Page 14 of A Gathering Storm
A gull cries overhead, harsh laughter at my predicament that echoes off the water like mockery. Somewhere in the village, church bells toll the hour—seven deep notes that echo across the water like a countdown to disaster, each one a step closer to the moment when careful distance becomes impossible to maintain. Because that's what she is: beautiful, inevitable disaster wrapped in cashmere and curiosity, armed with nothing more dangerous than intelligence and the kind of stubborn persistence that turns over stones better left unturned.
I finally move, joints stiff from standing still so long in the morning cold. Rafe's warehouse needs checking for signs of last night's violence, and I need distance from her scent before my wolf does something irreversibly stupid like tracking her to the inn and claiming her in front of witnesses. But even as I force myself to walk away, to focus on threats I can fight with teeth and claws, I know the truth with crystalline clarity.
Eliza Warren has been in Stormhaven less than ten minutes, and she's already changed everything. The careful balance I've maintained, the brotherhood I forged in blood and desperation, the peace that keeps the clans from open war—all of it sits on a knife's edge now, waiting for one curious journalist to ask the wrong question.
The question isn't whether I'll claim her—instinct makes that inevitable as the tide that pulls at my bones. The question is whether we'll survive it, whether the brotherhood I just forgedin blood can withstand the storm she's about to become. Whether love and secrecy can coexist when one wrong word, one overheard conversation, one photograph in the wrong light could see us all hunted by governments and corporations that see us as weapons to be controlled or threats to be eliminated.
My wolf doesn't care about the questions or the consequences. It only knows she's here, she's ours, and the hunt has already begun whether I admit it or not. The careful control I've maintained for thirty-seven years, the walls I built after betrayal taught me that trust kills faster than silver bullets—all of it cracks like ice under spring sun, like glass under pressure, like everything fragile and necessary when something stronger comes along to test its limits.
I taste copper on the wind, sharp as fresh blood, and can't tell if it's leftover lightning or the scent of disaster heading straight for the life I've built on this storm-swept island at the edge of the world.
The storm has passed, but the war has only begun.
The brotherhood stands united, six predators bound by blood, secrets, and something older than loyalty.
Yet fate doesn’t rest.
When a stranger arrives on Stormhaven’s shores, Declan’s control will be tested—and his heart claimed by the one woman who could destroy them all.
Dive into Wolf of the Storm, the first full-length novel in theTides of Fateseries, where danger, desire, and destiny collide beneath the rising storm.