Morning wore a clear edge of sunlight over Libby like a blade polished for work. The den smelled of coffee and drying smoke and a hundred small domestic victories: a patrol done, the generator fed, the radio happy for a tune. Thane moved like a man that morning who’d decided the world needed attention and that attention would not be delayed. He checked a strap on his pack, then glanced toward the armchair where Kade had been sleeping on and off since joining the den. The new wolf sat up with that steady, watchful calm he had displayed from the first day—hands curled, claws showing, hair ruffled from sleep. He smiled once when he saw Thane move.
“You ready?” Thane asked. The gravel was low in the question, not a challenge.
Kade’s yellow eyes narrowed with pleased energy. “Yes. Today I meet Marta and Hank?”
“You do,” Thane said. “Officially.”
They walked together through the town—two wolves who’d recently learned to share a world. The Humvee sat where Thane had left it, heavy and practical and a little too proud of its off-road dents. They climbed in; the engine started with a familiar grumble that made the cab smell like old leather and road. Thane slid the Humvee into gear, and for a half-beat the world outside them was all glass and motion.
Marta’s office in City Hall had that scent of baked bread and paperwork that belonged to towns that kept going because someone remembered names. Marta looked up as they walked in—broad smile, hands still dusted with flour from the bakery she doubled at, eyes the sort that had been judging good people and bad for twenty years and had learned to like the good ones.
“Thane,” she said, clasping his paw in two of her own. “You’re at it early today.”
“As always,” Thane said, then turned to Kade. “This is Kade. He’s joined the Libby Pack.”
Marta’s eyebrows rose once, then dropped into the delighted surprise of someone who hadn’t expected that but always liked to be in on anything that worked. She bent to Kade with the affability of someone who sheltered stray dogs as a hobby. “Well, hello there,” she said.
Kade inclined his head with polite reserve. “Ma’am. Thane brought me. I am grateful to be here.”
Hank arrived a minute later, mechanics’ grease under his nails, shotgun across one shoulder as a kind of casual posture. He had been at the wall the day of the raid and now wore the easy tiredness of a man who’d watched a thing go right. He looked Kade up like a man checking the fit of a new boot and did a slow double-take at the smooth cadence in Kade’s voice.
“He talks like you, Thane,” Hank commented dryly. “Clean. No broken stutter.”
Thane let a small, pleased sound out. “Taught himself well,” he said. “He picked up English from good people on a long route.” He left out the parts about fear and the north; that would be a later conversation.
Marta gave Kade a quick assessment—warm, practical, a professional’s bright gaze. “If he’s with you, he’s got to know we’ll make him a cup of coffee that’s survivable,” she said, and winked.
Kade grinned in a way that was half shame at his enthusiasm and half gratitude. “I have not had coffee here yet,” he admitted.
Hank barked a laugh. “You’ll survive. Maybe.”
The meeting was short, warm, and ceremonial in the efficient manner of towns that both had to be practical and liked being polite. Marta and Hank both extended the sort of immediate conditional trust a town offered those who carried proven honor. Kade felt it and answered with a small bow of appreciation. The town leaders liked that. Thane liked that. The day had been set in ways that counted.
“Good,” Marta said. “Now go get something to eat before you two take a joyride somewhere ugly.”
Thane grinned and tossed her a clawed thumbs-up.
They climbed back into the Humvee and headed for the south road. The drive to Glendive was a two-hour ribbon of cold and pine, a trip that showed Kade how humans had once routed things and how wolves followed the lines people still left behind. Thane liked letting the land speak; Kade liked hearing it. They talked in simple bursts about the rig, the radio, and small mechanical things—talk that belonged to people who trusted each other’s hands.
Glendive had a different feel from Libby. Where Libby protected itself with community and warmth, Glendive had a taut, watchful edge—barbed wire, a scarce number of shopfronts, men who sized visitors like a measurement. But in this winter, it was also a place that still traded, that still took goods for goods, and that still needed the kind of common-sense agreements people like Thane liked to build.
Thane had his reasons for coming. Not just trade—though good trade never hurt—but also a softer lesson: showing Kade the nets that mercy cast. Thane wanted Kade to see what a kindness-based reputation built on rules and restraint looked like, and what it earned in return.
They rolled into town carrying crates of tools—salvaged, cleaned, and brought with the kind of care that made men business-ready—along with a few boluses of medical supplies and a couple of radio parts the Libby crew couldn’t afford to keep stockpiled. Glendive’s market had things to swap: a pallet of decent tires, a crate of salt, a small bunch of farm tools with handles that felt loved by hands. Thane had packed things that would give them immediate bargaining chips.
They found the market in the center of town, a small cluster of trade tables and a single awning that did a lot of polite shading. Vendors’ faces unrolled in degrees—some distrust, some curiosity, some quick calculation. Thane rolled the crate to a table and started talking trade with a cadence that read as both polite and unbreakable. Kade watched the people trade. He took in how an apology travels farther than a threat, how a fair trade made a man stop wearing distrust like armor.
A known figure moved through the market like a shadow: Garrick Voss. The same Voss who had run Glendive in ways that left teeth marks on towns, the man whose name adventure-told as a local villain. He paused when he saw Thane and relaxed just enough to be cautious. People around them held their breath like a small, polite tension.
Voss came forward with trepidation in his step and that thick town-boy-turned-boss drawl that had become his armor. He looked at Kade and saw a new face beside Thane. His eyes narrowed the way a man sizes the particulars of a risk: a newcomer, Thane’s Humvee, the weight of story in a day.
“Thane,” Voss said, formal and a touch brittle. “Came here to trade or to preach?”
Thane offered him a level look and the faintest half-smile. “Both,” he said. “Depends on your needs.”
Voss’s mouth twitched. “We have needs. We could use some radios and a good set of tools. And we’ve got salted venison—good cut. We could use a few of your… uh, parts.”
Trade began the way trades did: with numbers and small courtesy. Thane moved his pieces like someone who’d sat at enough tables to know where the lines fell. Kade watched how Thane did not only barter but also listen—how the man across from him started defensive and came out making an offer. Kindness in practice: give a man a fair chance and he will sometimes meet you halfway.
Voss cleared his throat, then looked at Kade like he was trying to place a face in a crowd. “And this is…?”
“Kade,” Thane said. “He’s from the north. A skilled pathfinder. Now with us.”
Voss lingered on Kade’s claws, on the calm stillness in the newcomer’s posture — the kind of stillness earned, not posed. The awareness in Kade’s stance said two things at once: I don’t want trouble, but I’m not afraid of it if you bring it.
Voss looked away first.
Thane didn’t smile, not out loud. But under his breath, just for Kade, he said:
“You don’t have to prove anything here. He remembers what happened last time I taught a lesson.”
Kade leaned in slightly, voice quiet with realization. “You didn’t need to say anything to him.”
“I didn’t,” Thane said. “The world did.”
And it was true. Between the crates, the quiet, and the memory of apology on the cold wind, Voss and his men stayed cautious — not because they were scared of being mauled, but because they’d already seen what Thane did to pride without bloodshed.
They finished the trades—tires in exchange for radio capacitors, a crate of venison taken in return for a stack of tools and a small spare alternator—and found themselves lighter in the cab on the ride back. Kade hummed quietly to himself like a wolf spoil-satisfied by the day’s small victories.
On the drive home Thane told him small things about managing people: the difference between a lesson and a punishment; how mercy taxes the teacher but makes the town cheaper in the long run; how an apology can be stronger than a blade if you know how to use it. Kade absorbed it all, fingers drumming on his knee, yellow eyes thoughtful.
When the Humvee slid back into Libby and they climbed out into a sun that had softened like well-tempered iron, Kade’s smile was full of something that had been missing in his step for years.
“Today,” Kade said finally, quiet and soft, “I saw why you chose mercy.”
Thane hummed, pleased. “You did?”
Kade nodded. “I like how the world buys peace after you teach the lesson. It’s cleaner.”
Thane tapped the Humvee with his knuckles and let a grin curl. “Cleaner’s good. Strong’s good. Kindness makes both last.”
Kade’s shoulders eased. He looked at Thane in that way one only does when a thing has been taught and caught. “Thank you.”
Thane chuckled—half pride, half indulgence. “You keep doing the right math. You’ll be useful for a long time.”
Kade laughed, low and happy. He walked with Thane toward the cabin like a wolf who had just finished a lesson and eaten the meal that proved it.
Inside, the den welcomed them back. The pack drifted toward them with questions and jokes and a dozen small claims of ownership. The day had been a lesson; the town had been a market; Kade had seen the taste of mercy and liked it.
Thane clapped him once on the shoulder, the same hand that had steadied him when they untied rope months before. “Tomorrow,” Thane said, “we check the battery stash and see who needs parts out on the east road. But tonight—soup, and perhaps Gabriel will grace us with a song about a Humvee and a howl.”
Kade smiled at that. The way the cabin hummed, the way people eased into the ordinary, the way small mercies stacked into something that smelled like home—all of it made him settle in further. Thane’s grin was a secret between them, and Kade answered with a small, feral chuckle because he understood the command under the instruction: play it up, but never forget who you are.
They shared a look, equal parts conspirators and teacher-student, and then let the rest of the den pull them back into the warm, messy, fiercely lovable center of things.