7. Chapter 7
The knock came at dawn. Three sharp raps that pulled Sage from restless sleep.
She rolled out of bed, grabbed the knife she kept under her pillow, and moved to the connecting door. “Yeah?”
“Pack gathering today.” Declan’s voice came through the wood. “You’re coming.”
She opened the door. He stood in the frame, already dressed, looking like he’d been awake for hours. Dark circles under his eyes. He’d been up all night.
“I’m not pack.”
“No. But you’re under my watch, which means you go where I go.” He met her eyes. “Get dressed. Something warm.”
“I have work—”
“It’ll wait.” His tone left no room for argument. “You want to understand this pack? You need to see us as we actually are. Not through reports.”
She wanted to refuse. Wanted to stay in the cabin where she could maintain her distance, her objectivity, her certainty about what wolves were and what they’d done.
But she’d pushed him last night. Had hit him hard enough to make the quiet ring, and he’d taken it. Had let her rage at him without retaliating.
She owed him this much. Even if it complicated everything.
“Fine. Give me ten minutes.”
She closed the door and dressed quickly. Thermal layers, jeans, boots. Pulled her hair back and checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Tired. Haunted. Like someone who’d been chasing something for years and was starting to lose sight of why.
Declan waited by the door when she emerged. He’d made coffee, poured her a travel mug without asking. The gesture was so casually considerate she didn’t have a response for it.
“Where is this gathering?”
“Central compound. Monthly tradition.” He handed her the mug. “Whole pack comes together. Share food, settle disputes, just exist as family.”
Family. The word sat wrong in her mouth. She followed him outside anyway.
The wind hit her first. Then the sound.
Children. She could hear children laughing somewhere beyond the tree line, high and bright and completely at odds with everything she’d imagined about a wolf compound. A girl shrieked with delight. A boy shouted something about being faster.
Her feet stopped moving.
Declan stopped. Waited.
“How old?” The question came out before she had decided to ask it.
“Lily’s eight. Jonah’s nine. They’ve never hurt anyone, Sage.”
She started walking again. Didn’t answer. Couldn’t, with her throat this tight.
The morning was sharp and clear. Declan moved through the trees with easy confidence, scanning the ridge at intervals, checking gaps between the trees she’d have missed entirely.
“You don’t have to come.” A stretch of quiet. “I know you’d rather not have me there.”
“That’s not, it’s complicated.”
“Everything with you is complicated.”
“Yeah.” Something almost like humor touched his mouth. “It is.”
They reached the compound as the sun broke over the mountains. Wolves moved everywhere, carrying supplies, setting up tables, laughing at something someone had said. Children ran between adults, shrieking with joy.
Woodsmoke and damp earth wrapped around her. Every gaze followed her.
She’d known intellectually that packs had children. But seeing them, watching a little girl with dark braids chase a boy who couldn’t have been more than six, made something in her go still.
Monsters didn’t laugh like that. Didn’t play tag and fall in the snow and get scooped up by adults who brushed them off with gentle hands.
“Sage.”
Maren approached with a smile that seemed genuine. The Alpha’s mate wore a thick sweater and had her light hair loose around her.
“I’m glad you came.” Maren touched her arm lightly. “I know this must be strange for you.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“Come on. I’ll introduce you to some people.” Maren’s chin tilted toward Declan. “Unless you’re planning to keep her attached to your side all day?”
His mouth set. “She’s under my watch.”
“She’s twenty feet from you in the middle of pack territory surrounded by fifty wolves.” Maren’s tone stayed gentle but firm. “I think she’ll survive an introduction.”
Something in Declan’s expression shifted, not quite trust, but maybe the beginning of it. “Stay where I can see you.”
“Wasn’t planning on running.”
Maren led her toward a cluster of women setting up food tables. Most were curious. One wasn’t.
A woman with red hair and laugh lines around her eyes smiled. “You’re the human Declan’s been watching.”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Claire. This is Nora, and that’s Beth.” She gestured to the others. “You eat meat? We’ve got elk steaks that’ll change your life.”
“I eat meat.”
“Good. Grab a knife. We need help with the potatoes.”
Sage stared at the offered knife. At the pile of potatoes. At these women who were treating her like a guest instead of a threat.
“I don’t—”
“You don’t know how to peel potatoes?” Nora laughed. “City girl?”
“Something like that.”
“Here.” Claire demonstrated the motion. “Just like this. Don’t worry about making them perfect. They’re going in stew anyway.”
Sage took the knife. Started peeling. The motion was mindless and let her observe without seeming to.
The women talked while they worked. About children’s school projects, about someone named Gavin who’d finally asked someone named Tara on a date, about the weather and hunting and a dozen small details that made up daily life.
Normal conversation. Normal concerns.
“So.” Beth leaned closer, voice dropping. “What’s it like being stuck with Declan? He’s intense even on good days.”
“He’s controlled.”
“That’s diplomatic.” Claire grinned. Then her expression shifted to something quieter, more careful.
“He wasn’t always like that, you know. When he first came to Blackridge he went three months without a word?
Ate alone. Ran the perimeter at four in the morning because he couldn’t sleep.
” She paused, hands still working. “We thought he’d leave.
Most of us figured he’d decide he didn’t belong anywhere. ”
“What changed?”
“Jace put him in charge of the winter patrols.” Claire’s mouth curved. “Told him twenty wolves needed someone they could count on. Declan didn’t sleep any better, but he stopped eating alone.”
Sage kept her hands moving. Filed that away with everything else.
“He’s a stone wall with a wolf inside. But he’s good people. Loyal. Would die for any of us without hesitation?”
“He seems very dedicated to the pack.”
“That’s one way to put it.” Nora’s expression turned thoughtful. “He blames himself for things that weren’t his fault. Carries guilt like armor.”
She paused, eyes moving toward where Declan stood at the compound’s edge.
“But since you’ve been here, he’s different. More present.”
Sage’s hands stilled on the potato. “Different how?”
“Lighter, maybe.” Nora shrugged. “Maren says the mate bond does that. Makes you more yourself somehow.”
The knife slipped. Sage caught it before it hit the ground. “Mate bond?”
The women exchanged glances.
“You don’t know?” Claire’s eyes widened. “Oh honey. That explains so much.”
“Know what?”
“Declan hasn’t told you?” Beth’s eyes went wide. “That man and his control issues—”
“Beth.” Maren’s voice cut through the conversation. “Let them figure it out themselves.”
“But—”
“Themselves.” Maren’s tone stayed gentle but final. “Come on. Someone wants to meet you.”
Sage followed, her mind already working.
Mate bond. She’d heard the term before, in Maren’s office, and she’d filed it and moved on.
But now the fragments connected. The way Declan watched her.
The restraint that felt like barely contained need.
The way last night he’d pulled her close and then stepped back like he was fighting himself.
The investigator in her knew exactly what this was. Proximity and circumstance producing something that felt like recognition. She’d been in enemy territory long enough to start seeing allies. That was the risk.
She kept moving.
A small figure barreled into Maren’s legs. The dark-haired girl Sage had seen earlier. Bright eyes and a gap-toothed smile.
“Maren! Tell Jonah I’m faster!”
“You’re both fast.” Maren ruffled her hair. “Lily, this is Sage. She’s visiting for a while.”
Lily fixed on Sage with the unselfconscious curiosity of childhood. “You’re human.”
“I am.”
“That’s cool. Can you climb trees?”
“I, yes?”
“Good!” Lily grabbed her hand. “Come on. Jonah says humans can’t climb as good as wolves but I bet you can prove him wrong.”
The Alpha’s mate just smiled.
“Go on. She won’t take no for an answer anyway.”
Lily dragged her toward a massive pine at the compound’s edge. A boy, Jonah presumably, waited there with his arms crossed and a skeptical expression.
“She’s gonna fall.”
“She is not!” Lily grabbed Sage’s arm. “Show him.”
Sage looked at the tree. At the children watching her with expectation. At the adults nearby who’d paused in their work to see what would happen.
At Declan, standing twenty feet away, his expression unreadable.
She’d climbed worse. Had scaled buildings and cliffs and obstacles that would make this pine look easy. But she hadn’t done it for fun in years. Hadn’t done anything for fun in years.
“Fine.” She tested the lowest branch. “But if I fall, you’re explaining to Declan why I broke something.”
Lily giggled. Jonah’s skepticism shifted to interest.
Sage climbed.
The bark bit into her palms. Wind stung her cheeks. She moved up branch by branch, finding handholds by instinct, and something in her loosened with each foot of elevation.
She’d forgotten this. The simple pleasure of physical challenge. The satisfaction of reaching higher. The way the world looked different from above.
Lily cheered from below. “See? I told you!”
Sage looked down. And caught Declan watching her with an expression so open it made something snag in her chest. Not the rigid enforcer. Not the careful keeper of distance. Just a man looking at a woman like she was something precious and impossible.
She nearly lost her grip.
She climbed down faster than was probably smart, heart hammering at the bottom for reasons she didn’t examine.
Lily bounced excitedly. “That was so cool! Will you teach me that move you did with your feet?”