"Can confirm," Harper muttered into his whiskey.
"Nobody asked you," I shot back sweetly, and Colette's face lit up with delighted surprise.
"But you knew he was worth saving." Her voice softened with understanding. "You saw past the teeth and the scales and the danger to the creature underneath."
I nodded, my throat suddenly tight.
"Hmm." She reached across the table to pat my hand, her touch warm and sure. "No wonder my son fell in love withyou. You're just like him—stubborn, soft-hearted, and absolutely terrible at protecting yourself from things that could hurt you."
"Hey, I resemble that remark," I said, and Colette's eyes sparkled with surprised delight.
"Maman!" Remy protested, his whole face lit up with a joy I'd never quite seen before. "Don't encourage her. She's already impossible."
"I prefer 'spirited,'" I said primly, stealing a piece of bread from his plate. "Or 'delightfully challenging.'"
"See what I deal with?" But Remy's eyes were soft as he pressed a kiss to my temple, his fingers finding mine under the table.
"It's true and you know it." Colette sniffed, lifting her chin with exaggerated dignity, though mischief danced in her eyes. "All my boys are soft-hearted. They just hide it differently." Her gaze swept around the table, taking in her sons—both of them—and the pack that had become her family by extension. "I raised them to love fiercely and fight for what matters. I'm glad to see they listened."
"Sometimes," Henri added dryly from his spot by the fire, swirling the whiskey in his glass. The firelight caught the silver in his hair. "When it suits them."
"That's the Thibodaux way." JP raised his glass in a mock toast, one eyebrow arched. "Stubborn as mules, all of us."
"I prefer 'determined,'" Remy said, propping his chin on his hand and batting his lashes at his brother.
"You would." JP threw a balled-up napkin at him, which Remy dodged with a cackle. The laughter that rippled around the table was warm and easy, and I felt something settle in my chest—something that had been waiting a long time to finally find its place.
This was it. This was what we'd been building toward. Not just the house or the land or even the pack, but this: familygathered around a table, sharing food and stories and the kind of love that didn't need to be perfect to be real.
Harper caught my eye across the table, one dark brow raised in a silent question. I nodded, and he reached under the table to squeeze my knee before turning back to his conversation with Henri.
Silas appeared at my shoulder, silent as always, and pressed a glass of wine into my hand. "You look happy," he murmured, low enough that only I could hear, his expression softer than most people ever got to see in the flickering candlelight.
"I am." I reached up to touch his scarred cheek, feeling him lean into the contact. "Are you okay? I know this is a lot of people. If you need to escape to the dock with Gumbo, I won't judge."
"Tempting." The corner of his mouth twitched. "But no. It's the right people." He turned his head to press a kiss to my palm, brief and almost shy. "I can handle the right people."
"Look at you, being all social and adjusted." I nudged his shoulder with mine. "I'm so proud."
"Don't push it." But his scarred lips quirked, just slightly, and his hand found the small of my back in a touch that was more possessive than he probably realized.
"Henri wants to see the distillery tomorrow." Harper materialized at my other side, his massive hand settling on my lower back. "Colette mentioned something about teaching us her praline recipe. Apparently ours aren't up to standard."
"Everything is up to standard," Remy protested, appearing as if summoned by the word 'pralines,' squeezing in between Harper and me with practiced ease. "I've been making pralines for years?—"
"Not the way Mémère made them," JP said, joining our little cluster by the window, his surgeon's hands wrapped around a coffee mug. "Remember when you tried to add chocolate chips?"
"That was an improvement!" Remy's voice climbed with indignation, his curls practically vibrating.
"You were twelve. You added an entire bag. We had to throw out the whole batch." JP's grin was wicked, the look of a brother who'd been waiting years to tell this story to new people.
"It would have worked if I'd had better chocolate—" Remy sputtered, but joy was winning the battle against his indignation.
Colette's voice cut through the bickering: "If you boys are done critiquing each other's cooking, there's king cake that needs eating and I didn't drive three hours to watch it go stale!"
We migrated back to the table, all of us, packing in closer than strictly necessary because that's what family did. Colette cut the king cake with the precision of a surgeon, handing out slices and watching with sharp eyes to see who got the baby.
It was Silas. Of course it was Silas.
