Over the next few days I poured myself into getting Buddy settled. The first night I set up a bed for him in the corner of my room with old towels and a blanket, but every time I tried to leave he whined, high and desperate, scratching at the door until I came back. So I grabbed a pillow and a blanket and lay down on the hardwood floor beside him and talked to him in the dark until his shaking stopped and his breathing slowed. I woke up at 3 am with my cheek on the floor and his nose touching my hand and my back screaming at me, and I didn’t care because he was calm for the first time since I’d brought him home.
I hand-fed him for the first three days. Kibble mixed with boiled chicken, tiny portions, held flat in my palm so he could eat at his own pace. He ate so carefully, taking each piece with his front teeth like he expected the food to be snatched away, and I had to keep my breathing even so he wouldn’t pick up on the anger burning through me at whoever had done this to him.
I read to him every evening. It had worked at the shelter, so I kept doing it, sitting on the floor beside his bed with the book in my lap and my voice low. By day three he ate from my hand without flinching, and by day five he let me pet his head and press my face against his neck and he didn’t pull away, just stood there with his tail giving one tentative wag, and I cried a little into his fur and pretended I didn’t.
Fin barely got any attention the whole week. When I was on the floor with Buddy, Fin lay in the doorway watching withan expression that I could only describe as deeply personally offended, and when I read to Buddy he sat across the room looking betrayed. I tried to split my time but Buddy needed me more right now and Fin seemed to understand that, even if everything about his body language suggested he was filing a formal complaint.
On the last night before I took Buddy back to the shelter, I sat on the porch with both of them. Buddy was beside me, finally calm, his head resting heavy on my knee. Fin was on my other side, pressed warm against my hip. The porch light hummed above us and the street was quiet and I had one hand on each of them and I didn’t want to move.
Tomorrow I’d bring Buddy back to Bonalisa and Mary would find him a proper foster or, if they were lucky, a permanent home. He was ready. He’d come so far in a week that Mary had teared up when I’d sent her a video of him eating from my hand, and Peter had called me a miracle worker, which I wasn’t. I was just patient. I was just willing to sit on a floor and read bad Scottish accents until a scared dog decided I was safe.
But giving him back was going to hurt. It always hurt. Every animal I fostered took a little piece of me with them when they left, and I always told myself it was worth it because they were better off, and it was true, but it didn’t make the missing any easier.
“I wish I could keep you,” I told Buddy, rubbing behind his ears. “Both of you. I wish I could keep every animal that came through that shelter.” My voice cracked on the last word and I swallowed hard. “But I can’t. I work insane hours and I’m barely home and that’s not a life for a dog. It would be selfish to keep them forme when they deserve better than an empty house and a person who’s gone sixteen hours a day.”
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Buddy’s ear twitched under my fingers and Fin pressed closer against my side, warm and solid, and I leaned into him.
“Besides,” I said, looking down at Fin, “I have you, right? Even though you’re not really mine.”
Fin pushed his nose into my hand and I curled my fingers into his fur and held on.
“You know what happened this week, Fin?” My voice was quieter now. “Finneas smiled at me. On Monday. Three times. And I’ve been thinking about it every single day since and I can’t stop. He has this face he does for clients and meetings, this polite professional nothing expression that could be printed on a stock photo. But Monday it was different. Monday it was real. I could tell because his eyes changed.”
I looked at Fin. “I’m his assistant. I schedule his meetings and organize his files and fight him about coffee, so I really shouldn’t be losing sleep over a smile. But here I am, Fin. Losing sleep. Over a goddamn smile.”
I leaned my head back against the railing and closed my eyes. The night air was cool against my face and both dogs were warm against me and for a minute I just breathed.
Then I opened my eyes and looked at Fin. “Don’t go anywhere tonight, okay? Both of you. Just stay.”
I stood up, stretched my stiff back, and went inside with Buddy trailing close behind me. Fin stayed on the porch. When I looked back through the window before heading to my room, he was still sitting there, facing the closed door, and something about the way he sat so still made my chest tight in a way I couldn’t explain.
5
— • —
Finneas
The council chamber was stone walls and oak, a table built from a single slab that had been there longer than I’d been alive. Five senior Alphas around it. My father sat at this head before me, and his father before him.
“He’s a risk,” Aldric said. A gray-haired, permanently suspicious man, one of the oldest members of the council and the one most likely to find a problem with anything that hadn’t been done exactly the same way for the last forty years. “No background. No references. We don’t take in strays.”
We were discussing the young rogue wolf from the western border. I’d had him brought in for an audience two days ago. Barely twenty, thin, no pack affiliation. The kid stood in front of the council and asked for sanctuary with his chin up and his voice not wavering, which I respected.
“He left his pack voluntarily,” I said. “No criminal record. Luca vetted him.”
“Luca’s vetting is not the council’s vetting.”
“Luca’s vetting is my vetting. I trust him with my life.” I held Aldric’s gaze until his jaw tightened. “The kid gets sanctuary.”
He didn’t argue further, but he held the stare a beat too long. Testing. Always testing, pushing just far enough to see if I’d push back and then retreating when I did. He’d been doing it since my father’s time and he’d keep doing it until one of us was dead. Since I planned to outlive him, I could be patient.
“Next item,” I said. “The construction complaints from the southern district.”
Aldric jumped on that too, naturally. Wanted the project halted pending a full noise assessment. The project was a housing development for new pack families, something I’d personally approved six months ago because we had wolves living in cramped quarters with no room for their children and the southern land was sitting empty. Halting it would set us back three months minimum and leave twelve families in temporary housing through winter.
“The construction continues,” I said. “We’ll adjust the schedule to reduce noise during early mornings and late evenings. Luca, coordinate with the foreman.”
Luca nodded from his seat near the door. He didn’t sit at the table for council meetings because technically his rank didn’t require it, but everybody in the room knew he was the one Ilistened to most and his presence alone kept the younger wolves in check.
