Monday morning began with Silas standing in the kitchen of the cabin, fully shifted, holding a coffee mug in both paws like it might vanish if he stopped respecting it.
He lived there now.
That was still the fact he kept checking.
The room had survived Sunday night. His bedroom had survived him sleeping in it. His clothes were still in the dresser. His soap was still in the bathroom. His keys were still on the hook by the front door, hanging beside Thane’s, Gabriel’s, and Mark’s like they had always belonged there and had simply been waiting for him to catch up.
The cabin smelled different now.
Not completely.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
Silas could smell himself in the den.
In the hallway.
In his room.
On the sofa where he had fallen asleep for twenty minutes Sunday afternoon and woken in a panic until Gabriel said, “Congratulations, you have discovered napping.”
Nobody had told him to leave.
Nobody had looked surprised that he was still there.
Nobody had treated Monday morning like a correction.
Thane came into the kitchen wearing jeans, no shirt, and the sleepy expression of a wolf who had not yet decided coffee was worth civilization.
Silas immediately straightened.
Thane stopped.
“Morning.”
Silas swallowed.
“Morning.”
Thane looked at the coffee mug.
“You found the mugs.”
Silas nodded.
“Second cabinet.”
“Good.”
“I used the dark green one.”
“Good.”
“I can use a different one if—”
“Silas.”
Silas stopped.
Thane crossed the kitchen, took his own mug from the cabinet, and poured coffee.
“You live here.”
Silas’s ears lowered and lifted again.
“I know.”
Thane looked at him.
“You are allowed to use a mug.”
Silas gave a shaky laugh.
“I know that too.”
“You do not sound convinced.”
“I am convinced in theory.”
Thane smiled faintly.
“Today, practice.”
Silas looked around the kitchen.
Practice.
Living here was apparently going to involve many humiliatingly ordinary skills.
Using mugs.
Opening cabinets.
Leaving towels in the bathroom without asking whether towels were communal or assigned.
Eating cereal without documenting inventory.
Existing in the great room without standing like he was waiting for instructions.
He could do that.
Probably.
Gabriel emerged from the hallway five minutes later, saw Silas at the counter, and said, “Ah. The resident wolf has located beverages.”
Silas pointed one claw at him.
“I am fragile before work.”
Gabriel smiled.
“Pack learns quickly.”
Mark entered with his tablet, looked at Silas’s mug, looked at Thane’s, looked at the coffee pot, and said, “Acceptable consumption rate.”
Silas stared.
Thane sipped coffee.
“Ignore him.”
“I live with him now,” Silas said.
“That is still the best strategy.”
Mark looked mildly offended.
Gabriel opened the refrigerator and began assembling breakfast with the confidence of someone who believed toast counted as a side dish for everything.
Silas stood there in the middle of it.
In the way.
Not in the way.
Part of the morning noise.
His phone buzzed on the island.
A message from Hale.
First workday from approved residence. Confirm morning status.
Silas typed back carefully.
Stable. At cabin. Going to work at 0900. Slept. No issue. Used mug without paperwork.
The reply came after thirty seconds.
Progress. Do not make your probation officer laugh before 8.
Silas smiled at the phone.
Then another notification appeared.
Email.
From Nora’s office.
Subject: Silas Creed — Fire Service Review / Residence Update Copies
He opened it while Gabriel argued with Mark about whether pancakes could be made on a Monday without creating “weekend expectations.”
The email was ordinary at first.
Updated residence acknowledgement.
Copies of conditions.
A note that Hale’s approval had been filed.
Fire exposure path still pending future review.
A packet of documents attached.
Silas skimmed.
Most of it was legal language he understood better now than he used to and liked less every time.
Then he saw one attachment near the bottom.
Meeting Excerpt — Fire Path Review — Redacted — Internal Context
He frowned.
The file had a transcript icon.
Maybe he was supposed to read it.
Maybe not.
It was in his packet.
His name was on the email.
He opened it.
The first lines identified attendees.
Eli.
Nora.
Hale.
Chief Calder.
City counsel.
Thane.
Gabriel.
Mark.
A meeting he had not attended.
The one where Thane had pushed too hard.
Silas knew about that day. They had told him enough. Thane had apologized for wanting so badly that he nearly put his hand on the scale. Gabriel and Mark had played him the private recording of Thane afterward, the one where Thane had admitted the wanting made him stupid.
Silas knew the aftermath.
He had not heard the room.
He should not have read further.
He did.
The transcript had a highlighted section.
Thane’s name.
Then the words.
Silas stopped breathing.
He read the first line.
Then the next.
Then the next.
The kitchen noise faded.
Gabriel laughed at something.
Mark said something precise.
Thane set his mug down.
Silas read the passage again.
And again.
By the time Thane looked over, Silas had locked the screen and put the phone face down on the counter.
“You okay?” Thane asked.
Silas nodded too fast.
“Yes.”
Thane’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Silas forced his paws to relax.
“Work.”
He did not know why that was the word he chose.
Thane studied him.
Then, because Thane was learning too, he did not press in the kitchen in front of everyone.
“Breakfast first,” Thane said.
Silas nodded.
Breakfast happened.
Silas tasted none of it.
Night Shift began like any other Monday.
That was the miracle and the problem.
Thane could feel something wrong under Silas’s morning silence, but Silas had gone to work on time, reported to Hale, texted stable, and sent the expected arrival message from Red Dirt ReBuild.
He had answered normally.
Mostly.
Too normally.
That worried Thane more than a messy answer would have.
But worry was not an emergency by itself.
Crowe gave them handoff at 18:03 with Voss and Rusk wrapping up day-shift notes near the board.
“Mostly quiet,” Crowe said. “Do not punish me for saying that.”
Gabriel raised one paw.
“I would never.”
Crowe looked at him.
“I have met you.”
Rusk pointed at a folder.
“Jordan Pike phone return came back useful. Day shift has follow-up. No action for you tonight unless he does something stupid.”
Voss added, “Tessa Morgan is staying with coworker, no-contact order still in place, locks changed, safety planning continues.”
Thane nodded.
Good.
Crowe moved to the night calls.
“Patrol assist first. Grant is at a convenience store on East Oak. Customer refuses to leave because he says the clerk insulted his lottery strategy.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Monday has returned.”
Mark said, “Lottery strategy is not generally a protected class.”
Rusk looked at him.
“Do not say that on scene.”
“I was not going to.”
Gabriel looked disappointed.
They went to work.
The lottery call resolved without force, arrest, or anyone becoming wealthier.
The customer, Mr. Hobbs, had been buying the same numbers for seventeen years and took offense when the clerk said “maybe the universe has moved on.” Gabriel convinced Mr. Hobbs that the clerk had insulted probability, not him personally. Mark advised the clerk not to editorialize gambling patterns while at work. Grant documented a trespass warning only after Mr. Hobbs admitted he had called the scratch-off display “a false prophet.”
At 19:08, they assisted Patel with a report of suspicious headlights behind a closed church.
The headlights belonged to a volunteer dropping off bottled water for a youth trip and struggling to reverse a small trailer in the dark. Thane guided him back without touching anything. Mark checked the trailer lights. Gabriel accepted one bottle of water “for community hydration research.”
At 20:14, Darnell called them to a parking-lot dispute at a gym where one member had parked across two spaces to “protect his leg day investment.”
The vehicle was moved.
No one understood the phrase.
Not even the man who said it.
Two hours into shift, the Humvee smelled like fast food.
McDonald’s again.
Burgers for them.
Burgers for Silas.
Burgers for Alejandra, because food diplomacy with supervisors had become structure now.
Mark added apple slices again.
Gabriel called it “the fruit of procedural optimism.”
Thane drove toward Red Dirt ReBuild with the bags warm beside him and the morning still sitting wrong in his chest.
Gabriel noticed.
“You are thinking about him.”
“Yes.”
“He seemed off this morning.”
“Yes.”
Mark looked up from the tablet.
“He reported stable to Hale at 17:52.”
“Stable does not always mean okay,” Thane said.
Gabriel nodded.
“No.”
The warehouse lights came into view.
Silas was outside the open bay with Cam, both of them moving a set of heavy metal shelving under Alejandra’s direction. Silas was fully shifted, safety vest bright against charcoal fur, gray streaks catching the industrial light.
He looked good.
Strong.
Useful.
Wanted.
Then he turned at the sound of the Humvee, and the smile came automatically.
For half a second.
Then something in his face changed.
Thane saw it.
Not fear.
Overwhelm.
The kind that had been waiting all day for permission to arrive.
Alejandra saw it too.
Her eyes moved from Silas to Thane as the Humvee parked.
“Oh,” she muttered.
Gabriel climbed out with the bags.
“Management tribute.”
Alejandra took hers without a joke.
That worried everyone.
“How long?” Mark asked.
Alejandra looked at Silas.
“Depends.”
Silas looked at Thane.
His eyes were already wet.
“Break room?” Thane asked.
Silas nodded once.
The break room door stayed open.
That was the rule.
It also did not matter. The room felt private because everyone in the warehouse pretended very hard not to listen.
Silas sat at the table.
He did not touch the burger.
Thane sat across from him.
Gabriel sat beside Thane.
Mark stood near the counter with the apple slices and said nothing.
For a moment, the only sound was the hum of the vending machine.
Then Silas put his phone on the table and slid it toward Thane.
Thane looked at the screen.
A transcript.
His name.
His words.
He went cold.
“No.”
Gabriel leaned closer.
His expression changed immediately.
Mark crossed the room and stopped behind Thane.
Thane looked up.
“Silas.”
Silas’s face crumpled.
“You said that.”
Thane looked back at the transcript.
He knew the words.
Worse than that, he remembered the feeling behind them. The pressure. The love. The fear. The stupid, dangerous certainty that if the world would not open a door for Silas, Thane could tear the wall down and call it help.
The transcript sat there anyway.
Clean.
Typed.
Permanent.
Silas had highlighted part of it.
Thane read his own words.
He has spent his whole life being treated like the worst possible version of what he is. People saw strength and called it danger. Then he made that true. Fine. He did that. He owns it. But now he is trying. He is working. He is following every rule. He stops when told no. He asks before using strength. He is learning how to be wolf without making people afraid.
Silas’s voice shook.
“Keep going.”
Thane closed his eyes.
“You should not have seen this.”
“I did.”
“I am sorry.”
Silas leaned forward, tears already spilling.
“Read it.”
Thane looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel’s eyes were wet.
Mark’s face had gone still in the way it did when feeling had become too large to organize.
Thane looked back at the phone.
His voice came rough.
“You all saw him at the park. Or heard about it. He lifted under command. He was thanked by name. Do you know what that did to him? Do you understand what one person saying ‘Thanks, Silas’ did?”
Silas made a sound and covered his mouth.
Thane stopped.
Silas shook his head.
“No. Please.”
Thane swallowed.
Then continued.
“I want him to have a place where people are glad he showed up. I want him to be wolf and useful and appreciated. I want him to feel true happiness without having to steal it from someone else’s house.”
His voice broke.
Gabriel looked down.
Mark closed his eyes.
Thane forced the rest out.
“If it costs money, take mine. If it costs political risk, put it on me. If people get angry, let them be angry at me. If he needs a leg up, then give him one.”
The break room was silent.
Beyond the open door, something moved in the warehouse and then stopped.
Probably Cam.
Probably Alejandra stopping Cam.
Silas stared at Thane like he had never seen him before and had seen him exactly.
Thane slid the phone back gently.
“That was not for you.”
Silas’s breath hitched.
“I know.”
“I was wrong in that room.”
Silas blinked through tears.
Thane leaned forward.
“I need you to hear that. I was wrong. Not about you. Never about you. But I tried to put my hand on the scale. I tried to make them feel the size of what I felt. That was not fair to the process. It could have hurt your chance. It could have made people think money or pressure was driving decisions instead of your work.”
Silas shook his head, crying openly now.
“Thane.”
“I am sorry. You should not have had to hear my mistake dressed up as love.”
Silas stood so abruptly the chair scraped backward.
Thane stood too.
Silas crossed the space between them and grabbed him.
Not carefully at first.
Then carefully because even falling apart, Silas remembered his claws.
He wrapped around Thane with a growl so deep and broken that the break room seemed to vibrate with it.
Thane caught him.
Silas buried his face against Thane’s shoulder and sobbed.
Not the sweet tears of a room or a key.
Not only joy.
These were older.
Heavier.
The sound of a wound discovering someone had stood in front of it before it knew.
“You fought for me,” Silas said.
Thane held him tighter.
“Yes.”
“You really fought for me.”
“Yes.”
“Before I was pack.”
Thane’s eyes burned.
“Yes.”
“Before I earned this.”
“You were earning it.”
Silas shook against him.
“No one ever—”
“I know.”
“No one ever stood there and said—”
“I know.”
Silas’s claws tightened in Thane’s shirt.
“I heard it.”
Thane closed his eyes.
Silas sobbed harder.
“I heard you.”
Thane put one paw on the back of his head.
“I love you.”
Silas made another growling sound into his shoulder.
“I know.”
“I loved you then too.”
Silas’s knees almost gave.
Thane held him.
Gabriel stood and came around the table.
Mark came too.
Neither crowded him.
Not at first.
Silas reached blindly with one arm, and Gabriel was there. Then Mark.
Three wolves holding the fourth in a warehouse break room that smelled like fries, cardboard, dust, and too much feeling for seventeen minutes.
Silas lifted his head enough to look at Thane.
His face was soaked.
“You said you wanted me to feel true happiness without having to steal it.”
Thane nodded, unable to speak.
Silas’s voice shattered.
“I do.”
Thane’s breath caught.
“I feel it.”
Gabriel covered his face.
Mark’s hand tightened on Silas’s arm.
Silas looked at all three of them.
“I did not steal this.”
Thane’s voice broke.
“No.”
Silas shook his head.
“You gave it.”
“Yes.”
“And I earned it?”
Mark answered.
“Yes.”
Gabriel said, “Yes.”
Thane said, “Yes.”
Silas folded into them again.
Outside the break room, Alejandra’s voice snapped, “Cam, if you cry into that packing tape, I am making you buy more.”
Cam whispered, “I am not crying.”
Alejandra said, “Neither am I.”
Gabriel laughed through his tears.
Silas did too, helplessly, still holding Thane.
Thane looked toward the open door.
Alejandra stood just outside, arms folded, eyes red, expression murderous.
Thane said, “You okay?”
She glared.
“I have warehouse dust in both eyes.”
Mark said quietly, “There is limited dust accumulation in this area.”
Alejandra pointed at him.
“Do you want Silas to finish break or not?”
Mark closed his mouth.
Silas wiped his face and looked at her.
“I am sorry.”
She softened despite herself.
“Do not apologize for being loved.”
That nearly restarted everything.
Alejandra muttered, “Eat your burger before I regret being wise.”
Silas laughed wetly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He did not finish the burger.
Nobody pretended he would.
He ate half because Mark stood there until he did, and because Thane said Hale would consider emotional starvation a poor transition strategy.
Silas laughed at that.
Still crying.
Still overwhelmed.
Still okay.
When the break timer hit its edge, Silas stood.
His eyes were red.
His fur was damp along his face.
His smile was shaky but real.
“I have to work.”
Thane nodded.
“Yes.”
Silas looked at the phone on the table.
“I should tell Nora she sent it?”
Mark said, “Yes. Or Hale. The attachment may have been overinclusive.”
Silas looked nervous.
Thane put a paw on his shoulder.
“You are not in trouble for reading what was sent to you.”
“I should have stopped.”
“Maybe.”
Silas winced.
Thane squeezed gently.
“But you did not steal it. You did not hack it. You opened a file in your packet. We handle it clean.”
Silas nodded.
“I will message Nora after shift.”
“Good.”
He looked at Thane again.
“I am glad I heard it.”
Thane swallowed.
“I am still sorry.”
“I know.”
Silas stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“I am not sorry.”
Thane’s chest tightened.
Silas touched his forehead briefly to Thane’s.
Then turned and walked back into the warehouse.
Cam immediately tried to look busy and failed.
Alejandra handed Silas a clipboard with excessive force.
“Inventory. Feelings later.”
Silas took it.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Then, halfway to the shelving, he turned back.
“Thane.”
Thane looked up.
Silas smiled through red eyes.
“I am glad I showed up.”
The room went quiet again.
Thane smiled back.
“So are we.”
Alejandra made a rough sound and turned away.
“Dust,” she muttered.
Gabriel whispered, “Very dusty warehouse.”
Mark nodded.
“Severe localized conditions.”
They left before Alejandra could throw a fry at them.
The rest of Monday night was normal.
Not because the break room had been small.
Because normal was what came after.
Report.
Drive.
Assist.
Clear.
Repeat.
At 22:18, a caller reported a suspicious person “tampering with mailboxes” at a row of duplexes. The suspicious person was a teenager trying to retrieve his own college acceptance packet after realizing he had used his mother’s key ring and not his own. His mother arrived, cried, and then grounded him for making the police attend his admissions celebration.
Gabriel congratulated him.
Mark reminded him that mail tampering statutes existed.
Thane told Mark to let the kid have the moment.
At 23:04, they assisted Grant with a minor crash in a grocery-store parking lot. Two drivers had backed into each other at low speed and both insisted the other had “come out of nowhere,” despite both vehicles clearly coming from parking spaces.
No injuries.
Moderate embarrassment.
Heavy bumper scuffing.
Gabriel called it a mutual reverse ambush.
Grant told him not to write that.
He did not.
At 00:11, Patel requested help checking an open door at a small accounting office.
The door had not been forced.
The owner, called from home, arrived in sweatpants and remembered he had left in a hurry after spilling coffee on a tax file.
Nothing missing.
Door secured.
Mark was quietly pained by the phrase “tax file coffee incident.”
At 01:02, a raccoon in a fast-food dumpster created a noise complaint, a false burglary alarm, and one panicked employee who declared it “roughly wolf-sized.”
Thane looked at the raccoon.
The raccoon looked at Thane.
Gabriel whispered, “Rival jurisdiction.”
Mark said, “No.”
The raccoon left voluntarily after the dumpster lid was propped open.
No force.
No arrest.
No interspecies incident.
At 02:20, they parked near Fairview Park for paperwork.
Thane filled out the grocery-lot crash supplement. Gabriel documented the mailbox call. Mark reviewed the accounting-office alarm.
The Humvee was quiet.
Whole.
That was the word Thane kept coming back to.
Not perfect.
Not finished.
Whole.
There was a difference.
Gabriel looked over from the passenger seat.
“You okay?”
Thane nodded.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
Thane thought of Silas in the break room, phone on the table, eyes destroyed by hearing love spoken when he had not been present to earn it.
He thought of the line.
I want him to have a place where people are glad he showed up.
He thought of Silas saying, I am glad I showed up.
Thane swallowed.
“Yes.”
Mark looked up from the back.
“It was not ideal that he received the transcript.”
“No.”
“But it did not harm him.”
Thane looked at the windshield.
“No.”
Gabriel’s voice softened.
“It helped.”
Thane nodded slowly.
“I think so.”
Mark closed the report.
“He knows something now that explanation alone may not have carried.”
Thane glanced back.
“What?”
Mark’s face was gentle.
“That you loved him before it was easy.”
The Humvee went quiet.
Gabriel looked out the window.
Thane blinked hard.
Before it was easy.
Before pack.
Before the bedroom.
Before the key.
Before Hale approval.
Before Silas had clean months behind him and a steady job and a place at their table.
Back when he was a damaged suspect in a secure room, chained because no one knew what else could hold him.
Thane had loved him then.
Not safely.
Not cleanly.
Not with perfect judgment.
But truly.
The radio crackled before he could answer.
“Night Shift, assist Darnell at 414 Willow. Caller reports neighbor’s sprinkler hitting his car intentionally.”
Gabriel slowly turned.
“No.”
Mark checked the call.
“Yes.”
Thane started the engine.
“Normal Monday.”
Gabriel pointed at the windshield.
“If Ron Morrow has returned to water-based crime, I am requesting hazard pay.”
It was not Ron Morrow.
It was a different neighbor with a rotating sprinkler, an unfortunate wind pattern, and a man who believed water spots on a black pickup constituted targeted aggression.
Mark confirmed the sprinkler arc was not intentionally directed.
Gabriel confirmed the complainant owned a towel.
Thane confirmed nobody needed jail.
Normal Monday continued.
At 04:37, Silas texted.
Home after work. At cabin. Stable. No issue. Nora says attachment was not intended for me and apologized. She said do not forward it. I will not.
Thane read it and breathed easier.
Then another message came.
I am still glad.
Thane stared at the words.
Gabriel leaned over.
Mark leaned forward.
Silas sent a third message.
You wanted me before I was good at being wanted.
Thane’s eyes burned.
He typed slowly.
Yes.
A pause.
Then:
Still do.
Silas replied:
I am in my room. My room. Pack den. I feel safe.
Thane showed the others.
Gabriel wiped at his face.
Mark looked down.
Thane answered:
Good. Sleep. We will be home after shift.
Silas:
Home.
Thane smiled.
Home.
Morning handoff was short.
Voss and Rusk arrived with coffee and the weary suspicion of detectives who could tell the night had carried more than the call log showed.
Crowe stood near the board.
“Anything major?” Voss asked.
Mark gave the calls in order.
“Lottery dispute. Church trailer assist. Gym parking issue. Dinner break. Mailbox misunderstanding. Parking-lot crash. Open door at accounting office. Raccoon-related alarm. Sprinkler complaint.”
Rusk looked at Gabriel.
“Raccoon-related?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Resolved through voluntary compliance.”
Voss looked at Thane.
“And dinner break?”
Thane met her eyes.
She knew.
Maybe not what.
Enough.
“Silas received an overinclusive transcript from the fire-service review meeting.”
Voss’s expression changed.
Rusk lowered his coffee slightly.
“The meeting?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel said softly, “Thane’s monologue.”
Rusk looked at Thane.
“Ouch.”
Thane nodded.
“Yes.”
Crowe’s face tightened.
“He okay?”
“Yes.”
Mark said, “Nora’s office confirmed it was not intended for him. Silas did not obtain it improperly. He will not forward it.”
Voss studied Thane.
“And emotionally?”
Thane thought about the break room.
The hug.
The growl.
The tears.
The sentence.
I am glad I showed up.
“He knows,” Thane said.
Voss softened.
Rusk nodded once.
“Sometimes that happens.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“What?”
Rusk took a sip of coffee.
“People hear the thing they were not supposed to hear, and it is the thing they needed.”
Crowe looked at the board.
“No operational issue?”
“No,” Mark said.
“No instability?”
“No.”
“Good.” Crowe looked at Thane. “Go home.”
Thane nodded.
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
Rusk watched them gather their things.
“Pack good?”
Gabriel smiled.
“Strong.”
Mark nodded.
“Stronger.”
Thane looked toward the garage.
“Whole.”
Voss’s face softened.
“Good.”
The drive home was quiet.
Early sun pushed pale light across Cross Timber.
The city looked ordinary. Streets. Fences. Mailboxes. Sprinklers behaving themselves. A fast-food dumpster now raccoon-free.
The cabin waited beyond the trees.
Silas was inside it.
In his room.
Sleeping, maybe.
Safe, hopefully.
Pack, certainly.
Thane parked the Humvee and shut off the engine.
For a moment, the three of them sat still.
Then Gabriel said quietly, “He heard you fight for him.”
Thane nodded.
Mark said, “And came home after.”
That was the part.
Not that Silas had cried.
Not that he had hugged Thane hard enough to bruise anyone who bruised normally.
Not even that he finally knew the words.
He had heard them.
He had worked.
He had reported cleanly.
He had come home.
Thane opened the door and stepped out.
Inside, the cabin was quiet.
The great room held the soft after-scent of Silas: work dust, soap, wolf fur, sleep, home.
His keys hung on the hook.
Down the hall, Silas’s bedroom door was partly open.
A low, steady breathing came from inside.
Thane stopped outside the door.
Gabriel and Mark stopped beside him.
Silas was asleep on the bed in full wolf form, one arm thrown over a pillow, covers tangled around his waist, phone on the nightstand, charger plugged in.
Home.
Not temporary.
Not borrowed.
Not stolen.
Home.
Thane did not wake him.
He only stood there for a moment and let himself see the thing he had once begged a room full of cautious people to imagine.
A place where Silas was glad to show up.
A place where he was wolf and useful and appreciated.
A place where happiness had not been stolen from anyone.
Gabriel leaned lightly against Thane’s shoulder.
Mark stood close on the other side.
Silas slept.
The pack breathed.
Strong.
Whole.
Good.
Thane backed away quietly and let Silas rest.
There would be work later.
Rules later.
Mistakes later.
Laughter later.
Maybe even another felony voice demand later, because Thane was still Thane and mercy had limits.
But for now, Monday night was over.
The den was full.
And their pack was home.