Page 4 of A Gathering Storm (Tides of Fate)

RAFE

The shadow between weathered dock pilings has been mine for three hours now, long enough for the tide to turn and the moon to slide behind clouds heavy with tomorrow's storm.

My golden eyes track every movement below—the skiff cutting silent through black water, the practiced swing of sealed crates from boat to dock, the nervous energy of men who know they're dancing on the edge of something lethal.

Salt and rotting kelp mask most scents, but contraband has its own perfume.

Spanish wine from my homeland, aged in oak barrels that remember Mediterranean sun.

Cuban cigars wrapped in cedar, their tobacco leaves still holding Caribbean heat.

And beneath those familiar notes, something sharper—oiled canvas concealing cargo my human contacts don't need to identify.

Won't identify, if they value their tongues.

My panther purrs deep in my chest, a rumble too low for human ears.

This is what we've built in five years of careful violence—an empire that runs on fear and efficiency in equal measure.

Every man moving crates below knows the price of betrayal.

Some learned it secondhand, through whispered stories of bodies weighted with concrete, fed to crabs in the deepest channels.

Others saw it firsthand when I made examples of those who thought distance from Spain meant freedom from consequences.

The warehouse squats at the dock's end like a bloated corpse, its weathered walls hiding a labyrinth of storage spaces and hidden passages.

Once it processed herring and mackerel for export.

Now it processes darker commerce, goods that slip through legal nets as easily as I slip through shadows.

The local authorities look the other way—some paid, some threatened, all understanding that Rafe Vega's business is best left unexamined.

Movement stirs the air behind me. Heavy footsteps on creaking planks, deliberate enough to announce presence. No attempt at stealth, which means either stupidity or supreme confidence. The scent that reaches me—storm and wolf and alpha dominance—identifies which.

Declan MacRae.

I don't turn, don't acknowledge his approach.

Let him come to me in my territory, let him see how little his alpha status means here among rust and rot and human commerce.

My men below pause for half a heartbeat, instinct warning them of predator proximity, but they know better than to stop working.

Fear of me outweighs fear of anything else that stalks these docks.

"I need your word, Vega."

No greeting, no pretense of courtesy. The wolf alpha's voice carries desperation poorly disguised as command, authority stretched thin as old rope. He needs something, and need makes even alphas vulnerable.

I turn slowly, letting him see the gold flash of my eyes in the darkness. "MacRae. Strange to see you so far from your stone circles and clan politics."

His storm-grey eyes are hard as winter seas, but there's something else there—exhaustion maybe, or the weight of holding together something that wants to shatter. "Stay neutral in clan disputes. Don't fuel the fire."

Interesting. I push off from the piling and begin circling him, slow and deliberate. My panther recognizes his wolf, predator acknowledging predator, but neither of us shifts. This is business conducted in human skin, even if the beasts pace just beneath.

The silence stretches between us, taut as a garrote.

His jaw tightens with each second that passes without my response.

Control—wolves always need it, especially alphas.

They build hierarchies like humans build churches, desperate for order in a chaotic world.

Panthers know better. We thrive in shadows and solitude, answering to no one but ourselves.

"My empire thrives on chaos, MacRae." I let my Spanish accent curl thick around the words, a reminder that I'm not bound by Scottish clan laws or ancient treaties.

"War is good for business. Scared people pay premium prices for protection, for escape routes, for weapons that might give them an edge. "

Below us, one of the dock workers stumbles, nearly dropping a crate. Every man freezes, knowing that mistakes in my presence have consequences. I raise one hand—a simple gesture, dismissal and warning combined. Work resumes instantly, fear driving efficiency.

"What makes you think I'd choose sides in your little wolf war?" I continue, stopping my circling to face him directly. "Both sides have gold to spend. Both sides have secrets they'd kill to keep buried."

He steps closer, close enough that our power signatures clash like conflicting tides. Storm-magic clings to his skin, old and wild, the kind of power that shaped these islands before humans ever set foot on them. My panther bristles at the challenge, but I hold still, intrigued by his boldness.

"Because if Stormhaven falls to human exposure, your smuggling routes die with it."

Ah. There it is—the leverage he thinks he has.

I tilt my head, studying him the way my panther studies prey, cataloging weaknesses and strengths in equal measure.

He's not wrong. My operation depends on Stormhaven's unique position—remote enough to avoid scrutiny, connected enough to reach larger markets.

If humans discover what lives here, if government agencies descend with their satellites and forensics and endless questions, everything I've built dissolves like salt in rain.

"You assume I couldn't relocate," I say, though we both know that's posturing. Building this network took years, required specific conditions that don't exist elsewhere. "Find another island, another port where authorities can be bought and bodies can disappear."

"You could." His voice is steady now, finding footing in negotiation rather than command. "But you won't. You've marked this territory as surely as any wolf. You've tasted power here, control. Starting over would mean vulnerability, and panthers hate vulnerability as much as wolves hate chaos."

Smart. Smarter than I expected from someone who spends his time managing primitive pack dynamics and ancient rituals. But then, holding together three wolf clans ready to tear each other apart probably requires more subtle intelligence than I've credited him with.

"Neutrality, then." The words taste like concession, though I shape them into something sharper. "I won't arm your enemies, won't provide safe passage for clan deserters or sell information that tips the balance."

His shoulders ease slightly—so slight a human wouldn't notice, but I catalog every tell, every weakness. "And in return?"

"You keep your wolves away from my operations.

No territorial pissing contests over the docks, no righteous cubs thinking they can muscle in on my trade routes.

" I show teeth that aren't quite human, a reminder of what lives beneath this civilized veneer.

"And when your clan war inevitably spills over despite your best efforts, you remember who kept it from spreading faster. "

He considers this, that storm-scent intensifying as he weighs options. Finally, he nods—once, sharp, the gesture of an alpha who's made his bargain and will stand by it. "Done."

"Pleasure doing business, MacRae." The mockery in my tone is light enough to ignore, sharp enough to sting. "Try not to let your cubs know you came begging favors from the Spanish panther. Might undermine that alpha authority you're so desperately clutching."

His eyes flash—wolf-gold for a heartbeat before returning to human grey. "We all do what we must to survive, Vega. Even panthers who pretend they don't need anyone."

He turns and walks away, footsteps heavy on wet planks, leaving me alone with the sound of waves against pilings and the efficient fear of my workers below.

I watch until his silhouette disappears into the maze of warehouses and shadows that make up the harbor district, then return my attention to the operation at hand.

But something pulls my focus across the water, toward the warm glow spilling from Flynn's Inn.

The windows cast golden rectangles on the harbor's black surface, and through them I can see movement—the fluid grace of someone who knows every table, every corner, every hidden space in that salt-weathered building.

Moira Flynn.

Even from here, with wind and distance between us, I catch something on the air that makes my panther suddenly alert. Not just the obvious scents of her inn—whiskey and wool, peat smoke and seafood—but something else. Something that clings to the edges of perception like morning mist on water.

Salt-magic.

She hides it well, better than most. To the humans she serves, she's nothing more than what she appears—beautiful innkeeper with tragedy in her past and steel in her spine. Even to most supernaturals, she'd pass for purely human, maybe touched by fey blood generations back but nothing more.

But power recognizes power, and what I sense from her is old as these islands, deep as the trenches between them. Sea-born magic that flows with tides and storms, the kind of power that shaped coastlines and swallowed ships before humans learned to chart waters.

My panther purrs again, different this time—not satisfaction but interest. Intrigue.

She moves between tables with purpose, serving drinks and conversation with equal skill, but there's something in her movements that speaks of deeper currents.

The way she never quite turns her back to the windows that face the sea.

The way her fingers sometimes trace patterns on the bar that look random but feel deliberate.

A couple stumbles out of the inn, drunk on whiskey and each other, and in the brief moment when the door swings wide, I catch more of her scent.

Definitely salt-magic, but controlled with iron discipline.

She's hiding something beyond just supernatural heritage.

Secrets layer her like shawls, each one concealing the next, and I find myself wondering what would be revealed if those layers were peeled away.

One of my workers drops something below—not a crate but tools, the metallic clatter sharp in the night air.

I don't need to look to know they're all frozen again, waiting to see if this mistake brings consequences.

But I'm distracted by the way Moira's head turns toward the sound, just slightly, her attention changing from her customers to the darkness beyond her windows.

For a moment—so brief I might have imagined it—her eyes seem to find mine across the distance. Impossible at this range, in this darkness, with purely human senses. But that's the point, isn't it? Whatever Moira Flynn is, purely human doesn't describe it.

She returns to her work, dismissing whatever she sensed, but my interest is thoroughly caught now.

In five years of building my empire here, I've cataloged every supernatural on these islands, marked every potential threat or asset.

But I missed her, or rather, missed what she truly is beneath those careful masks.

That's either impressive control on her part or dangerous oversight on mine. Either way, it requires investigation. Not tonight—tonight I have cargo to process and accounts to settle, networks to maintain and fear to cultivate. But soon.

My panther agrees, already imagining the hunt.

Not for prey but for answers, for the truth beneath those layers of concealment.

What kind of power requires such careful hiding?

What secrets would make someone bury their nature so deep even other supernaturals can't sense it without looking carefully?