Three Werewolves: After The Fall

Morning came gray and thin over the ruined trees, light seeping slowly into the clearing outside the old outpost. Frost clung to the concrete, and the breath from wolves and humans alike hung in the cold air.

Inside, the generator still hummed at a low idle, the warmth it gave off turning the bunker from a tomb into something closer to a den. The three survivors woke slowly—stiff, blinking in the dim light as their bodies remembered hunger and cold at the same time.

Darren tried to push himself upright too fast. Pain flashed across his face, and his wrapped leg trembled.

Thane was already there, one clawed hand against the man’s shoulder. “Easy,” he said. “We’re going to move, but we’re not going to rush you into the ground.”

Darren swallowed and nodded. “I’m… ready,” he said, voice rough. “Just tell me what you need.”

“We need you alive at the end of this,” Thane said. “That’s all.”

The girl sat up, blanket slipping from her shoulders. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Her brother—a little younger, thinner—blinked beside her, eyes darting quickly to each wolf as if counting them again, reassuring himself they were still the same ones as last night.

Varro knelt near a pile of scavenged metal and old plastic, hands already moving in calm, precise motions as he checked knots and joints. He had built a sled during the late hours of the night—low, wide, lashed together from pipe, broken shelving, and a door ripped from one of the interior rooms. A layer of folded blankets and old insulation sat on top.

He tugged at the lashings, testing them. “Will hold,” he said. “Not pretty. Strong enough.”

Tarrik came to his side and gripped the front struts. He pulled once, feeling the weight, the drag across the rough floor. “I pull,” he said. “Terrain bad. Better I take it.”

“You sure?” Thane asked.

Tarrik’s answer was simple. “I strong. He not.” He nodded to Darren. “This my work.”

Rime trotted over to the girl and boy, tail swaying gently. “You walk some,” he said. “But if legs say no… I help.”

The boy blinked. “You’ll… carry us?”

Rime tilted his head. “You light,” he said. “Not hard.” A small, proud flash of teeth. “Strong wolf.”

The girl huffed a quiet, disbelieving laugh. “You’re all insane,” she murmured.

Kade appeared from the doorway, pack already on, ears flicked toward the forest beyond. “Trail south is clear for now,” he said. “No fresh prints. Storm front’s sitting on the ridge behind us; we’ll beat it if we move.”

Thane looked over the small group—five wolves, three humans, one improvised sled, a whole valley’s worth of future waiting to see if this rescue worked.

“Pack it up,” he said. “We’re heading home.”

They doused the fire, checked the bunker one last time for anything useful—extra blankets, two more intact cans of food, a length of rope, a battered metal thermos Rime claimed with quiet satisfaction. When they stepped out into the cold clearing, the sky was still flat and colorless, the world reduced to grays and browns and the pale outlines of distant mountains.

Darren eased himself onto the sled with Thane and Varro bracing him. He grunted once as his injured leg settled.

“Tell me if anything feels wrong,” Varro said. “Pain… pinch… we stop.”

“Feels like sitting on junk and blankets,” Darren said. “Better than the floor in there.”

Tarrik took up the harness—just rope knotted around the front struts and over his shoulders. He pulled once to set his grip, claws fanning lightly against the ground for balance.

“Say when,” he rumbled.

“Now,” Thane said.

They moved out of the clearing and back into the trees, Kade in front, light on his paws, reading terrain without needing to think. Thane walked just ahead of the sled, Varro alongside, Rime ranging near the humans, occasionally brushing his shoulder against the girl’s arm when she stumbled.

For the first while, they walked in silence. The forest had that particular hush old snowfields carried—every sound damped, every breath sounding too loud. Branches creaked now and then under hidden frost. Somewhere far off, a bird called once and went quiet again.

The girl watched the wolves for several long minutes before finally speaking. “My name is Mia,” she said quietly. “He’s Lucas. Our mom…” She faltered, then swallowed. “She didn’t make it.”

“I am sorry,” Varro said. The words were simple, but his tone gave them weight. “You kept living. She would want that.”

Lucas glanced down, then up again. “You said there’s a town. Towns. With lights.”

“Many,” Rime said. “Libby, Eureka, Thompson Falls, Kalispell, Spo—” He stumbled over the name, nose wrinkling. “Spoke-ann.”

Kade snorted softly. “Spokane,” he corrected. “But that was close.”

Rime flicked an ear. “Say weird. Humans words bend.”

“Yeah, they do,” Mia said. “But you’re doing better than I would in… whatever language you spoke first.”

“Was mostly teeth and growl,” Rime said. “Less grammar.”

Mia’s laugh came a little easier that time.

Thane kept his gaze forward, ears tuned to the conversation behind him, making sure they were still talking. Still trying. Fear quieted people. Hope made them loud.

He liked the sound of them getting louder.

At a small rise, Tarrik dug his claws in and leaned his weight forward, sled tracking behind him like it had been built for this. Darren gripped the sides.

“You all right?” Thane asked.

“Honestly?” Darren said. “I should be terrified. I’m being dragged through the woods on a door by a werewolf I used to have nightmares about. But this is the safest I’ve felt in months.”

Tarrik didn’t look back, but his ears tipped slightly toward Darren’s voice.

“Good,” Thane said. “We’ll keep it that way.”

By midday, the bleak stiffness of morning had given way to the slow ache of fatigue. The air warmed just enough that their breaths no longer steamed constantly. The snowpack thinned in patches, revealing dark soil and old, flattened grass beneath.

Lucas began to limp.

Kade saw it first—an almost-imperceptible hitch in the boy’s step, the way his boot dragged a fraction of an inch more with each pass. He slowed his pace just enough for the rest of the group to close in.

“Lucas,” Thane said, not unkindly. “Talk to me.”

“My feet are just… tired,” Lucas said. “I can keep going.”

“Not the question I asked,” Thane said. “Is it pain or just tired?”

Lucas hesitated. “Both.”

Rime moved in close, lowering his head to catch the boy’s scent. “Blisters,” he said. “Too much rub.”

Thane nodded once. “All right. Rime?”

Rime’s tail lifted. “I carry,” he said. He knelt slightly, bracing himself. “Climb up. Hold fur, not neck.”

Lucas looked at him like the wolf had just offered to sprout wings.

“I’m heavy,” he protested weakly.

Rime snorted. “No,” he said. “You not. Get on.”

Mia put a hand on her brother’s back. “You heard the wolf,” she said. “Take the ride. You’ve earned it.”

Lucas slid an arm around Rime’s shoulders, awkward at first, then more securely. Rime rose, settling the boy’s weight as if he were nothing more than a pack.

“Comfortable?” Rime asked.

“Yeah,” Lucas breathed. “You’re… warm.”

Rime’s tail wagged once, pleased. “Good. I warm. You rest.”

They moved on.

In the early afternoon, clouds thickened over the distant peaks, darkening the sky in slow degrees. Kade lifted his nose, inhaling.

“Storm’s changing its mind,” he said. “It’s cutting east instead of dropping straight on us, but we’re still going to get the edge. We should find some cover for a break while we’re ahead.”

“There is cut in earth,” Tarrik said from behind. “Low place with rock. Half-hour from here. Used to den there, long ago.”

“Then we go there,” Thane said. “Short rest. Food, water, then keep moving.”

The low place turned out to be a shallow ravine chiseled into the hillside, its sides curtained with roots and moss. A fallen tree trunk spanned part of it, making a rough shelter. The ground beneath was surprisingly dry.

Tarrik eased the sled down the slope with help from Varro. Thane guided Mia to sit on a flat stone. Rime knelt so Lucas could slide off carefully, then shook his fur out in a full-body shiver that sent loose snow scattering.

“Okay, that was… amazing,” Lucas said, dizzy and smiling. “Ten out of ten. Would ride again.”

Rime’s chest puffed subtly. “Maybe later,” he said. “You walk more first.”

Kade passed out strips of dried meat and a few bites of the salvaged canned beans. They ate slowly, letting their bodies catch up with what they’d already done.

Mia watched Tarrik from the corner of her eye as he checked the sled harness, making small adjustments. The big wolf’s movements were efficient, quiet, controlled in a way that didn’t quite match the monster she’d been told about by frightened travelers months ago.

“You really used to run things up here?” she asked him, finally.

Tarrik didn’t look away from the knot he was tightening. “Yes,” he said. “I was… bad Alpha. Hard. Cruel.”

Mia shifted, pulling her blanket tighter. “And now you’re hauling people on a door.”

“Yes,” Tarrik said. He straightened, met her gaze. “I owe valley more than I can pay. So I pull door.”

There was something like humor at the edges of his voice when he said it. Very faint. Like a muscle he’d only just begun to test.

Varro watched the interaction, eyes thoughtful. “He learn,” Varro said quietly to Mia. “Every day. We all do.”

She looked between the two wolves. “You were one of his, weren’t you?” she asked Varro.

Varro nodded once. “Iron Ridge made me. Libby saved me.”

“Now you’re saving us,” Darren said. “All of you.”

For a moment, the ravine was quiet except for the small sounds of eating and the soft hiss of wind sliding over the lip above.

Thane shifted, stretching one shoulder, clawed toes kneading the earth under him. “You should know what you’re walking into,” he said to Darren, Mia, and Lucas. “The valley isn’t perfect. People are scared. Some still don’t trust wolves. Some still don’t trust other towns. We’re working on it. But you’ll be safe. And you’ll have a say in how things go once you’re steady.”

Darren nodded slowly. “After this winter… I can handle ‘not perfect.’”

Mia’s mouth quirked up. “If there’s a bed that isn’t concrete, I might cry.”

“Soft dens,” Rime said. “We call them that. Hotel in Libby. Many rooms. Good blankets.”

“Soft dens,” Mia repeated, rolling the words. “I like that.”

They rested for less than an hour. Long enough to let muscles unknot and lungs stop burning, but not long enough for stiffness to set in. When they moved again, the clouds had shifted, grayer now but holding back their full weight.

The afternoon carried them through thicker stands of trees where snow lingered in the shadows, stubborn against the season. Once, Kade raised a hand and halted them, crouching to inspect a faint set of tracks crossing their path—boot prints, older, the edges slumped.

“Three days,” Varro said, kneeling beside him. “Maybe four. Not these three,” he added, nodding to the survivors. “Stride different. Lighter.”

“Direction?” Thane asked.

“North to south, then east,” Kade said, tracing the route with one finger. “They passed near the outpost and kept moving.”

“Raiders?” Darren asked, tension tightening his shoulders on the sled.

“Not sure,” Kade said. “They weren’t dragging packs or gear. No scuff marks. Pace was consistent.”

“Could be more survivors,” Varro said. “We find later, maybe.”

Thane watched the faded prints for a moment longer. Another thread for another day.

“We keep moving,” he said. “Storm’s still out there, and these three need real beds.”

They pushed on.

As the light began to soften toward evening, the trees gradually changed—denser, more familiar, the specific pattern of branches and stones that said they were leaving the old brutal heartland of Iron Ridge and entering the outskirts of the valley proper.

The air smelled different here, too. Less rust, more earth. Fainter traces of smoke from distant chimneys. Rime’s ears perked, and his tail began an unconscious swaying.

“Home smell,” he said. “Close now.”

Tarrik’s strides never faltered, but his eyes shifted, too, taking in the change. He could feel it as much as smell it—the way dominance and fear did not cling to this land the way it used to under his old rule. The quiet here was not the silence of terror.

It was just… quiet.

At one point, the slope steepened and the sled’s weight pulled back hard. Tarrik dug in, claws scraping rock. The harness rope creaked.

Thane stepped in close and set his claws on the side of the sled, helping push. Varro added his strength at the back, steadying Darren so he didn’t slide.

“We can walk,” Darren protested, breathless.

“Not on that leg,” Thane said. “You ride. We get one chance to do this right.”

Darren’s eyes shone again. He said nothing more.

They crested the rise just as the clouds finally released the edge of the storm. Not a blizzard, not this time. Just a fine, cold drizzle that darkened fur and clothes and turned the path slick under their feet.

Kade frowned at the sky. “It’ll get worse later,” he said. “But we should be inside town limits before it matters.”

“Good,” Rime said. “I want stew.”

“Of course you do,” Varro muttered, but there was warmth in it.

The first real sign they were close to home was not sight, but sound—a faint, distant hum of something not quite natural. The soft, steady thrum of power.

Lucas sat straighter on Rime’s back. “What’s that?”

“Lines,” Varro said. “Power. Wires hum when alive.”

Darren blinked. “You got the grid up?”

“Mostly,” Thane said. “Libby, valley towns, dam. Took time.”

Mia looked around, eyes suddenly wet. “I never thought I’d hear that again,” she whispered.

Trees thinned. The path became a beaten track, then the edge of a road where weeds pushed between cracked asphalt. Ahead, in the deepening gray, the shapes of buildings emerged—patched roofs, reinforced walls, windows glowing faintly with warm light.

Libby.

As they approached the outskirts, someone on watch spotted them. A bell rang once, then twice—not alarm, but signal. Shapes moved along the street. People emerged from doorways, jackets pulled tight against the drizzle, faces curious.

“Welcome committee,” Kade said quietly.

“Good,” Thane said. “They should see this.”

They passed through the gate, guards stepping aside with nods of recognition and brief, startled looks at the sled and its cargo. Mia and Lucas stared openly at everything—the repaired trucks, the lit windows, the faint sound of voices from inside the diner, the distant glint of the KTNY antenna against the gray sky.

“Oh my God,” Mia said. “It’s… it’s like the world didn’t end here.”

“It did,” Thane said. “We just refused to stay in the end.”

Marta was waiting halfway down the street, coat already damp, hair pulled back. She took in the scene in one sweep—the sled, the blankets, the exhaustion in the survivors’ faces, the way the wolves moved around them like a living shield.

“You made good time,” she said.

“Storm gave us a long leash,” Thane replied. “We took it.”

Darren tried to sit straighter. “Ma’am,” he said. “I—”

She stepped closer and put a hand lightly on his arm. “You don’t owe me anything,” she said. “You’re here. That’s enough.”

Her gaze moved to Mia and Lucas. “You two hungry?”

“Yes,” they said in unison, then glanced at each other and laughed, shaky and amazed at the sound.

Rime’s tail wagged. “We have stew,” he promised. “Soft dens. Radio. Many good things.”

Marta met Tarrik’s eyes over the sled. There was a moment there—a quiet exchange of acknowledgment. Gratitude and understanding.

“Thank you,” she said to him, and meant it.

He dipped his head. “My work,” he said simply.

People began to gather now, not swarming, but drawing close in careful arcs—townsfolk who had lived through their own winters and knew better than to crowd the newly rescued. Mrs. Renner appeared, shawl over her shoulders, eyes soft as she took in Mia and Lucas.

“We’ll get them to the hotel,” Marta said. “Hot food, dry clothes, beds. Then we’ll talk.”

Thane stepped back, letting the town move in. Rime stayed close to Lucas until the boy slid off, reluctant to let go of his fur. Mia put a hand briefly on Varro’s arm, a silent thank you. Darren reached for Thane’s hand; their grip was brief but firm.

“You pulled us back from the dark,” Darren said. “All of you.”

“The valley did,” Thane answered. “We just ran the miles.”

The survivors were guided away toward the hotel, flanked by humans and wolves both. Voices rose in welcome; doors opened; light spilled onto wet stone.

For the first time all day, Thane let his shoulders drop a fraction. Rain beaded on his fur and the medallion at his throat.

Kade stood beside him, watching the trio disappear into warmth. “First rescue since the Accord,” he said.

“First of many,” Varro added quietly. “Think so, anyway.”

Rime’s stomach growled audibly. “First stew now,” he said. “Many rescues later.”

Tarrik remained a little apart, gaze on the hotel entrance. He watched until the door closed behind the survivors, then glanced at Thane.

“They live,” he said.

“They do,” Thane said. “Because we went north.”

“Because valley one thing now,” Tarrik said. “Not many pieces.”

Thane nodded once. “This is what unity is for,” he said. “Not meetings. Not paper. This.”

The rain picked up, pattering more insistently on roofs and stone. From somewhere close by, a faint thread of music drifted out—KTNY bleeding softly through a doorway left ajar. It wrapped around the street like a memory of the old world and a promise of the new one.

Thane turned toward the cabin. “Come on,” he said. “We debrief after hot food. Then we talk about those other tracks.”

Kade’s ears pricked. Varro’s eyes sharpened. Rime groaned softly but followed.

Tarrik took one last look back at the hotel, then fell into step with the others, the rhythm of the pack steady and sure against the soft drum of rain.

The long road south was over.

But the work of a united valley had only just begun.

Morning settled over Libby with the soft blue light of a spring day still deciding whether it wanted to stay cold. Thane stood outside the cabin, clawed feet sunk quietly into the cool earth as Kade, Varro, and Rime returned from the northern stretch of the Quiet Circle. All three wolves moved with that particular tension that meant something had gone wrong.

Kade approached first, calm but alert. “We saw smoke,” he said. “Far north. Past the old Iron Ridge line. And not the kind from a cooking fire—too straight, too steady.”

Rime wrinkled his nose. “Wrong smell. Sick fire.”

Varro flipped open his notebook and showed Thane a tight, clean sketch of the ridgeline. A thin column of gray rose above the highest peak, steady and tired. “Not accident,” he said. “Someone hold on. Someone send sign.”

Thane studied the sketch, jaw tightening slightly. “How far?”

“At least a day,” Kade said. “Maybe more if the weather shifts.”

Thane exhaled slowly, gaze drifting north. “We need Tarrik.”

“I call Tom,” Varro said. His words were simple, but confident.

He stepped inside the cabin. Through the open door, Thane heard the soft clatter of the phone being lifted, Varro’s voice low and concise as he briefed the mayor of Eureka. There was a pause, then Varro’s steady tone again. “Thank you. We ready soon.”

He stepped back outside. “They come fast,” he said. “Tom bring Tarrik.”

Rime huffed. “Good. He big. Scare trouble.”

Kade crossed his arms loosely. “You want the old Iron Ridge reputation working for us.”

“Sometimes fear buys time,” Thane said. “But he’s not going back to who he was. Not for a second.”

It didn’t take long. A familiar truck eased up the gravel road from Eureka, tires crunching softly. Tom Anderson stepped out first, waving toward Thane. Tarrik climbed out after him—tall, steady, carrying only a field pack and a quiet readiness that said he already understood the situation.

He approached Thane with respectful calm. “Varro said you need me.”

“We do,” Thane said. “Smoke signals north. Survivors maybe. Trouble maybe. And no one knows that ground better than you.”

Tarrik hesitated. “If they know my name… fear.”

“That fear might keep someone from doing something stupid,” Thane said. “And if we hit hostility, a little edge helps. But it’s a mask. Nothing more.”

Tarrik nodded. “Mask only. I not fall.”

Varro moved to his side, offering a small, firm nod. “We keep you steady,” he said. “All of us.”

Tom stepped closer. “He’s yours for as long as needed,” he told Thane. “Bring back whoever’s still up there.”

Tarrik dipped his head once. “I help. Promise.”

Rime dropped blankets and water into a travel pack. Kade double-checked straps and closures with efficient precision. Varro gathered tools and a coil of wire. Thane secured his own gear, feeling the familiar weight settle across his shoulders.

Five wolves gathered at the edge of the clearing—Rime alert and restless, Varro focused and calm, Kade sharp and steady, Tarrik strong and watchful, and Thane standing at their center. Frost clung to the shaded grass. The wind carried the faint scent of distance and cold iron.

Thane lifted two fingers in quiet signal.

They moved north.

Cold spring wind drifted through the pines north of Libby as Thane moved up the ridge, clawed feet crunching softly in last winter’s needles. The air carried a faint metallic sharpness—a scent that Kade noticed first, ears pricking forward.

Tarrik stepped up behind them, his bulk casting a long shadow on the ridge. His ears tilted forward, expression sharpening with memories he didn’t voice. This land had once answered to him. Every echo of wind, every shift of branch and scent had once carried his authority.

Through all of them.

Through Kade’s family.

Through every feral who had run under his rule.

Thane’s eyes stayed on the smoke column. No fear in them. Just calculation, the quiet kind that settled into a leader’s bones.

“Could be a camp,” Thane said. “Could be something worse. Let’s check it out.”

He turned slightly, catching Tarrik’s attention. The former Iron Ridge Alpha straightened, sensing the cue.

“You’ll lead once we cross your old border,” Thane said. “No one knows this ground better than you.”

Tarrik nodded slowly. “I can guide. Keep us safe. But…” He hesitated, then met Thane’s gaze. “If we meet survivors who know my name, they will fear.”

Thane’s tone didn’t soften. It simply steadied. “Good. We may need fear today. If something goes sideways, you show teeth. But only if I say.”

Tarrik blinked once, then again, the weight of trust landing with visible force. “I play old self,” he said. “Only mask. Not truth.”

“That’s the point,” Thane said. “We use any advantage that keeps us alive.”

Rime nodded approvingly. “Scare helps sometimes,” he said. “Only sometimes.”

Varro glanced toward Tarrik, voice low. “Your presence may give us leverage. Just do not slip backward. That path is steep.”

Tarrik exhaled through his nose, a steadying breath. “I not fall.”

Thane motioned them forward, and they moved in formation—Kade scouting ahead, Varro reading terrain, Rime sweeping flanks, Tarrik watching the rear trail for shadows, Thane at center to coordinate.

Hours passed beneath shifting sunlight. The northern border of Iron Ridge territory revealed itself in broken wire fencing, rusted signposts leaning at awkward angles, and the scattered bones of an era when survival had meant domination.

Tarrik moved differently when they crossed it—slower, more thoughtful. Not afraid. Subdued. As if walking through old ghosts.

“This place feels heavier,” Kade murmured.

Varro studied the landscape with quiet intensity. “Every pack leaves memory behind,” he said. “Good or bad.”

Tarrik didn’t answer. He only pressed on.

The smoke rose thicker now, easier to see between the trees. Not a raging burn. Not wildfire. Controlled, but barely. Rime lifted his nose, sniffing again.

“Sick smell,” he said. “Old sickness. Maybe people hurt.”

Thane’s jaw tightened. “Then we move faster.”

They pressed forward. The forest thinned into rocky ground, then opened into a wide clearing scarred by tire tracks, collapsed fencing, and concrete slabs half-swallowed by moss. At the far edge stood a squat structure—reinforced walls, faded military insignia, antennas snapped in half.

A forgotten outpost.

Two figures huddled beside a makeshift fire near the entrance, wrapped in patched blankets, thin enough the wind might blow them over. A third leaned against the wall—older, gaunt, one leg wrapped from ankle to knee.

They saw the wolves before voices could be raised.

The man by the wall reached for a rifle leaning beside him, hands shaking from cold or hunger. He didn’t aim it—not truly—but he held it like it had once been enough.

Thane stepped forward slowly, not raising his hands, not baring teeth—just solid, visible, unbroken.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” he said. “We saw smoke from the ridge. We came to check.”

The older man’s eyes flicked across the wolves—Rime alert at Thane’s flank, Varro reading the angles, Kade poised for movement. Then his gaze hit Tarrik.

And froze.

His fingers whitened around the rifle.

“You,” he whispered. “No. No—no, you died. They said you died.”

Tarrik stilled. His posture shifted subtly—shoulders square, expression hardening into the cold, iron-edged authority of his past. But his eyes flicked toward Thane, waiting.

“Don’t shoot,” Thane said to the man. “He’s with us. Not the wolf you remember.”

The man didn’t lower the weapon. His voice cracked. “Iron Ridge… you—you ruled up here. You hung those who stole food. You ran off families who slowed you.”

Tarrik’s answer came like gravel sliding into place. “I was wrong then. I different now.”

The man swallowed, confusion and exhaustion twisting his features. Two younger survivors peeked from behind the wall—barely more than teenagers, starved, eyes sunken but alert.

“We sheltered here all winter,” the older man rasped. “The radio died in January. Fuel ran out last week. We ran the generator three hours a day for heat… then one hour…” He looked down at his hands. “Now none.”

Kade approached the fire pit, glancing at the thin smoke. “Your wood is almost gone. The fire won’t last two nights. You have been cold long time.”

The older man’s voice steadied only enough to break. “We lost three already. We buried them behind the bunker. No power. No medicine. No word from anyone. We thought we were the last ones left in Montana.”

Thane felt the weight settle in the clearing—quiet, cold, the kind of ache he recognized from early winter nights in Libby when silence stretched too long.

“You’re not alone,” he said. “Not anymore.”

The man’s eyes met his—broken, hopeful, terrified to trust.

Tarrik stepped forward a pace, deliberate. Thane didn’t stop him.

“You know old me,” Tarrik said to the man. “But I not hunt you now. I not lead by fear now. I protect.” He gestured to Thane. “I follow better Alpha.”

The man blinked, disbelief cracking something in his expression. Tarrik waited—not looming, not threatening—just letting the man see the truth for what it was.

Rime approached the younger survivors with gentle movements, offering a strip of dried meat from his pouch. They hesitated, then took it with trembling hands.

Varro scanned the bunker entrance. “We need walk inside,” he said quietly to Thane. “Check for hazards. Structural damage. Supplies.”

Thane nodded. “Tarrik, with me. Varro and Kade check perimeter. Rime stays with the survivors.”

Rime straightened proudly. “I guard,” he said. “No harm.”

They moved into the bunker. The interior smelled of rust, mold, and desperate improvisation—duct tape over cracked pipes, blankets hung over doors to trap heat, crude wiring tapping into a generator that lay silent and dry.

Tarrik walked the corridor like approaching the bones of something he’d once recognized. “Iron Ridge scavenged here,” he murmured. “Long ago. Before fall of our pack. We take tools… leaving bones of building behind.”

Thane opened a panel. Dust billowed. Inside lay a tangled array of old radios, wires corroded with time. He wiped a bit of soot from one. “They tried to broadcast,” he said. “Tried to call out.”

Tarrik’s ears sank. “No one answer.”

“They will now,” Thane said.

Varro’s voice echoed from outside. “Thane! Found something.”

He and Kade stood near the west wall, where snowmelt had carved away dirt to reveal metal. Varro brushed soil from the corner of a sign.

Kade stepped back. “Fuel storage,” he said. “Old. Maybe some left.”

The survivors perked up at that, hope flickering like fragile flame.

Thane crouched and tugged at the hatch. It groaned but opened. Inside, a row of rusted drums reflected faint light.

He tapped one with a claw. It sloshed.

“Kerosene,” he announced. “Enough for heat. Maybe power if the generator’s not dead.”

The younger of the two survivors, the girl, exhaled in a tiny sob of relief. The boy beside her—maybe her brother—leaned heavily against the wall.

Rime hurried forward, offering water. “Drink slow,” he said gently. “Not too fast.”

As the group gathered near the entrance again, Thane addressed the older man directly. “We’ll stay long enough to stabilize the outpost. Get heat running. Get you water and food. Then we’ll bring you south to the valley. You don’t have to stay here another winter.”

The man’s eyes shone wet. “There’s… a valley? People? Towns?”

“Many,” Tarrik said. “All live together now. Human. Wolf. No fear.”

Varro stepped beside him. “We help you walk that path.”

Thane added, “If you choose to come.”

The man’s voice cracked. “We choose.”

The wind kicked up, bringing scents of thawing earth and distant forest. Kade glanced at the sky. “Weather shift coming. We work fast.”

“Tarrik,” Thane said, “help me with the drums. Varro—start checking the generator. Kade—mark any weak structures so no one falls through.” He glanced at Rime. “Keep guarding the survivors.”

Rime puffed up with purpose. “I strong guard,” he said, positioning himself like a statue with bright amber eyes trained on horizon and humans both.

Tarrik lifted the first drum with ease, strength rippling through him. The older man stared.

“You are different,” the man said quietly.

Tarrik paused just a moment. “I choose different Alpha,” he said. “He teach strength without cruelty.”

Thane’s face didn’t shift, but Kade’s tail flicked once in quiet appreciation.

They worked for more than an hour. Varro coaxed life back into the generator, hands moving with methodical certainty. He murmured to the machine as if it could understand encouragement. The survivors watched, expressions shifting from fear to disbelief as lights flickered once… twice… then held.

The girl gasped softly.

Tarrik carried a second drum like it weighed nothing. “We bring you south soon,” he said. “To warmth. To voices. Many voices.”

As evening crept across the clearing, Thane stood at the entrance of the outpost, watching smoke curl upward from the newly strengthened fire pit. The survivors huddled closer to the warmth, color slowly returning to their faces.

Tarrik approached quietly, posture no longer rigid with old burdens. “They survive because they stubborn,” he said. “But if we came a week later…”

“I know,” Thane said.

“They trust me. Even knowing old me.”

“That’s because they see who you are now.”

Tarrik breathed deep. Snowmelt scent, kerosene, smoke, life. “We bring them to valley. Show them home.”

“We will.”

Kade approached, wiping dirt from his hands. “Old paths northward are still dangerous,” he said. “But today? We show that the valley works.”

Varro stood beside him, eyes on the horizon. “Smoke drew us,” he said. “Maybe others still out there.”

Thane let the silence settle, comforting and heavy at once.

“We’ll find them too,” he said.

The generator hummed low, its revived heartbeat echoing down the concrete hallway and warming air that had felt dead for months. The survivors sat near the entrance beneath blankets the wolves had brought in from their packs—rough wool for now, to be replaced with proper bedding once they reached Libby. Their eyes followed every movement with the uneasy mix of disbelief and relief that came when hope arrived too abruptly.

Thane moved through the outpost with steady purpose, checking rooms for structural hazards while listening to the rhythm of the group—footsteps, breaths, voices. Behind him, Kade quietly marked cracked flooring with strips of cloth and chalk. Rime padded in slow circles near the survivors, offering what comfort he could simply by being a calm, warm presence.

Tarrik approached the young woman who had first accepted Rime’s dried meat. She sat close to the fire, rubbing her hands together for warmth. When she noticed Tarrik’s shadow beside her, she stiffened slightly, fear flickering in her eyes before she caught herself.

Tarrik lowered himself to a crouch—slowly, deliberately—keeping his claws visible but relaxed. “You safe,” he said. “We stay until you warm. Until you strong.”

“You…” She swallowed. “You’re him.”

“I am,” Tarrik said simply. “But not same.”

The girl hesitated. “We heard stories. About Iron Ridge. About how you ruled.”

“Stories true,” Tarrik said. “But stories not whole. Old me… broken. Hurt many.” He looked at Thane across the room. “New me learn better way.”

The girl watched him for a moment—really watched—and then nodded, fear softening into wary acceptance. Tarrik stood again, moving to help Varro adjust the fuel line.

Varro knelt by the generator, examining connections with meticulous focus. He glanced up as Tarrik approached. “Fuel steady,” Varro said. “Heat stable. We run it one hour, rest two, run again. Enough conserve.”

Tarrik dipped his head. “Good plan.”

Varro gave a small, almost private smile. “I learned from best.”

Tarrik blinked. “Who?”

“You,” Varro said, wiping his hands. “Long ago. Bad lessons, sometimes. But they helped shape good ones later.”

Tarrik stared at him, speechless. Varro rose to full height and gave his shoulder the smallest, firmest nudge—a silent acknowledgment of shared past and reshaped futures.

Thane returned from exploring a side room, holding up a dusty crate triumphantly. “Food,” he announced. “Or what used to be food. Some cans are still intact.”

Kade inspected one. “Beans. Edible,” he said. “if they smell okay.”

Rime sniffed one and tilted his head. “Smell fine. Maybe fine.””

The survivors perked up. The older man tried to stand, but his wrapped leg trembled beneath him. Thane crossed the room in two strides.

“Sit,” Thane said. “Don’t push it. We’ve got you.”

The man sank back gratefully. “My name…” He paused, rubbing his forehead as if memory stung. “My name is Darren. Darren Cole.”

Thane nodded. “I’m Thane. This is Kade, Varro, Rime. And you know Tarrik.”

Darren’s eyes flicked to each wolf in turn, recognition settling where fear had been. “You’re… real,” he whispered. “We thought the stories were lies. Wolves that help. Wolves that talk. Wolves that fix things.”

Rime offered Darren a cup of water. “Drink. Slow.”

“Thank you,” Darren said, taking it with both hands.

Thane squatted beside him. “How many were you originally?”

“Twelve,” Darren answered. “We came from a place east of here. Flood took out our shelter. We wandered north. Someone told us there was an outpost here. There was… but nothing worked.”

Varro’s expression tightened. “And no towns answered?”

“There are towns?” Darren asked, stunned. “We kept scanning on the radio. All we heard was static.”

“The antenna must’ve been damaged,” Kade said. “We saw wires broken. Metal bent.”

Thane’s jaw set. “Then we’ll fix it.”

“Thane…” Darren’s voice cracked. “Is it true? Are there really towns working together again?”

Thane didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Libby, Spokane, Thompson Falls, Eureka, Kalispell. People rebuilding. Power. Phones. Schools.”

Darren’s eyes filled. “I thought we were the last.”

“You’re not,” Thane said. “And you’re not going to die in this bunker.”

The girl beside Darren leaned forward. “What do you want us to do?”

“Eat. Rest,” Thane said. “We’ll take you back once you have strength.”

Darren shook his head. “It’s dangerous out there.”

Tarrik stepped forward, voice steady. “Not today. You walk with wolves.”

The younger boy stared at him with wide eyes. “Are you… are you going to protect us?”

Tarrik studied him for a moment, something softening behind his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I protect. Not hurt.”

The boy nodded slowly, unsure but hopeful.

As twilight settled outside, faint snowflakes began drifting through the pines. The wolves worked quickly, reinforcing the outpost entrance with debris and moving blankets closer to the generator’s warmth. Rime kept a watchful eye on the survivors, occasionally offering a quiet hum of reassurance—a feral cadence turned gentle.

Kade stepped outside, surveying the northern ridge with narrowed eyes. “Tracks,” he murmured to Thane when he returned. “Old. Three days. Human.”

Varro joined them, scanning the prints. “Scouts,” he said. “Not these survivors.”

“Raiders?” Gabriel asked.

Kade shook his head. “Steps light. No dragging. No heavy gear.”

“Maybe more survivors,” Varro said. “But not near.”

Thane exhaled. “Another problem for another day. We get these people home first.”

Inside, Darren watched them with a mixture of awe and exhaustion. “You all just… work together,” he said softly. “Like you’ve done it for years.”

Thane glanced around the room—wolves moving with purpose, Rime sorting through cans, Varro adjusting controls, Kade securing windows.

“We’ve had practice,” Thane said.

Darren’s daughter spoke again, quieter. “Will the valley… accept us?”

“Yes,” Thane said without hesitation. “We have a process. Screening. Orienting. But you’ll be welcomed. You’ll be safe.”

Darren’s lip trembled. “Safe.” He swallowed. “I haven’t heard that word in two years.”

“Get used to it,” Gabriel said lightly. “We’re bringing it back.”

Tarrik stood beside Thane now, watching the survivors settle. “Old Iron Ridge never look like this,” he said quietly. “People warm. Safe. Not because they fear. Because valley protect them.”

Thane looked at him. “This is what protection is supposed to look like.”

Tarrik nodded slowly, accepting the truth like a stone he’d finally stopped fighting.

Varro approached. “Generator stable for night,” he said. “We rotate watch. Keep fire low but steady.”

“Kade, you take first watch outside,” Thane said. “Varro, second. Rime, third. I’ll take fourth.”

Tarrik straightened. “I take last,” he said.

Thane nodded once. “Good.”

Thane watched the scene—wolves and humans sharing space without tension—and felt something settle deep in his chest. A quiet certainty that this rescue wasn’t just about saving three people.

It was proof that the valley’s unity meant something beyond signatures on a page.

As night deepened, snow fell quietly outside. Kade kept watch from a tree stump, scanning the shadowed treeline with eyes that missed little. Varro slept light, half-alert even when lost in dreams. Rime lay beside the survivors, forming a protective barrier of heat and muscle. Tarrik dozed against the wall like a sentinel carved from fur and stone.

Thane took his shift while the stars still burned cold over the ridge.

He walked the perimeter alone, breath clouding in the dark. The silence of the north wrapped around him—vast, stark, familiar. A place that once belonged to fear. To cruelty.

Not anymore.

Behind him, the outpost glowed warm against the snow, a fragile lantern holding the night at bay.

A lone figure stepped beside him.

Tarrik.

He didn’t speak at first. Just stood, watching the horizon.

“They fear me less now,” Tarrik said quietly.

“They fear you enough,” Thane said. “Just not the wrong way.”

“I try not be old shadow.”

“You’re not.”

Tarrik absorbed that in a long breath. “We bring them south tomorrow?”

“We do,” Thane said. “And then we come back. There are more out here. I can feel it.”

Tarrik looked north, past the ridges, past the dark valleys beyond. “Then valley grows.”

“It will,” Thane said. “If we guide it right.”

Light flickered behind them as the generator hiccuped, then steadied. Someone laughed inside—soft, tired, relieved. Rime murmured something gentle. Varro shifted in sleep.

The world felt possible.

Tarrik straightened, drawing himself up to full height—not the tyrant he once was, but the guardian he had become.

“We find them,” he said. “All of them.”

Thane nodded. “Together.”

The wind rose softly, carrying smoke and hope and distant echoes across the ruined forest.

The valley was united.

Now it was time to extend its reach.

Night held steady around them as they kept watch, two silhouettes against a world that was slowly, painfully, beautifully learning how to live again.

The sun came up over Libby like it meant it, washing City Hall in pale gold and throwing long shadows across the square. A flag fluttered above the front steps, edges still frayed from the years after the Fall, but colors bright and stubborn against the sky. People moved with purpose through the open doors—volunteers carrying trays, staff checking lists, a faint undercurrent of nerves and excitement running beneath all of it.

Thane climbed the steps with Gabriel at his side, Holt and Rime padding behind them. The wolves’ claws clicked softly on the stone. Kade and Varro were already inside, spreading maps across a table in the lobby, heads bowed together in quiet discussion.

Marta had insisted the doors stay open. “This isn’t a secret,” she’d said. “If we’re going to govern a valley, the valley deserves to see us walk in.”

Inside, the lobby smelled of fresh coffee, paper, and smoked meat. Volunteers had laid out bread—Holt’s latest, finally consistent enough that even Rime trusted it—and strips of venison on a platter reserved, unofficially, for the wolves.

Rime drifted toward it like a needle to a magnet. Holt bumped his shoulder. “Later,” Holt muttered. “Meeting first. No shame eat after.”

Rime’s ears drooped, but his tail kept a slow, hopeful rhythm.

Thane shrugged out of his jacket and scanned the room. His gaze caught Marta near the council chamber doors, checking off names on a clipboard. She looked up, eyes meeting his. For a moment, the years they’d fought through—snowstorms and raiders and blackouts—passed between them without a word.

“You good?” she asked.

“Standing,” he said. “That’s a start.”

Gabriel snorted quietly beside him. “You’re more than standing. You’re about to lead a regional council. Try not to look like you’d rather be elbows-deep in a phone rack.”

Thane gave him a sideways look.

The front doors opened again. A breeze chased in the smell of pine and cold road dust, followed by Tom Anderson and Tarrik.

Tom walked like a man who’d learned to trust his town to run while he was gone. Beside him, Tarrik moved with measured steadiness—no longer a coiled threat, but a grounded presence. His fur was brushed and healthy, scars visible but softened. Every step carried the weight of someone who had chosen to stay in the world instead of turning away from it.

Tom reached Thane first and held out a hand. “Morning, Thane.”

Thane took it. “Tom.”

Tom’s grin flicked wider, then he stepped aside slightly, making space as Tarrik approached.

Tarrik stopped a pace away and dipped his head—not a subservient bow, not dominance, just respect. “Alpha,” he said. His voice retained that faint feral cadence, but the words were steady. “Eureka sends honor. And thanks.”

Thane studied him for half a heartbeat—the calmer eyes, the absence of the old sneer, the way his shoulders sat level instead of hunched with anger. He remembered Tarrik on the road to banishment, and Tarrik in Eureka with maps spread out, guarding the town as fiercely as he once ruled Iron Ridge. The difference was not small.

“You’re looking good,” Thane said. “Eureka suits you.”

Tarrik’s ears ticked up, just barely. “It is… strange. No chains. Just work. Purpose.” His gaze ghosted past Thane to the maps in the lobby, then back. “Thank you. For that.”

Thane gave a short nod. “You earned it. You keep those people safe, you keep earning it.”

Tarrik’s tail moved a fraction. “I will.”

They moved aside as Nora Ellison and Seth came through the doors. Nora’s expression was bright with curiosity and a bit of mischief; Seth walked a half-step behind her, eyes sweeping the room, posture relaxed but alert. He looked solid, settled—as much Thompson Falls as the river that ran past it.

“Libby cleans up nice,” Nora said, glancing around. “Almost like you all planned this instead of winging it.”

Marta lifted her clipboard. “Don’t say things you know aren’t true, Nora. We’re very much winging it.”

Seth’s gaze found Thane. There was history there—fights, long drives, shared watchfires. Seth stepped forward and clasped Thane’s forearm.

“Good see you,” he said. “Valley feel… different now. Quieter. But not empty.”

“Quiet’s the point,” Thane said. “If we do today right, we keep it that way.”

Delegations continued to arrive. Hal Mason stepped in with folders under one arm, Spokane dust on his boots, eyes carrying too many late nights and early mornings. He clasped Thane’s hand like he was gripping a lifeline.

“Been a long road from emergency triage to council meeting,” Hal said.

“Still beats wondering who’s alive within a hundred miles,” Gabriel put in, appearing at Thane’s shoulder. “Good to see you, Hal.”

Kalispell arrived last. Nadine Carver came through the doors with three aides and the soft scent of rain off mountain stone. She carried herself like someone who had never stopped planning for a future, even when the world fell apart.

Her gaze swept the room, taking in wolves, maps, coffee, paper, the mix of worn clothes and carefully repaired civic uniforms. She reached Thane and offered her hand.

“Glad to see you again, Thane” she said.

Marta clapped her hands once. “All right. We’re as here as we’re going to get. Let’s move inside.”

The council chamber filled quickly. The room had been scrubbed and patched; sunlight spilled across the long table, catching on the polished wood and the faint scars left by years of disuse. Chairs lined the sides, with overflow seating along the walls.

Marta took the center seat at the head of the table. To her right, Thane sat as Libby’s representative, claws resting lightly on the surface, wolf medallion catching the light at his throat. Tom took the next seat, then Hal. On Marta’s left sat Nadine, then Nora, then an empty chair reserved for when they needed to pull someone else into the circle.

Behind Thane, Kade and Varro took their positions, map tubes and notepads ready. Tarrik stood behind Tom, steady and watchful. Seth settled behind Nora. Gabriel slid into a chair against the wall with a notebook of his own, there to listen and catch anything KTNY might need to carry later. Holt and Rime chose spots near the back, officially “observers,” unofficially on permanent alert for anything that might involve food, danger, or both.

The low murmur of voices faded as Marta stood.

“By showing up today,” she said, “you’ve already done the hard part. You left your home towns, your safety zones. You came here to talk about more than just surviving the week. Today we decide how this valley lives for the next ten, twenty, fifty years.” She glanced at Thane. “We’ve been reacting for a long time. Maybe this is the day we start planning.”

She sat. All eyes shifted to Thane.

He was not dressed for ceremony—just sturdy pants, a dark shirt, claws and fur bare, like always—but there was something formal in the way he held himself. When he spoke, his gravel-edged voice carried without effort.

“We’ve all bled for this valley,” Thane said. “We’ve lost people. We’ve nearly lost towns. We’ve seen what happens when one group tries to rule by fear.” His gaze flicked, not unkindly, toward Tarrik, then back to the table. “We’re not doing that. Not here. Not now. This council is not about who’s strongest. It’s about how we keep our people fed, warm, safe, and hopeful. Together.”

He rested his hands back on the table. “Let’s talk about how we keep it that way.”

They started with security. It was the most natural place for wolves and humans alike.

Varro stepped forward, unrolling a map across the table. Kade pinned it at the corners. Town names were marked in firm strokes, roads and trails spidering between them, contours of mountains and rivers sketched with practiced familiarity.

“This is the Quiet Circle,” Varro said, his voice calm and precise. “We run it now for Libby, for Northern Ferals before. We can expand.”

He tapped the loop that encircled Libby, then extended to Eureka, Kalispell, Thompson Falls, and Spokane. “Wolves patrol here. Every day. Same routes. Same eyes. No gaps.”

Thane leaned forward, claws tracing the circle without touching the page. “Right now, my pack runs most of this,” he said. “But it doesn’t have to be just us.”

Tarrik’s gaze followed the line. “Eureka take north,” he said. “I know ridges. Old Iron Ridge ground. No one hide there without me smelling.”

Seth added, “Thompson Falls run river trails. We know them best. We see boats. Tents. Quiet camps.”

Nadine nodded slowly. “Kalispell can put boots on the mountain passes. We’ve got people who never stopped hiking, even when it was stupid to do it.”

Hal rested his elbows on the table. “Spokane’s got enough survivors to pull together patrol volunteers. Not wolves, but we can run vehicles along the forest roads, keep an eye out.”

Tom glanced at Thane. “How fast can you move if something goes wrong at any one point on that circle?”

Thane’s eyes swept the map, measuring distance in miles, in hours, in lives. “If we know where we’re going?” he said. “My wolves can be anywhere on that circle inside an hour, hour and a half at worst.” He nodded toward Varro. “And with Varro coordinating, we don’t overlap, we don’t leave holes, and no one gets surprised if a pack of wolves comes tearing through town to help.”

Varro inclined his head, amber eyes thoughtful. “We write schedule,” he said. “Share copies with all towns. Everyone know when wolf or human unit near. Any town can light signal or call KTNY or phone trunk. We respond.”

“Unanimous?” Marta asked, looking around.

Hands went up around the table. Behind them, paws lifted too.

“Done,” she said. “The Quiet Circle becomes valley doctrine.”

Trade came easier than anyone expected.

Nadine laid out Kalispell’s plans to ramp up greenhouse production and grain fields. Nora spoke about the mills at Thompson Falls, the stacks of lumber already curing in the sun. Tom outlined metalwork, talk of tools and brackets, rails and stove parts. Hal offered textiles, trained teachers, long-shelved books. Marta committed Libby to continue serving as power and coordination hub, maintaining the dam, the phone lines, and the fragile web of copper that connected everything.

Thane listened, adding pieces when needed. “We’ve got spare transformers and panels in storage,” he said at one point. “Enough to bring two more small towns fully online if we plan it right.”

“You’re already planning that, aren’t you?” Marta asked.

“Maybe,” Thane said. Gabriel coughed meaningfully behind him; several people chuckled.

They spoke about shared storage for surplus, agreed to regular caravans instead of ad hoc resupply runs, and set expectations for fair trade versus emergency relief. No one wanted a repeat of the days when one town had plenty while another starved just because no one knew.

When the conversation shifted to water and the dam, Thane took the lead again.

“Libby Dam’s stable,” he said. “The BPA retirees have it running better than we ever did. They’re treating it like a job again, not a miracle. That’s good for all of us.” He nodded toward Nadine and Tom. “Upriver and downriver both matter. We keep flow predictable, share data, send people to check the station at least weekly from every town.”

Nadine folded her hands. “Kalispell will send someone once a month to look over their shoulders and bring back reports. Not because we don’t trust them—because this place matters too much to leave in one set of hands.”

“Eureka will too,” Tom said. “We’re closest to the north roads. Easier for us to swing by.”

Thane’s shoulders eased a little. “Then we never again have a dam no one understands and no one’s checking,” he said. “Good.”

Education followed. The mention of the Libby schoolhouse lit something warm in the room.

Hal slid a folder across the table. “We’ve got lesson plans, battered but readable. We can send copies. If we share teachers, we share a future. People need more than food and power. They need something to build on.”

Nadine nodded. “Kalispell has three former teachers ready to travel. They can stay in Libby for a month at a time, rotate back. Teach kids here, bring back methods and structure for our own.”

“Thompson Falls send two,” Seth said. He spoke slower for this, as if careful with each word. “Good with numbers. With little ones. They want to help. They say—” He paused, searching. “They say they tired of only surviving. Want to grow.”

Gabriel, scribbling notes, looked up with a soft smile. “We can integrate music and radio into the curriculum too. Kids already love KTNY. Might as well weaponize that for learning.”

“You just want built-in listeners,” Hal said.

Gabriel shrugged, unashamed. “Both can be true.”

Marta wrote fast. “Shared teachers, shared materials, shared standards. We make sure a child in Spokane learns the same basics as a child in Eureka or Libby.”

Thane shifted, thinking of the little drawings pinned to the cabin walls. “We do this right,” he said quietly, “and they’ll grow up thinking this is normal. Radios that work. Lights that stay on. Wolves who guard instead of hunt. That’s the whole point.”

No one argued.

When emergency response came up, it felt like an extension of what they’d already agreed to.

Hal spoke about disasters that could still come—fire, disease, structural failures. Nadine asked pointed questions about communication and redundancy. Nora and Tom talked volunteers. The wolves talked speed.

“KTNY can be our first line,” Marta said. “We set up codes. If you hear a certain tone and phrase, you know what’s happening and where. Every town sends us logs. We keep the master list.”

Thane nodded. “If something happens in Eureka, Tom calls here, KTNY broadcasts, my pack moves. Same for Kalispell, Thompson Falls, Spokane. No more hoping someone happens to be listening at the right time.”

Hal exhaled slowly. “I spent a year hoping,” he said. “I like this better.”

They nearly sailed through the agenda without friction.

Then Hal mentioned refugees.

“We’re getting signals from camps outside the valley,” he said. “Groups of twenty, forty, maybe more. They hear the phones are working again. They hear music. They want in.”

Nadine’s brow furrowed. Nora tilted her head. Tom’s jaw flexed. The room cooled a degree.

“We can’t open the gates to everyone,” Tom said carefully. “We barely stabilized what we have.”

Nora smiled, but there was no humor in it. “We also can’t leave people to freeze and starve outside and pretend we’re better than the world that died.”

“It’s not about being better,” Tom said. “It’s about not crashing what we’ve rebuilt.”

Nadine tapped her finger on the table. “It is about being better,” she said. “At least partly. But he’s not wrong about strain.”

Silence stretched. Eyes shifted toward Thane, then away, as if no one wanted to say aloud that they were waiting for the wolf to make the call.

Varro stepped forward, breaking the tension like he was stepping into one of his own battle plans. His voice didn’t rise, but it carried.

“In Iron Ridge,” he said, “Tarrik decided who lived there. Who ate. Who slept inside. All by fear. By pain.” He didn’t look at Tarrik when he said it; he looked at the mayors. “It worked. For a while. Then it broke everything.”

Tarrik’s shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t flinch away from the truth. His eyes stayed on the table.

Varro continued. “If valley closes doors now, because we have enough and they do not… we start building same walls. Different reason. Same result.”

Thane watched him for a moment, a faint pride settling under his ribs. The strategist Iron Ridge forged was not gone; he’d just turned his mind to better uses.

Tarrik spoke, finally. His voice was quieter than it had been earlier, but clearer. “Varro right,” he said. “I led by fear. I would have called these camps ‘threat.’” He glanced around the table. “You all… you led different. I see your towns. People laugh. Sleep. Walk streets not scared. We cannot become old Iron Ridge just… bigger.”

Seth shifted his weight, then nodded. “We no open doors blind,” he said. “But we not nail them shut. Check who comes. Ask questions. Give chance. Turn away only if must.”

Marta looked at Thane. “What does the Alpha Wolf of Libby think?”

Thane let the silence stretch, feeling every eye, every expectation. He thought of the ferals Sable once held, terrified of humans. Of Kade, who had lost a pack and chosen a new one. Of Tarrik eating in Eureka’s diner, laughing with Tom. Of children who would never know the sound of a starvation winter if they did this right.

“If we choose fear, we lose,” he said. “Maybe not today. Maybe not this year. But eventually, we eat ourselves from the inside. We start making lists of who deserves to be safe and who doesn’t. We’ve all seen where that leads.” His gaze settled on each mayor in turn. “We take people in. Not all at once. Not without sense. We screen. We set expectations. We put working hands where they’re needed. We watch for predators in the mix and remove them fast. But we don’t turn away families who just want to live under a roof and hear a song on the radio.”

He leaned back. “We build a valley that deserves the power we turned back on. That’s the whole point.”

Tom exhaled, some of the fight draining from his shoulders. Nora’s expression softened. Nadine’s eyes warmed and sharpened at the same time.

Hal nodded slowly. “Resettlement with rules,” he said. “Mercy with guardrails.”

Marta lifted her pen. “All in favor of structured intake, with this council establishing screening standards and shared responsibility?”

Hands went up again.

Paws followed.

When the last agenda item had been checked off and the air felt thick with decisions, Marta reached into her folder and pulled out a single sheet of paper. The edges were worn from handling, corners soft.

“I wrote this after Thane and I talked last week,” she said. “He doesn’t know that, so if you don’t like it, blame me, not him. But I’d like this to be our Accord. The thing we can point to when times get hard again and remember what we promised.”

She didn’t need to tap a glass to get silence. The room was already listening.

“We stand together as towns and as people,” she read. “We share water, food, power, knowledge, and defense. We answer each other’s calls without hesitation. We welcome the innocent and stand against cruelty. We build a world where fear has no place, and where hope speaks across every valley and ridge. We rise as one.”

When she finished, no one spoke for several breaths. The sunlight shifted on the table. Outside, faintly, a dog barked and a child laughed. Inside, the weight of the words settled like a stone in a foundation.

Tom picked up the pen first. “Eureka signs,” he said, and scrawled his name.

Nadine followed. “Kalispell signs.”

“Spokane signs,” Hal said.

“Thompson Falls signs,” Nora added, beaming.

Marta added “Libby” in careful letters.

Then it was the wolves’ turn.

Thane picked up the pen. His claws dwarfed it, but his handwriting had always been neat and deliberate. He signed simply: THANE, LIBBY PACK. He thought, briefly, of all the wolves and humans whose lives had bent to bring this moment into being. The ink on the page felt like a promise to all of them.

Kade signed next, then Varro, then Seth. Tarrik came last, his name uneven but legible, each stroke an act of will.

When he stepped back, he looked at the sheet as though it were something fragile and miraculous.

“Old life had no promises like this,” he said quietly. “Only threats. I like… this better.”

Thane rested a claw lightly against the table near the Accord. “Then we hold to it,” he said. “All of us.”

The formal meeting dissolved into smaller constellations as people stood, stretched, and drifted toward the lobby. Voices rose, lighter now. Laughter sparked here and there.

Children, released from school for the occasion, flooded in. They darted from wolf to wolf, thrusting crumpled papers upward. Rime received another “GUARD WOLF” drawing and nearly wagged himself sideways. Holt showed off his “BIG PAW TEACHER” picture to Tom and Nora with unrestrained pride.

A girl tugged on Thane’s sleeve and pushed a drawing into his hands. He unfolded it carefully.

It showed a broad-shouldered wolf standing atop a hill with a town below, tiny houses and radio towers and telephone poles all connected by a single, glowing line. Above the wolf, a child’s neat block letters read: ALPHA OF EVERYONE.

He swallowed once, then managed, “Thank you.”

“You keep us safe,” she said matter-of-factly. “Mom says you fixed the phones. And the lights. And the wolves.” She frowned. “Did you fix the wolves?”

“They did most of that themselves,” Thane said. “I just yelled a lot until we all started going the same direction.”

She giggled, satisfied, and ran off to tackle Gabriel with a request for a song.

Varro appeared at his side, clutching his own drawing. “Safe Wolf,” he said, showing it. The image was simple—a wolf standing between two children, as if nothing could pass through him that meant them harm. The words were messy but clear.

“Accurate,” Thane said.

Varro’s mouth twitched into the barest suggestion of a smile. “Feels… heavy. In good way.” He glanced toward Tarrik, who stood by the doorway, speaking quietly with Tom. “He carry new weight too.”

Tarrik caught their gaze and walked over, stopping within easy talking distance.

“Your town looks alive,” he said to Thane. “Good alive. Not desperate.”

“Your town looks the same,” Thane replied. “Tom told me about that raider trio from Canada. You handled it.”

Tarrik’s ears tipped back slightly, not in shame this time, but in modesty. “Old me would have made example. New me made warning. Enough. They ran. No dead but one who push too far.” His eyes held Thane’s. “Your way… harder, sometimes. But better.”

“It is harder,” Thane agreed. “Especially when you’re tired or angry. But it’s the only way that doesn’t end in more graves than houses.”

Tarrik nodded slowly. “I stay on that path,” he said. “Any time I start to fall… you remind me.”

“I will,” Thane said. “Or Varro will. Or half this valley will.” His tone softened. “You’re not walking it alone.”

Outside, the square was full. People from every direction had gathered when they heard the council was ending. Some had come out of curiosity, some out of hope, some simply because they couldn’t quite believe all the rumors about working phones and formal agreements and wolves who shook hands instead of hunting at the edges of town.

Marta stepped onto the top stair, holding the Accord high just long enough for people to see it. She didn’t make a speech. She didn’t need to. The sight of a single piece of paper bearing so many names said enough.

The crowd cheered anyway.

Thane joined her there, Gabriel settling on his other side. Tom, Nadine, Hal, Nora, Tarrik, Seth—one by one, they stepped out onto the steps too, forming a loose line of humans and wolves overlooking the square. Varro and Kade stood just behind Thane’s shoulders, as they so often did now, flanking the Alpha like the twin edges of a shield.

From somewhere down the block, the faint sound of KTNY drifted on the air—a song playing, not a survival broadcast, just music. Normal life. The kind of thing that would have been forgettable before the Fall and now felt like a miracle.

Thane looked out at the gathered faces—at children perched on parents’ shoulders, at traders with dust on their boots from Kalispell and Spokane, at wolves sitting comfortably among humans, claws bare and unhidden. The sun was warm on his fur. The town was alive. The valley was listening.

He didn’t raise his voice much. He didn’t need to.

“This isn’t the end of anything,” he said. “It’s the start. We didn’t fight this hard just to get back to where we were. We’re building something better. Together. Humans, wolves, towns, all of us.” He paused, letting the words settle. “We’ll make mistakes. We’ll fix them. We’ll argue. We’ll keep each other honest. But from today on… no one stands alone if they live under these mountains. Not anymore.”

The cheer that rose was not wild. It was deep. It rolled out from the steps and echoed off the brick and glass, off the repaired power lines and the KTNY antenna, off the very walls that had once heard only panic and shouted orders.

Marta smiled beside him. Gabriel wiped an eye and insisted it was just dust. Varro stood a little straighter. Seth’s tail thumped once against the stone. Tarrik lifted his head, breathing in the sound like air.

The valley had been silent once.

Now, it spoke with one voice.

And as the sun slid toward afternoon and people began to drift back to their work and their homes, the promise made inside Libby Town Hall lingered in the air like a living thing: a pact written in ink, sealed in shared effort, carried forward by wolves and humans who finally, truly, believed that the worst was behind them and that what came next could be better.

Not just for one town.

For all of them.

Saturday mornings had a different sound these days.

Not alarms.
Not distant gunshots or the creak of a watchtower.
Not the endless footfalls of wolves pacing the perimeter.

This morning was soft. Quiet. The kind where the cabin felt like an oversized den full of sleeping wolves and lazy sunlight. Rime was stretched on the couch with a book he pretended he wasn’t reading. Mark tinkered with a radio in the corner. Kade and Varro sat at the table working through a map just because neither of them had learned how to relax yet. Holt lay on the rug upside-down, enormous paws in the air, humming to himself. Gabriel sat cross-legged on the armchair strumming something easy and bright.

It smelled like cinnamon bread Holt insisted was “perfect this time” even though the last two batches had been weaponized sugar.

A peaceful house.
A peaceful valley.
For the first time in a long time, the world was allowed to breathe.

And Thane stood by the window, arms folded, staring out into the trees like he could see something far past the valley line.

Rime noticed first. He closed his book, padded over quietly, and stood beside him. “Alpha,” he murmured. “You look at horizon too hard. It will not give answers.”

Thane huffed softly. “I’m just thinking.”

The others heard that tone. The music stopped. The map rustled. Even Holt rolled upright, ears perked in lopsided curiosity.

Kade leaned forward. “Thinking about what?”

Thane looked over his shoulder at them — the little family he’d somehow built out of chaos and winter and grit. “Tarrik,” he said.

Varro went still. Kade’s jaw tightened—not in fear, but in attention. Holt’s ears flopped sideways. Gabriel arched a brow.

Thane turned fully away from the window. “It’s been a couple days since everything happened in Eureka,” he said. “I’ve been watching. Listening. And I think… Tarrik has earned something.”

A ripple went through the room, not tension, but the weight of a truth they’d all felt coming.

“He’s shown remarkable change,” Thane continued. “Not pretend change. Not fear-made change. Real, bone-deep, humbling change. He’s doing the work. He’s facing ghosts that would break other wolves.” He rested one clawed hand against the windowsill. “And I think he deserves to be part of our pack.”

Holt’s jaw dropped. “Wait… like… pack pack?”

Thane nodded. “Pack pack.”

Rime lowered his head in thought. Gabriel’s claws tapped on the guitar body. Mark leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

Thane held up a hand. “Before anyone speaks… understand something. I would keep Tarrik living and working in Eureka. That won’t change. But a wolf needs a home—true home—to run toward when his past comes knocking. I want him to know he has one.”

He looked at Kade first. Then Varro.

“I will not bring Tarrik into this pack if it would harm either of you. Or make you feel unsafe. Or unsettled. This must be unanimous.”

Holt’s ears flicked up. “What is… unani-muss?” he asked, stumbling over the word.

He blinked, genuinely puzzled.

“Sound like sweet thing. We eat it?

Mark rubbed his face. “Oh my god.”

Gabriel grinned. “Buddy… that’s ‘danish.’”

“Oh,” Holt said brightly. “Then what’s a unami— unimo— unanimoose?”

Kade sighed hard enough to fog the window. “It means we all agree, Holt.”

“Ohhh.” Holt nodded, satisfied. “Still hungry though.”

The room eased just enough to breathe—but the weight remained.

Varro spoke first, voice calm but low. “If you’d asked me that the night of the battle… I’d have said no.” His amber eyes flicked toward the window. “But I watched him in Eureka. Not the wolf who beat me for losing a hunt. Not the commanding voice. Just a wolf doing penance without expecting forgiveness.” He folded his arms. “Thane… if you believe he belongs here… I won’t stand in the way.”

Kade drew in a breath through his nose. “He hurt me,” he said plainly. “We all know that. Hurt a lot of wolves I knew.” His claws tapped once on the table. “But… I watched him this week. He isn’t the wolf from Iron Ridge anymore.” He rested his elbows on the table. “If you’re asking whether I feel unsafe? No. Not anymore. Angry sometimes? Maybe. But unsafe? No.”

Thane gave him a quiet nod of respect.

Gabriel leaned back, guitar resting across his lap. “I don’t trust easily,” he said. “But what I saw in Eureka… that wasn’t a manipulator. That was a wolf who woke up for the first time in his life.” He shrugged. “I won’t be best friends with him. But I won’t oppose it. He’s doing better than a lot of humans I’ve met, frankly.”

Mark grunted. “He’s been helpful. Consistent. No ego. No pushback. And Tom says he’s saved his ass twice on the river pumps.” He crossed his arms. “If you think he belongs, Thane, then I’m good with it.”

Rime stepped closer to the center of the room. “He carries weight with honesty now,” he said. “Not pride. Not fear. That is rare. I have no objection.”

Everyone turned to Holt.

Holt blinked, head tilted, ears loose and honest.

“I think he good,” he said, voice warm. “Smells… heavy-sad, but trying. Working hard.” He scratched the side of his muzzle with a claw.

“Water thing in Eureka? He fix fast. Strong paws.”

Then his ears perked. “Do we get cinnamon bread if he join pack?”

“No,” Mark said.

“Still yes,” Holt replied.

The room went quiet again.

All eyes shifted back to Thane.

“Then it’s decided,” Thane said softly. “I’ll go to Eureka tomorrow and tell him. He deserves to hear it directly.”

Kade frowned thoughtfully. “What do you think he’ll say?”

Thane’s eyes warmed with something heavy and quiet. “I think he’ll cry,” he said. “And I think he’ll try very hard not to.”

Varro gave a rare, crooked smile. “That sounds about right.”

Holt beamed. “We should throw a party. With bread. And maybe a unanimoose.”

“Not a thing,” Mark muttered.

Gabriel laughed, setting his guitar in his lap. “God help us if Holt ever learns Latin.”

Rime sat on the arm of the couch and looked at Thane with calm certainty. “This strengthens us,” he said. “Him, too.”

Thane looked out the window again — but his eyes weren’t distant now. They were focused. Steady. Purposeful.

“I buy in,” he said, voice quiet but carrying through the whole cabin. “When I choose to help someone become better… I buy in one hundred and twenty percent. Tarrik has earned this. And we will stand with him when the next ghost walks out of the snow.”

The pack murmured agreement, the shape of it warm and grounding.

Outside, the valley rolled on — peaceful, alive, and stronger than it had been the day before.

Inside, the pack sat together on their first real day off in years.

And Thane looked at his wolves and knew the truth:

The next chapter of their future had just found its missing piece.

---

The cabin stayed warm long after the laughter faded. The pack drifted into their lazy Saturday routines again — Gabriel strumming softer now, Holt sprawled on the rug humming nonsense, Kade and Varro trading quiet glances that held a weight only wolves with shared history understood.

Thane, though, still stood by the window.
He felt lighter, sure — but settled in that deep-chest way that said a piece of the future was finally aligned.

By late evening, everyone had moved on to chores or naps or whatever passed for downtime in a house full of claws and oversized personalities. But Thane’s mind stayed on tomorrow.

On Tarrik.
On the look he’d have when his world shifted from lonely redemption to something like belonging.

Sunday morning came with an orange sunrise and the smell of Mark frying something vaguely edible. Thane grabbed a mug of coffee, stepped onto the porch, took a long breath of spring air, and knew the moment had come.

He took the Humvee alone.

The drive to Eureka was quiet, the road curving along the river in long, familiar lines. His claws drummed lightly on the steering wheel — not nerves, just the slow rhythm of a wolf turning over the right words.

He pulled into town just before noon. The streets were calm, shutters open, kids chasing each other with sticks, the smell of bacon drifting from somewhere near City Hall.

Thane parked in front of the Sheriff’s office and stepped inside.

The deputy on duty, Maria Cables, sat behind the desk, boots propped up, reading a dog-eared field manual.

She looked up fast. “Thane. Everything okay in Libby?”

“All quiet,” Thane said. “I’m looking for Tarrik. You seen him today?”

Maria nodded toward the street. “He and Tom headed down to the cafe about twenty minutes ago. Sunday ritual, y’know.”

“I do,” Thane said. “Thank you.”

He stepped back outside and followed the scent of coffee and warm bread down the block. The little corner cafe had its windows open, lace curtains swaying. A few townspeople sat on the patio drinking tea, chatting about fishing or patching roofs or some new shipment from Spokane.

Thane parked in front and walked in.

There they were.

Tom Anderson and Tarrik sat at their usual table — the one against the wall with the dent where Holt once bumped it during a supply run. They each had plates of eggs and smoked trout, half-eaten. Tom was in mid-sentence, animated, pointing at the floor under their chairs.

“…I mean think about the traction you guys must get with those claws, right? I’d kill for that. I could climb the ridge in half the time. Don’t even need boots.”

Tarrik snorted softly. “Trust me. If you had claws, you would not want boots, or tools, or anything. Claws do all.”

Tom laughed. “Awesome.”

They were relaxed.
Laughing.
Whole.

Thane let the door close behind him.

Tarrik saw him first.

The shift was instant — ears pricked, shoulders stiffened, tail froze. His eyes widened just enough to show white at the edges. Tom’s smile fell too, turning wary.

Thane lifted one paw. “Not that look,” he said calmly. “I know that look. That’s the ‘I’m about to be yelled at’ face. I’m not here with bad news.”

Tom let out a breath he clearly didn’t mean to hold. “Well… good. Because the trout’s amazing and I’d hate to throw up.”

Tarrik still looked rattled.
Thane gave him a small nod. “I do need to talk to you.”

Tom gestured. “Sit. Please.”

Thane slid into the booth beside Tarrik, whose body language danced tightly between bracing-for-impact and trying-not-to-sweat.

Thane folded his hands on the table. “Yesterday… the pack and I talked.”

Tarrik stared at his claws. “About… me.”

“Yes,” Thane said. “About you.”

Tom went still.
Tarrik didn’t breathe.

Thane leaned forward slightly. “You’ve made incredible progress, Tarrik. Real progress. Not for show. Not out of fear. Out of choice. Out of wanting to be better than you were.”

Tarrik swallowed, throat tight.

“So,” Thane said gently, “I brought it to the pack. Every single wolf. And I told them what I saw in you. The change. The humility. The way you faced Joss without running. The way you chose to stay and work and rebuild when you could have disappeared into the mountains.”

Tarrik’s eyes finally lifted. There was fear there, yes — but something else too. Hope he didn’t want to name.

“I told them,” Thane said softly, “that you deserve a place. That you’ve earned a place.”

Tarrik’s breath hitched. “A… place?”

Thane nodded once. “If you want it… Tarrik of Eureka… you have a pack now.”

For a moment, Tarrik stayed perfectly still — the kind of stillness that only wolves understand, where every muscle locks because the heart just dropped out of the body entirely.

Then his eyes filled.

He blinked hard, trying to hold it back, jaw clenched tight enough to shake.
A tremble hit his shoulders.
His throat moved once, strangled and quiet.

“Thane…” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“You… you’d make me pack?”

Thane rested a steady clawed hand on his shoulder. “You already started becoming one. We’re just naming what’s true.”

Tarrik made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob — then lunged forward and hugged Thane so hard he knocked both their chairs screeching across the floor. Tom grabbed his plate before it launched onto the next table.

The hug was crushing, desperate, grateful in a way that cut through the entire room. Tarrik’s claws dug into Thane’s back, not out of threat but out of sheer overwhelming relief.

He pulled back only when he realized he’d damn near flattened the table. Tears streaked dark lines through his muzzle fur.

“Yes,” Tarrik said, voice breaking. “Yes. Of course. Yes.”

Tom blinked, then broke into a wide grin. “Well, hell. That explains the emotional earthquake happening over here.”

He cleared his throat, then looked at Tarrik softer than Thane had ever seen him. “Since we’re doing big news… I’ve been sitting on something.”

Tarrik wiped his face with the back of his arm, embarrassed. “What?”

Tom scratched his cheek awkwardly. “You earned a place here, Tarrik. Not a cot in the clinic. Not a bunk in the pump house.” He pulled a folded set of keys from his vest and put them on the table. “You have a house now. In city limits. Fixed it up this week. Fresh paint. Working stove. No leaks.”

Tarrik’s jaw dropped.

“You’re welcome here,” Tom said. “For good.”

Tarrik stared at the keys like they were made of gold. Then he looked at Thane. Then back to Tom. Tears threatened again.

“I… I do not know what to say,” he whispered.

“Say what you feel,” Thane said.

Tarrik swallowed hard and finally managed words.

“I thought… world wanted me dead,” he said quietly. “Every day before I came south, I believed that. And every day since… you show me I was wrong.”

He looked at Thane with awe and something close to devotion.
“You gave me life back. You gave me work. And now you give me… pack.”

Tarrik’s voice dropped to a trembling whisper. “I will not fail you.”

Thane squeezed his shoulder. “I know.”

Tom slapped the table lightly. “Well damn. If this isn’t the best Sunday lunch I’ve had in years.”

Tarrik huffed a wet, shaky laugh and picked up the keys with trembling claws. “A house,” he murmured. “And a pack.”

“And a future,” Thane said.

Tarrik’s eyes shone again. “Yes. Future.”

Outside the cafe window, the town of Eureka rolled on with easy Sunday warmth — families walking in the street, dogs dozing in patches of sun, the river glittering in the distance.

Inside, a wolf who once lived by fear finally understood what it meant to live by belonging instead.

And for the first time in his life, Tarrik sat at a table not as an Alpha, not as a monster, not as a ghost of his own wreckage…

…but as a packmate.

Tom stepped out, wiping his hands on a rag. His hair looked a little less gray in the early light, and he’d stopped jumping every time Tarrik walked into a room. Progress.

“You keep treating my pump house like it’s a holy altar, and I might start letting you order parts without supervision,” Tom said.

“That would be a mistake,” Tarrik replied, deadpan. “I would order three of everything. In case raiders shoot the first two.”

Tom snorted. “The way things are going, raiders are more afraid of the valley than we are of them.” He nodded toward the town. “I’m due back at City Hall for the morning meeting. You want to—”

He broke off. His eyes flicked past Tarrik, narrowing.

Tarrik smelled it a heartbeat later. Human. Sweat, blood, fear. Not the sharp, clean fear of a man in a fight; this was sour, long-brewed, lived-in terror sunk into cloth and skin.

He turned.

A man stood at the edge of the trees, just beyond the gravel road. He looked like he had walked a long way and then gotten lost for another lifetime. Mid-forties, maybe. Face hollowed out, beard overgrown but patchy. His coat was in tatters. A strip of dirty cloth was knotted around his left forearm, dark and stiff with old blood.

He saw the wolf by the pump house.

He froze.

Tarrik did not move. He had learned that in Libby and Eureka both: sudden movement around a frightened stranger only made things worse.

“Hello,” Tarrik said, voice low, careful. “You are hurt. We have a clinic. You can—”

The man’s knees gave out as if someone had kicked them from behind. He dropped onto the gravel, hands shaking, eyes locked on Tarrik.

“You,” the man whispered. The sound was soft, but it carried. “You.”

Tarrik’s ears tipped forward. Something cold and old crawled up from the back of his mind, a shape he had tried to leave behind in the snow.

“I know you,” the man said. His voice rose, rough and broken. “It’s you.”

Tarrik did not recognize his face. But there were hundreds of faces he had seen only once, under winter skies and torchlight. That was the problem.

Tom stepped forward slowly, hands open. “Hey now. You’re in Eureka. You’re safe. My name’s Tom. Let’s get you inside—”

The man’s gaze flicked to Tom and back to Tarrik, wild and furious.

“He owes me,” the man rasped. His teeth bared in something that wasn’t quite a snarl. “He owes me blood.”

Tom’s jaw tightened. The breeze shifted, carrying the sour fear smell against Tarrik’s tongue. He swallowed around it.

“What is your name?” Tarrik asked.

The man’s eyes rimmed with tears, sudden and hot. “Joss,” he said. “Joss Talven. And you—” His voice broke. He pointed a shaking finger, arm trembling under the bandage. “You’re the wolf who killed my family.”

The wrench slipped from Tarrik’s left hand. It hit the concrete with a ringing clatter he barely heard.

He did not say no.

Tom looked between them, frown swallowing his face. “Let’s get him to City Hall,” Tom said quietly to Tarrik. “We’re not having this conversation in the road.”

Tarrik nodded once. He bent, picked up the wrench with hands that suddenly felt wrong on the tool, and set it carefully by the door. Then he walked toward the kneeling man, claws clicking on gravel.

Joss flinched but did not run. His eyes burned holes straight through the fur on Tarrik’s chest.

Tarrik stopped a few steps away and dipped his head a fraction. “I will walk ahead of you,” he said. “You can follow me or walk with Tom. No one here will hurt you.”

“You hurt me,” Joss hissed.

“Yes,” Tarrik said. “I did.” His voice came out hoarse. “Once.”

Tom watched him for a long second, like a man trying to read a weather front. Then he offered Joss a hand. “Come on. We’ll get you water, food, a place to sit. You can tell your story where everybody can hear it.”

Joss stared at Tarrik another heartbeat, then took Tom’s hand.

Tarrik walked ahead of them up the gravel road, feeling the weight of every step like chains.

---

The cabin smelled like coffee and Holt’s stew, and someone had left a half-read map of patrol routes spread across the kitchen table. Kade and Varro’s careful notes looped up the margins. Outside, children’s laughter drifted faintly from the direction of the schoolhouse.

Thane sat with the handset cradled in clawed fingers, listening to Marta go over bank schedules for the week. Her voice was crisp and tired in that way that meant things were actually going well.

“…and Hal’s sending another truck down from Spokane on Thursday with more small bills,” she was saying. “We’ll need—”

Late morning light slanted through the cabin windows, catching the steam from Mark’s stew pot and the pile of patrol maps spread across the table. Thane had just finished a cup of coffee when the landline on the desk rang — sharp, urgent, not part of their usual morning cadence.

Mark looked up. “That’s Eureka’s line.”

Thane crossed the room and lifted the receiver.
“Libby cabin. Thane.”

Tom Anderson’s voice came through tight and uneven.
“Thane. I hate to drop this in your lap, but we’ve got a situation out here. I need you in Eureka as soon as you can manage it.”

Thane’s ears angled forward. “What happened?”

“A man walked out of the trees,” Tom said. “Forties, half-starved, arm’s a mess. Says he knows Tarrik. Says Tarrik destroyed his settlement and killed his family.”

The room went very still.

Mark froze mid-ladle.
Kade stopped in the doorway.
Rime straightened where he stood, eyes narrowing.

Thane pulled in a breath. “Is anyone hurt? Are people panicking?”

“Not yet,” Tom said. “I’ve got him in City Hall with a few council members. Tarrik’s here too. Thane… he’s not denying any of it.”

“I’m on my way,” Thane said, and hung up the receiver.

Thane sighed. “Rime,” he called.

The gray wolf stepped in from the porch. He must have heard enough through the open door; his ears were flat against his skull, eyes already serious. “Yes, Alpha.”

“Eureka,” Thane said. “We have to help keep something from turning into something else.”

Rime nodded once. “I will ride with you.”

Varro pushed off the doorframe. “You want me along?” he asked.

Thane shook his head. “Keep Libby steady. If anything… spills over, we will need you here more than there.”

Over the gravel road that had seen too many stories already. Thane drove with his usual calm, hands easy on the wheel, eyes flicking between the road and the instruments out of long habit. Rime sat in the passenger seat, braced, claws hooked lightly on the frame.

For a while, no one spoke. Trees slid by outside, green and patient.

“What you thinking?” Rime asked at last, eyes still on the road.

Thane watched the line where the hood met the horizon. “I am thinking about mercy,” he said. “And about how long it actually takes to finish.”

Rime exhaled through his nose. “Something from Tarrik’s life going to surface,” he said quietly. “You don’t lead pack like that, for that long, without ghosts.”

“Yes,” Thane said. “The question is whether the wolf he is now can stand in front of them.”

“He got you,” Rime said. “That helps.”

Thane’s claws tapped a slow rhythm on his knee. “It also paints a target on my back.”

Rime leaned over. “We carry it with you,” he said.

Thane’s mouth twitched. “I know.”

Eureka came into view under a sky so painfully blue it felt like an accusation. Smoke curled from chimneys. Children ran in the street with something like real carelessness. Men were checking hoses in front of the firehouse, laughing with their sleeves rolled up.

Normal life.

Thane would never get used to how fragile it looked.

Tom met them outside City Hall, jaw tight, hands jammed into the pockets of his vest. He watched the Humvee roll to a stop, studied Thane’s face as the big brown-gray wolf stepped down onto the street with his usual solid, unhurried weight.

“Appreciate the quick response,” Tom said.

“When my name is on the line, I like to show up in person,” Thane replied. “Where are they?”

“Inside,” Tom said. “I’ve kept it small. Me, Joss, Tarrik, two of my council, and Dr. Henley. A couple folks are milling around outside, but no crowd yet.” His gaze flicked to Rime as the gray wolf came around the Humvee. “That your shadow for today?”

“Yes,” Thane said. “We do not bring all our teeth into someone else’s house unless we have to.”

Tom snorted. “Fair enough.” He hesitated. “I’ll give it to you straight: Joss is a mess. Arm’s half-healed wrong, he’s been walking wounded a long time, and he’s held that anger even longer. He sees Tarrik and doesn’t see the wolf who fixed our pump house. He sees… well. You know.”

“I do,” Thane said.

“And Tarrik?” Tom asked.

Thane’s jaw tightened. “I will see for myself.”

Inside, City Hall smelled like paper, coffee, and nerves. The big room’s long table was scarred from decades of use, its surface now cluttered with maps and ledgers instead of emergency ration lists. Sunlight came in through scrubbed windows.

Joss Talven sat at the far end, a blanket around his shoulders, fingers clenched white-knuckled around a tin cup of water. His eyes went to Thane as soon as the wolf entered, flicked to Rime behind him, then snagged hard on Tarrik.

Tarrik stood against the wall opposite, arms at his sides, claws bare. He looked like he had deliberately removed anything that could be mistaken for armor. No tools, no gear. Just a wolf in a plain work shirt and worn pants, fur ruffled from the river wind, shoulders slumped but squared to the room.

He had never looked so much like a soldier waiting for a verdict.

“Thane,” Tom said, stepping in. “You know Tarrik. This is Joss Talven.”

Thane nodded once to Joss, then to Tarrik. “Tarrik,” he said.

Thane took in the set of his jaw, the way his tail hung low but not tucked, his eyes open and unshielded. He smelled of river water, machine oil, and a twisted underside of old fear aimed inward.

Thane moved to the table. He did not sit yet. “Tom says there is a story that needs to be told,” he said. “I would like to hear it from the beginning. Joss.”

Joss’s fingers tightened around the cup until it shook. “I already told it,” he muttered.

“Tell it again,” Thane said, voice gentle but flat. “So I can put my word on it with both eyes open.”

Joss looked at him properly then, measuring this new wolf against the one who had marched an army to his door years ago. He swallowed.

“My name is Joss Talven,” he said. “I had a settlement… had a town. North and east of here. We called it Three Pines. Twenty families. We had greenhouses, livestock, a well. We kept our heads down, did our work. Heard stories of wolves, sure. Packs taking what they wanted. But they were far away.”

His eyes slid back to Tarrik, venom and grief tangled in one tight knot.

“Then this one showed up,” Joss went on. “Snowstorm night. Twenty-one wolves behind him, all teeth and claws. He said… he said we owed them tribute for using ‘his’ hunting ground. We didn’t even hunt. We grew things. We tried to talk. Didn’t matter.”

His voice cracked. He stared at the tabletop, breathing hard.

“He took our winter stores,” Joss said. “Food we’d put away for months. Medicine. Half the blankets. Said anyone who argued would lose more. He… he broke my arm when I tried to stop them loading the last truck.”

“He told his wolves to throw me outside the gate,” Joss whispered. “Said if I could crawl home, I could keep breathing. If not, I’d fed the snow. My wife… she carried our daughter out after them. Begged. He said if she wanted to join me in the snow, that was her choice.”

The room was dead silent.

“They left,” Joss said. Tears tracked clean lines down the grime on his cheeks. “Storm hit full after that. Whiteout. I crawled. She tried to carry the girl. We didn’t make it. I woke up in a ditch two days later, under two feet of drift. Arm… wrong. Head wrong. Everything… wrong. A scavenger crew dug me out. I never saw my family again.”

He lifted his head and stared straight at Tarrik, eyes burning like coals. “I know your face,” he snarled. “I’ve seen it in my sleep every night since. You owe me blood.”

Thane let the words hang in the air.

Then he turned slowly to Tarrik. “Is any part of this untrue?” he asked.

Tarrik’s throat worked. His claws flexed, scraping faintly against the floor through the thin soles he’d bothered to wear earlier.

“No,” he said. His voice was low but steady. “It is all true.”

Joss surged to his feet, the chair screeching back. “Then why is he here?” he shouted. “Why is he walking free in some nice little town with power and water and kids on the street? Why does he get a second chance when my whole life is under a snowdrift?”

Tom took a step, but Thane lifted a hand. Rime shifted his weight closer to the wall, stance ready but nonthreatening.

“Because we gave him one,” Thane said. “And because he chose to take it.”

Joss rounded on him. “You think that makes it right?”

“No,” Thane said simply. “Nothing makes what he did right.”

He walked to the center of the room, claws clicking on the wooden floor, and turned so he faced both men.

“When Tarrik came to my town with his pack,” Thane said, “he tried to do the same thing. Take what he wanted. Rule by fear. Make other people pay for his hunger.”

He remembered the gate, the snow, the line of wolves behind Tarrik, all deadly and sure. He remembered the feel of the bullet in his side, the heat of his own blood, the way mercy had tasted like rust in his mouth and still been right.

“I stopped him,” Thane said. “It cost blood. I had the chance to end him, right there in the snow. No questions, no arguments. He had earned it a hundred times over.”

He looked at Tarrik. The other wolf’s eyes met his and held.

“I did not,” Thane said. “I chose to break the chain instead of his neck.”

Joss barked an ugly laugh. “And look how that turned out,” he spat. “He’s got a job and a town and friends. I’ve got ghosts.”

“Yes,” Thane said. “You do. And that is the part that matters today.”

He moved a little closer to Joss, slow, no sudden movements. He set his claws on the back of an empty chair, grounding himself.

“Mercy is not a gift we give to the people they hurt,” Thane said. “It does not erase what was done. It does not balance some invisible scale. Your pain is real. Your family is gone. Nothing I say here will change that.”

Joss trembled, rage and grief fighting for space.

“But there is another truth,” Thane went on. “The wolf who did that to you”—he nodded toward Tarrik—“is not the one who has been living here the last months. That one is gone. What stands here is what we made after he lost. We pointed him at broken things instead of people. He chose to fix them. He chose to stand beside us instead of on our backs. He did not earn forgiveness. He earned work.”

Tarrik’s eyes closed for a breath. His hands fisted at his sides.

“You want blood,” Thane said quietly to Joss. “Part of you will always want that. I cannot blame you. If someone had done that to my pack, I would have wanted it too.”

He took his hand off the chair and stepped closer to Tarrik, until he stood almost shoulder to shoulder with him, facing Joss across the room.

“But understand this,” Thane said. “By sparing him then and building this now, I put my own name on everything he did. I tied his future to mine. When you say he owes you, you are also saying I do. If you want a debt collected, you are collecting from me as well.”

Joss stared at him, stunned. “Why in hell would you… why would you take that on?”

“Because someone had to,” Thane said. “Because if every monster we ever made dies the day we catch them, nothing better ever gets built out of the wreckage. Because if Tarrik had died in the snow, no Canadian raiders would have died north of this town, and some child in Eureka might be telling this story instead of you.”

He let that settle.

“And because mercy is only real if you keep paying for it,” Thane finished. “Day after day, choice after choice. Not just once in the snow.”

Joss’s shoulders shook. He looked at Tarrik. The wolf had not moved, but tears had tracked silently through the fur along his cheekbones.

Tarrik’s voice cracked as he forced the words out.
“I am sorry,” he said, and it hit like gravel in his throat. “I… I know what I did. I know the damage. I cannot fix it. I cannot give you back anything I broke.”
He swallowed hard, eyes low.
“But I can stand in front of you now. I can fight for you. I can make sure no one ever feels what I made you feel. If you allow it… I spend the rest of my life proving that.”

He swallowed. “If you want me gone, I will go,” he said. “If you want me dead, I will kneel. If you want me to work for you until I fall over, I will do that gladly. But whatever you choose, understand: without him”—he nodded at Thane—“I would still be the thing you remember. He broke me on purpose. And then put me back together.”

The room breathed in and out. Outside, a dog barked once, far down the street.

Joss wiped his face with the heel of his hand, angry at his own tears. He looked down at his twisted arm, then back up at the two wolves standing in front of him. One, brown-gray, calm, steady as a mountain. The other, tan-gray, shoulders bowed under a weight he did not try to shrug off.

“You trust him,” Joss said to Thane. It wasn’t quite a question.

“I do,” Thane said.

“You trust him after… that?” Joss asked, gesturing at his own ruined history.

“I trust the wolf he is now,” Thane said. “Because I watched him choose to be that wolf when it would have been easier to stay the other one. I watched him stand between this town and claws that used to answer to his voice. I watched him take orders instead of give them. I watched him bleed for people he once would have used. That does not erase what he did to you. But it tells me what he is likely to do tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.”

Joss’s throat worked. “And if he… slips?” he asked roughly. “If he goes back?”

Thane’s eyes were very clear, very cold for a moment. “Then I end it,” he said. “Myself. Because my word is what keeps him here. If he breaks it, I pay. That is the bargain.”

Silence again. The kind that weighed.

Tom shifted behind them, but stayed quiet. This was not his call, and he knew it.

Finally, Joss swayed and dropped back into his chair like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He buried his face in his hands, breathing raggedly.

“I want them back,” he whispered. “I want my wife. My little girl. I want that night not to have happened. Can you do that?”

“No,” Thane said softly. “I cannot.”

Joss’s hands fell away. He looked up at Thane, eyes raw and red. “Then what the hell can you do for me?” he demanded.

Thane thought for a moment. He did not rush the answer.

“I can make sure you are never alone like that again,” he said. “I can make sure you have a bed, food, people who know your name when you walk down the street. I can make sure that if anyone ever comes for you again, they find a wall of wolves and humans standing between you and them. And I can make sure that every day Tarrik draws breath, he spends it paying into the world you lost, not taking from it.”

He stepped aside, leaving Tarrik visible, fully exposed.

“If you stay in Eureka,” Thane said, “you will see him working. You will see him hauling hoses, fixing pipes, standing night watch. You will see what your story did to him. That does not heal your pain. But it might turn it into something that builds instead of something that eats you alive.”

Joss stared at Tarrik for a long time. Long enough that the wolf’s shoulders began to shake, just a little. He clenched his jaw to still it.

“I hate you,” Joss said to him. The words were flat, tired. “I don’t know if that’s ever going to change.”

“I know,” Tarrik whispered.

“But…” Joss went on. He scrubbed his face again, then looked back at Thane. “If you trust him with your life… maybe… maybe I can trust him with mine. A little.” He coughed a dry laugh. “Not my heart. That’s gone. But my back, maybe. On a bad day. If there’s a fire.”

Tarrik’s knees buckled. He caught himself on the edge of the table, claws biting into wood.

“You do not owe him that,” Thane said gently. “You owe him nothing.”

“I know,” Joss said. He looked exhausted, as if some dam inside him had finally cracked and let years of frozen, stagnant water out. “That’s why it’s worth something.”

He pushed the cup away and looked at Tom. “You got room in this town for one more broken body?” he asked.

Tom huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. “We specialize in them,” he said. “You stick around, we’ll put you to work, same as anybody.”

Joss’s gaze slid back to Tarrik. “You so much as raise your voice to a kid in the street,” he said, voice low, steady, “I’ll take this arm and beat you with it.”

“You will not be alone,” Rime murmured from the wall. “We will help.”

Tarrik let out a sound that might have been a laugh and a sob tangled together. “I will not,” he said. “Ever again.”

Thane stepped back, letting the air in the room ease a little. His chest felt tight, like he’d been holding a weight there since the phone call.

Tom blew out a breath. “Well,” he said. “I’d expected yelling. Maybe a broken chair. I’ll take this over a riot any day.”

“Riot would have been simpler,” Thane said dryly. “You just hit the loudest one and the rest decide how much they actually care.”

Tom shook his head. “You have a way of making the hard road sound like the only road, you know that?”

“That is because it usually is,” Thane said.

He turned to Joss. “If at any point you decide you cannot bear to see him,” he said, “you tell Tom. We find you a place elsewhere in the valley. Not as exile—” he looked at Tarrik “—as accommodation. Your pain is not a problem. It is a fact. We work around facts.”

Joss nodded slowly. “I’ll… try here, first,” he said. “Feels like this is where the ghosts are, anyway. Maybe seeing him suffer a little hauling pump parts will do me good.”

“It will hurt,” Tarrik said quietly.

“Good,” Joss replied.

They held each other’s gaze for one long, unsteady moment. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But something had shifted, almost imperceptibly, from pure hatred to a jagged, working truce.

Later, after Tom walked Joss down to the clinic and Dr. Henley looked over his arm, after Tarrik had been sent back to the pump house with a list of chores long enough to keep his mind busy and his guilt honest, Thane and Rime stepped out into the spring sunlight.

The town looked the same as it had when they arrived. Kids still chased each other between buildings. Someone hammered something onto the side of a shop. Power lines hummed quietly overhead.

Rime came to stand beside Thane on the City Hall steps, folding his arms, claws resting lightly on his elbows.

“You bent heavy branch today,” Rime said. “Did not let it break.”

Thane watched Joss’s small, hunched figure moving slowly down the street between Tom and the doctor. “We will see,” he said. “Sometimes wood hides cracks you do not see until the next storm.”

“We stand under it,” Rime said simply. “If it falls, we take weight.”

Thane huffed. “You were not this poetic when I met you.”

“You were not this tired,” Rime replied.

Thane’s mouth twitched. “Fair enough.”

Tarrik emerged from the side of the building a few minutes later, having looped around to avoid walking directly past the clinic. He approached the steps and stopped at the bottom, head bowed.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?” Thane asked.

“For not letting me run,” Tarrik said. “I would have. If you had not come, if Tom had not called, I would have taken any pack from my old life—” his mouth twisted on the phrase “—and run into the hills and never shown my face to this man.”

“Yes,” Thane said. “You would have. That is why I told Tom to call me the first day I told you to go here.”

Tarrik blinked. “You… told him?”

“I told him that one day, someone from your past would crawl out of the forest and come here with a story like Joss’s,” Thane said. “And that when that happened, I needed to be standing between you and the door.”

Tarrik stared at him. “You planned for this?”

“I planned for the day your debts started walking on two legs,” Thane said. “Mercy does not erase the ledger. It just changes the currency.”

“How many more?” Tarrik asked quietly. “How many more Joss Talvens are out there with my name clawed into their grief?”

“Too many,” Thane said. “But that isn’t a surprise. Not to me.”

Tarrik looked up, startled.

Thane stepped down one stair so they were closer to eye level. “Tarrik… I didn’t save you because I thought your past was clean. I saved you knowing exactly what kind of weight would eventually walk out of the trees.” His claws tapped once against the railing, thoughtful. “This was never an ‘if.’ It was always a ‘when.’ And you made it through the first one without running. That matters.”

Tarrik’s throat tightened. “You… don’t hate me for it?”

“No,” Thane said. “I knew history like this existed before you ever set foot in Eureka. I am not swayed by ghosts I already accounted for. When I choose to help someone become better…” He exhaled, slow and steady. “I buy in one hundred and twenty percent. That means I expect these days to come. And when they do, I’m not shocked. I’m not shaken. I’m right where I planned to be — standing beside you until you stand on your own.”

Tarrik blinked hard, shoulders trembling under the weight of it. “I don’t know how to deserve that.”

“You don’t,” Thane said simply. “You live it. That’s the difference.”

He put a heavy paw on Tarrik’s shoulder — not dominance, not restraint, just grounding. “This was the first ghost. Not the last. But you faced him. You told the truth. You didn’t run. That tells me more about you than anything Joss brought through the door.”

Tarrik bowed his head. “I won’t make you a liar.”

“I know,” Thane said. “That’s why this works.”

Rime approached then, quiet as snowfall. “You softened storm,” he murmured to Thane. “Turned into rain.”

“Rain grows things,” Thane said. “Let’s go home.”

Tarrik watched them go, standing alone in the sunlight outside City Hall — but not abandoned, not cast out. Just a wolf learning how to carry a different kind of weight.

As Thane climbed into the Humvee and turned the key, the engine catching with a familiar growl. The valley opened ahead, green and steady.

Rime tilted his head. “Alpha.”

“Yes?” Thane said.

“You buy in,” Rime said. “You mean it.”

“I do,” Thane replied.

“Is heavy for one wolf.”

Thane watched the road. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not carrying it alone.”

The town of Eureka faded behind them, but not the lesson, and not the bond.

Tarrik had been tested by the past — and Thane had made sure it didn’t bury him.

“Why do they all end up owing you?” Rime asked. “Tarrik. Varro. Kade. Joss, maybe, one day. Even towns. Even rivers.”

“They do not owe me,” he said. “They owe the chance. I am just the one handing it out.”

Rime considered that. “Still feels like debt,” he said.

“Maybe,” Thane said. He rested his elbow on the window frame, claws drumming a slow, thoughtful rhythm. “If they pay it in kindness, I am content to be very rich.”

They drove on, the engine’s low growl steady, the valley stretching open before them like a ledger with more blank pages than bloodstains now.

Behind them, in Eureka, a man with a ruined arm sat at a clean window and watched a wolf who had once destroyed his life carry hoses for his new town.

Ahead of them, Libby waited, warm and noisy and alive.

Mercy did not erase the past.

But for another day, in another town, it had been enough to keep the future from breaking.

The idea for the forum had been building for weeks. Libby was brighter now—lights on in every home, water flowing, shops open, the school full of children again. With stability came reflection, and with reflection came questions. Not just whispered ones, either. Questions asked in the market, at the diner, at the bank, on the radio. People wanted to understand the wolves who had rebuilt their world. Some were curious. Some were nervous. Some were ready to be combative because fear was easier than gratitude. Marta Hale had been listening to all of it, and one afternoon she finally announced that silence would only feed the wrong stories. If the valley had questions, then the wolves would answer them openly. A public forum, she said. Any question allowed. No filters. No rehearsing. Just truth.

The Libby Pack didn’t hesitate. Thane simply nodded. Gabriel laughed and started imagining which microphones the school auditorium still had. Mark asked whether the acoustics had survived the winter. Holt blinked slowly but agreed. Rime tilted his head in that thoughtful way of his. Kade offered a single, calm “Understood.” Varro said nothing at first, then gave a quiet nod that carried the weight of someone who had survived far harsher interrogations. The decision was made.

By the time the evening came, the auditorium was filled to the rafters. Restored power lights cast warm gold across clean floors. Chairs lined the length of the room, nearly all occupied. Posters drawn by schoolchildren hung on the walls—wolves with oversized paws, bright eyes, and humans beside them, all holding hands. One drawing labeled a gray wolf “Guard Wolf.” Rime had kept that drawing folded in his vest pocket for days.

The pack entered together. Thane led them, brown-gray fur catching the light with each step. Gabriel followed, relaxed and smiling. Mark was straight-backed and tidy, adjusting the sleeves of his shirt like he was preparing for a lecture. Holt’s eyes scanned the room with open curiosity, pausing on the smell of popcorn. Rime moved with quiet calm. Kade surveyed the exits automatically. Varro held himself in perfect posture, hands clasped behind his back, a picture of discipline.

They took their seats behind a long table at the front of the stage. No disguises. No softening of their presence. Clawed hands visible, fangs where nature intended them.

The murmurs settled.

Marta stepped to the mic, her clipboard ready with three pens clipped across the top. “Good evening. Tonight we’re holding our first open forum with the Libby Pack. Any question is welcome. Ask honestly; they’ll answer honestly.”

The first man stood—a lean, sharp-featured figure with tension in his shoulders. “How do we know you won’t turn on us someday?” His voice carried accusation wrapped in fear.

Thane answered without hesitation. “You already trust us. You sleep while we patrol. Your children walk to school while we watch the streets. If we meant harm, you’d know it by now.”

Mark added softly, “Trust goes both ways. You trusted us during the darkest days. We haven’t forgotten that.”

The man didn’t look satisfied, but he sat down.

A teenage girl raised her hand next. “Um… what exactly do you eat?” she asked, pen poised.

Holt brightened. “Meat. And bread. Mine better now. Not rocks anymore.” His pride was so genuine it sent laughter rippling through the room.

Rime nodded in agreement. “Town feed wolves, wolves feed town. Balance.”

Mark translated with an amused smile. “We hunt, we trade, and we eat what everyone else eats—just more of it.”

A younger man at the back stood with the next question. “Stories always said werewolves shift. Human to wolf. Wolf to human. But you’re always wolves. Why don’t you ever look human?”

Before Thane could respond, Holt blurted out, “Wolf shape best shape. Strong, fast, claws. Why be less?”

The entire auditorium broke into mixed laughter, gasps, and a few surprised claps. Holt sat back proudly.

Thane’s ears tipped in amusement. “Our form isn’t a disguise. This is who we are. Always.”

Gabriel added, “Plus the fur looks fantastic.”

The crowd loosened.

A woman in a denim jacket asked nervously, “Do you… feel emotions like humans do?”

Varro answered with steady clarity. “Yes. All of them. Anger, grief, joy, loyalty. Sometimes sharper than humans. Sometimes steadier.”

Gabriel nodded. “We just show them differently. Or louder.”

Holt placed a paw on his chest. “Loud hearts good.”

The woman smiled in relief.

A man with a stern jaw stood next. His voice held challenge. “What happens if one of you loses control?”

Thane didn’t flinch. “Then the pack corrects it. Immediately.”

“You expect us to believe wolves police themselves?” the man demanded.

Kade leaned forward, voice cool and controlled. “Yes. I left a pack where fear ruled. This one does not allow that. If any wolf here posed danger to the valley, every wolf on this stage would stop him.”

Gabriel crossed his arms. “Five wolves for every one mistake. That’s pack life.”

Holt cracked his knuckles. “Pack keep pack straight.”

Varro’s tone was iron. “A disciplined pack is safer than a single wolf.”

The challenger sat down slightly paler.

Mayor Nora Ellison stood next. “Do you see yourselves as part of this valley? Or separate from it?”

Thane spoke plainly. “Part of it. Fully.”

Gabriel nodded. “We work with you, teach with you, build with you.”

Holt added with genuine concern, “Share stew with you.”

The room laughed openly.

A mother raised her hand. “My son wants to join your pack. Could a human ever be part of it?”

The wolves straightened.

Rime answered softly. “Heart choose pack. Not fur.”

Mark nodded. “Humans can apprentice. Learn. Help us. Live by the same values.”

Thane’s voice warmed. “Your boy doesn’t need claws to be family.”

The woman wiped her eyes.

A hardened man near the back lifted his chin. “Why trust wolves from other packs? What if more like… your old Alpha come here?” His eyes flicked to Varro.

Varro rose slightly in his seat. “I came from Iron Ridge. I was shaped by fear and cruelty. This valley gave me choice. Respect. A voice. You don’t trust strangers blindly—but you can trust the pack that teaches them a better path.”

Thane gave a slow nod of agreement.

Another man asked, “What if new people come to the valley and fear you? What then?”

Gabriel leaned in. “Then we talk to them.”

Kade added, “Truth stands. Fear fades.”

Thane’s expression didn’t shift. “Rumors break on truth.”

Then came the sharpest question of all.

A middle-aged woman stood quickly, cheeks flushed with anger. “What gives you the right to live in a human world? You’re strong enough to take over. You’re everywhere. Why shouldn’t you stay out in the woods like wild animals? Why should humans have to share towns with creatures who aren’t even human anymore?”

The room tensed.

Not one wolf moved. Not a growl. Not a twitch.

Thane answered with complete calm. “We don’t live among you. We live with you.”

She scoffed. “Same thing.”

“No,” he said. “Among means pretending. Hiding. Playing human to keep others comfortable. We do not hide. What you see is who we are. And we build this valley beside you.”

Varro followed with quiet conviction. “I lived under an Alpha who believed wolves should dominate humans. That world collapsed. This one thrives.”

Rime added, “Same snow. Same danger. Same home.”

Holt leaned forward earnestly. “Same stew.”

The timing was perfect. The audience burst into laughter, the tension melting instantly.

Marta stepped beside the wolves, voice carrying. “If the wolves didn’t belong here, many of us wouldn’t be alive. They brought back our power, our water, our safety, our communication. They earned their home here.”

The woman sank slowly back into her chair as applause rose like a tide—not thunderous, but heartfelt, steady, grateful.

A tiny boy raised his hand next. “When wolves howl… is it because you’re happy or sad?”

Rime’s expression softened. “Both. Howl speak heart.”

The boy smiled wide.

That became the last question.

One woman stood, then another, then nearly everyone in the auditorium. Not clapping for spectacle, but in a quiet wave of gratitude. A valley choosing trust.

As the crowd filtered out, Rime leaned toward Thane. “Holt answer strongest question.”

Gabriel groaned softly. “He’s never going to let us forget it.”

Varro allowed himself a faint smile. “The simple truth often wins.”

Kade watched the dispersing families with calm certainty. “Tonight… the valley feels whole.”

Thane looked over the room, over his pack, over the human faces warmed by understanding. The valley did feel whole. It felt honest. It felt like a place where wolves and humans lived not in fear, but in truth.

The pack walked out into the cool spring air together, paws quiet on the path, hearts steady, knowing the valley had taken another step toward healing—because truth had been spoken, and truth had been believed.

A week of ordinary days had settled over Libby like a warm blanket.

Mornings in the cabin came with familiar sounds: the hiss and burble of the coffee pot, the low murmur of Kade and Varro talking patrol logistics at the table, Holt rummaging for breakfast like a bear in a pantry, Rime checking the front latch because “door not feel right,” Gabriel tuning his guitar in the corner, Mark muttering over a clipboard of maintenance tasks.

School bells rang now. Glacier Bank opened and closed on a regular schedule. KTNY’s signal drifted from open windows, music and voices threading through Main Street. People grumbled about laundry, laughed about weather, worried about nothing more deadly than burned stew or short tempers.

It felt like the valley had finally remembered how to breathe.

By late afternoon, Rime and Kade were padding up the steps to the sheriff’s office, claws ticking on the worn boards, fur still dusted with forest grit. They had spent the day on the outer loops of the Quiet Circle, checking the tree lines, watching for smoke where it didn’t belong, listening for engines that shouldn’t be there. They’d found nothing more dangerous than a stubborn elk and a squirrel that had tried to throw a pinecone at Kade’s head.

Inside, Hank Daltry sat behind his desk, glasses low on his nose, studying a map. A chipped mug of coffee steamed beside him. His younger deputy, Taylor, sorted papers at the side table, boots up, looking entirely too comfortable.

Hank glanced up as the wolves ducked through the doorway.

“Afternoon,” he said. “You two look like you scared the forest straight.”

Rime rolled a shoulder, sending a faint cascade of dust onto the floor. “Forest quiet. Patrol good.”

Kade nodded, unrolling a hand-drawn map onto the desk. His lines were neat, measured, with written notes along the margins. “No signs of tracks beyond the usual. We checked the north ridge, the river trail, and the old logging road. Only deer, elk, two black bears, and one extremely offended squirrel.”

Taylor snorted. “Offended how?”

Kade’s mouth twitched. “He threw a pinecone at me. Rime laughed. I will never hear the end of it.”

Rime’s ears flicked forward, pleased. “Was good throw.”

Hank leaned back in his chair, satisfied. “I’ll take angry squirrels over raiders any day.”

He was about to say more when the phone on his desk rang, the old landline’s bell cutting through the easy silence. He reached for it automatically.

“Sheriff Daltry.” He listened, eyebrow lifting. “Uh-huh. Fourth and Cedar. And how long…?” Another pause. “Alright, ma’am, we’ll come take a look.”

He hung up, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one thick finger.

Taylor raised a brow. “What’s the crisis?”

“Noise complaint,” Hank said. “Neighbor doesn’t like late-night guitar and singing.”

Taylor grinned. “Oh no. Music. Civilization truly is collapsing.”

Hank gave him a flat look but there was humor there. “Easy. Folks are still learning how to live with each other again. They’re wound tight. They get to be.”

He looked back at Rime and Kade. “You two feel like coming along? Might as well make it a community relations call. People behave better when they see who’s keeping watch.”

Rime’s ears perked. “Noise… like music?”

“Supposedly,” Hank said. “One neighbor thinks it’s a concert, the other says it’s therapy. Let’s go find out.”

Kade nodded. “We’re in. Better to help when it’s small than when it festers.”

They stepped back out into the late-afternoon light. Hank’s truck sat at the curb rather than a cruiser—currently in for maintenance. The wolves trotted alongside as he drove, but once they hit the edge of Main Street he slowed and they hopped into the bed, settling down with practiced ease, claws scraping metal, tails easing into relaxed curves.

Fourth and Cedar lay in one of the quieter residential areas, a mix of restored pre-Fall houses and newer patched-together builds. Power lines hummed overhead. Someone’s radio played KTNY faintly from a porch. Children’s chalk drawings still colored the sidewalk from earlier in the day.

Hank parked at the corner. As they climbed out, a woman in her sixties stepped off the front porch of a small blue house. Her gray hair was pulled back in a rough bun, and she wore a faded sweater that looked like it had survived as much as she had.

“Hank,” she said, relief and irritation tangled together. “Thank God. I about lost my mind last night.”

“Evening, Marion,” Hank said. “This the one you called about?”

“That’s right.” Marion jerked a thumb toward the house next door, pale yellow with a wide porch and a sagging swing. “Him. All hours with that guitar. I like music, Hank—you know I do—but not at midnight, not at one, not at two. I can’t sleep. The walls are rattling. We survived sirens and explosions and men screaming in the dark for years and now I’m supposed to listen to off-key ballads till dawn?”

Her gaze slid past Hank to Rime and Kade and softened, embarrassed. “Sorry. No offense to any wolves who enjoy off-key ballads.”

Rime tilted his head, amber eyes gentle. “Off-key bad,” he said. “But music… not.”

Marion sighed. “I know. I know it’s silly compared to… everything. But I’m tired, Hank. My nerves never went back to what they were. When the world goes quiet at night, I need it to stay quiet.”

Kade stepped forward slightly, posture relaxed, hands open. His voice was calm, even. “Marion, quiet is important. You’re not silly. You’re just honest.”

She looked at him, gratitude flickering beneath the frustration.

Hank nodded. “Alright. Anyone hurt?”

“No,” Marion said. “Just me, in the sleep department.”

“Then we’re dealing with a disagreement, not a crime,” Hank said. “Which means talking first. If talking doesn’t fix it, we talk harder.”

Rime blinked slowly. “Is good method.”

Hank shot him a small smile, then looked back at Marion. “He inside now?”

“Of course he’s inside.” She folded her arms tightly. “If he was outside, you’d already be hearing him. He’s in there strumming like the world’s ending in minor chords.”

Taylor had stayed by the truck, watching the street; now he joined them, hand resting loosely on his belt. Hank gestured for everyone to follow as he walked up the neighbor’s walkway.

A light shone in the front window of the yellow house. As they got close, the soft edge of a guitar chord slipped through the glass, followed by a low, tuneful voice. Not performance-level perfect, but not bad either—just a man singing to himself and whoever might be listening.

Hank rapped on the door.

The music stopped mid-line. Footsteps crossed the floor. The door opened a cautious crack, then a little wider when the occupant saw Hank instead of something worse.

The man was in his thirties, maybe, with sun-browned skin, shaggy dark hair, and a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up. The guitar strap still crossed his chest, the instrument hanging at his side. His eyes flicked to Taylor, then to the wolves.

His shoulders tensed. “Uh. Evening, Sheriff.”

“Evening, Jonah,” Hank said. “Can we come in and talk a minute?”

Jonah swallowed. “I—Did I do something wrong?”

Rime leaned sideways slightly, peering, ears pricking forward with interest at the sight of the guitar. “Wrong… maybe loud,” he said. “Not crime.”

Kade gave a small, reassuring nod. “We’re here to talk. That’s all.”

Jonah hesitated only a moment more before stepping back and opening the door fully. “Sure. Yeah. Come in. Watch the… uh… everything.” His eyes went again to Rime and Kade, tracing the claws, the height, the scars, and somehow relaxing rather than tensing further. The wolves of Libby were known now. Feared by some, respected by most.

The living room was small but cared for. A few mismatched chairs, a patched couch, a crate serving as a coffee table. A string of solar fairy lights hugged the ceiling, giving the space a soft glow. A battered notebook lay open on the crate, pages filled with lines of lyrics and chords.

Hank stayed standing, letting Jonah decide whether to sit. “We got a call from Marion next door,” he said. “She says you’ve been playing late. Real late.”

Jonah winced. “Yeah. I… yeah. I probably have.”

“She says it’s keeping her up. You know she’s jumpy at night,” Hank continued. “Most folks still are.”

Jonah shifted his weight, looking more like a kid dragged into the principal’s office than a grown man. “Look, I don’t mean to bother her. Or anybody. I’m not trying to be… you know, that guy. It’s just…”

He faltered, hand tightening on the guitar neck.

Kade spoke gently. “It was very quiet for a long time,” he said. “Too quiet.”

Jonah’s eyes flashed to him, surprised. “Yeah. Exactly that. Thank you. Before the Fall, I played in bars and little coffee shops. No one thought about it. Noise ordinances, sure, but… sound was just life. Cars, chatter, music leaking from ten different places on Main Street. Then the world went dark and we spent years listening to… to bad sounds. Glass breaking. Guns. People screaming. Or worse—nothing at all.”

He looked down at the guitar. “Now I can plug this into that little amp and people can hear it again. It feels like proof that the world came back. That we didn’t imagine it.”

Rime stepped slowly around the room, careful of the furniture, eyes taking everything in. He stopped near the window, gazing at the street. “When world broke,” he said, words slightly halting but clear, “we had… no music. Only wind. Howls. Sometimes… crying.”

Jonah looked at him, fully listening.

“First time Gabriel play for us,” Rime continued, “we sit in dark cabin. Lantern small. Guitar big.” His mouth curved slightly, memory warming his eyes. “He play soft. Not loud. Just… enough. Pack calm. Heart slow. Noise… but good noise.”

He tapped his chest lightly with one claw. “This remember good noise now. But Marion’s heart maybe remember bad noise. Same sound, different heart.”

Jonah’s throat worked. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

Hank nodded, glancing between them. “There it is. You’re both telling the truth. You play to feel like the world’s alive again. She needs quiet to feel like it’s safe again.”

“And we don’t want this turning into a wedge,” Taylor added quietly. “You know how hard folks worked to get to a place where the biggest complaint we take is ‘he’s playing too much guitar.’ That’s a victory, not a problem.”

Jonah sank onto the edge of a chair, setting the guitar carefully across his knees. “I thought… honestly, when you showed up with two wolves, I thought I was in real trouble. Like this was some kind of… official town thing. ‘No playing unless it’s approved by law enforcement,’ or something.”

Kade actually chuckled. “If that were the law, Holt would have been arrested many times for singing.”

Rime made a wounded sound. “Holt singing good. Loud… but good.”

“He’s still learning pitch,” Kade said diplomatically.

Jonah cracked a startled laugh, tension easing from his shoulders. “Wait… Holt sings?”

“Sometimes,” Rime said. “Gabriel teach him guitar. Big paws, soft touch.”

Kade leaned on the back of the couch with easy familiarity. “Here’s the thing, Jonah. Music is good. Very good. It’s part of what makes this place feel alive again. But now we have neighbors again. We have school in the morning. We have early shifts at the dam and the bank and the bakery. That means we also have… what’s the phrase?”

“Noise complaints,” Taylor supplied.

“Boundaries,” Kade corrected mildly. “Pack word: boundaries. Wolves howl, but not all night. We hunt, then we rest. We make noise, then we make silence. Sharing space means sharing noise, too.”

Jonah frowned thoughtfully. “So you’re saying… I can play?”

Hank folded his arms. “No one’s trying to take music away from you, son. We just need some reasonable hours. Start earlier. Wrap up before people who wake at dawn are ready to put their heads down. You can pour your heart into this guitar from, say, early evening to… ten?”

“Eleven on weekends,” Taylor suggested.

Hank gave him a look. “We’ll negotiate Friday nights after we see if this works.”

Rime tilted his head. “Maybe make… quiet songs late,” he said. “Soft. Not shout-singing.”

“Ballads instead of bangers,” Taylor muttered.

Jonah leaned back, thinking. “So if I start around supper, keep it down some, and shut it off by… ten, you think she’d be okay?”

“We’ll talk to her,” Hank said. “But that sounds like a civilized plan.”

Kade hesitated, then added, “There is something else. A way to give your music more ears without blasting it through one wall.”

Jonah looked up, interested. “I’m listening.”

“Gabriel plays in the town square during markets and events,” Kade said. “He loves having the valley hear him. Guitar, sometimes old songs, sometimes new. Humans gather, wolves listen, children dance. If you want to be heard, that is the place. Join him.”

Rime’s ears perked. “Yes. Gabriel like company. He say sometimes, ‘I wish another guitar play here. Make sound bigger, warmer.’” He gestured with his hands, miming the shape of overlapping sound. “And Holt learning. He… very happy to play with others.”

“Holt,” Jonah said slowly, imagining it. “The big one. The one who laughs loud.”

“Yes,” Rime said firmly. “Big wolf. Big laugh. Big paws. But soft touch on strings.”

Taylor smiled. “You end up in a band, just promise me you won’t name it something like ‘The Post-Fall Howlers.’”

Jonah’s eyes were brighter now. “You really think Gabriel would… want that? Me playing with him in the square?”

“He would be thrilled,” Kade said. “He loves sharing things. Music, stories, coffee. He taught half the pack to keep tempo with their claws.”

Jonah ran a hand over the guitar body, thoughtful. The weight of the instrument seemed to shift, like it was no longer just armor but opportunity.

“I…” He swallowed. “I’d like that. Playing for people who actually want to listen. In a place that feels right. Not sneaking joy through the walls like contraband.”

Hank nodded. “Then here’s what we’ll propose. You keep the hours sensible—start earlier, end by ten, try not to rattle the windows off the hinges. We make sure Marion understands that you’re not ignoring her; you’re adjusting for her. And we introduce you to Gabriel so you can take some of that energy to the square where loud is welcome.”

Jonah gave a small, earnest nod. “Deal. And… if she ever wants to hear something during the day, I’ll play whatever she wants. Old songs, hymns, whatever. I owe her the sleep.”

Rime’s gaze softened. “Good trade. Night quiet, day music.”

Kade straightened. “Alright. Let’s go talk to her.”

They stepped back out onto the porch, the evening light slipping toward gold. Across the way, Marion watched from her steps, arms folded but expression wary rather than hostile.

“Well?” she called.

Hank walked over with the wolves and Taylor flanking him. “Well,” he said, “Jonah didn’t know how much it was getting to you. He’ll start earlier, end by ten. No more midnight concerts. And he’s going to take louder playing to the town square, where you can hear him at reasonable hours with everyone else, if you want to.”

Marion sniffed. “He said that, did he?”

“He also said,” Kade added gently, “that if you ever want to hear something during the day, he’ll play what you like. You’ve got seniority in this neighborhood. Might as well use it.”

Rime nodded. “He feels bad. Not… bad-wolf bad. Just… ‘I am sorry’ bad.”

Marion looked between them, lips pressed tight, then exhaled slowly. The lines around her eyes softened. “I don’t hate his playing,” she admitted. “Truth is, when he started up the first time, I cried. I hadn’t heard live music since before the world ended. Thought my heart would crack open.”

She shook her head. “But then it kept going. And my body doesn’t know how to tell the difference between last year’s screaming and today’s guitar. It just knows: noise at night means danger. I’m tired of waking up with my heart in my throat.”

“That makes sense,” Kade said. “Your body remembers. It’ll learn new memories over time. Soft ones.”

She looked at him with quiet gratitude. “You talk like someone who’s had to relearn a lot himself.”

Kade’s mouth twitched. “I have.”

Hank tipped his chin toward the yellow house. “He’s not your enemy, Marion. He just wants the world to sound alive again. You want it to feel safe. Those aren’t opposite things. We can make them fit.”

Marion let out another breath. “Alright. Ten o’clock. And he keeps the windows closed when he can.”

Hank smiled faintly. “I’ll tell him.”

She hesitated, then added, “And… maybe I’ll come out to the square next time there’s a market. If he’s going to be playing with Gabriel… well. That sounds like something worth yelling at my knees to walk across town for.”

Rime’s tail gave a small, pleased swish. “Good idea. Pack there too. Safe, loud, happy.”

Marion’s gaze moved to him, and she studied his calm, amber eyes. “Rime, right?”

He dipped his head. “Yes.”

“You ever think you’d spend your days worrying about noise complaints instead of manhunts?”

Rime considered, then smiled with all his teeth, the expression oddly gentle on a predator’s face. “Never. But I like this better.”

Hank and Taylor walked back with the wolves to Jonah’s porch, relaying Marion’s side of the compromise. Jonah agreed without hesitation. The idea of playing in the square burned bright in his eyes.

“I’ll come by the station tomorrow,” he said. “Ask Gabriel when the next market’s running. Maybe… maybe we can work out some songs. I know some old ones. And I can learn new.”

“He’ll like that,” Kade said. “Holt will, too. He’s proud of every chord he can manage.”

Jonah grinned, more relaxed than he had been since the door first opened. “I’ll try not to get shown up by a wolf who just learned which end of the guitar to hold.”

“Do not bet on that,” Rime murmured. “Holt very serious about music.”

They left Jonah at his door, the guitar now an invitation rather than a wedge. The street felt quieter, not because the music was gone, but because the tension had eased.

As Hank, Taylor, Rime, and Kade walked back toward the truck, evening settling around them, Taylor blew out a breath. “I can’t believe it. We really just handled a noise complaint.”

Hank scratched at his beard. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

Taylor nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

Kade looked up at the paling sky, faint stars beginning to appear. “Where I came from, loud things at night meant someone was dying,” he said. “Or someone was being broken on purpose. Here… it’s just a man trying to remember that the world can sing. We guide it a little. Shape it. Make sure everyone can rest. That is… better.”

Rime walked beside them, humming under his breath—a low, tuneless thing at first, then gradually falling into a pattern that sounded suspiciously like one of Gabriel’s soft evening melodies. He tapped his claws lightly against his leg in rhythm, careful not to scratch.

Hank listened for a moment. “That one Gabriel wrote?”

Rime nodded. “Yes. For nights on porch. He say it is song for ‘nothing wrong.’”

“Seems fitting,” Hank said.

They reached the truck. The wolves climbed into the bed again, sitting with easy balance as Hank got behind the wheel. As they rolled back toward Main Street, the town’s lights glowed softly ahead: homes, the bank, the station, the diner, the schoolhouse.

Behind one window on Fourth and Cedar, Marion turned off her porch light and headed inside, comforted by the promise of a quiet night.

Behind another, Jonah sat back down with his guitar, strummed a few gentle chords barely loud enough to carry past the glass, and smiled to himself, already imagining a makeshift stage in the town square, Gabriel beside him, Holt grinning too big for any spotlight.

The truck rumbled on.

Libby cooled into night, held in the hush between heartbeats—a town where the scars of the old world were healing, where wolves and humans alike were learning that peace sometimes sounded like nothing more dramatic than arguing about guitar volume and agreeing, together, on when to turn it down and when to turn it up.

The valley rested. The pack watched. And in the quiet, the promise of future songs waited patiently for their cue.

Morning settled over the Libby den in warm, familiar chaos. Holt clattered bowls in the kitchen, Rime muttered at a door hinge that “move wrong,” Gabriel tuned his guitar with gentle plucks, Mark cursed at a sputtering coffee pot, and Kade studied the daily patrol map Varro had posted with crisp precision. The wolves moved in practiced rhythm: bank crew sorting their tasks, patrol wolves gearing up, everyone stepping into new routines built from the simple luxury of peace.

Thane stepped out of his room, and the sound softened. He scanned the room once, then nodded at Varro. “You’re with me today. Kalispell run.”

Varro’s ears flicked in surprise, but he stood immediately. Holt elbowed Rime. “Varro going out. World safer.”

Rime nodded slowly. “Varro strong wolf.”

Varro sighed. “I go outside every day.”

Holt shrugged, grinning. “Still true.”

The pack rolled back into motion as Thane and Varro headed out the door and into the morning air.

The Humvee rumbled down the road, diesel echoing through the pines. Spring sunlight spilled across the valley as they drove, the snow retreating from the trees, rivers running faster. Varro watched the scenery pass, arms folded loosely, eyes sharp with old instinct and new peace.

“Strange feeling,” he said quietly.

Thane glanced over. “What is?”

Varro exhaled through his nose. “Going to a town that lives. Not surviving… actually living.”

Thane didn’t answer, but the faint nod said enough.

As Kalispell came into view, Varro leaned forward, ears pricking.

Lights. Neon signs humming. Doors propped open. Voices. Laughter. People waving. A woman pushed a stroller and lit up as she saw the Humvee.

“Wolf! And other wolf!” she shouted.

Varro blinked, a small, startled laugh escaping before he covered it.

Town hall looked freshly painted, window boxes bursting with early flowers. Inside, Mayor Nadine Carver greeted them with radiant enthusiasm—until her eyes landed on Varro.

Her breath caught. Fear flickered. The scars. The size. The intensity in his eyes.

Varro saw it. He always did.

Before the moment could stretch, Thane stepped in instantly, slinging his arm around Varro’s shoulders and yanking him close, hard enough that Varro’s claws scraped the floor. “Nadine, this is Varro. Strongest warrior alive,” he said with warm authority. “I trust him with my life.”

Varro stiffened, caught entirely off guard. Nadine’s fear melted, replaced with something like awe. Thane squeezed his shoulder.

“Those scars are memories. He’s stronger for surviving every one.”

Varro’s jaw tightened—not with anger, but with the kind of emotion he didn’t let surface often.

The tension dissolved. Nadine shook Varro’s hand gently and with newfound respect.

They spent nearly an hour catching up: the new shops, the community garden, repaired homes, stable food stores, the phone line keeping them connected, KTNY’s signal blaring through almost every window. She spoke of people beginning to dream again. Of life coming back in full color. And especially about how the new currency system had turned life from barter chaos into something human again.

Before they left, Nadine touched Thane’s arm lightly. “Thank you… for everything.”

Varro inclined his head, an expression of respect he was still learning to give.

They walked the streets afterward, and every wave, every shouted thank-you, every smile seemed to hit Varro like something unreal. He grew quiet, letting it settle deeper than he expected.

On the road home, golden light washed over the trees as the Humvee climbed back toward the mountains. The engine hummed steady. The air through the windows carried the scent of thawed earth and pine.

Varro finally spoke, voice low. “Your words… to the mayor. About me.”

Thane stayed relaxed behind the wheel. “Truth.”

Varro stared at the passing treeline. “I do not understand it.”

“What’s to understand?”

“My entire life,” Varro said slowly, “strength was punished. Strategy was punished. Loyalty was demanded but never returned. The only words I heard were commands or threats.” His claws traced the edge of the doorframe. “And today… you told a mayor I am the strongest warrior alive. That you trust me with your life.”

Thane glanced at him. “I meant every word.”

Varro’s ears dropped in something like disbelief. “I have followed other alphas. I have seen humans claim leadership. None spoke like that. None ever—” His voice faltered. “You honor wolves in ways I thought were myths.”

Thane let the silence breathe a moment before answering. “Varro, you are one of my most trusted advisors. Strategy. Tactics. Reading a battlefield before anyone else sees the shape. I depend on that. The pack depends on that.”

The words hit harder than any praise earlier in the day. Varro’s breath caught in his chest.

“You… trust me that much?”

“I do,” Thane said simply. “You’ve earned it.”

Varro turned his head toward the window again, but not to hide fear or shame—just to steady himself. When he finally answered, his voice was soft enough that the engine almost swallowed it.

“Thank you, Thane.”

He didn’t say more. He didn’t need to.

The Humvee rolled on through the fading gold light, mountains shadowing around them, the valley stretching out like a world waking from long sleep. Another town alive. Another place full of voices, families, laughter, normalcy. Another reminder of what the pack had built together.

Thane drove. Varro watched the horizon. And the road carried them home to Libby—toward warmth, toward the den, toward another quiet night in a world slowly becoming whole again.

KTNY’s old brick studio had never looked better. The neon sign out front buzzed with warm red light. The big tower out back blinked its slow, steady rhythm against the early evening sky. And inside, the station was alive in that distinctly Friday way — full of footsteps, laughter, muffled doors closing, someone rustling chip bags in the kitchen, and the shuffle of wolves getting comfortable in a building clearly not designed for seven of them.

It was 6 p.m. The House Party didn’t go live until seven, but the pack always showed up early, partly out of habit and partly because they liked being here. The place smelled like old carpet, warm electronics, and a thousand memories from the before-times.

Mark was at the engineering desk, hunched over a console with clawed precision as he adjusted the final settings on the station’s AudioVault automation system. “Okay,” he muttered, tapping a monitor. “Top of the hour ID, two bumpers, and the promos are slotted. The music log is loaded. We’re perfect.”

Gabriel was in Studio A, adjusting mic height and fine-tuning the EQ on his channel. He leaned in, testing. “Check one, check one… This is Gabriel, your friendly neighborhood wolf with a face made for radio.”

Rime, entering the studio behind him, blinked and asked, “Why you say that? Your face fine.”

Gabriel turned around dramatically. “Never explain the joke, Rime.”

Rime frowned. “Why?”

Holt laughed so loudly from the hallway that the audio meters bounced.

Thane stepped into the control room, brushing a paw over the soundproofing foam like he was greeting an old friend. “Feels good in here,” he said.

“It should,” Mark replied. “We spent all week getting the last of the dead bulbs replaced. Studio B hums again.”

“Studio B hums?” Thane asked.

“Like an angelic fridge,” Mark said proudly.

Varro stood near the record library, studying the wall of CDs with a strange reverence. “So many… discs,” he murmured.

Gabriel poked his head out of the booth. “Music storage medium. Antiquated. But spicy.”

Kade walked in carrying a box of donuts from the newly reopened bakery. “Thought we might need these.”

Holt immediately took three, stacked them, and ate them like a sandwich.

“Is that even legal?” Gabriel asked.

Holt shrugged. “I am bank security.”

“That’s not related.”

“Still counts.”

The whole room buzzed with easy banter and the comfort of routine. The kind of energy only a valley restored to life could produce.

Thane leaned against the doorway, watching them with a quiet smile. “Feels like a real Friday again,” he said.

Gabriel nodded. “Yeah. There are people across this valley right now waiting for the House Party. Not because they need information or warnings… but because they want to hear music and voices and laughter.”

“And because,” Kade added, “they like listening to wolves talk about donut sandwiches.”

Holt gave a proud thumbs-up.

Thane chuckled. “It’s been a hell of a month. Currency restored. Glacier Bank running like an actual institution. Savings accounts. Paychecks. Taxes, for crying out loud.”

Rime perked. “Taxes are good?”

“No,” Gabriel answered. “But they’re normal.”

Varro nodded. “People are happy. Easier to trade. Easier to plan. No bartering chickens for tires.”

Mark looked over from the engineering desk. “I do not miss the chicken economy.”

“And the school,” Thane added. “Students laughing again. Teachers teaching. Kids drawing pictures of big wolves with tiny legs.”

Kade looked confused. “Why tiny legs?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Kids are weird.”

Thane stepped into Studio A, the central mic glowing softly. He ran his claws over the desk like the ritual it had always been. “Tonight’s show needs to celebrate that. The wins. The progress. The fact that we’ve gone from patching leaks to building a future.”

Mark entered behind him with a set of headphones. “Already prepared a talking points file: power, water, bank, school, dam crew, restored shops, Eureka trade routes, Thompson Falls patrol network.”

Gabriel gave him a look. “Talking points? That’s adorable. I don’t use points. I freewheel.”

“You rant,” Mark corrected.

“I riff.”

“You ramble.”

“I soar artistically.”

Mark tapped his notebook. “You read this or I unplug your mic.”

Gabriel snatched the notebook. “Fine.”

Thane sat at the main mic — Mic 1. The gravel in his voice seemed to settle into place automatically.

Mark gave him the two-minute warning. “Station ID at the top of the hour. Then your open.”

In the hallway, Holt practiced looking fierce in front of the glass, his reflection doing exactly what he wanted: intimidation with a hint of “please take your money to the bank.”

Rime and Kade settled onto the big old couch near the newsroom window. Varro lowered himself into a chair beside them, watching everything with a quiet contentment that would’ve been impossible months ago.

Thane took a breath. “Alright. Let’s give the valley a Friday night.”

The top-of-the-hour jingle played: KTNY 101.7 — The Voice of the Valley.

Mark pointed at Thane.

The ON AIR sign lit up red.

Thane began.

“Good evening, Libby, Eureka, Thompson Falls… and every cabin, farm, and ridge line in between. This is Thane, and you’re listening to The House Party on KTNY 101.7. It’s Friday night, and for the first time in a long, long while… it feels like an ordinary one.”

Gabriel slid into his chair and leaned into his mic. “The good kind of ordinary.”

“Exactly,” Thane said. “Our towns have power. Running water. Working kitchens. A school full of kids who laugh loud enough to shake the walls. And as of this week… an honest-to-God bank. Wages. Savings. Commerce. A money system that actually works again.”

Mark spoke into Mic 3 with his calm, measured tone. “And a staff that learned very quickly not to hand Holt the stapler.”

Holt shouted from the hall, “I WAS TESTING IT.”

“On a chair,” Mark replied.

“It lost!”

Thane chuckled softly. “We’ve had a month of rebuilding, and all of it has been made possible by the people listening right now. Marta, who has been the beating heart of organization. Hank, who keeps our borders safe. The dam crew, who show up every day like the world never stopped. The mayors of our sister towns — Tom in Eureka and Nora in Thompson Falls — who stepped up without hesitation. And every single one of you who work, rebuild, teach, craft, grow, and just… live.”

Gabriel rested his chin on his fist. “It’s been kinda beautiful to watch.”

“It has,” Thane agreed.

Varro, from the hallway couch, murmured, “Valley strong.”

Thane glanced at him through the glass and nodded.

“And to my pack,” Thane added into the mic, “you’ve done everything that’s been asked of you. More than I could ever expect. You’ve built bridges. Run power. Restored communications. Protected families. And yesterday… you worked real jobs. Honest-to-God nine-to-five jobs. You have no idea how proud that makes me.”

Holt yelled from the hall, “I AM HEAD OF SECURITY.”

“We know,” Gabriel said. “We’ve all heard.”

Thane leaned in a little closer to the mic, voice soft but sure. “Tonight’s show is about celebrating that progress. The normal. The mundane. The beautiful little pieces of life that mean we’ve climbed out of the dark and stepped back into the world.”

Mark queued up the first track and gestured that he was ready.

“Let’s kick things off with something warm,” Thane said, leaning back as the music faded in. “A song for a valley that chose to grow again.”

The first guitar chords of “Beautiful Day” by U2 rolled through the monitors, soft and bright. The wolves settled into their seats around the station, some on couches, some leaning in doorways, some simply listening with closed eyes.

It was a Friday night.

It was peaceful.

It was normal.

And the valley was alive.

The cabin felt unusually full that morning. Full of purpose. Full of a kind of energy they hadn’t felt since before the Fall — the anticipation of a day that wasn’t about danger, but about living.

Thane looked around at the wolves gathered in the great room: Holt at the table crunching something loudly, Rime leaning against the wall with a mug of tea, Mark cross-checking a paper notebook with a tablet he’d resurrected, Kade sitting perched on the arm of the couch, Gabriel tuning his guitar even though they had places to be, and Varro standing with his hands folded behind his back like he was waiting for orders.

Thane cleared his throat. That alone was enough for the whole room to fall quiet.

“Alright,” he said, “this is it. The first real work we’ve done that isn’t about staying alive. Today we’re not fighting raiders or repairing radio towers or rescuing towns. Today we’re just… working. Building. Making life normal again.”

Holt raised a paw. “Alpha. What is normal?”

Gabriel whispered, “Something we’re about to break on day one.”

Thane tried not to smile. “Normal means schedules. Tasks. Getting things done because they need doing, not because the world is on fire. And we’ve been asked to help run the bank. Which means we’re going to treat this like a real job.”

Rime nodded seriously. “Job. Work. Yes.”

“Exactly,” Thane said. He pointed at Varro. “Varro — you’re on security evaluation. Full layout review. Identify every entrance, exit, blind spot, and approach angle. Work with Sheriff Daltry to design the day and night security plan. You know terrain and vulnerabilities better than anyone.”

Varro dipped his head. “On it. Already drafted map overlays last night.”

Of course he had.

Thane turned to Holt. “Holt — you’re head of physical security. The job description is simple: look fierce and intimidating. Scare anyone who thinks about doing something stupid.”

Holt straightened with pride, chest puffing up. “I can do that. I do that already.”

Gabriel whispered, “He practices in the mirror.”

“I HEARD THAT,” Holt growled.

Thane continued before they spiraled into chaos. “You’ll be stationed at the main entrance from nine to five. If anyone needs help, direct them politely. If anyone is suspicious, stare at them until they reconsider their life.”

Holt nodded solemnly. “Yes. Stare.”

“Good.”

Thane looked to Gabriel next. “Gabriel — you’re overseeing the teller staff. Marta’s sending six people. Your job is to keep them organized, calm, and accurate. You’re the numbers wolf.”

Gabriel dramatically cracked his knuckles. “I was born for accounting glory.”

Mark leaned forward. “You literally weren’t.”

“I was reborn for it.”

Thane ignored them both. “You’ll also keep an eye out for counterfeit money. Just in case.”

Gabriel grinned. “I’ll sniff it.”

“That’s… not necessary.”

“It might be!”

Mark cleared his throat. “I’d like to go next before this gets worse.”

Thane nodded. “Mark — you’re restoring and running the bank’s computer systems. Firewalls, backups, teller software, internal comms, account management systems, everything that keeps the place functional. You’re the entire IT department.”

Mark smirked. “Finally. Recognition.”

“And,” Thane added gently, “you’ll also be responsible for teaching the bank staff basic security practices.”

Gabriel whispered, “Like not clicking on fake emails about prize goats.”

Mark glared. “We’re banning prize goats.”

Thane pointed at Rime and Kade. “You two will extend your patrol routes to include loops past the bank every hour or so. Keep eyes on the perimeter. Make sure Holt hasn’t fallen asleep—or chased a butterfly.”

Rime nodded. “We watch. We protect.”

Kade added, “We’ll do it quietly. Routine. Just enough presence to keep trouble from trying its luck.”

Finally, Thane crossed his arms and looked at all of them. “And one last thing. Today is the kind of day we always fought for. The quiet workdays. The schedules. The mundane tasks. We bled for this. We lost for this. We earned this. So do it proudly. Do it well. And enjoy it.”

Holt thumped his chest. “Alpha speech very good.”

Gabriel wiped a fake tear. “I’m emotional.”

Mark muttered, “Just drive the damn Humvee.”

They piled in, fur brushing shoulders, elbows poking ribs. The ride into town was filled with quiet excitement and the occasional anxious tail wag.

When they pulled up to Glacier Bank, the building looked like it had been waiting decades for this moment. Fresh paint. Clean glass. A new sign in the window reading Cash Accepted Here. People were already milling around, curious, hopeful.

Varro immediately set to work, scanning the perimeter, pacing with purpose, taking notes, circling the building twice before disappearing inside to inspect the vault layout.

Mark carried a box of cables and devices inside like it was a sacred offering.

Gabriel immediately greeted the teller staff with a cheerful, “Good morning, financial warriors!”

Holt stepped into position at the front door, folded his arms, and began glaring at shrubbery just to warm up.

Thane watched the whole scene unfold with something like pride swelling in his chest.

The inside of the bank filled quickly with sound — the click of keyboards as Mark’s resurrected systems flickered to life, the soft shuffle of bills as Gabriel trained the tellers on counting techniques, the low rumble of Varro explaining security angles to Marta, and the audible, confident huff every few minutes as Holt reminded the world he was on guard.

For the first time since the Fall, Glacier Bank was open.

The day went smoothly. Peacefully. Beautifully, even.

Varro discovered a blind corner and requested a small desk mirror to fix it, which Marta immediately fetched with a smile.

Holt scared a confused but harmless old man so badly that Gabriel had to tell him to “dial it back two degrees.”

Gabriel caught a worn $20 bill with a rip and simply said, “We can tape that. The world’s taped up too.”

Mark replaced an ancient printer with one he rebuilt from scavenged parts and declared it “a masterpiece of paper-based engineering.”

Kade and Rime passed by the bank every hour, giving Holt a silent nod and receiving a proud grunt in return.

Thane spent the day staying out of their way — not because he wasn’t needed, but because they didn’t need him hovering. They had this. They had work.

Just after 5 p.m., they all reconvened at the cabin. Everyone still smelled faintly of printer toner, money counters, and office dust.

Holt burst into the room first. “I scare fourteen people! No trouble today!”

Gabriel followed. “I taught Betty how to use the bill counting machine again. She kept clearing the count instead of adding it.”

Mark tossed his notebook on the table. “I got the entire system online. Even the vault sensors. And someone brought me a muffin.”

Varro stood in the doorway, posture relaxed. “Security plan complete. Three-tier rotation. Sheriff Daltry approves.”

Rime and Kade both said, “Bank safe.”

Thane looked at the wolves — tired, proud, bright-eyed — and felt something warm settle under his ribs.

“Well,” he said softly, “that sounds like a good day.”

“Good day,” Rime agreed.

“Very good,” Mark added.

Gabriel leaned back in a chair. “Normal day.”

Thane nodded. “Exactly. And that’s everything.”

They spent the evening sharing small stories — someone complimented Holt’s fur; a customer gave Gabriel a drawing of a wolf behind a desk; Mark found a sticky note inside the safe deposit room door that said WELCOME BACK!; Kade overheard two townsfolk arguing about whether they needed checking or savings; Varro saw a child point at Thane’s Humvee and call it “the protector truck.”

Small things. Beautiful things.

Things from a world rediscovering itself.

They stayed up until the fire burned low, laughter drifting across the cabin like something soft and steady, something earned.

Their first day of work was done.

And it felt perfect.