Saturday found the Libby den standing in the soft hush of a day with nothing left to demand of it. The chores were done. The firewood had been stacked twice as high as Mark’s head. The creek had been cleared of debris. The south gate’s bullet scars had already begun to develop stories all their own. Even Holt—the unshakable engine of spontaneous effort—had no task to swing at.
So they did the only reasonable thing wolves do on a taskless day:
Absolutely nothing productive at all.
The cabin was a zoo of calm chaos.
Holt demonstrated his deeply-held belief that lying on the floor in strange positions counted as stretching. He balanced a leather boot on one foot for no reason. “Helps blood,” he muttered to no one. “Balance of spirit and sole.”
Gabriel sat at the corner table with his guitar, spinning out a lazy improvisation that somehow sounded like the river and a bar fight at the same time. His hair was wild, eyes half-closed as though dreaming. Every once in a while, he’d pause, scribble something in his songbook—or steal Mark’s pencil and sabotage one of his neat lists.
Mark, in turn, kept resetting his clipboard traps. Every time Gabriel swiped one, he’d calmly retrieve another from the shelf, muttering something like “pen thief” and pretending he wasn’t borderline amused by the whole ordeal.
Rime sat by the woodstove, feet and claws bare on the warm stones, sharpening a small hunting knife with the patience of a glacier and occasional commentary.
“No more steel on wood table,” he reminded Holt without looking.
Holt withdrew the blade from the table edge like a sulking child and moved to the floor. “Fine. I sharpen floor then.”
“Don’t,” Rime said.
“Will not,” Holt corrected.
Near them all, Kade sat on the arm of the couch like he wasn’t sure he deserved more surface area than that, but also like he knew he’d be forgiven anyhow. He watched the rest with half a smile—like a man slowly believing a dream and trying not to breathe too fast.
And on the sofa, Thane watched them all with that gaze that took in chaos and foot-swinging and off-key whistling in full acceptance. Maybe even pride.
He broke the lazy noise first.
“Kade,” Thane said, just calm enough to get attention without trying. The newcomer lifted his head immediately.
“Yes, Alpha.”
“Tell me about your pack.”
Everything stilled—not hostile, but expectant. Even Holt raised an eyebrow and stopped torturing the kitchen chair leg.
Kade sat quieter, like a man deciding whether to open a door to a room that wasn’t built well enough to walk through.
“What… specifically?” he asked.
“Everything,” Thane said. “Where you came from. How you lived. Your Alpha. Whether we need to keep an eye on the horizon.”
Kade’s instinct to protect old secrets tightened his shoulders, but he softened. They were pack now. He had chosen them. And he understood what the question was really doing: ensuring the den remained safe.
“My pack…” he began, slow as if uncoiling an old rope. “Was not like this one. Or Sable’s. Not even like raiders who use chaos for tribute. Mine leaned into fear like it was a wise elder. The Alpha taught that control was love and suspicion was survival. That being obeyed meant being respected. He used words like strength, and necessary, and never trust softness.”
Gabriel plucked one low, tense note that sounded like a question mark.
“Were they like pure ferals?” Mark asked. “Meaning—no towns, no tech, no speech beyond basic?”
“Not exactly,” Kade said. “We understood people. We just didn’t want to be anything like them. We didn’t wear clothes except when dealing with those you call ‘townfolk.’ We scouted human shelters for parts. We learned to drive, but only to salvage and escape. We understood territory. But cooperation?” He shook his head. “That’s a weakness. In their eyes.”
Thane’s gaze deepened, not unkind, but studying. “So they know of places like ours.”
“Oh yes,” Kade nodded. “They probably believe you’re weak for having walls at all.”
Holt snarled under his breath. “Stupid thought. Walls strong. Keep pups safe.”
“Walls keep minds safe, too,” Gabriel added. “Safety gives us music. Stories. Soup.”
Rime nodded from the stove. “Free wolves choose walls. Others live with claws only.”
Kade’s smile was part admiration. “Exactly.”
Thane let the lull rest for a moment before he asked the real question, voice lower, gravel true.
“Do they know about us?”
Kade hesitated only long enough to consider what name information carried.
“No,” he said firmly. “Only that I headed south. No details. I left quietly. The ones who might’ve followed were too busy controlling what was left behind.”
“And,” Thane continued. “Should we be worried they might come here?”
Kade’s eyes flicked toward the window. Not nervously. Thoughtfully.
“No,” he said, and there was certainty in it. “They’re too feral. Not stupid—just clinging to survival the way a rope clings to whatever it’s tied to. They won’t enter a town. Not unless they’ve already died in their heads and don’t know it yet.”
Thane leaned back, arms crossed, one clawed foot idly tapping the woodgrain.
“Sound logic,” he agreed. “But I ask you straight, Kade—should we intervene? Should we teach them a lesson?”
Kade’s face didn’t move for half a beat. He did not look away. He breathed in once, sharp, let it out slow.
“No,” he said. Not weak, not hesitant—but unfinished. Like a promise he wasn’t ready to cash in yet.
It landed like a stone dropped into clear water.
Thane’s brow rose slightly. “That’s an answer,” he said, leaving the second half unsaid.
“It is,” Kade nodded, tone steady. “They’re not ready. And we’re not done here.” A small glance at Gabriel and Mark, then Rime, then Holt. “I’m not done learning what strength really is.”
No one spoke for a moment. They didn’t need to. The fire cracked, the knife scraped the whetstone once more, Mark’s pencil ticked across a page like thunder deciding to be quiet.
Then Holt ruined the silence, as was his sacred duty.
“You talk heavy,” Holt declared. “Like wet wood. But… right.”
Kade laughed once. “Apologies. I… don’t know what normal days are supposed to sound like. I haven’t had enough of them.”
“This is normal,” Gabriel said, pointing to the entire room, including Rime trying to see if the cat on the windowsill would high-five him. “Welcome to it.”
“It is very loud,” Kade said.
“It gets worse,” Mark promised.
“Better,” Rime corrected.
Thane rose to check the lantern wick, but paused long enough to say:
“We’re going to revisit that question—about your old Alpha. Not today. Not before you’re ready. But someday I’ll need a better ‘No.’”
Kade nodded once. “I’ll give it to you.”
Gabriel strummed—a bright chord this time, a promise-not-promise. “Hey Kade.”
“Mm?”
“If you ever want a louder answer… we can teach you how to play guitar and annoy hundreds of people at once.”
Kade laughed, and this time it was clean. “I look forward to that.”
Rime finally got the cat to high-five him. Holt declared the soup reheated. Mark rolled his papers and banned Gabriel from stealing any more clipboards. The cabin hummed.
And in the quiet undercurrent between breaths and bursts of laughter, Thane logged Kade’s answer the way he logged every important variable in his world:
Later.