“Coming,” I called back, catching Nate's amused look as I headed for the kitchen.
“Show-off,” he muttered, but there was affection in it.
“Your boyfriend's very useful to have around,” Anna said as I retrieved whatever she needed from the high cabinet. “Tall, strong, apparently skilled with tools. You should keep him.”
“I'm planning on it,” Nate said from the doorway, and the simple certainty in his voice made something fierce and protective rise in my chest.
Mine. Pack. Family. Home.
All the words I'd never been good at saying, wrapped up in the smell of coffee and sawdust and Anna's homemade cookies cooling on the counter.
This was worth protecting. Worth fighting for.
Worth whatever was coming next.
Later,Michael's truck purred to life like a contented cat, and Anna's new deck was framed and ready for boards. The late afternoon sun slanted through the windows, casting everything in golden light that made even the sawdust motes look magical.
“That's the sound of a properly tuned engine,” Michael said with deep satisfaction, wiping grease from his hands on a rag that had seen better days. “She'll run like a dream now.”
Gideon nodded approvingly from where he was packing tools back into their case. “Good work. You've got steady hands.”
The compliment made Michael beam like a kid getting praise from a favorite teacher, and I found myself grudgingly grateful that Gideon was here. Whatever secrets he'd kept, whatever lies of omission had shaped my childhood, he was good for Michael in ways that had nothing to do with magic or supernatural politics.
He was just a man who understood the satisfaction of fixing something that was broken.
“Dinner's in an hour,” Anna announced, appearing with a tray of those cookies that had been perfuming the entire house. “I made enough for an army, so don't even think about leaving hungry.”
“Ma'am,” Cal said with exaggerated politeness, “I would never dream of insulting your hospitality.”
“Good boy,” Anna said approvingly, and Cal practically preened under her attention.
“You staying for dinner?” Nate asked, bumping my shoulder with his.
“If your mom's cooking, I'm staying,” I said honestly. “I'm not stupid.”
“No,” he agreed, reaching up to brush sawdust from my hair with careful fingers. “But you are covered in half the house.”
The casual intimacy of the gesture, performed without thought in front of his parents and my packmates, made my wolf practically vibrate with satisfaction. Claimed. Marked. Mine.
“So are you,” I pointed out, catching his wrist and pressing a quick kiss to his palm before releasing him.
“Ugh,” Mason groaned again. “Seriously, it's like watching a movie. Where are the cartoon birds? The singing? The inappropriately cheerful woodland creatures?”
“You're an inappropriately cheerful woodland creature,” Nate shot back.
“I am appropriately grouchy for my woodland creature status, thank you very much.”
“What kind of woodland creature are you?” Anna asked with genuine curiosity, and Mason went very still.
“The, uh. The surly kind?”
“A badger,” Cal supplied helpfully. “Definitely a badger. All that unnecessary attitude.”
“I do not have unnecessary attitude. My attitude is perfectly calibrated for the situation.”
I watched the easy banter with something warm and fierce settling in my chest. This was what belonging felt like—not the formal bonds of pack hierarchy, but the messy, complicated, absolutely essential tangle of chosen family.
Even if that family was currently scattered across two species and at least three levels of supernatural awareness.
