Finally Found it 107

POV: Isla

I hit Susan’s guard three times in quick succession, the third catching her off-balance, and she stepped back just far enough to let me know I had landed it cleanly.

“Again,” she said.

We had been at it for the better part of an hour, the training yard empty except for us and the sound of boots on packed dirt and the particular rhythm of two people who have sparred together long enough to know each other’s habits. My arms ached from the shoulder down. I did not mention it.

I was in the middle of a pivot when I caught the movement at the fence line.

A man. Lean, wiry, slightly hunched at the shoulder in the way of someone who has learned to take up less space in rooms than he actually requires.

He stood at the wooden fence with his arms folded on the top rail, watching with the easy attention of someone who has found a subject worth watching and has decided not to move on.

Susan caught him at the same moment I did. She let out an audible huff and landed a heavy strike against my shield without breaking her gaze. “What is he doing here now?” she muttered.

I took the strike, rolled my shoulder, kept my feet. “Probably just curious. Ignore him.”

We finished the round. When I dropped my guard and turned to reach for the water skin, the man at the fence began to clap. Unhurried, genuine, not the performative kind.

“Bravo,” he called, his voice carrying the lightness of a man with nothing to prove by it. “I do not know what is more impressive: the precision or the resilience. Either way, I am thoroughly entertained.”

Susan wiped her forearm across her forehead with the expression she reserved for inconveniences that had not yet been dealt with. “What do you want, Malrik?” she asked flatly.

He raised both hands in the gesture of a man indicating he is not holding a weapon, his crooked smile staying in place. “Only to appreciate fine skill when I see it. Is that so wrong?”

His sharp gray eyes moved to me, and there was nothing predatory in them, only the particular alertness of someone who pays close attention to everything and does not bother to conceal it. “And to finally introduce myself properly. It is a shame I have not had the chance.”

“You have been here for days,” Susan said. “Plenty of time to introduce yourself.”

“True,” he conceded, with the chuckle of a man who finds himself entirely reasonable. “But I thought it best not to interrupt the mighty Crimson Fang warriors during their important work. I would hate to be a distraction.”

I stepped forward and stopped just short of the fence. Susan muttered a protest behind me that I did not address.

“You are Draven’s brother,” I said. “You have already introduced yourself. Formally, anyway.”

Malrik tilted his head, that gray gaze carrying genuine amusement. “Ah, but not properly. There is a difference.”

He extended one thin, calloused hand over the rail. “Malrik, the weakest Alpha of the region, full-time observer of life’s absurdities. A pleasure to meet you, Isla.”

I looked at the hand for a moment. Then I took it. His grip was firm without being a demonstration. I released it quickly enough.

“And an occasional troublemaker?” I asked.

“Only when it is worth the trouble,” he replied, with a small sideward tilt of the head that suggested he had been accused of worse and found it more interesting than insulting.

“Though I assure you, my intentions here are entirely harmless. I have spent too much time fighting shadows and politics. It is nice to simply exist for a while.”

Susan made a sound that communicated she was not moved. “You will forgive us if we do not take you at your word. Harmless wolves do not usually show up unannounced.”

Malrik’s expression shifted then, the lightness still present, but underneath it a quality that sat more carefully. He made himself slightly smaller in his posture, the deliberate adjustment of a man who knows when a room is measuring him and chooses not to compete with the measurement.

“I understand,” he said. “I would feel the same in your place. But I am not here to disrupt. Truly.”

His eyes moved to mine, and the sincerity in them was not performed. It was the specific, unglossy honesty of someone who has tried the other approach and found it expensive. “I am here because Draven is family, and whether he likes it or not, I would like to bridge the gaps between us.”

“Gaps?” I asked.

“Gaps,” he repeated. The word came out lighter on the surface and heavier underneath. “Time. Distance. Misunderstandings. We did not part on the best of terms. And I would like to change that.”

His gray eyes held mine, not pushing, not deflecting. “I do not expect trust, Luna. Only the chance to prove I am more than my reputation.”

I held his gaze and ran the read on him the way I had learned to run reads on people who might become threats, or allies, or the more complicated category between the two that required the most careful handling of all.

He did not flinch from it. He did not perform ease to cover discomfort. He simply waited, with the patience of a man who has learned that most things worth having require it.

I nodded. “Fair enough. But do not expect anyone here to make it easy for you.”

Malrik’s grin came back in full, unguarded. “I would not dream of it,” he said. “That would ruin all the fun.”

Susan walked past me toward the packhouse without comment, which was her version of registering her objection while accepting she had not won the point. I watched her go, then turned back to Malrik.

He was already looking back at the training yard, his arms resting on the fence rail again, his posture returned to that easy, unhurried stillness.

I left him there and followed Susan inside, and I did not tell him that I would be watching.

I moved through the packhouse with Susan ahead of me.

Malrik was not a threat today. He was not an ally yet.

He was exactly what he had presented himself as: a man who wanted the chance to be more than his reputation, standing at a fence with his arms folded and his crooked smile in place, patient enough to wait and see if anyone here would extend that chance.

I understood that particular waiting better than most. He already knew.