20. Chapter 20 - Matt #2
Baptiste seemed to recognize that too. His expression softened before he folded his arms across his chest. “Then the official records will reflect that.”
Theron inclined his head once in acknowledgment.
Vale finally set her tablet down on the table beside her. “Operationally speaking, we still have the issue of integration.”
Matt grimaced. “Integration sounds aggressively corporate.”
“Operationally,” Vale said, “we have a three-thousand-year-old wolf with no legal identity.”
Theron considered that. “That does sound inconvenient.”
Matt lost the fight against laughter. To his surprise, several other wolves did too.
Even Vale looked briefly irritated by her own amusement.
The tension inside the room eased after that. Not completely, but enough that people finally stopped staring at Theron like they expected him to vanish back into myth at any second.
***
Matt waited until the debrief finally dissolved into smaller conversations before making the call.
Operatives drifted out of the conference room carrying tablets, reports, and half-finished cups of coffee while medics continued arguing with two wolves who insisted concussions were “mostly subjective.” Vale remained near the monitors reviewing satellite scans with Baptiste, though neither of them tried to stop Matt when he pushed himself out of his chair with a grimace.
Theron noticed.
Concern brushed through the bond as Matt crossed the room toward the hallway outside. The older wolf followed a second later without a word.
The safehouse corridors had grown quieter since morning.
Rain still moved softly against the windows overlooking the valley, though dawn had fully given way to gray mountain daylight now.
Somewhere farther down the hall, someone laughed loudly enough to echo through the concrete walls before another voice shushed them.
Matt leaned one shoulder carefully against the wall outside the conference room and pulled his phone from his pocket.
Theron studied the device. “What is that?”
“A cellphone.”
Theron’s eyes narrowed. “That word explains nothing.”
Matt unlocked the screen. “It lets me talk to people who aren’t here.”
“Through that?”
“Yep.”
“Without magic?”
“Mostly.”
Theron looked at him sharply. “Mostly?”
Matt grinned. “There’s an old saying that advanced enough science starts looking a lot like magic.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Theron watched the screen light beneath Matt’s thumb, fascination overtaking suspicion. “So humans trapped voices inside small glass stones.”
“When you say it like that, I understand why you keep judging us.”
Theron’s gaze stayed fixed on the phone. “I am not judging. I am reassessing the danger of modern civilization.”
“Wait until you meet the internet.”
“I already dislike that word.”
Matt smiled despite himself. The familiar contact list came briefly into view beneath his thumb, and for the first time since they escaped the mountain, nervousness hit him harder than any injury currently screaming through his body.
“You are anxious,” he observed, studying him carefully.
“Yeah.” Matt rubbed tiredly at the back of his neck. “Little bit.”
“Because of them?”
Matt glanced over toward him. “Mac and Melvin are…” He paused briefly, like the words carried more weight than he knew how to explain easily. “They’re Pack.”
A quiet thread of uncertainty moved carefully through the bond.
“They guided me after I was turned,” Matt continued more softly. “Back when I was still trying to figure out what the hell I was becoming. Mac taught me how to survive the shifts without losing myself to them. Melvin taught me how to stop being terrified of what I’d become every second of the day.”
A faint smile touched his mouth afterward, though emotion roughened the edges of his voice. “Everything I still have is because they refused to let me go through it alone.”
Theron looked toward the rain-streaked windows instead. “And now they will decide whether I am acceptable.”
Matt blinked once before understanding sat heavily into place. “Oh.” His expression softened. “Theron.”
The older wolf remained still beside him, though Matt could feel the restraint threaded carefully beneath the surface through the bond now. Centuries alone had clearly taught Theron exactly what it meant to be tolerated conditionally.
Matt stepped closer without thinking about it. “That’s not what this is.”
Theron’s eyes lifted toward him.
“They’re going to care that you kept me alive,” Matt said quietly. “And Melvin’s probably going to threaten bodily harm if you let me do anything reckless again.”
“That seems statistically unlikely.”
“You’d think that.”
A faint flicker of warmth brushed through the bond beneath Theron’s skepticism.
Matt smiled before lifting the phone between them. “You ready?”
Theron hesitated for only a second before nodding once.
Matt hit the call button.
It rang twice.
Then Mac’s face appeared on the screen looking exhausted, irritated, and very obviously still in uniform.
“You look terrible,” Mac said without preamble.
Matt grinned weakly. “Good to see you too, Alpha.”
“You disappeared into a classified supernatural catastrophe for two damn days. I earned the right to insult you first.”
Movement shifted somewhere offscreen before Melvin appeared beside him almost instantly, dark eyes sharp with concern.
“Gods,” Melvin muttered. “You actually look worse than Mac said.”
“Wow,” Matt said. “This feels aggressively hostile for a reunion.”
“Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?” Melvin shot back.
The words hit harder than Matt expected.
Something in his expression must have given that away because both Mac and Melvin quieted afterward. Mac’s eyes narrowed instead. “You okay?”
Matt glanced briefly toward Theron beside him before answering. “Yeah,” he said honestly. “I think I finally am.”
Something in Mac’s expression shifted at that. Recognition surfaced almost, like he had already pieced together far more than Matt intended to say aloud.
Mac had always been terrifyingly good at reading people.
His gaze flicked once toward the edge of the screen where Theron stood partially out of frame. “There’s someone there with you.”
Not a question.
Matt exhaled softly through his nose. “Yeah.”
Beside him, Theron went completely still. Matt suddenly became aware of how much the moment mattered because Theron was listening for rejection, even if he would never admit it aloud.
Matt straightened away from the wall. “There’s someone I need you both to meet.”
Mac stayed quiet.
Melvin’s expression softened instead, like he had already figured out far more than Matt intended to say.
Matt glanced toward Theron once before continuing. “He’s important to me.”
The silence afterward lasted barely two seconds, but Matt felt every single one of them.
Mac’s gaze moved between them. “Well, whatever happened out there explains why you look half dead.”
Matt pointed at the screen. “In my defense—”
“No,” Mac interrupted flatly. “Absolutely not.”
Melvin snorted beside him, and to Matt’s surprise, Theron made the faintest sound of amusement under his breath as well.
Mac noticed.
His attention shifted fully toward Theron then, calm and steady as he studied him through the screen. There was no fear in the look and no suspicion either. He simply watched Theron the way an Alpha evaluated someone standing near his Pack.
After a moment, some of the sharpness eased from his expression. “You brought him back alive,” Mac said simply.
Theron held his gaze for a long moment before answering quietly. “I attempted to.”
Matt groaned. “See? This is the kind of thing I’ve been dealing with.”
A startled laugh escaped Melvin before he could stop it, and just like that, some invisible tension finally loosened between all of them.
Mac shook his head once, though amusement tugged faintly at the corner of his mouth now too. “You know,” he said dryly, “most people bring home rescue dogs after traumatic missions.”
“I considered it,” Matt replied. “But Theron seemed less likely to chew through drywall.”
Theron's eyes narrowed. “What is drywall?”
Matt tilted his head. “Seriously?”
“You continue inventing words without explanation.”
Melvin laughed softly somewhere through the speakers while Mac rubbed one hand across his face like he already regretted where this conversation was going.
Matt pointed vaguely at the wall beside him. “Drywall is… wall.”
Theron studied the wall with visible suspicion. “Aren’t most walls dry?”
Matt stared at him for a full second before breaking into helpless laughter.
To Matt’s surprise, the faintest hint of amusement touched Theron’s expression too before he continued more thoughtfully, “And modern dogs truly chew through walls?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“That feels deeply inefficient.”
“You are going to have a fascinating relationship with modern civilization.”