Finally Found it 108

POV: Isla

The gardens were the one place in Crimson Fang where the pack’s rhythms did not reach me. Too many corridors inside, too many wolves moving through them with too much purpose, and I was carrying twins and in need of ten minutes that belonged to no one but me.

I had been out long enough that the sunlight had moved through the leaves and warmed the back of my neck. My hand rested against the curve of my stomach without my deciding to put it there.

“Beautiful spot.” I turned. Malrik stood a few feet behind me, hands in his pockets, posture carrying the ease of a man who had not been hurrying toward anything in particular.

“Malrik.” I kept my voice easy, not unkind, the way you kept it with a wolf you had not yet decided about. “You’re in the gardens?”

He laughed, soft and unhurried. “Why not? A man can appreciate a little beauty, can’t he? Besides, it seems the Luna has a habit of finding the best places to think.”

I regarded him with care, the way I had regarded him since he arrived — looking for the seam where performance ended and real intent began. I had not found one yet, and I did not know what to do with that.

“And you came looking for me?” I kept my voice level, arms staying loose at my sides.

He moved a step closer, respectful distance maintained, enough to signal this was not a passing courtesy.

“Not intentionally.” His gray eyes carried a candor I kept failing to find a counter-argument for. “But I saw you from across the yard and thought… why not say hello?”

“You’re awfully sociable for someone who doesn’t know where he stands here,” I remarked, crossing my arms.

Malrik’s crooked smile turned self-aware in a way I had not expected. “I suppose that’s true. But I didn’t come to Crimson Fang to be anyone’s enemy. I came because of my brother.”

A pause that had weight behind it. “And I wanted to understand the woman who holds this pack together.” I blinked. “Understand me?” He held my stare a moment before answering.

“You’re not what I expected.” His voice had gone thoughtful, the tone of a man working through an observation he had been carrying for days.

“Draven always spoke about strength like it was heavy — sharp and unyielding. But you…” His gaze dropped briefly to my stomach, then returned. “You’re strength, yes, but not the way he sees it. There’s kindness in you. Warmth. That’s rare in a pack as fierce as this.”

My defenses eased against my better judgment. I had received enough flattery to recognize it by its texture, had been scanning his words since he opened his mouth.

The slick underside I expected was not there. Either he was the finest actor I had encountered, or he was simply telling me what he observed.

I kept my voice steady. “Strength takes many forms. And a pack needs more than brute force to survive.”

Malrik nodded, his smile settling into a quieter register, more genuine. “That it does. You’re lucky, Isla. Lucky to have found a way to balance both.”

The branch snapped and the footsteps followed a half-second later. I turned before the second sound finished.

Draven came out of the tree line with his amber eyes already fixed on Malrik, his steps measured with the deliberateness that meant he was working to keep the pace controlled.

He crossed the garden without looking at anything except his brother. “Malrik.” His voice was low, carrying an edge that did not need volume. “I didn’t realize you had business here.”

Malrik held his ground without shifting his weight. The same unhurried smile he had offered me. “No business, brother. Just a chat. Your Luna was kind enough to humor me.”

Draven’s eyes came to me. The question in them was immediate, his voice dropping into the register he used when he needed truth confirmed. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” I heard the edge arrive in my voice before I could soften it. “We were just talking.”

His gaze moved back to Malrik. His shoulders had risen, his jaw set. “You’ve been ‘just talking’ a lot lately.”

Malrik raised his hands, palms out. “I’m trying to understand the pack, Draven. That includes Isla. Surely you can’t fault me for getting to know my family.”

“Don’t push it.” The growl in Draven’s voice was not subtle. “Family doesn’t mean trust.”

I stepped forward. I had watched this same exchange cycle through three days and multiple rooms and I was finished watching it. “Draven, stop. He’s not done anything wrong.”

His eyes cut to mine and the answer came fast and final. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“And whose fault is that?” I held his stare and did not move back. “You won’t tell me anything about him. All I see is you snapping at every word he says.”

“I don’t mean to cause trouble.” His voice was quiet but steady. “I just wanted to make things right between us, Draven. That’s all.”

Draven’s amber gaze stayed on his brother, and what burned in it was not purely anger. There was age in it. The specific weight of a wound that had been sitting in him long before Malrik appeared at these gates.

He stepped back, a deliberate withdrawal that cost him visibly, every muscle in it controlled. “Stay away from her.”

Malrik nodded, his expression carrying a regret that held no performance in it that I could detect. “Of course.”

He walked away through the garden. I watched Draven watch him go, and the silence between us settled into the kind that meant one of us was going to have to speak first. It was going to be me. It was always me. “You can’t keep shutting him out.” I kept it low, just for us. “He’s trying to fix things. Why can’t you see that?”

Draven did not answer right away. His eyes stayed on the empty path Malrik had taken. When he finally spoke, his voice was tight and controlled and holding back more than it released.

His jaw released one word at a time. “Because fixing things isn’t what he does.” A beat. “He breaks them.”

I looked at his profile. The set of his jaw. The tension across his shoulders he had been carrying since his brother’s name first entered this packhouse.

I loved him. I was running out of patience with the walls he kept around this particular part of himself. I wanted to press, to make him turn and look at me and give me every word of the history he was guarding.

But I knew Draven. Pressing when he had just drawn that much restraint out of himself would not open him. It would close him further.

So I stood in the garden beside him, the sunlight moving through the leaves, my hand against my stomach, and I held my silence with the same deliberate effort he was holding his.

He would tell me eventually. I would hold steady until he was ready, and then I would make absolutely certain of it.