"It's not burning, it's—" Remy spun toward the stove, grabbing the wooden spoon and checking the pot with a wince. "Okay, it's a little burned." He admitted sheepishly, stirring quickly to salvage what he could.
We ate sitting in a circle on the living room floor, passing bowls and bread between us while the storm raged outside. Gumbo watched from his corner, having graciously declined the raw chicken Remy had offered him with only a look of pure disdain.
"He's judging me." Remy whispered, leaning close to my ear as he eyed the gator nervously across the room. "He's absolutely judging me right now." He added, shrinking slightly under Gumbo's ancient, unblinking gaze.
"He judges everyone." I patted Remy's knee reassuringly, feeling him tense beside me every time Gumbo's ancient eyes swung his way. "It's kind of his thing." I explained, fighting back a smile.
"He doesn't judge Silas." Remy pointed out with his spoon, gesturing to where Silas had settled against the wall nearestGumbo's corner, the two of them existing in companionable silence like old friends.
"Predators recognize each other." Silas said, repeating the words he had said before, without looking up from his soup, and I watched Gumbo's tail swish once in what I chose to interpret as agreement.
The night wore on. The storm didn't let up.
By nine o'clock, we'd moved through dinner into what Remy insisted on calling "hurricane party mode"—card games by candlelight, stories traded back and forth, Remy occasionally picking out quiet melodies on his guitar when the wind died down enough to hear. Harper was terrible at cards but refused to admit it. Silas won every hand with that unreadable face of his. I laughed more than I had in months.
"We should figure out sleeping arrangements." I said finally, stifling a yawn as I set down my cards, the yawns starting to outweigh the conversation.
Three pairs of Alpha eyes fixed on me with varying degrees of hope and uncertainty.
"I have blankets and pillows." I stood, stretching muscles stiff from sitting, already moving toward the linen closet in the hallway. "The living room is the safest spot—away from the windows, central location. We should all stay in here." I said firmly, leaving no room for argument.
"All of us?" Remy's voice cracked slightly on the question, his amber eyes going wide as he looked between me and the other two Alphas.
"All of us." I confirmed, meeting each of their gazes in turn—Harper's dark intensity, Remy's hopeful warmth, Silas's unreadable calm—as I pulled out every blanket I owned. "Gumbo's already claimed his corner, so the rest of us will have to make do with the remaining space." I added, dumping the pile of bedding in the middle of the floor with a soft thump.
What followed was an awkward but strangely endearing negotiation of space. Harper took the spot nearest the door—protective instinct, I knew. Silas settled against the wall opposite Gumbo, where he could see both the door and the windows. Remy ended up in the middle, which he complained about loudly until I pointed out it meant he was closest to me.
I made my own nest of blankets on the couch, close enough to reach out and touch any of them if I wanted. The wind howled. The rain hammered. The cabin creaked and groaned but held steady.
"Thank you." I said into the darkness, my voice barely above a whisper, not sure which of them I was talking to. Maybe all of them. "For being here. For not letting me ride this out alone." I added, my voice thick with emotion I hadn't expected, my hand pressed against my chest where my heart beat steady and full.
"Nowhere else I'd be." Harper's rumble came from near the door, rough and sincere, the floorboards creaking as he shifted in his blankets.
"Couldn't keep me away, chere." Remy's voice was softer, closer, his hand finding mine in the darkness and squeezing. Silas didn't say anything, but I heard him shift, felt his presence like a steady weight in the room. He didn't need words. He'd shown up. He'd stayed. That was enough.
I closed my eyes, listening to the storm rage outside and the steady breathing of three Alphas who'd turned my cabin into something that felt, for the first time in a long time, like a home. Thursday's conversation would have to wait. The pack meeting would happen when the storm passed, when the roads cleared, when the world stopped trying to tear itself apart outside my windows.
For now, this was enough. More than enough.
I fell asleep to the sound of rain and rumbling—the storm outside, and the three Alphas who'd positioned themselves around me like guards, like protectors, like pack.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Artemis
Iwoke to silence.
Not the comfortable silence of a peaceful morning, but the heavy, pressing silence that followed catastrophe. The wind had stopped. The rain had stopped. Even the cabin seemed to be holding its breath.
I sat up slowly, blinking in the gray light filtering through the cracks in the boarded windows, and took stock of my situation. Three Alphas were still asleep around me—Harper near the door, one arm thrown over his eyes; Remy sprawled in the middle of the floor, his blanket kicked off sometime in the night; Silas against the wall, so still he might have been carved from stone if not for the slow rise and fall of his chest.
Gumbo was watching me from his corner, his ancient gaze alert and knowing.
"Morning, big guy." I whispered, carefully extracting myself from my nest of blankets on the couch, my bare feet finding the cool wooden floor. "Storm's over?" I asked him softly, padding toward the window.
He rumbled low in his throat—an affirmative, I thought, though with Gumbo it was always hard to tell. I peeled back the edge of one board and peered outside, my stomach dropping at what I saw.
Water. Everywhere.
