Snow still covered the valley, but inside the Libby cabin, the air was golden.
Firelight climbed the walls and danced across the worn wood floor. The smell of venison stew filled the room, thick and rich with spice. Holt had taken over stirring duty, which meant half the kitchen smelled like food and the other half like chaos.
“Not so fast, you’re splashing it,” Gabriel said, ducking a bit of stew as Holt turned the spoon like a weapon.
“It’s fine!” Holt grinned, tail flicking. “Art in motion.”
Rime, sitting at the table, deadpanned, “It not look like that.”
Mark, from the corner, chuckled. “You’re all insane.”
Thane leaned against the doorframe, watching it all with that quiet, patient smile of someone who understood that this chaos was what life was supposed to sound like. Behind him, Varro stood uncertain, still bandaged from the battle, still half expecting to be told to leave.
He hadn’t spoken much since Sable’s pack departed that morning. He’d slept like a soldier—light, alert, waiting for orders that never came. Now, he stood just inside the threshold, shoulders squared but not relaxed, gaze moving from the table to the fire to the pack and back again.
Kade noticed him first.
“You can sit, you know,” he said gently. “You’re not on trial here.”
Varro hesitated. “I know,” he said, but he didn’t move.
Thane tilted his head. “Do you?”
That earned him a glance — not defiant, just lost.
“I don’t know what I know,” Varro admitted. “Everything feels wrong.”
“Different,” Thane corrected softly. “Not wrong.”
Varro blinked, considering the word. Different. He let it roll around in his head like a stone he didn’t quite recognize.
Kade stepped forward, grabbed a second bowl, and ladled stew into it.
“Eat,” he said, offering it out. “You walked away from them. That’s enough.”
Varro took the bowl slowly, like it might bite him. His fingers brushed Kade’s for half a heartbeat before he pulled away, sitting near the fire. He didn’t start eating right away. He just stared at it.
Holt laughed. “You look at food like not sure it friend.”
Varro looked up, almost startled. “Where I come from, food isn’t… this. You don’t just hand it out.”
“How’s it work up north?” Gabriel asked, leaning back in his chair.
Varro’s tone was flat, factual — the only way he could tell it without breaking. “Tarrik eats first. Then his chosen. Then the strong. Then the rest.”
Rime frowned. “Then not much left.”
“Sometimes nothing,” Varro said quietly. “That was the point.”
The silence that followed was respectful, heavy without pity. Holt’s spoon slowed. Gabriel’s joking expression faded into something harder.
Kade broke it with a steady voice. “And now?”
Varro glanced at him. “Now… I don’t know where to fit.”
Thane finally moved from the doorway, his paws soft against the wood. “You fit where you stand,” he said. “You chose us. You stayed. You didn’t run. That’s all the proof anyone needs.”
He stepped closer to the fire, resting a hand on Varro’s shoulder. “You earned your place. Now you live it.”
Varro’s throat worked once, twice, before he managed, “No one’s ever said that to me.”
Thane gave a small smile. “Then it’s long overdue.”
Rime leaned back in his chair, tail tapping the floor. “Pack not about who first,” he said. “Pack about who still here.”
Varro looked between them — at Rime’s calm certainty, Holt’s relaxed grin, Kade’s steady gaze, Gabriel’s quiet focus, Thane’s composure — and for the first time since he’d set foot in the cabin, something broke loose inside him. He felt it in his chest first, then behind his eyes.
He set the bowl down and covered his face with his paws. It wasn’t a sob at first — just a breath that got lost on the way out. Then another. Then the tears came, silent and heavy.
No one moved for a moment. Then Kade stepped forward, knelt beside him, and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey,” he said softly. “You’re okay.”
Varro shook his head, voice trembling. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?” Kade asked.
“Be… safe,” Varro said. “Be… welcome.”
He dropped to one knee, unable to stop it now, the weight of years pressing down. “I thought strength was pain. I thought loyalty meant silence. I thought… this,” he gestured weakly at the fire, the warmth, the laughter, “was something people made up to feel better before they died.”
Thane moved behind him, his presence steady and warm. “This is what it’s supposed to be,” he said quietly. “No chains. No fear. Just trust.”
Varro’s voice cracked. “You feed me. You let me sleep under your roof. You call me one of you. I don’t deserve it.”
Thane’s voice softened, but it still carried weight. “Forget ‘deserve.’ You’re here because you chose better. And we chose you back. That’s all there is.”
Varro bowed his head lower, shoulders shaking. “I can’t—”
Thane’s hand came down gently on the back of his neck, a gesture that was both grounding and command. “You can. And you will.”
Kade’s voice joined, soft but certain. “We’re not your old pack, Varro. We don’t rule by fear. We live by bond.”
Holt, trying to help in his own way, added with a grin, “And good food.”
That got a wet laugh out of Varro. Rime reached over and slid the bowl closer again. “Eat,” he said. “Stew gets cold. Feel worse than claws.”
Varro wiped his eyes, breathing hard. “You all just… live like this?”
“Every damn day,” Gabriel said. “More or less. Sometimes less tidy.”
“It’s messy,” Mark added from the corner. “But it’s real.”
Varro picked up the bowl again. The steam fogged his eyes, and he blinked it away. He took a bite. It was good — painfully, overwhelmingly good. For a long while, no one said anything. They didn’t have to.
The fire cracked, the laughter came back in small pieces, the sound of spoons and claws on wood filling the silence. The tension bled out of the room like thawed ice.
Holt leaned back, tail flicking. “So, thinker wolf,” he said with a grin. “What plan now?”
Varro blinked. “Plan?”
“Yeah.” Holt tapped his temple. “You think. We smash. Good balance.”
Varro hesitated, then said quietly, “In Iron Ridge… every plan was about fear. What he’d do if we failed.”
Holt’s grin faded to something softer. “Then no more that,” he said. “Here, we plan for each other.”
Varro looked down, then nodded once — a slow, quiet acceptance.
Thane smirked. “We plan by reason. And usually caffeine.”
Gabriel raised his mug. “Mostly caffeine.”
Varro let out something between a sigh and a laugh. “That’s new.”
“Get used to new,” Thane said. “You’re going to see a lot of it here.”
Rime nodded toward the window. “Tomorrow, show trails. We map. You help.”
Varro looked up. “You’d trust me with that already?”
Kade answered before Thane could. “We already do.”
It was simple. No ceremony. No testing. Just truth. Varro’s eyes glistened again, but he held it together this time.
Later that night, the den quieted. Holt was half-asleep against the couch; Rime was out cold, head on the table. Gabriel had gone out to check the generator, Mark to close up the gate. Kade sat by the fire, still awake. Varro moved beside him, hesitant but wanting to speak.
“I used to think silence meant safety,” Varro said quietly.
Kade nodded. “It does, sometimes.”
Varro shook his head. “Not there. There, silence meant fear. Here…” He looked around — at the sleeping wolves, at the warmth, at the small, ordinary peace of the room. “…here, it means peace.”
Kade smiled. “That’s the difference.”
Thane walked back in then, the cold air trailing him, coat dusted with snow. He saw Varro awake and stopped beside him.
“Get some rest,” Thane said gently. “Tomorrow, we work the south trails.”
Varro nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”
Thane’s brow furrowed faintly. “You don’t have to call me that here.”
Varro blinked. “But you are.”
Thane gave a quiet chuckle. “Yeah. But around here, it means something different.”
Varro tilted his head. “How so?”
Thane looked toward the others, asleep and safe. “It means I walk with you — not ahead of you. That’s what it’s supposed to mean.”
Varro took that in, slow and deep. Then, for the first time, he smiled — real, small, fragile but true. “I understand.”
Thane nodded once. “Good. Then you’ll fit right in.”
As Thane turned away, Varro looked back into the fire. The flames shifted and cracked, soft gold against the scars on his arms. He touched one absentmindedly — a mark from Tarrik’s claws — and then let his hand drop. The wound didn’t ache anymore.
He whispered, almost to himself, “This is what pack feels like.”
Kade heard it but didn’t interrupt. He just smiled quietly and stared into the fire with him.
Outside, the snow kept falling — slow, clean, unthreatening. Inside, warmth and laughter lingered in the air, like ghosts that refused to leave because they were finally welcome.
For the first time in his life, Varro felt full. Not just with food, but with belonging.
And when sleep finally took him, it was the kind that came to wolves who no longer had to wake up afraid.