out of me before I can stop it.
“Careful,” I tell him.
“I’m not saying she means to…”
“I said careful.” I turn on him fully, the wolf right there in my throat.
“She’s the best thing that’s happened to this fight.
She’s mine, and she’s a weapon, and you don’t get to stand here with your books and your theories and tell me what she’s doing to me.
You won’t even touch your own wolf, Ryder.
You don’t get to lecture me about mine.”
It lands, and I watch something shut down behind his eyes, and I know I’ve gone too far, but I don’t take it back.
“Right.” His voice goes flat. “Of course.”
He slams the door as he walks out, and I let him go because I’ve no use for his conscience today.
We hit Tristen’s stretch an hour after dark.
The eastern shore—fishing wharves, fuel stores, the holdings that feed the whole northern trade. It’s quiet when we come in, too quiet, and for half a second I wonder if Cole was right and they’re waiting for us. Then I decide I don’t care. Let them come.
Cole takes his men down the wharves while I see to the fuel store myself.
We siphon off what we want, and I could leave the rest, but instead I lay a line, strike it, and step back as it goes up fast. For a few minutes, there’s nothing but the roar of it, men shouting, and a pack howling somewhere too far off to matter.
Let Tristen put that in a damn email.