Neither of us has spoken much since he picked me up from the cottage. The silence between us carries weight, filled with everything he promised to explain and everything I'm afraid to hear. My pendant rests warm against my collarbone, a constant presence I've stopped trying to rationalize.
The boathouse emerges from the darkness like something out of a Gothic novel, its timber walls silver-grey with age and salt exposure. Light glows from gaps in the planking, warm and amber against the cold blue of the moonlit coast. Several vehicles are already parked in the gravel clearing, ranging from a battered Land Rover to a sleek black motorcycle that looks expensive and out of place on this windswept island.
Grayson kills the engine but doesn't move to get out. His hands remain on the wheel, knuckles pale in the dashboard's fading light.
"Before we go in?—"
"I know. No going back. You've said." I meet his eyes. "I'm still here."
He studies my face for a long moment, searching for doubt or hesitation. Whatever he finds there seems to satisfy him, because he nods once and opens his door. The night air rushes in, carrying the scent of seaweed and woodsmoke and something wilder underneath, something that makes my pulse quicken.
The boathouse door opens before we reach it, spilling warm light across the gravel. A woman stands silhouetted in the entrance, her hair pulled back in a practical braid that reminds me of my own. She's watching me with curiosity and wariness tangled together, and something else underneath—recognition, maybe.
"Grayson." Her voice carries the accent of this place. "You weren't exaggerating."
"Moira." He nods in greeting. "Is everyone here?"
"Waiting inside." Her gaze hasn't left my face. "You must be Dr. Calder. I'm Moira Flynn. I run the inn in the village."
"Isla." The correction comes automatically. "Please."
A small smile curves her lips. "Isla, then. Come in. We have a lot to discuss."
The interior of the boathouse is larger than the exterior suggests, the space cleared of whatever boats once sheltered here and converted into a hybrid of meeting hall and command center. A long wooden table dominates the center of the room, covered with maps and photographs and documents. Mismatched chairs and a few old sofas ring the perimeter, and a woodstove in the corner radiates heat that pushes back against the coastal chill.
But the furniture barely registers. My attention is fixed on the people waiting inside, and every instinct I possess screams that I've stepped into a room full of predators.
The group already assembled fill the space, arranged with the casual alertness of apex hunters at rest. They turn as one when Grayson and I enter, and the weight of their collective attention presses against my skin like a physical force.
A man rises from the chair nearest the stove, and the others seem to orient around him without conscious thought. He's tall, broad-shouldered, with the bearing of someone who's never had to raise his voice to be obeyed. Power radiates from him like heat from the woodstove, and when his gaze meets mine, I understand instinctively that this is someone accustomed to command.
"Dr. Calder." His voice is deep, carrying an authority that doesn't need volume to make itself felt. "I'm Declan MacRae. Thank you for coming."
"Isla," I say again, though my voice comes out steadier than I expected. "And I'm not sure I had much choice, given the circumstances."
A flicker of what might be approval crosses his face. "Fair enough. Let me introduce everyone."
He moves through the room, and each person he indicates acknowledges me with varying degrees of warmth or suspicion. The woman at his side is Eliza, with sharp eyes and an assessing gaze that suggests she's cataloguing everything about me for later analysis. She's pretty in an understated way, and she watches me with the knowing expression of someone who's recently stood exactly where I'm standing now.
Rafe Vega leans against the far wall, shadows pooling around him in ways that shouldn't be possible given the lamp placement. His gaze tracks my every movement with felineintensity, and when Declan says his name, he inclines his head in greeting without changing his position or his watchful stillness.
Jax Callahan looks like violence waiting to happen, scarred and coiled with barely leashed energy. He doesn't bother with pleasantries, just fixes me with a stare that makes clear exactly how little he trusts outsiders.
Kian O'Donnell offers a smile that's all surface, his lean frame draped across one of the sofas with studied, deliberate grace. There's something about him that reminds me of a cat pretending to sleep while actually tracking every movement in the room.
And then there's Finn Rowan.
He sits apart from the others, positioned near a window that looks out over the dark water. His face looks younger than some of the others, but when his eyes meet mine, I realize that young is the wrong word entirely. Those eyes hold depths that have nothing to do with age as humans measure it.
"Dr. Calder." His voice carries an accent that reminds me of old recordings, of a time before television flattened regional dialects into uniformity. "The sea speaks highly of you."
The words should sound ridiculous. Instead, they send a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold.
Grayson's hand settles on the small of my back, solid and grounding. "Isla has been researching the whale migrations. She's documented activity in the trenches that correlates with our sacred sites. And she knows about Maritime Development Corporation."
"We're aware." Declan gestures toward the table covered in documents. "Her research has been more thorough than our own intelligence in some areas. Which is both impressive and concerning."
"Concerning how?" I bristle at the implication that my work might be problematic.
