“You stand wherever you want. You’ve been this ranch’s spine for sixty years. Hatchett’s grandmother probably heard your name and flinched.”
The old woman chuckles. “His grandmother and I had words once. At a gathering in ‘78. She didn’t enjoy the experience.”
Arlen coughs. Willow grins. Even Rook looks faintly amused.
“Dane stays back with the settlement,” Merric says. “He’s our fallback if things go sideways at the boundary.”
“Agreed.” I scan the room. “Hatchett arrives tomorrow afternoon. That gives us eighteen hours to reinforce the north wards, position our people, and decide what we’re doing with the prisoners.”
“We return them,” Willow says. Firm. “At the parley. It’s the legally correct move, and it denies Hatchett his grievance.”
“Agreed,” I say. “But we return them with a message. Ravenclaw honors the accords. We respect the old laws. And if anyone comes for our people again, the old laws also cover what we do in response.”
The room holds that for a moment. Then Willow nods. Merric nods. Rook drains his coffee. Meeting over.
People move. Rook catches Merric’s arm, and they have a brief, murmured exchange, Rook’s mouth barely moving, Merric’s head tilting to listen. Pack shorthand. Wordless communication that comes from years of proximity.
Sienna stands, stretches, and crosses to Merric’s other side. She says something about the supply inventory and touches his arm—brief, functional, the kind of contact that means nothing and looks like everything.
She touches him the way I used to touch him. Easy. Habitual. Like his arm is a familiar surface her hand knows without thinking.
My wolf snarls. I strangle her silent.
Willow appears at my shoulder. She’s watching me watch them, and I know she’s monitored everything: the direction of my attention, the tension in my back, the way my hands have gone flat against the table.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Fine.”
“You’re doing that thing where you say fine and mean the opposite.”
“I’m doing that thing where I say fine and mean we have eighteen hours to prepare a parley, and I don’t have time for whatever you’re about to ask me.”
Willow studies me for a beat longer than comfortable. Then she nods and lets it go, which tells me she’s storing it for later. Willow never lets anything go. She just files it somewhere and waits for the right moment to pull it out again.
The kitchen empties. I stay, staring at the map, running scenarios. Hatchett’s approach, his likely delegation size, the conversation tree. What I’ll say if he pushes, what I’ll say if he threatens, what I’ll do if his wolves twitch.
I’m working through the fourth scenario when Greta passes through on her way to the pantry.
“You put him at your left,” she says, without stopping.
“Logical position.”
“Mmm.” She opens the pantry door. “Cormac stood at my left for forty-three years. Logical position, too, I suppose.”
She disappears into the pantry. The door swings shut behind her.
I focus on the map until the lines blur, then I push back from the table and walk outside to start on the wards, because the wards don’t have opinions about where I put Merric Rourke.
The afternoon is a grind. North boundary, four hours of ward work, feeding magic into lines that drink it up like parched earth. My reserves are running low. Each section takes longer than the last. By the time I reach the parley point, my hands are trembling, and the white fire is more flicker than flame.
I sit on the boundary stone and drink from the canteen Merric filled this morning. The water is cold and clean. He packed food too. A sandwich, an apple, a piece of the cornbread Greta baked this morning. Thought went into this. Attention.
Not protein bars.
I smile, eat the sandwich, and try not to think about the hands that made it.
The north boundary stretches before me, open meadow sloping gently toward the line where the ranch property ends and unclaimed ground begins. Tomorrow, Hatchett’s wolves will walk out of those trees. They’ll see the ward line glowing blue in the grass. They’ll see Willow and me standing side by side. They’ll see Merric at my left shoulder, six-foot-five and radiating alpha authority.
