Chapter 3 – The Pack House
1329 Words
The hallway outside Darian’s office is empty, but it still feels like it’s watching me.
I stand there for a stupid second, fingers white on the doorknob, waiting for my heartbeat to slow. It doesn’t. The bond hums under my skin, directionless now that the source is behind a wall instead of across a desk.
Guest, not mate, I remind myself, and force my hand to let go.
The house is quieter than I expected for a building full of wolves. Somewhere distant, dishes clink, a chair scrapes. The scent of roasted something hangs in the air, tangled with coffee, old smoke, pine. My stomach twists—half hunger, half nerves.
“Uh, hi.”
The voice comes from my right, high and bright. I flinch, spinning.
A little girl stands halfway down the hall, bare feet, leggings with cartoon moons, hair escaping every direction from a half‑hearted braid. She can’t be more than nine or ten. A boy about the same age lurks behind her shoulder, peeking around like a smaller, quieter shadow.
The girl grins, unabashed. “You’re the new wolf.”
“I—” The title hits wrong, sharp and ironic. “Something like that.”
“I’m Neri,” she announces, marching closer without a hint of fear. “This is Milo.” She jerks a thumb behind her. “He doesn’t talk much to strangers.”
Milo ducks his head, dark curls falling into his eyes. His scent is a little wild, a little wary. Underneath, there’s a thin, metallic thread of old fear that makes my chest hurt.
“Hi,” I say softly. “I’m Vexa.”
Neri plants herself right in front of me, hands on hips, studying my face like I’m a puzzle. “You smell weird.”
“Neri,” Milo hisses, scandalized.
“What?” She shrugs. “She не smells like us.” She turns back to me, nose wrinkling. “You smell like rock and snow and… sad. And Alpha.”
Heat crawls up my neck. Of course she can smell Darian on me; the bond might as well be a neon sign.
“Maybe that’s just Hollowpeak,” I say. “We’re very… rocky.”
She squints, unconvinced, then brightens. “Are you gonna stay?”
I open my mouth. Close it. No idea how to answer that one.
“I just got here,” I say carefully. “I don’t even know where I’m sleeping.”
“Oh!” Her eyes go wide. “I know. Come on.”
Before I can protest, she grabs my sleeve and tugs. Milo trails after us like a nervous duckling.
We pass the big common room I’d only glimpsed earlier—fireplace, sagging couches, a TV bolted to the wall, shelves with mismatched mugs. A couple of warriors lounge there, talking quietly. Their conversation hiccups when they spot me, gazes flicking from my face to my Hollowpeak coat and back.
One of them, tall and lean with cropped copper hair, murmurs, “That her?”
“Shut up,” the other hisses back, but they both keep watching.
I drop my gaze and follow Neri up a narrow staircase that creaks in protest. The second floor smells like detergent, sleep, and too many showers.
“This is the pack floor,” Neri explains, clearly delighted to be the tour guide. “Families over there, warriors mostly down that way, guest rooms here.” She points with all the solemnity of a general.
Milo tugs at her sleeve. “Vael said not to drag the new wolf around.”
“I’m not dragging,” Neri says primly. “I’m helping. That’s different.”
I almost laugh. The sound comes out strangled, but it’s something.
She stops at a door near the end of the hall. “This one’s empty. Was for visitors from the river pack, but they left.”
Her small hand twists the knob and pushes it open.
The room is plain but clean: a narrow bed, a dresser, a small desk under a window that looks out onto dark trees. Someone’s left folded linens at the foot of the mattress, a glass of water on the nightstand. It smells like dust and faintly of lemons.
It also doesn’t smell like anyone else. No lingering traces of a previous occupant’s grief or anger. Just… space.
My throat tightens unexpectedly.
“This okay?” Neri asks. For the first time, some of the bravado slips. “We can find another if you hate it.”
“It’s…” My voice comes out rough. I clear it. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
Milo edges into the doorway, big eyes flicking around. “You had a room in your old pack?” he asks, so quiet I almost miss it.
“Yes.” I force myself to breathe. “Smaller than this. Lower ceiling. No window.”
No privacy. No locks. No sense that it was truly mine.
He nods like that makes sense somehow, like he knows what it is to have space that isn’t really your own.
“Vael said you’re from far,” Neri says. “Is it scary there?”
“Sometimes,” I admit. “Sometimes here is scary, too.”
She considers that, then shrugs. “Everywhere’s scary. But here has good cookies.”
A laugh breaks out of me, startled and helpless. “That’s… important.”
“Exactly.” She beams, mission clearly accomplished. “Okay, we’ll let you, um—” She flaps her hands vaguely. “Do new‑wolf things.”
“Unpack,” Milo supplies.
“Yeah. That.”
They turn to go, then Neri spins back like she just remembered something critical. “If anyone is mean to you, tell me,” she says fiercely. “I bite ankles.”
“Very effective,” I say gravely.
She flashes teeth. “You’d be surprised.”
After they leave, the room is suddenly very quiet.
I set my bag on the bed and stand there for a moment, looking at it. There isn’t much inside—two changes of clothes, a battered sweater, a worn paperback, a tiny framed photo of my parents and Rhoen, taken on a rare day when we all looked almost like a normal family.
I set the photo on the nightstand, then hesitate.
The bond tugs at my sternum, a dull, persistent ache. Somewhere below, I can feel Darian moving—anger edged with exhaustion, a flare of pain when he shifts his weight wrong. My almost‑wolf presses at the inside of my ribs, restless.
I cross to the window instead and push it open wider. Cold air spills in, full of damp earth and the low, throbbing heartbeat of this place.
Grimvale. Forest and metal and smoke and a man whose voice wrapped around the word responsibility like he meant it.
I’m not wanted in Hollowpeak.
I’m not wanted here, either. Not really. Not by the pack that got stuck with their problem.
But when I close my eyes and let the scents of this land wash over me, my wolf—the broken, whisper‑thin presence I’ve lived with my whole life—does something she’s never done before.
She leans toward it.
Not away. Not into nothingness. Toward.
The realization is so fragile I barely breathe around it.
“Traitor,” I whisper, but there’s no heat in it.
My fingers curl on the windowsill. Outside, somewhere in the dark, a wolf howls—long and low and steady. Others answer, a chorus rising over the trees.
My chest aches with the wanting to answer back.
I don’t. I’m still the wrong wolf, the quiet one who doesn’t change and doesn’t belong.
But for the first time, standing in a room that smells like lemons and rain and the future, I let myself wonder:
What if that didn’t have to be true forever?
- Writer
