Chapter 4
RAFE
The inn is dark when I arrive, but I can smell her inside.
Salt and storm and the ocean at midnight.
The scent draws me across the cobblestones like a hook through flesh, pulling me toward Flynn's Inn even though every tactical instinct says this is a mistake.
Confronting a sea witch in her own territory.
Pressing a woman who's spent years hiding what she is.
But I'm done waiting. Done watching from the shadows while people go missing or are found dead and my name gets dragged through accusations I can't refute without revealing what I know.
The back door is locked, but locks mean nothing to someone who walks through darkness like water.
Slipping between the hinges and the frame, becoming shadow, becoming nothing.
Then I'm inside. The kitchen smells like baking bread and herbs I can't identify.
Protection wards hum in the walls, old magic woven by hands that knew what they were doing.
Moira's grandmother was no fool. She built defenses that would stop most threats.
Most. Not all.
Through the kitchen, footsteps silent on worn floorboards. The main room of the inn stretches before me, tables and chairs arranged with the kind of precision that speaks to decades of routine. A fire burns low in the hearth, casting flickering shadows across bottles behind the bar.
And there, standing at the bar with her back to me, is Moira Flynn.
She's changed since this morning when she served coffee and scones to fishermen and lied to Declan MacRae. Now she wears dark jeans and a sweater the color of storm clouds, her hair loose around her shoulders. Washing glasses that look clean already, her movements precise and controlled.
But fear clings to her like perfume. Sharp and metallic beneath the salt.
"The inn's closed," she says without turning around. "You'll have to come back tomorrow."
"I'm not here for a drink."
She goes still. The glass in her hands freezes mid-wash, water running over her fingers. Then slowly, carefully, she sets it down and turns to face me.
Her eyes are the color of the sea before a storm with depths I can't measure. Right now they're wide, pupils dilated, tracking me the way prey tracks a predator.
"Rafael Vega." My name sounds different in her mouth. Cautious. Wary. "Breaking and entering is illegal, even for a shadow-walker."
"So is hiding evidence of murder." Letting the firelight catch my eyes. Letting her see the gold. "We need to talk, Moira."
"We have nothing to talk about." She angles toward the kitchen door. Looking for an exit. "Whatever you think I can do—"
"When you healed Eliza, you used salt-water magic in front of the entire brotherhood." Another step forward. She retreats one. "You can’t deny it to those of us who saw who you are."
The color drains from her face. "That was an emergency. One time. It doesn't change anything."
"It changes everything." I round the bar, cutting off her escape route to the kitchen.
Only the main entrance behind her remains, and I'm between her and the door.
"You exposed yourself, Moira. The brotherhood knows you're a sea witch.
But here you are, still hiding. Still pretending you can go back to serving drinks and staying out of shifter business. "
"I can." Sharp now, edged with fear and anger. "I healed Declan's mate because people were dying. That doesn't mean I'm part of your world. I did what I had to do, and now I'm done."
"You think you can be done?" Leaning against the bar. She's not fooled by the casual posture. "People are dead. All near the water, all in territory I control. The brotherhood should suspect me, except they know I'm not responsible. Want to know how they know?"
Her jaw tightens. She doesn't answer.
"Because whoever's killing these people is using corrupted sea magic.
The kind that mimics yours but twisted, wrong, fed on darkness until it became monstrous.
You felt it at the caves, didn't you? That's why you were investigating.
Because someone's using power that feels like yours to commit murder. "
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do." My gaze drifts over her, cataloging details.
The way her pulse jumps in her throat. How her hands curl into fists at her sides.
The scent of ozone building in the air around her, sharp and electric.
"You found the blood on your doorstep. Three drops in a triangle.
A message. Someone knows you're investigating. Someone's calling you out."
"That has nothing to do with you."
"It has everything to do with me." Another step.
She backs up, hits the edge of a table. Trapped now between furniture and predator.
"Bodies are appearing in my territory. My name is being dragged through accusations.
Someone wants us both to take the fall—you for having sea magic, me for controlling the docks.
We're being framed, Moira. You and me. Together. "
"Then deal with it yourself." Her voice rises slightly. "You're the criminal mastermind. You figure it out."
"I can't." I'm invading her space now, deliberately.
Close enough to smell the sea salt on her skin, to see the flecks of blue in her eyes.
"Because I can't track magic. I can smell it, sense it, recognize when it's corrupted.
But I can't trace it back to the source.
You can. You're a sea witch. These are your waters, your domain. You know when they're being violated."
"That doesn't mean I have to get involved."
"You're already involved." My hand comes up, slow and deliberate, and I brush a strand of hair away from her face.
She flinches but doesn't pull back. Can't pull back with the table behind her and me in front.
"The moment you healed Eliza, you stepped out of hiding.
The moment that blood appeared on your doorstep, someone made it your problem.
You can pretend all you want, but you know as well as I do that whoever's doing this won't stop until Stormhaven is destroyed or you're dead. "
"And you care about that why?" Her chin lifts, defiant despite the fear I can taste on the air. "The criminal who runs the docks? The panther everyone suspects of murder? Why would I trust you?"
"Because I'm not the one killing people.
" My hand drops to the bar beside her hip, caging her in.
Not touching, but close enough that she'd have to brush against me to escape.
"And because you need protection. Someone powerful enough to leave corrupted sea magic on your doorstep.
Someone who knows where you live, what you are, how to threaten you.
You really think you can handle that alone? "
Her eyes flash, anger burning through the fear. "I've been handling things alone for ten years."
"Have you?" I lean in until my mouth is beside her ear.
"Because from where I'm standing, you've been hiding for ten years.
Playing innkeeper. Pretending you're normal.
One emergency forced you out, and now you're scrambling to crawl back into your safe little life.
But it's too late for that, Moira. The brotherhood knows what you are now.
The only question is whether you're going to use it or waste it. "
She turns her head, meets my gaze inches away. "What do you want from me?"
"An alliance. You use your magic to help me track whoever's summoning this corrupted power. I protect you from them. Together, we find the killer and stop them before the next body turns up."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you hide in your inn with your wards and your lies, and you pray that whoever left that blood doesn't have the power to break through." Pulling back slightly, giving her space to breathe. "Work with me. I protect you. You help me find them. We both get what we want."
"What do you get out of this?" Suspicion in every syllable.
"My reputation back. My empire secure. And the satisfaction of making whoever tried to frame me regret it.
" The smile that comes is all teeth. "I'm a selfish bastard, Moira.
I'm not offering this out of altruism. But our interests align.
We both want whoever's behind this dead or gone. We both want Stormhaven safe."
She studies my face, searching for the trap. For the lie. But I'm telling her the truth.
"I can't," she says finally. Quietly. "I can't help you."
"Can't? Or won't?"
"Both." She pushes against my chest, not hard, but enough that I step back.
"You don't understand what you're asking.
Getting involved with you, hunting whoever's doing this, using my power openly—it puts a target on my back that never goes away.
I healed Eliza because she was dying. That's different from choosing to hunt killers with you. "
"Your gran didn't hide." The words come out harsher than I intend. "She used her gifts. Protected these waters. Made bargains with the pack alpha to keep Stormhaven safe. She didn't serve drinks and pretend to be powerless."
"My gran is dead." Her voice cracks slightly, the first real emotion breaking through.
"She used her power and it killed her. Whatever she faced in these waters ten years ago, it took everything she had to stop it.
I watched her die, Rafe. Heard the crash from the kitchen, found her on the floor between the tables.
Everyone else saw a heart attack, a woman who collapsed carrying whiskey.
I felt what the magic did to her. I saw her eyes when she knew.
So forgive me if I'm not eager to follow in her footsteps. "
I pause. Didn't know the ocean itself consumed her. Didn't know Moira watched it happen.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."