15. Rafe
RAFE
Dex had handed him the plank and the note the previous afternoon with the expression of a man choosing not to say his true thoughts.
"She left it at the gangway," Dex said. "Didn't come aboard. Didn't ask for you."
"What did she say?"
"Nothing. Handed it over, said the note explained the rest. Then she left."
Rafe had read the note at his work bench below deck.
The charge was real but minor, a residual frequency embedded in the grain that could attract secondary strikes if left untreated.
She'd wrapped the plank in a grounding cloth soaked with something herbal.
Leave it for forty-eight hours, she'd written.
The frequency should dissipate. If it doesn't, bring it back.
Professional. Thorough. Not a single word in it that wasn't about wood.
Part of him had been grateful. She'd done what he'd asked, done it well, kept it clean.
The other part, the part with teeth, was disgruntled in a way he couldn't reason with.
His wolf wanted the distance between them closed.
It had wanted that since the morning he'd walked out of her cottage, since the counter, since the wrist. Every hour apart felt like a rope pulled against current, and the current was winning.
But he had a ship to fix and a reputation being taken apart by someone who hadn't shown his face yet. That came first. It had to.
By midmorning he was at the dockside tavern.
The freight runners who usually greeted him with nods or brief trade talk were different today.
Two men he'd done repeat business with over the last three years, solid operators on the north channel, were sitting at their usual table near the dock door.
When he walked in, neither looked up. One shifted his chair slightly, turning his body away from the entrance. Small movement. Deliberate.
Rafe ordered coffee from Petch and waited.
The third man at the table was someone he recognized from the manifest conversation Dex had reported. Older, heavy-set, with the sunburned neck of a long-haul riverman. He was doing most of the talking while the other two listened.
Rafe finished his coffee before he walked to the table.
"Henner," he said to the man on the left, the one he'd traded dock space with two seasons back. "You've been running my wool route for three years. Last month you told me the Ashvane was the most reliable vessel on the channel. Now you can't look at me."
Henner's jaw worked. "Rafe. It's not like that."
"Then what's it like?"
"People are talking. That's all."
"People are talking because someone gave them something to talk about.
A forged manifest posted on the supply board with my route dates matched to storm losses.
" He kept his voice level. Conversational.
The bar had gone quieter around them. "You've run this water long enough to know what a manufactured correlation looks like. "
Henner glanced at the heavy-set man, then back. "Nobody's accusing you of anything directly."
"No. That's the point. Nobody accuses directly. They plant the idea and let the river do the work." He eyed the heavy-set man. "I don't know you."
"Garren. I run freight out of the Ardenmere basin."
"Ardenmere." Rafe let the word sit. "Who told you to come to Hollow Oak, Garren?"
"Nobody told me anything. I run this stretch every spring."
"You've never docked here. I checked the mooring records this morning. First time in Corwen's log is four days ago."
Garren's face didn't change but his hands went still on the table. The other two men were watching the exchange the way people watched fighters size one another up.
"I go where the trade is," Garren said.
"So do I. The difference is I don't carry forged paperwork when I do it."
He left the table. Petch was wiping down the bar with studied disinterest. The room had heard enough to know something was moving beneath the surface, but Rafe hadn't given them enough to build a story on.
That was intentional. He wanted the questions hanging, not the answers and to see if Garren went to who had put him up to this.
Outside, the dock was bright with noon sun.
He stood at the waterline looking out at the mooring posts, counting the vessels currently tied up.
Five, including the Ashvane. Two were regulars he knew by sight.
One was Garren's heavy barge. The last was a narrow charter tied at the far end, no flag, no visible registry.
Dex appeared at his shoulder. "The charter. It came in two nights ago. No mooring record filed."
"Same one from before?"
"Same description. Light build, fast hull. Whoever owns it doesn't want paperwork attached."
Rafe looked at it for a long time. Then he walked down the dock toward it.
The man sitting on the charter's stern rail was young, mid-twenties, with the build of someone hired for speed rather than strength. He was eating an apple and didn't look up when Rafe's shadow fell across him.
"Nice morning," the man said.
Rafe stepped onto the charter without invitation. The man finally looked up. His eyes moved to Rafe's shoulders, his hands, the set of his stance. Something in his face recalculated.
"I'm going to ask you one question," Rafe said. "And you're going to answer it honestly because the alternative involves me and six feet of water."
The man stopped eating.
"Who do you work for?"
"I'm independent. Charter work, nothing permanent."
Rafe grabbed a fistful of the man's shirt and pulled him off the rail. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to make the point that hard enough was available. The man's feet scrambled on the deck.
"Let me try that again. Who hired you to dock in Hollow Oak without filing a mooring record?"
"I don't know his real name. He goes by Sloane. Paid me to run messages and keep an eye on dock traffic." The words came fast. "That's it. Messages and observation. I'm not muscle."
"What messages?"
"Sealed letters. I don't read them. He pays well enough that I don't need to."
"Who do the letters go to?"
"Traders. Freight runners. People on the river. I drop them and leave." He was breathing hard. "Look, I'm a courier. That's all."
Rafe held him there for another three seconds. Then he let go. The man stumbled back against the rail, apple rolling across the deck.
"You're going to leave Hollow Oak today," Rafe said. "And you're going to tell Sloane that I know he's here. That's the only message you're carrying from now on."
He stepped off the charter and walked back up the dock. His hands were steady. His wolf was not.
Dex met him halfway. "Confirm?"
"Malrick's running a courier out of that charter. Sealed letters to traders on the river. The forged manifest, the rumors about weather magic, the timing of all of it. He's orchestrating from somewhere close."
"Close enough to watch the western path at night."
"Yes."
Rafe sucked in his patience as he looked out over the lake.
The afternoon light was cutting gold across the surface.
Somewhere beyond the tree line, Isla was at her cottage or at Corin's meadow or hauling sandbags along a retaining wall, and she didn't know that the man dismantling Rafe's livelihood was the same one who'd left a note at her door. He was sure of it now.
She had to know. At least that’s what he told himself when he went to her cottage that evening.
The walk was becoming familiar, which bothered him. The birch path, the beekeeper's field, the point where the lake became visible through the trees. His wolf settled into something calmer with each step west, and he resented the animal for it because calm was not what this situation called for.
She opened the door before he knocked. She'd been at the window, probably. Watching the path. Her hair was tied back, loose strands framing her face. She had a smudge of something dark on her forearm, dirt or charcoal.
"Lupeus."
"Can I come in?"
She stepped aside. The cottage was warm, the woodstove going. The kitchen table had a mug on it, half empty, and a book facedown near the lamp.
"I need to talk to you about something," he said.
"You look like a man who needs to talk about several things."
He almost smiled at that. "There’s rumors in town. About the storms, about the weather being connected to someone in Hollow Oak. You noticed anything shifting?"
"I noticed people stopped talking when I walked past them yesterday." She leaned against the counter. The same counter. He made himself not look at it. "Edgar at the Mercantile was careful with me. A woman on the herb shelf looked at me like she was running odds among other things."
"It's manufactured. Someone forged my supply manifest and posted it at the dock tavern, matching my route dates to storm losses on the river. The implication is that I'm using a stormcaller to sabotage competing trade."
Her face went still. "Using me."
"Using the idea of you. Nobody's named you directly. They don't have to. Everybody knows you're here."
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.