Chapter 4 #2
He nods slowly. "The pack is going to lose their minds when this gets out. You know that. The Alpha's mate, after this long—" He stops. "Nora alone is going to be completely insufferable."
Something moves through my chest that isn't quite a laugh but is in the vicinity. "I know."
"So we keep it quiet."
"For now." I look out at the pale gray treeline, the sky starting to thin at the edges. "She's planning to leave, Mateo. Once the car is fixed, she thinks she's going back to whatever she left behind. She doesn't know about the bond. She doesn't know about any of it."
"And?"
"And I'm not going to tell her," I say it the way I've been saying it to myself all night—plainly, because it's the only thing I've been able to hold onto clearly.
"Not yet. She needs to make every decision here on her own terms, without the bond being something she's aware of. " I pause. "If she leaves, she leaves."
Mateo turns to look at me with the exact look he reserves for when he thinks I'm being either very wise or very stupid and hasn't decided which yet. "You know what it does to a wolf," he says carefully. "If the bond doesn't settle—"
"I know what it does."
"Logan—"
"I know." I hold his gaze. "It doesn't change the answer. She doesn't belong to me because my wolf decided something in a doorway. She gets to choose." I look back at the trees. "All of it. Whatever that costs me."
He's quiet for a long moment. Then he exhales and nods, and what's in it is the specific acknowledgment of a man who understands that some decisions belong to one person and has made his peace with this being one of them. "Alright," he says.
He stands and rolls his shoulders. "I'll keep the pack back until you say otherwise." He steps off the porch, then stops. "Although—" He pulls out his phone and turns the screen toward me.
It's the pack group thread. Declan's message sits near the top, timestamped twenty minutes ago.
Why does Logan's cabin smell like someone new? And why did I see Garrett towing a car up the mountain at five in the morning? Anyone else feel like something's happening?
Below it, a cascade. Nora: I KNEW something was off last night. Lila: Is everything okay? Three more messages from Declan in quick succession, each one more speculative than the last. Even a single question mark from one of the younger wolves, which somehow communicates plenty.
I stare at the screen for a moment.
"When did this start?" I ask.
"About an hour ago." Mateo pockets the phone. "Declan was out on an early patrol. Caught the scent near your property line and started asking around." He pauses. "I didn't confirm anything. But I didn't exactly have to."
I redirect to the treeline. So much for quiet.
"What did you tell them?"
"That there's a woman staying with you temporarily. That she needs space, and she doesn't know us yet." He meets my eyes. "That's all they're getting for now."
"And Declan?"
Mateo's facial features change into something dry. "Declan is going to be insufferable about this regardless of what I tell him. You know that."
I do know that. "And Nora?"
"Already asking what size clothes she wears."
I press two fingers to the bridge of my nose and breathe through it.
The pack knowing is the right outcome. These are my people.
Their instinct will be to protect her, and I trust that completely.
But Harper doesn't know that yet. To her, they're strangers, and right now she has enough to carry without adding a group of strangers with strong opinions about her presence and no context for why she's here.
"Tell them she's not ready for all of them at once," I say. "A few people. Controlled. And nobody says anything they shouldn't."
Mateo nods. "I'll handle it."
He stops on the path and looks back at me. The sky behind him is beginning to pale at the edges, that first thin shift from black to gray that happens before the world decides to notice.
"Mateo." He waits. "Thank you. For all of it."
He holds my gaze for a moment, and whatever he finds there makes something in his demeanor go quiet and genuine in a way he doesn't show often. "Don't mention it," he says. "Get inside. She'll be up soon."
He turns and walks into the trees, and I listen until I can't hear his footsteps anymore.
When I get back inside, the note is still on the counter where I left it.
I pick it up and look at it for a moment—back before morning, door's unlocked—and then fold it once and push it to the bottom of the trash.
She's still asleep. She doesn't need to know I was gone; she doesn't need to start her morning piecing together where and why I went, on top of everything else she's already carrying.
It's early. The least I can do is let her wake up to something that looks ordinary.
I put the kettle on, lean against the counter, and listen to the cabin settle around me. The fire is going. The sky outside the window is starting to pale at the edges. Upstairs, she's deep in it still—the same steady breath as an hour ago.
I pull down two mugs.
I stand there for a moment looking at them—the automatic assumption of it and the way my hands moved without asking my permission—and I leave them both where they are.
One thing at a time.