The pack won’t leave. They hover, respectful of the boundaries Ana and I hammered into paper, but present. They file statements. They hold back curiosity and power like a leash.Mateo—the elder—stays close, whispering to Leo in a way that slows the tremor in his shoulders. His hands are warm and sure; he hums a low sound I recognize, a lullaby turned inside out.
Later, while Leo naps against my chest, Mateo asks a question I didn’t expect.
“Mia, would you allow a protection?” His English is softer than his Spanish with Leo. “Not claim. Not binding. A seal. So the boy is seen by our elders and given guardians who will answer if anything tries to touch him again.”
My throat tightens. I think of courts and custody law and how a whiff of wolf could twist us into a headline. I think of the revocable agreement that explicitly forbids claims, grants me veto power.
“Non-claiming,” I say. “Witnessed. Written. My veto. Any ritual—if it happens—must be only for him, not to bind me. No ceremony that makes me property.”
Mateo nods. “Yes. Witness. Veto. Elder signs. Doctor present.”
There’s honesty in his eyes that cracks something open inside me. The idea of someone marking Leo—protecting him, not owning him—feels like relief. Like admitting I’m not the only one who can keep him safe. I can breathe again.
“You don’t have to do this,” Caleb says. He stands behind me, hands on the back of my chair. They’re warm. They smell like the ranch. They smell like safety.
“I do,” I say. The words are steady. “I can’t live with another near miss.”
The ritual is small and private on the clinic lawn—soft ground, away from curious ears. A nurse stands off to the side, clipboard in hand—an impartial witness. Caleb stands beside me, close enough to touch the back of my hand. The pack members who volunteered to be guardians form a loose ring; their faces are neutral, respectful.
Mateo pulls out a bit of leather cord. It’s not ornate—something you’d tie on a saddle. He murmurs in Spanish, then in English: “We mark him to be seen and protected. This is not a claim. This is a promise to answer when a threat comes. It does not bind his guardian. It does not bind his mother.”
He ties a small loop of cord around Leo’s wrist. He breathes on it—warm, smoky—and the cord darkens slightly, as if taking the color of dusk. Mateo’s palm rests on Leo’s head and the boy goes limp against him, breathing out a sound I’ve never heard before: relief.
Something in my chest unclenches. Tears slip without asking. I had told myself accepting help meant surrender. This isn’t surrender. It’s a boundary set differently—stronger because it’s shared.
Afterward, while the nurse fills forms and a social worker asks about a safety plan, Caleb and I stand a little apart from the circle. He’s bruised and tired. He looks like he wants to hold me, but he respects the line. I want both so badly my chest hurts.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I should have seen him sooner.”
“You were seconds away from stopping it,” I say. “You were the difference.”
He doesn’t argue. He presses his hand to his mouth and draws a breath like he’s telling himself something. “We caught them,” he says. “But the men who sent them…they were organized. They had a comm. They had a room. It wasn’t random.”
The lead detective approaches, a folder in his hand. He shows me a photograph of the motel receipt pulled from the attacker’s pocket. The motel name is circled. There’s a scribbled name on the receipt—someone who used the room this morning.
My stomach drops. It’s a name I know.
Tanner produces a zip bag from his jacket. Inside is the comm. The detective plugs it into a reader. A message pops upon the screen—voices, a time stamp, a meeting. The location: a warehouse on the edge of town. The voices mention a rival’s mark; the cadence is clipped, familiar to someone who knows pack politics. One of the voices uses a name that makes bile rise in my throat: my ex.
I didn’t know he’d sunk this low.
The detective’s face is careful. “We’re making copies. We’re tracing the comm. But this—this ties your ex into a known network our cyber unit flagged. We’ll need your statement.”
The world tilts. My hands go numb. My chest feels like a fist is closing. The crowd’s expressions melt into concern. Caleb’s hand tightens on the back of my chair until I can feel the heat through denim.
Someone whispers the rival alpha’s name—a name Mateo has mentioned in council: dangerous, ambitious, always looking for leverage. The receipt. The comm. My ex. The rival alpha.
It’s not a coincidence.
“You said the rival had taken notice.” The words are thick. My voice barely pushes them out. “He sent men?”
Caleb’s jaw sets. “Either he sent them,” he says, “or he hired the same people who worked for your ex. Either way, this is personal now.”
The detective folds the photo and hands it to me. “We’ll need you and your lawyer in the morning. For now—stay somewhere safe. We’ll hold the evidence.”
I look down at Leo asleep in Mateo’s arms. He trusts us. He calls Caleb by name like he’s part of our family. The thought that someone tried to take him—used my ex, dark money, and pack politics—I want to curl into myself and disappear.
Instead, I stand. I pull Caleb close—not the way I told myself to keep boundaries, but the way you hold someone because the world just got raw and you need skin and breath.
