E L A R A

He thinks I’ll stay.
He doesn’t know me at all.

The storm chews the marina, spray hitting like shattered glass. Lanterns shudder over black water, and somewhere down the pier the RIB’s engines already thrum, hungry and reckless. Adrian’s silhouette is cut sharp against the night—leaving me behind, leaving me useless.

Not again.

“Doctor.” Ethan steps in front of me, blocking the gangway with his bulk. His headlamp carves white arcs across the rain, catching my soaked ponytail, the med kit biting into my side. His stance says immovable, but his eyes already know. “If you set foot on that boat, he’ll skin me alive.”

“If there’s even one person out there, I’m not watching from shore while they drown.” My voice is low, steady, the oath that still pulses in my blood. “Saboteur, deckhand, whoever—it doesn’t matter. Someone on that skiff could still be alive, and if he drags them in half-dead without me, they’ll never make it.”

Ethan’s jaw works, rain running down his neck. “Or maybe it’s empty. Maybe this is a trap, a stunt. You thought of that?”

“Yes.” I take a step closer, chin high. “And I’ve also thought about the code blue where my warnings were ignored. I won’t gamble on a corpse when a life might still be saved.”

Silence crackles between us, broken only by the waves battering the pilings. Then Ethan exhales, sharp and resigned, and yanks open a locker. A bright-orange vest slams into my chest. “Fine. But you wear two. You’re small—you’ll float higher.”

I buckle both until the straps dig into my ribs. He tosses me a waterproof pouch. “Phone stays here. Radio only.”

“Understood.”

His fingers cinch the straps tighter, efficient and almost rough. “Goddamn stubborn,” he mutters, but his tone has shifted—less refusal, more fatal acceptance.

I sling the med kit cross-body, the weight thumping against my hip like a second heart. “You’re helping me,” I say.

“I’m helping the island.” He jerks his chin toward berth sixty. “Keep low. Move fast.”

We run. The storm swallows us whole.

The RIB bucks under my boots the moment I land, spray slapping my face. I crouch low, one hand braced on the console, med kit thumping against my hip. Ethan vaults in behind me, quick as a shadow.

Adrian turns.

Even with rain streaking his face and stormlight slashing over him, his fury is carved with brutal clarity. One hand white-knuckled on the throttle, the other braced on the rail, every line of his body says predator interrupted.

“Elara.” The way my name hits the headset—low, lethal—makes my pulse jump. “Off. Now.”

“No.” My voice doesn’t shake. “If that skiff has anyone aboard, they’ll need me.”

His eyes cut to the med kit strapped across my body, then back to mine, darker than the storm. “You think this is a clinic? That water is black ice. You are not a diver.”

“And you are not a doctor.” I lean in, my words sharp enough to slice through the roar of wind. “You drag someone back half-dead, and without me, they’ll be all the way gone before you tie to dock.”

The muscle in his jaw flexes, his mouth a grim slash. “You were told to stay.”

“And I told you I don’t take orders that bury people.” My throat burns, memory flaring hot—the code blue, Nathan’s voice calling death inevitable. I force the ghost down. “Maybe it’s empty, maybe it’s a trap, maybe it’s the saboteur himself. But if it’s not? If there’s a pulse? I will not watch another life bleed out because some arrogant man decided control mattered more than care.”

His breath hisses across the comm, close and intimate, like he’s right inside my ear. He grips the rail so hard his knuckles pale, rain beading on the back of his hand. “You don’t get it, Quinn. You out here makes you my liability. My risk.”

“Then treat me like any other risk,” I fire back, chest tight, unblinking. “Mitigate it. Don’t erase it.”

The silence between us is razor-thin, broken only by the slap of waves against the hull. I see it in his eyes—that flicker of heat tangled with rage, attraction pressed up hard against command.

The RIB lurches as a wave slams its flank, throwing spray over us like shattered glass. Adrian doesn’t so much as blink. His stare is locked on me, sharp enough to pin me to the deck.

“You’re impossible,” he grinds out, voice all gravel and salt. “Stubborn. Reckless.” His hand clamps the throttle like it’s the only thing keeping him from seizing me instead.

I lift my chin, pulse hammering, refusing to back down. “And you’re wasting time arguing while someone could be dying.”

A guttural sound rips from him—half growl, half surrender. He surges closer, bracing one arm against the console beside my head, the other still welded to the throttle. Rain sheets down his jaw, dripping from the edge of his mouth. His presence eats the air between us until I can barely breathe.

“You stay glued to me,” he says, each word a command pressed straight into my skin. “You move when I move. You don’t argue. You don’t improvise. If I say down, you hit the deck. If I say back, you fly. Step wrong, and I’ll tie you to the console myself.”

Heat coils low in my stomach, traitorous, tangled with defiance. My breath comes faster, but I hold his gaze steady. “I can follow orders.”

He leans closer, so close his breath ghosts over my lips, so close the storm disappears behind the headset static. “Prove it.”

Lightning flickers across his face, carving him into something mythic, dangerous, achingly alive.

Behind us, Ethan slams a locker shut, breaking the spell with the clang of metal. “We’re wasting daylight we don’t have,” he mutters, shoving a headset at me. “Clip in, both of you. Either you’re a team, or we’re all dead.”

Adrian drags his gaze off mine like it costs him, muscles tight with restraint. Then, with a snap of the throttle, the RIB surges forward, tearing free from the dock.

And still, his command rings in my chest like a brand. Stay glued to me.

The bow leaps over the first swell. Spray lashes my face, salt stinging like glass, and the roar of the motor blends with the storm until I can’t tell which is louder.

Adrian’s body pins close to mine in the cockpit, his shoulder brushing mine every time the boat bucks. The headset muffles the storm but not him—his breath is there, steady, in my ear, filling every second of silence. Too close. Too intimate.

“Straps,” Ethan barks behind us. I yank mine taut, the belt biting my hips.

“Check,” I answer.

Adrian echoes it, voice dark silk through static. Just hearing him in my ear like this makes my skin prickle—like we’re the only two people alive, storm and ocean reduced to nothing but his breath syncing with mine.

Another wave slams us sideways. My knee knocks against his thigh, hard. He doesn’t flinch; he shifts just enough that I land steadier, as if bracing me is instinct. My pulse trips over itself.

“Watch the starboard buoy,” Ethan says, headset crisp.

“I see it,” Adrian replies. And then quieter, almost to himself, “Stay with me.”

I don’t know if he means me or the boat, but the words curl low in my stomach all the same.

We carve through another trough, spray blinding. I swipe water from my lashes, focusing on the dark horizon. Somewhere out there—a loose skiff, maybe occupied, maybe not. My fingers twitch over the med kit strap. Whoever’s out there, saboteur or not, they’re a patient before they’re anything else.

Then the sky splits open.

Lightning forks across the sea so close the world turns white. Thunder crashes over us instantly, rattling the hull like a giant’s fist. For a blinding second, I see jagged rock teeth looming too near.

The radio explodes in my ear. “Mayday, mayday—skiff—taking on water—” The voice is ragged, drowning in static. “Please—help—”

Adrian jerks the wheel, the RIB swerving hard. The deck tilts, my body slamming against his chest. His arm cages me automatically, iron-strong, holding me as the bow clears the rocks by a breath.

Spray blinds. Lightning cracks again.

The mayday voice screams through the headset, broken by water and fear.

And I know this night is only beginning.