The phone rang mid-morning.
It wasn’t the sound that startled them — it was what it meant.
Thane was at the workbench tightening a terminal block when the new phone, the one Mark had wired in from City Hall, gave a sharp, old-world trill. He blinked once, looked up at the others, and reached for the receiver.
“Cabin,” he said simply.
Hank’s voice came through, strained but professional. “Thane, you might wanna come down to the west gate. Got three wolves here. Not locals. Say they want to speak with you — urgent. Said something about… returning someone.”
Thane’s eyes flicked toward Kade.
Kade froze mid-step near the stove. His claws lightly scraped the floorboards before he caught himself. That tiny sound said everything — the sort of involuntary noise only fear makes.
Thane’s tone didn’t change. “We’ll be there in five.”
He hung up. The click sounded heavier than the ring had.
“Trouble?” Gabriel asked, leaning against the counter.
Thane’s gaze stayed on Kade. “Maybe. Three wolves at the gate looking for someone.”
Mark caught the tension instantly. “And Kade’s got that look.”
Kade tried to speak evenly, but the words dragged. “They’re from my old pack,” he said quietly. “It has to be. My Alpha doesn’t let wolves just… leave.”
Holt straightened, ears tilting forward. “They come take you back?”
“That’s what it means,” Kade admitted. “If Sable told them where I went… then they know.”
Rime stepped closer, calm as ever. “We go with him. Yes?”
Thane nodded. “All of us.”
He reached for his coat and radio harness, though they all knew this wasn’t going to be a shooting problem — not unless the visitors wanted it to be. “Let’s move.”
The air outside bit cold and clean. Libby’s streets were quiet but watchful — people sensed the shift the way animals do before a storm. The pack moved together: Thane in front, Gabriel and Mark flanking, Rime and Holt walking just behind Kade like instinct itself had formed a bodyguard detail.
As they neared the west gate, Hank’s deputy raised a hand in signal. Beyond the heavy steel doors, three wolves stood on the old county road — snow dusting their fur, breath steaming like fog around them. They were all northern-born: taller, leaner, rougher. Their pelts were more wild than civilized, matted in places from travel and weather.
The one in the center stood straight and steady, scarred across the muzzle with eyes like yellow fire. His voice, when he spoke, carried the slight clipped edge of someone who had learned human speech but never liked the taste of it.
“You are Alpha of this place?” he asked.
“I am,” Thane said evenly. “And you are standing at my gate.”
The wolf inclined his head — not respectful, but not reckless either. “I am Varro. I speak for our Alpha — Tarrik of the Iron Ridge Pack.”
“Tarrik,” Thane repeated, filing the name like a weapon. “And what does Tarrik want?”
Varro’s eyes moved past him to Kade. “That one.”
Kade’s jaw tightened. His claws flexed against the frozen ground.
Thane didn’t look back. “Why?”
Another wolf on Varro’s right — younger, rough-faced, voice rougher still — growled low. “He leave. No permission. Alpha say traitor. He come back. Face judgment.”
Varro lifted a hand and silenced the younger one with a look. Then, in calm, steady English: “He broke oath. Walked away without leave. No wolf leaves Iron Ridge alive. Tarrik demands his return to answer for it.”
Thane’s tone stayed calm, but his eyes had the edge of a drawn blade. “He has a home now. Here.”
Varro frowned. “You claim him?”
“I do,” Thane said simply. “He’s part of my pack. My responsibility. And my protection.”
The third wolf — the largest of the trio — stepped forward with a snarl. “You think walls stop Alpha’s law?”
Hank and his deputy, standing behind the gate controls, tensed automatically, hands on rifles but not raising them. They didn’t need to; Thane’s pack didn’t flinch.
Thane took one slow step closer. The snow under his claws crunched in the silence. “You want to test those walls? Be my guest. You’ll find out fast that our laws are older than your threats.”
Varro’s expression shifted, irritation flickering beneath restraint. He studied Thane like a wolf reading a language he didn’t quite know but suspected was dangerous.
Kade stayed still, but Thane could feel the tension radiating off him like heat. This was the first time the others had seen him unsure — the Pathfinder whose calm never cracked now standing like a man facing ghosts.
Thane glanced back at him once. “You know them?”
Kade’s voice was low. “The middle one’s Varro. He is Tarrik’s right hand. The others… pack enforcers. If Tarrik sent them, it means he’s serious.”
Varro’s gaze fixed on Kade. “Why leave?” he demanded. “Why run south and hide among humans?”
Kade met his eyes. “Because I wanted to live without fear. Without watching wolves tear each other down because the Alpha said it was strength.”
The younger wolf spat into the snow. “Weak talk.”
“No,” Kade replied. “It’s honest talk.”
Thane turned back to the three northerners. “You have your answer. Kade’s not going anywhere.”
Varro’s voice cooled. “This is not a request.”
“Then it’s not a negotiation either,” Thane said. “You came to the wrong town for that.”
The youngest wolf bristled. “You stand between Alpha and justice?”
Thane took another deliberate step forward. “I stand between my pack and anyone who thinks they can drag one of us away. You’ll leave now, and you’ll tell your Alpha that Kade belongs to Libby — under my oath. You want him, you come through me.”
The wind paused. Even the snow seemed to stop falling.
Then Holt moved.
He stepped forward, slow, deliberate, placing himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Thane. His massive frame blocked half the road, eyes locked on the northern wolves like an avalanche deciding when to fall. Rime came next, calm and silent, taking the opposite flank — one paw settling lightly in the snow beside Thane’s.
Varro’s expression faltered. The posturing melted into calculation. He took in the line — Thane’s calm certainty, Holt’s looming strength, Rime’s steady precision — and something in him understood the math wasn’t worth the blood.
Thane let the silence hang until it became truth. “We’re done here.”
Varro stared another heartbeat, then gave a single nod. “You make enemy of Iron Ridge.”
Thane’s reply was soft, and therefore final. “You’ll have to get in line.”
The three wolves turned. The younger one threw a glare over his shoulder at Kade. “He pay later.”
Rime’s claws twitched. “Maybe you pay sooner.”
They vanished down the road, gray against gray until they were just motion and distance again.
The gate closed with a heavy clang that sounded more like punctuation than defense.
Kade stood there, still looking in the direction they’d gone. His breath came too slow for calm, too fast for ease.
Thane turned to him. “You good?”
Kade blinked, then exhaled. “I didn’t think you’d stop them.”
Thane frowned slightly. “You really thought I’d hand you over?”
“You don’t know Tarrik,” Kade said. “He’s not the kind of Alpha who lets things go. If it meant keeping peace, I thought—”
Thane cut him off gently. “Kade. There’s no peace worth selling a packmate for.”
Rime grunted. “He right.”
Holt stepped closer, resting a heavy paw on Kade’s shoulder. “You safe here. No one take you from pack.”
Kade looked at him, a little lost, a little awed. “You’d fight for me?”
Holt’s teeth showed in a grin that could melt snow. “Already did. Just not need claws today.”
Mark, still leaning on the gate’s inside rail, added dryly, “And if they had tried? They’d have found out the hard way that we keep the good ammo for guests like that.”
Gabriel chuckled from behind him. “And the loudspeakers. Nothing ruins intimidation like a blast of classic rock.”
Kade gave a shaky laugh — the kind of laugh that sounded like it hadn’t been used in years. The weight started to slide off his shoulders piece by piece.
Rime tilted his head. “Why so fear?”
“They’re not like us,” Kade said. “They don’t talk things out. They don’t forgive. When someone leaves, it’s betrayal. And betrayal means blood. I thought maybe—” He looked at Thane again, voice quiet. “I thought maybe I’d brought trouble on you.”
Thane’s tone softened but stayed steady. “Kade, we are trouble. Ask anyone. But we’re the kind that keeps people safe.”
Gabriel stepped closer, elbowed Kade lightly. “You really think the guy who told an armed raider to apologize to a gate is gonna fold because some snow-wolves stomp their paws?”
That finally cracked a full smile out of Kade. “Guess not.”
“Exactly,” Mark said. “You’re one of us now. That means you get the full Libby guarantee: chaos, chores, and unconditional protection.”
Holt nodded enthusiastically. “And stew.”
“Don’t forget stew,” Rime echoed deadpan, which somehow made it even funnier.
Kade’s eyes softened, the fear replaced with something steadier — belonging. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t,” Thane said simply. “Just stay. Do your job. Live your life. The rest will sort itself out.”
They stood there a while longer, the cold air quieting into that particular peace that only comes after the possibility of violence fades.
Finally, Thane looked back at the town. “Let’s go home.”
Back at the cabin, the mood had loosened by the time the stove crackled back to life. Gabriel pulled strings of heat from the guitar while Mark checked the relay logs on the new phone line. Holt busied himself ladling leftovers into bowls the size of hubcaps.
Kade sat by the window, watching the last of the daylight crawl across the snow. He looked… lighter somehow. Not free of worry, but freer than he’d been in a long time.
Rime leaned against the doorframe, eyes half-closed. “They come back?”
“They might,” Kade said quietly. “Tarrik doesn’t like losing.”
Rime nodded once. “Then we teach him how it feel.”
Holt rumbled a low laugh. “Lesson cost extra.”
That earned another grin from Kade — a real one this time.
Thane came over and set a bowl beside him. “Eat,” he said. “Can’t defend the town on an empty stomach.”
Kade looked up, a small flicker of gratitude warming the yellow of his eyes. “Thank you. For standing up for me. For… all of this.”
Thane shrugged, half-smile curving the corner of his mouth. “You’d have done the same for us.”
Kade hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I would.”
Gabriel strummed a lazy chord in the background. “That’s how it starts, you know,” he said. “You show up scared, end up family.”
“Pretty good deal,” Mark added, not looking up from his notes.
Holt raised his bowl. “To pack.”
Rime echoed, “To pack.”
Thane lifted his mug in silent agreement, eyes on the team — wolves and humans and everything between — all of them bound not by fear, but by choice.
Kade looked down at his own bowl, then around the room, and finally said the words he hadn’t been able to before.
“To pack,” he murmured.
Outside, the wind shifted north, carrying the faintest echo of wolves on the move — distant, restless, fading. But inside Libby, the den stayed warm, and no one looked back.