“I was ten minutes out when I got the call.” Bronc shifted me to sit up more on the couch, his eyes never leaving my face. They were the bluest things I’d ever seen. “Maddie brought you?”
Pearl nodded. “And stayed to help. You ain’t the only one cares about this girl.”
The cabin’s front door creaked, and I turned to see Maddie with the last of the dishes. Her grin was wide and teasing as she spotted us. “If it isn’t Bronc, the Overbearing.”
“Glad you came to help, but I got this.” His voice was brusque but not unkind. He set a firm hand on my shoulder, like he thought I might bolt for the door.
“Your growly ass needs more than one woman to look after it,” Maddie said. Her voice was playful, but there was a deep affection behind it.
I watched, bleary-eyed, as they bickered in a way that only siblings can. Bronc’s intense gaze cut back to me every few seconds, but when he was sure I wouldn’t vanish into thin air, he went to the table, finally settling in.
He ran a hand through his hair, exhaled hard. “Alright, then.”
Maddie joined Pearl, setting down a salad bowl with a flourish. “You can’t hover forever. She’s tougher than you think.”
He leveled a look at her but didn’t argue, the tension in his shoulders easing by a fraction.
I hadn’t moved from the couch, and maybe it was that fact as much as anything that finally convinced him I wasn’t at death’s door. Not quite. I let out a slow breath as they continued setting the table, the scene so warm and familial that I felt like an intruder in my own body.
Pearl caught my eye and gestured to the open seat. “You comin’ or not, girl?”
I pushed myself upright, glad that Bronc let me do this on my own. And despite the way my vision slightly spun, I made it to the table. Bronc had taken the chair closest to mine, a little surprised that I’d moved at all.
The clink of cutlery and the low murmur of voices filled the space. The soup, once I lifted the spoon, was hot and rich, slipping down my throat like liquid gold. It was comforting, like the warmth of the cabin and the glow of the people around me.
I couldn’t quite believe I was here, watching myself sit at this table, as if I were a character in someone else’s life.
Pearl ladled more soup with a mother’s care. “Eat up, darlin’.”
She filled Bronc’s bowl with the same insistence, and I hid a smile as he obliged, though it was clear he had one eye on me, checking that I was eating as well.
We were halfway through the meal when Bronc’s foot nudged mine under the table. “You hangin’ in there?” His voice was low, meant for me alone.
“You bet.” I felt the weight of everything all at once, my fatigue and the strange new world I’d been thrust into. I was a little anxious and grateful and dizzy with both.
He reached for my hand, giving it a squeeze that shot warmth up my arm. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “You got this.” The words were as much promise as encouragement.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak without my voice breaking.
Pearl smiled softly at me, like she knew everything I couldn’t say. “Always a tough night for first-timers. You’ll not just make it through; you’re gonna love it.”
There were more voices then, rising and falling in the shared rhythm of an unexpected family. My family, whether or not I believed it. I felt the weight of their certainty as strong as I felt the exhaustion dragging me down.
Maddie winked at me, her laughter a light through my haze. “Yep, we’ll keep you around. I’m happy I’m not the only girl around here besides Scar.”
The minutes blurred like the light through the windows. It was too surreal to be real, yet there I was. A girl with shifter blood, facing the full moon with a pack by her side.
The light was dimmer still when the men arrived. They came in like giants, their presence expanding to fill the cabin with something dense and unyielding. I watched them from the dining table, where I sat like a tired ghost. Bridger was first, broad andsharp-eyed. Eli and Jess were with him, moving through the room like shadows through smoke. JT followed, smiling in his way that suggested everything would be alright. When Ryder appeared, closing the door behind them all, the room felt smaller but infinitely safer. Bronc hovered close, still vigilant even with his closest brothers surrounding us.
“Juliet.” Bridger’s voice was a low rumble, more than a greeting. It was reassurance wrapped in a single word. As Bronc’s VP, Menace was the man he trusted the most. The others echoed it in their own ways, brief nods and tight grips as they took their places.
My senses had dulled and sharpened at once. The warmth from the earlier meal lingered in my bones, battling the fever that hadn’t left. My head was clearer, enough to absorb the weight of what was happening around me.
I’d met them all before, but never like this. They stood or sat, towering over the space with a careful watchfulness that bordered on reverence. They weren’t the Iron Valor men I’d known, hard-edged and battle-ready. They were brothers, every last one of them, and they had come for me, their Luna.
JT was closest, larger than life, leaning in to speak over the low hum of the room. “Full moon jitters, huh?” Big Papa's smile was a beacon, despite his scars, cutting through the fatigue that threatened to pull me under. This man, the chaplain, would pray over me, and I know he’d protect me as well.
I nodded, unable to find words that didn’t sound small and inadequate in the face of their concern.
