Evening settled into Libby the way music settles into a room no one asked to be quiet in. The south had been tested and held. The gate had made its point. The truck of raiders was long gone, wheels chewing dirt somewhere past where decency ran out. The pack—some still half-dusted from the road, others already joking about whose turn it was to light the lanterns—crossed the square on sure paws and tired legs, pulled back toward the warm hearth of their den, mission complete.
The cabin welcomed them with all the usual expected grace. The stove clicked and hissed as if it had been waiting, the air smelled like tea, woodsmoke, and a dozen stories not yet told. Rime entered first, doing his perimeter ritual with the door before letting the others pass. Holt ducked in second, muttering about soup. Mark followed, already unrolling one of the maps near the table and making a note about patrol paths. Gabriel took the corner chair, guitar in hand, tuning half in rhythm and half in thought.
Kade paused at the door for half a breath, one clawed hand over the frame—not hesitation, but gratitude disguised as careful posture.
Thane stepped in last, looked once around the den, and allowed the weight of the day to drop into the floorboards with his paws.
“Close the door,” he said, voice lower but steady. “Cold’s had enough of us today.”
Rime clicked the bolt into place.
Inside, the den rolled into its familiar chaos—Rime lighting lamps, Holt claiming the ladle and stirring nothing in particular with grave authority, Gabriel plucking a bad blues riff that made Mark say “please don’t” without looking up. Noise swirled easily, in that way that felt like music made by people who trusted one another.
Thane crossed to the long sofa beneath the window and sat down, shoulders tired but unbowed. He angled his body slightly—space open beside him.
Kade saw the opening and moved toward it with the energy of a wolf who had earned a place but wasn’t sure yet if he was allowed to relax into it. He sat, careful at first, and then let himself ease back an inch. Not quite shoulder to shoulder, but close enough to share heat.
For a long minute they said nothing. The kind of nothing that filled a room with ease.
Then Kade looked over, yellow eyes still bright under dusk lamplight.
“You didn’t kill them,” he said.
Thane didn’t pretend the reference was unclear. “No.”
“They shot you. Point blank. Came to take what was ours. And still you left them alive.” Kade exhaled, slow. “That’s… not what happens where I’m from.”
“No?” Thane asked, the smallest tilt of amusement in his voice.
“No.” Kade shook his head. “Where I’m from, they’d be dead. Skinned, maybe even left in the open as a message. Or at best—limbs shattered, sent away crawling. Instead you made a man apologize to steel and left him his legs.”
Thane turned his gaze toward the window, where snow drift was layered like discarded parchment. “Mercy is not pacifism,” he said. “Mercy is knowing exactly how far you could go and choosing a shorter road instead.”
Kade turned that over a few times behind his teeth and then nodded, slowly. “You did teach him something. I saw it on his face. Fear… but also confusion. He didn’t know how to process the idea that brutality wasn’t the default.”
“He will,” Thane said. “Confusion is a seed. Let it sprout.”
Kade huffed a quiet laugh—old instincts arguing delightedly with new philosophy. “I respect that,” he said. “Weapons down. Lesson learned. Gate forgiven.” He shook his head. “You are the kind of Alpha I was always hoping existed.”
Thane didn’t answer that with words. The ache and weight in his posture said enough: leadership was a burden carried best when no one had to admire it.
From the table, Holt’s voice boomed like he was practicing for an amphitheater. “Soup is… not soup. Yet. Needs liquid. Fire. Ingredients.”
Mark didn’t look up from his notebook. “So everything, then?”
“Small details,” Holt said, lifting the ladle like a scepter. “Soup will exist. Trust process.”
Gabriel nodded gravely from behind his guitar. “Art and cooking have that in common. No one sees the nonsense until it becomes delicious.”
Rime snorted. “You use fire on guitars?”
“Sometimes,” Gabriel deadpanned.
Kade glanced over at Thane, eyes bright with the kind of awe that belonged to someone who might’ve forgotten this level of ease existed. “Do they always do this?”
“Yes,” Thane said. “This is the quiet version.”
The laughter slid through Kade like someone pouring warm metal over cracked stone.
“They said something earlier,” Kade continued, “during lunch. I didn’t think to ask until now. Something about… no shoes?”
Thane blinked. Then the grin happened—one of the rare ones. The one that changed the gravel in his voice to more of a rumble.
“Right,” he said, leaning back. “That.”
Kade adjusted on the sofa, all earnest interest and wolf instinct. “Gabriel mentioned it. Holt threatened it. I noticed no one wears them in here. Thought maybe it was… I don’t know, a rule of the house. But he made it sound like… culture.”
“It is,” Thane said. “It’s a wolf thing. Or it is in this den.”
Kade blinked, waiting.
Thane put a hand over one of his own clawed feet, tapping the thick pads beneath. “Powerful paws mean powerful you. Clawed feet are meant for ground. For grip. For balance. For work.”
Kade stared down at his own feet—dark claws hooked and sharp, fur splitting around knuckles, toes spread naturally on the wooden floor. He spread them more, feeling the full surface. Something clicked. “So shoes… get in the way.”
“Exactly,” Thane said. “Unless,” he added, voice dropping with mock solemnity, “you have powerful—or aggressive—human shoes. Most don’t.”
Kade broke into a laugh that shook loose every last knot of tension left from the gate. “That makes so much sense,” he said. “I’ve… never once heard someone put it that way. But it’s true. Feet are weapons. Balance. Everything. It never crossed my mind that shoes were the problem.”
“Shoes,” Holt rumbled from the table, “are human nonsense. Slow you. Muffle toes. Socks are betrayal. Den does not allow betrayal.”
“Tell that to the laundry basket,” Gabriel muttered.
Rime pointed with a claw without turning his head. “Laundry basket can’t run from Holt.”
They all paused a moment and looked toward the hallway like they half-expected the basket to roll past on its own.
Kade chuckled again, leaning back deeper into the couch. “Powerful paws,” he repeated, as if memorizing a code. “Powerful me.”
Thane nodded. “One of the house truths around here.”
“What’re the others?” Kade asked, genuinely curious.
Thane lifted a single finger. “Under my roof means under my oath.”
Second finger. “You leave the den, you say where you go. So we don’t hunt ghosts.”
Third. “You break something, you fix it. Or you tell somebody who can.”
Fourth. “If Holt says it’s ‘not soup,’ it’s probably a war crime in progress.”
“YES,” Holt boomed.
“Fifth,” Thane said, flicking his chin toward Gabriel. “Music is always allowed, unless it makes Mark write threatening letters to the concept of melody.”
Mark didn’t even look up. “The songs were fine. The lyrics were a felony.”
“Still writing that letter,” Gabriel said.
Kade sat there soaking it up—this collective, this offbeat communion held together by truth and sarcasm and the quiet unbroken line from one beating heart to another. He exhaled, slow, content. “You know,” he said. “In my old pack, strength meant solitude. It meant fear. Down to the bone. Everything was edged.”
“And here?” Thane asked.
“Here,” Kade said, “strength looks like shared bowls. Like unlocked doors. Like… the right kind of noise.”
Thane worked his shoulder unconsciously, where the earlier bullet hole had already faded to almost nothing beneath the shirt. He said nothing for a moment.
Then: “You fit here. Doesn’t mean you have to. But if you stay, the work will be real. The rules—harder than they look. Loyalty has sharp teeth. So does quiet.”
Kade nodded. “I’m ready for sharp things. I’m tired of the blunt ones.”
Thane grunted once—a nod of approval.
Across the room, Holt finally declared war on the soup, dragging the pot to the center table. “Soup exists,” he announced, voice full and holy. “Witness.”
Rime sniffed. “Not soup. Stew.”
“It has liquid,” Holt snarled.
“Barely,” Rime said.
Gabriel strummed a chord that almost fit the tone. “Holt, what was your ratio again? Two parts potato to one part onion, seven parts ‘don’t question me,’ and one part water?”
“Yes,” Holt said proudly.
Mark scribbled a formula. “I think that technically qualifies as porridge wearing a hat.”
Kade turned to Thane with the grin of a man who’d been gently mugged by friendship.
“I would like,” he said, “to stay.”
“Then stay,” Thane said plainly.
Kade leaned back more fully into the sofa. For the first time in a long time, he let his guard drop—just enough to believe the wood wouldn’t splinter beneath him, the walls wouldn’t thin, the air wouldn’t turn sharp.
Thane watched him settle. Watched the newcomer’s claws rest easily against the grain of the floor. Watched yellow eyes soften just a shade under lamplight.
“Welcome to the pack,” Thane said at last.
Kade nodded. “Feels like it.”
Gabriel played something bright and crooked. Holt declared everyone must taste the not-soup or confess cowardice. Rime quietly stoked the stove, refusing to stand down until the fire’s heartbeat matched the room’s.
Outside, the dark took its time. Inside, legs uncurled, hands brushed, jokes landed, and a wolf who had once walked alone found himself in the heart of something he understood for the first time with more than instinct:
Home.