14. Chapter 14
Maddie
The inside of Ironwood did not strike me all at once.
It unfolded in layers—firelight first, then polished wood, then the living heat of wolves gathered in a room built to remind them who they were and to whom they belonged.
Sage’s hand remained at the small of my back as though it had every right, warm and steady through my shirt, and I had the strange, immediate feeling that I had not been brought into a home so much as introduced to a system that breathed.
The room was enormous without feeling hollow.
That alone took money and taste both. Heavy beams crossed the ceiling overhead, dark with age or stain or both, and the walls were paneled in wood that glowed amber under carefully placed lamps.
The smell of smoke and cedar sat low in the air beneath richer things—meat, wine, butter, rosemary, wolves.
And there were a fair amount of wolves everywhere.
Not packed shoulder to shoulder. Not loud.
That was what set my nerves pricking in interest almost immediately.
A few stood or sat in arrangements that looked casual only if you didn’t know better.
Some occupied deep chairs near the fire with the comfortable gravity of people accustomed to being listened to.
Nobody stared when I came in.
Everybody noticed.
I felt it along my skin the way a wolf always did in another pack house.
Not hostility. Not exactly scrutiny either.
More like an assessment carried out by a body larger than any one person in the room.
I had been invited by Sage, and that mattered.
It moved through the atmosphere around me like some quiet assurance. Guest. Welcome. Relevant.
A woman, one of the ones I’d met at Obsidian, the one with auburn hair; turned from a conversation near the fireplace almost the second we entered.
She was just as lovely as I remembered in a warm, polished way, her smile arriving before the rest of her did, and there was no hesitation to her at all.
She crossed the room straight toward us like she had every intention of claiming first greeting rights.
“Madelyn,” she said, and before I could decide whether we were at handshake distance or not, she opened both arms.
I barely had time to shift my weight before she hugged me.
Not a social little squeeze either. A real hug. Tight enough to register. Familiar enough to surprise me. The kind of touch women gave when they had either known you a long time or had already decided you belonged in a circle they guarded.
For one startled second, I just stood there in it.
Then instinct took over, and I hugged her back.
“Well, all right,” I said, laughing under my breath when she let me go. “That’s one hell of a welcome.”
“It should be.” Her eyes flicked once toward Sage, then back to me with a warmth that landed oddly deep. “Even the few times we’ve met before make you feel like an old friend, or family.”
Feel like family.
That sentence hooked somewhere in my mind and stayed there.
I cast a glance toward Sage. He only looked amused; one corner of his mouth barely moved, like the exact degree of my surprise pleased him.
“Loralee is a hugger,” he said smoothly, as though telling her to temper her welcome a bit.
“Noted. Nice to see you again,” I said.
“You too, honey.”
Honey. Not condescending. Just easy. Southern enough in spirit to make me like her on reflex, though I suspected she hadn’t come by it in Texas.
Sloan barreled around the corner and scooped me into her arms in a tight hug.
“You made it!”
I laughed again and looked up at Sage.
“Apparently hugging is not solely the habit of Loralee.”
Sloan feigned a sad face.
“Hey, I’m just excited to see my friend. There’s no harm in a tiny hug.”
I raised a brow.
“Wow. I’m thankful that was your tiny hug.”
She giggled as she wandered past us deeper into the house, saying something about having to get things ready for later. She was in her element, and it was a sight to see.
Beyond her, near the far wall, Tristen—I’d recognized him from Obsidian—stood with his arms crossed over a broad chest, beard trimmed close, posture planted wide and easy in a way that still didn’t fool me for one second.
Same watchful eyes. Same sense that if a thing went wrong in the room, he’d be moving before most people had even understood wrong had arrived.
He gave me a single nod.
I gave him one back.
That was all. No smile. No need. It was enough to say I remembered him and he remembered me and neither of us was going to pretend this was our first read of each other.
Sage kept me moving with that hand at my back, not crowding, not steering hard, just guiding.
I was introduced to a blur of faces and positions after that—important wolves, if my gut was reading the room right, each carrying some variation of authority without having to drape it all over themselves.
A silver-haired man with a gaze too direct to be decorative.
A woman with a cool, appraising mouth and a laugh that came easy once she decided to spend it.
Names came and went. I caught some, lost others, and trusted myself to remember what mattered later.
What mattered most, for the moment, was how the room kept orienting around Sage without seeming to.
He never raised his voice. Never called attention to himself.
He just moved, and the social current altered to make space.
Questions found him. Eyes checked his face before making decisions, even small ones.
It reminded me of Bronc in that pure-alpha way, except Bronc felt like open ground and military command welded together.
Sage felt... groomed. Curated. Like leadership polished until it reflected exactly what he wanted others to see in it.
The last person he brought me to was a raven-haired woman standing near the buffet, one hand around a wineglass, the other resting lightly on the back of a chair.
She was beautiful in a sharper way than Loralee—dark-eyed, elegant, and close enough to Sage’s age that brother and sister might have passed at a glance if the bone structure had aligned differently.
“This is Moriah,” Sage said.
Her gaze moved over me once, quick and intelligent, then softened. “So you’re Maddie.”
There was something dry in the way she said it, not unkind, just faintly entertained by realities finally becoming flesh.
“That’s me,” I said.
“She’s mine and Sloan’s aunt,” Sage added.
I looked between them before I could stop myself.
Aunt.
The word did not fit the face in front of me the way my brain expected it to. She looked, if anything, maybe only a few years older than he did. Maybe. And whatever she saw on my face made her mouth tip.
“Yes,” she said. “I know. I get that look all the time.”
I smiled despite myself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by the look. You just seem... young.”
“It’s fine.” She lifted her glass a fraction. “I am, in fact, their aunt. Also, before you ask the second question, your face is considering, I run with Sage’s pack, not his father’s. Family stuff. You know how it goes.”
That snagged hard.
I had not asked it aloud, but now it flashed brighter in my head than before. Why? What did that split look like? I did not know how that kind of "family stuff" went. How did a woman choose one branch of blood over another in a pack structured this tightly? Was it common here? Political? Personal?
I decided that's not my business.
“Good to know my face is a snitch,” I said.
Moriah’s laugh was lower than I expected, more amused than social. “In this room, all faces are.”
The buffet occupied the far end of the room with a selection of beautiful dishes Aspen would have flipped over. A whole prime rib stood beneath warm light at the carving station, its crust dark and herb-speckled, the cut face glistening ruby and rose where slices had already been taken from it.
I realized all at once how hungry I was.
Not polite hungry. Not nibble-and-smile hungry. Full wolf hungry.
Sage noticed, of course.
“Come,” he said softly.
He drew me up to the buffet and reached for a plate before I could.
“You do not have to do that,” I said, though I let him.
“I know.”
That should have irritated me a little. Instead, it warmed some stupid, neglected part of me I had not brought here intending to feed.
He carved the prime rib himself, selecting a slice that bled just enough to make my mouth water, then another because apparently one wasn’t going to cut it.
Potatoes. Mushrooms. Carrots. Green beans.
He built the plate like a man paying attention, not piling on nonsense, not guessing blind.
By the time he handed it to me, I was so charmed by the fact that he had watched what I looked at and acted accordingly that my better instincts had to take a seat.
“Eat,” he said.
Lord.
There was something about a commanding man handing a wolf-woman a full plate that hit lower than common sense.
“Yes, sir,” I said before I could stop myself.
His eyes darkened by a degree so small another person might have missed it.
“You do not have to call me that,” he murmured.
“Good,” I said, taking my plate. “Because that’s not a word I give away with ease.”
“I’ll tuck that tidbit away for now.”
He took his own plate after mine and led me toward the long dining table set a little apart from the fireplace cluster. Not formal exactly, but long enough and heavy enough to announce continuity.
I ate.
I came from wolves. I had grown up at tables where people worked with their hands, ran hard, lifted heavy, and thought appetite was a sign of health instead of a thing to apologize for.
So when that prime rib hit my tongue all peppered crust and salt and bloody tenderness, I just closed my eyes a second and enjoyed it.
The potatoes were rich enough to make me borderline emotional.
Somebody had put actual care into every damn thing on that table, and my body knew it before my mind did.
Sage sat beside me.
Not across. Beside.
That, too, was a choice.