Chapter 21 #2
"Animals can." Silas replied, his voice low and certain as he glanced toward the dock where Gumbo was still pacing. "He knows. Been restless all morning, I'd guess." He looked at me for confirmation, those pale gray eyes missing nothing.
"Since dawn." I nodded, my arms crossing over my chest as I watched Gumbo's agitated movements with growing concern. "He usually settles by now, even before a storm. This one's making him nervous." I admitted, chewing my bottom lip.
"Should make us all nervous." Silas said quietly, then moved toward the door. "I'll help Harper with the boards." He paused at the threshold, looking back at me with something softer than his usual intensity. "Stay inside when the wind picks up." He instructed, and was gone before I could argue.
The afternoon passed in a blur of activity.
Harper and Silas worked in near-silence on the exterior—boarding windows, reinforcing weak points, securing anything that could become a projectile in high winds.
Remy and I focused on the interior—filling bathtubs and containers with water, organizing supplies, making sure we had everything we'd need if we lost power for an extended period.
By four o'clock, the sky had turned an ugly greenish-gray, and the wind was starting to pick up in earnest. I stood on the porch watching the trees sway, feeling the pressure drop in my sinuses, when Harper appeared beside me.
"We should get inside." Harper appeared beside me, his dark hair whipping in the wind, his voice nearly lost in the rising gale.
"In a minute." I kept my eyes on the bayou, watching the water churn with whitecaps that formed on the usually glass-still surface. "Where's Gumbo?" I asked suddenly, my heart lurching as I realized I hadn't seen him in over an hour.
As if summoned, a massive shape emerged from the water near the dock. Gumbo hauled himself onto the bank with unusual urgency, his movements quick and purposeful as he headed not toward his usual spots, but toward the cabin.
Toward the door.
"Is he..." Remy appeared on my other side, his amber eyes wide. "Is he trying to come inside?" He asked, disbelief coloring his voice.
Gumbo reached the porch steps and stopped, his ancient eyes fixed on me with something that looked almost like pleading. In fifteen years, he'd never tried to come inside. Never wanted to. He was a creature of the water, the mud, the wild spaces.
The fact that he wanted in now told me everything I needed to know about this storm.
"Okay, big guy." I moved to open the door wider, my heart pounding against my ribs as I stepped aside to make room for nine feet of prehistoric predator. "Come on in." I said softly, my voice steadier than I felt.
He climbed the steps slowly, his massive body barely fitting through the doorway, and made his way to the corner of the living room—the spot farthest from the windows, I noticed.
He settled onto the wooden floor with a heavy sigh, his eyes still fixed on me with an expression I could only describe as grateful.
"Well." Remy said faintly, staring at the nine-foot alligator now occupying my living room. "That's... that's something." He managed, his voice strangled.
Silas had appeared in the doorway, his pale eyes taking in the scene with his usual unreadable expression.
"Smart." He said simply, nodding toward Gumbo.
"Safest place on the property." He moved into the cabin, carefully skirting the gator's tail, and took up position near the boarded window like he was standing guard.
Harper was the last one in, pulling the door shut behind him against the rising wind. He looked at Gumbo, looked at me, and simply nodded. "He's welcome." He said, like it was the most natural thing in the world to have an apex predator as a houseguest.
The wind screamed.
It started as a moan, building to a howl, then to something that sounded almost human in its fury. Rain lashed against the boarded windows in sheets, and even through the reinforced barriers, I could hear the crack of branches breaking, the groan of trees bending beyond their limits.
We gathered in the living room by unspoken agreement—me on the couch, Remy beside me with his guitar across his lap, Harper in the armchair closest to the door, Silas standing by the window like a sentinel.
Gumbo hadn't moved from his corner, though his eyes tracked every sound, every shift in the cabin's structure.
The power went out at six thirty-two.
"And there it goes." Remy's voice was deliberately light as darkness swallowed the cabin, broken only by the emergency flashlight Harper had placed on the coffee table. "Good thing I brought candles." He said, already moving to light them, his familiar form casting dancing shadows on the walls.
I watched my three Alphas in the flickering candlelight, feeling something settle in my chest despite the chaos raging outside.
They'd come. All three of them, without being asked, without hesitation.
They'd shown up with tools and food and fuel, had worked all day to make my home safer, had stayed when they could have gone somewhere with stronger walls and higher ground.
A crack of thunder made us all jump, and I could have sworn I heard Harper growl—low and instinctive, his body angling toward me before he caught himself.
"Did you just growl at the weather?" I asked, turning to look at Harper, unable to keep the amusement from my voice as I caught the tail end of his rumble.
Harper's jaw tightened, a flush creeping up his neck that was visible even in the dim candlelight. "No." He said too quickly, his massive arms crossing over his chest defensively.
Remy snorted. "You absolutely did, mon ami. Don't worry, won't tell anyone the big scary Alpha—" Another crack of thunder, and Remy's words cut off in a sound that was definitely, unmistakably, a growl.
"You were saying?" Silas asked dryly from his position by the window, and I could have sworn there was humor in his pale eyes.
"Instinct." Remy muttered, his cheeks darkening to a deep rose as he slumped back against the couch cushions. "Thunder sounds like a threat. Can't help it." He defended, his fingers finding the guitar strings and plucking out a nervous melody to cover his embarrassment.
I laughed, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep in my chest. Here I was, trapped in a cabin during a hurricane with three Alphas who couldn't stop growling at thunder and an alligator who'd invited himself inside, and somehow it felt more like home than anything had in years.
"I should make dinner." I stood from the couch, needing to move, needing to do something with my hands besides twist them in my lap. "We've got plenty of food that needs to be eaten before it spoils anyway." I added, already heading toward the kitchen, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet.
"I'll help." Remy set down his guitar carefully, leaning it against the couch before following me, his shoulder brushing mine as we navigated the dark kitchen by flashlight.
We worked together in comfortable silence, heating soup on the camp stove Harper had thought to bring, slicing bread, putting together a simple meal that felt like a feast in the circumstances.
Through the window over the sink—the one window Harper hadn't boarded because it was protected by the porch overhang—I could see nothing but darkness and rain.
"You okay, chere?" Remy asked softly, stepping closer until his chest nearly touched my back, his hand finding the small of my back with familiar ease.
"Yeah." I leaned into his touch, letting his warmth steady me as the wind howled outside. "Better than okay, actually. I know that's strange, given..." I gestured vaguely at the storm raging beyond the walls, the windows rattling in their frames.
"Not strange." He turned me to face him, his amber eyes soft in the candlelight. "You've got your pack around you. Even if we're not official yet." He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "That's supposed to feel good. That's the point." He said gently.
I stretched up to kiss him—soft and sweet and grateful—and felt him smile against my lips.
"Soup's burning." Harper's voice came from the doorway, gruff and awkward, and we broke apart to find him standing there with an expression caught somewhere between embarrassment and longing.
"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 nearest Gumbo'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.