Chapter 2: New lands. New people. New us.
1179 Words
The boat groaned as it kissed the dock, metal scraping against stone with the weight of travel and secrets. Salt still clung to my tongue, but it was sharper now—colder. The wind that greeted us smelled of peat smoke, wet moss, and something older beneath it all. Something that hummed low in my bones like a warning.
I didn’t move at first. Just stood there as the crew made a show of busying themselves—ropes tossed, orders barked, boots clattering across the deck. I caught the way a few of them glanced at me when they thought I wouldn’t notice. Some still looked skeptical. Others looked afraid.
Callum bumped his shoulder into mine as he passed, muttering under his breath, “You’ve got that look like you’re about to jump back in the water. Don’t. They bite harder than sharks here.”
I managed a dry smile. “I’ll take your word for it.”
The dock stretched long and gray before us, a tongue of stone slick with sea spray. A group waited at the end of it—three elders in heavy cloaks, and a taller figure wrapped in a wool coat with the collar turned up like armor. His hair was a darker copper in this light, and even from here, his presence was unmistakable.
Cathal.
The Alpha.
He didn’t smile.
A woman stepped forward before anyone else did. She was younger than the elders, perhaps a few years older than me, with storm-colored eyes and a warmth behind them that clashed sharply with the chill in the air. She didn’t hold her posture like the others—not rigid, not ceremonial. She looked… present.
She gave me a half-smile and a quick wave. “Welcome to Tírglas,” she said, her accent lifting the word like music.
I blinked. “Thanks.”
“Neasa,” she offered, stepping closer and extending a hand. “Healer. Or was. They gave me the job of making sure you don’t fall apart before you’re properly tested.”
Her hand was warm. Steady.
I opened my mouth to answer, but one of the elders cleared their throat loudly behind her. Neasa just rolled her eyes and muttered, “And apparently not supposed to be the welcoming committee. Oh well.”
She gave me a quick, sideways grin before turning on her heel and beckoning me to follow. “Come on. Before you get sucked into Elder Politics 101.”
By the time the sun started bleeding into the horizon, Neasa had led me away from the cottages and toward a low stone wall that overlooked the cliffs. No one followed us. The wind came in strong off the water, tangling my hair and tugging at her braid. She hopped up onto the wall with practiced ease and patted the space beside her.
“Best view on the island,” she said.
I climbed up, careful not to let the sea wind knock me off balance. From here, the ocean stretched out in every direction, vast and unknowable. I could still see the dock far below where the boat had settled quiet, tied up like it had always belonged there. But the people who'd watched me arrive were gone now—behind walls, behind judgments, behind questions they hadn’t asked out loud.
“You don’t have to talk,” Neasa said softly. “But if you do… this is a good place for it.”
I hesitated, fingers curling around the rough stone at my sides. “You ever get the feeling that the thing everyone’s hoping you are... isn’t the thing you actually are?”
She didn’t answer right away. Just hummed and kicked her heels gently against the wall.
“All the time,” she said. “Mostly when someone calls me ‘healer’ like it still means anything.”
“You still carry it like it does.”
Neasa tilted her head, studying me. “You carry a lot too. Even when you think you’re hiding it.”
The breeze shifted. Something about her scent—clover and ash, clean and grounded—cut through the salt and storm that had clung to me since Texas. It wasn’t overpowering. Just... steady.
“I found something in the Alpha’s cabin,” I said suddenly, before I could stop myself. “Clothes. Feminine ones. They didn’t belong to any crew I saw.”
Neasa’s expression didn’t change. “And what do you think they meant?”
“I don’t know. That’s the problem.” I looked out over the ocean. “I don’t know anything about Cathal, really. Just the way he looks at me. Like he wants to believe in me but can’t feel the bond. Like he’s trying not to be disappointed.”
Neasa’s voice softened. “He’s not the only one waiting for a sign.”
Silence stretched between us.
“Do you think it’s possible,” I said, almost whispering now, “that some of us were born with our bonds already broken? Like the gods forgot to tie the thread all the way?”
She didn’t laugh. Didn’t dismiss it. Instead, she turned to me, her eyes darker now in the fading light.
“Maybe some threads were never meant to be pulled tight. Maybe they were meant to drift until they met something just as loose. Just as untethered.”
I looked at her then. Really looked. The wind had loosened strands of hair around her face. Her eyes weren’t stormy now—they were the calm at the eye of it. Watching. Waiting.
“You don’t believe in fate?” I asked.
“I believe in choices,” she said. “And in people surprising you.”
I turned that over in my mind, letting her words settle into the cracks I tried to keep hidden. “You think Cathal has surprises left in him?”
Neasa gave a soft, almost amused huff. “I think he’s spent so long being what everyone needs him to be, he’s forgotten what he wants. You might scare him because you don’t want anything from him. Not yet.”
I blinked. “That scares him?”
“That you might see him for who he is, not what he is?” She nodded. “Yeah. That kind of truth always does.”
There was a long pause before I found my voice again. “He’s strong. Commanding. But I don’t think he knows how to carry uncertainty.”
“No Alpha ever does,” Neasa murmured. “But maybe he doesn’t have to carry it alone anymore.”
We fell into silence again, not out of discomfort but something quieter. Something like recognition.
She nudged my shoulder with hers. “Tomorrow’s going to be a mess.”
“I figured.”
“You’ll handle it.”
“You sound sure.”
“I’m not.” She smiled. “But I believe in surprises, remember?”
And for a moment, watching the last light slide into the sea, I believed in them too.
- Writer
