Her gaze moved to mine. A brief, analytical calculation passed behind her eyes, gone so quickly I almost missed it before she grinned. “Come meet Trevor before he sets something on fire.”
We found him near the pavilion, wearing a utility belt filled with craft tools.
“You came,” Trevor said.
“I did.”
He held up a handmade name tag covered in tiny gears. “I made this for you.”
It read
SLOANE/LOANY.
I laughed. “Are you sure you couldn’t fit more names on there?”
“I figured having both names would help people who don’t know you. Identity is complicated.”
I swallowed hard. “You have no idea.”
Trevor attached the name tag to my shirt with great care. “There. Official.”
“That’s all it takes?”
“Well…” He paused. “The council technically requires more paperwork.”
I froze. He was joking, right? Would there be paperwork at the pack reunion? Surely not.
“But for reunions, Grandma has final authority.”
Just then, Grandma Ruth called from across the lawn. “Trevor! Stop putting labels on people!”
“They need identification!”
“We know who they are, child!”
Grandma Ruth motioned for us to come over. Grandpa Alfonse sat in a wooden chair on the porch, holding a paper plate piled high with food despite dinner not officially starting for another hour.
Grandma Ruth took my hand and walked me over to him. “Alfonse, look who’s here.”
Grandpa paused with his fork halfway to his mouth and studied me with sharp, pale eyes. I prepared for immediate exposure.
“You washed the red right out of your hair,” he stated, his voice raspy but steady. “Preferred it red. Made you look like you had some fire in you. Last time I saw you, you were running off to France or New Mexico or wherever it was Ruth claimed you went.”
“It used to be red,” I managed, blinking at the sudden wall of words. “And I’ve been traveling around.”
He gestured with his fork toward the kitchen. “Ruth said you brought those vanilla cupcakes with the rich frosting. Tell me you didn’t skimp on the butter like Julie does when she tries to make things ‘healthy.’” He said the word healthy with such disdain that I couldn’t help but grin.
“No, sir. I definitely didn’t skimp on the butter,” I promised.
“Good girl.” He took a bite of his potato salad and gestured toward the lawn. “Go on then, before Hudson wears a hole in the grass pacing around waiting to talk to you.”
My face warmed. Was Hudson really that anxious to speak to me? And had everyone noticed?
As I stepped away, I watched Hilary adjust Grandpa Alfonse’s cushion with deference. The pieces clicked into place. Alfonse wasn’t just the family patriarch – he was the former alpha who’d handed the reins down to his daughter. It made total sense why the entire pack treated a man eating potato salad with the same reverence usually reserved for retired mob bosses.
The afternoon melted into a blur of pure, heart-hammering survival. My palms were so slick with nervous sweat that I had to keep wiping them down on my jeans, terrified that a firm, pack-style handshake would send me slipping right out of their grip.
Every conversation felt perilous, a high-wire act over a pit of very large, very literal predators. The terrifying possibility of uttering a sentence that would expose me as a fraud consumed me so much that my inner monologue had devolved into a loop of frantic screaming.
When Ellen, one of the cousins, casually asked if I’d been spending much time building up my pads during the spring thaw, my throat tightened.
Pads? Like… knee pads? An iPad? Paws?
My brain short-circuited trying to figure out if she meant my actual feet or a piece of tech. I forced a rigid nod, offering a safe, generic response. “Honestly, I usually just stay indoors when the ground gets muddy.”
Ellen blinked, her brow furrowing. “Inside?”
Patty materialized out of nowhere with a platter of rolls, snorting loudly. “Don’t mind her, Ellen. Sloane’s been living in the city so long her idea of roughing it is walking to the coffee shop without a portable heating pad.”
Ellen’s attention shifted instantly.
I didn’t stick around for any more questions. I moved to the safety of the buffet, my mind occupied by the desperate need to find a napkin for my hands.
Ten minutes later, I hit another wall while hovering near the grills. An older Carpenter uncle with a thick gray beard looked at my arms and asked where my markers were hiding. My brain misfired entirely, and I blurted out that I hid them with heavy-duty concealer because it was more effective for professional settings.
The uncle blinked, his expression completely blank as he processed the idea of covering scent glands with cosmetics. A fresh wave of panic broke out down my spine as I braced for the exact moment the jig would be up. Patty suddenly let out a loud, theatrical cackle right next to us, depositing yet another platter of rolls onto the table.
“Oh my God, Uncle Dave, don’t mind her,” Patty said, shaking her head. “Sloane’s been around humans for so long, her sense of humor has gone completely dry. She loves saying unhinged things just to see if people are paying attention. Come, help me grab the brisket before the teenagers hoard it all.” She nudged me along the line, and I breathed a massive sigh of relief.
I thanked my lucky stars that Patty had chalked my absolute stupidity up to city sarcasm.
The entire afternoon continued in that hyper-focused haze of self-preservation. I was so busy managing my own near-misses – such as picking the most thoroughly burnt chicken breast because the raw, bloody venison option made my stomach roll – that I completely missed the underlying rhythm of the room.
When a group of cousins invited me to go catch the wind before dinner, I completely blanked. “Did you need me to check the weather app?” I asked.
The cousins exchanged a look of pure bewilderment.
Patty immediately snorted, elbowing one of them. “Leave the workaholic alone,” Patty teased, waving a hand dismissively. “She’s been doing graphic design templates for two weeks straight. Her brain is ninety percent algorithms right now. If it doesn’t involve a screen, she doesn’t understand.” The cousins laughed, dropping the subject.
I sighed with relief. My brain was fried, but not just from work. To the rest of the pack, I was just the eccentric, nomadic relative who had spent too much time living in the city. In reality, I was a woman one wrong syllable away from a catastrophic exposure event.
Later at the buffet, I leaned over the long table to grab a pair of metal tongs, intending to load a roll onto my paper plate, when the air beside me shifted.
Trevor and Mason had materialized on either side of the last platter of smoked brisket. Trevor’s shoulders dropped low, his chest broadening as he let out a low, vibrating rumble that sounded less like a teenager grumbling and more like an idling lawnmower engine. Mason didn’t back down. He squared his broad frame, his jaw shifting until his canine teeth caught the afternoon sunlight, noticeably sharper and longer than they’d looked two minutes ago.
Then they started to circle.
It wasn’t a normal human squabble where people jabbed elbows or raised their voices. They moved in a tight, deliberate radius with synchronized precision. Their eyes stayed locked, pupils blown wide, chest-rumbles escalating into a snarl that vibrated straight through the soles of my sneakers.
I froze, tongs hovering inches above a tub of potato salad, utterly paralyzed.
Is this a normal family disagreement, or am I about to witness a live-action murder over smoked brisket? Should I drop the tongs? If I drop the tongs, will the sudden noise trigger their instinct to hunt me for sport?
I slowly backed away, holding my paper plate against my chest like a shield to protect my internal organs.
Note to self: if meat is involved, do not stand in the splash zone.
Through it all, my only anchor was Hudson. Every time I looked up through the crowd, his green eyes seemed to be tracking me. At one point, he broke away from a group of older pack members and made a direct, purposeful line toward me.
My heart did a dramatic flip. But before he could cover half the distance, Grandma Ruth intercepted him by the crook of his elbow, gesturing aggressively toward a leaking cooler. He shot a look of lingering reluctance over his shoulder at me, but duty won, and he was dragged away.
A little later, while I was sitting at the edge of the pavilion, he tried again. He got within ten feet before a Carpenter uncle slapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, drawing him into what looked like a tense debate about property lines. Hudson answered him, but his gaze drifted past the man’s shoulder, locking onto mine across the lawn with a quiet intensity that made my breath catch.
He finally managed to break free and slid onto the bench directly across from me at the dinner table, though the chaotic nature of the family meant his absolute maximum window of safety was about four minutes.
“You’re barely touching the potatoes,” he noted, his low tone slicing right through the surrounding chatter.
“I am practicing portion control,” I said, lifting a forkful of the potatoes as a shield against the sheer effect of his presence. “Unlike certain men who consider a light breeze and half a protein bar a balanced breakfast.”
A slow, genuine smile broke across his rugged features, lifting the tension from his face. “I ate a full plate of eggs this morning, Sloane. The machine is fully operational.”
God. Why did he have to mention his machine in front of me? Heat pooled low in my stomach, and it made me feel ridiculous.
“Evidence,” I countered, leaning forward slightly, completely forgetting the crowd around us. “I respect evidence, not grandiose claims.”
Before he could respond, Hilary shouted his name, waving a clipboard as a summons to court. Hudson closed his eyes and inhaled deeply before looking back at me with unmistakable disappointment. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
“Go save the day,” I told him.
I watched his broad shoulders disappear into the family chaos, a sudden, inconvenient tightness settling beneath my ribs. When I turned back around, Patty was staring at me over the rim of her soda cup, her eyes narrowed in a way that was entirely too analytical.
“You two are being incredibly weird,” she remarked casually.
I almost choked on a piece of roll, my cheeks instantly turning a bright, telling pink. “We are not being weird. We’re having a standard, usually text-based accountability check.”
“He just looked at you as though you were the only non-annoying person within a fifty-mile radius,” Patty said, setting her cup down with a soft click. “And you looked at him as if he just handed you the moon on a gold-plated platter. That qualifies as weird behavior.”
“It’s nutritional logistics, nothing more,” I insisted, desperately hoping the heat in my face wouldn’t give away just how thoroughly shaken I was. Patty didn’t push it. She just gave me a small, quiet smile.
After dinner, the noise increased. The music grew in volume. Chairs scraped. Children ran inside and outside, shrieking at the top of their lungs like kids usually did for some reason. Someone started a cornhole tournament with rules that went far beyond the game’s original design. Several younger people argued over who could shift the quietest, and I escaped before anyone invited me to demonstrate, finding a quiet spot near the wall to watch.
This was what family looked like when nobody worried about taking up space. People interrupted, laughed too loudly, touched shoulders while passing, corrected stories, stole food from one another’s plates, and argued without threatening the relationship underneath it.
My own family could spend an entire vacation together without saying anything of substance.
The Blackwells had been together six hours and discussed everything from zoning policy to irregular bowel movement. It was overwhelming, but it was oh so wonderful.
A crash sounded near the kitchen. Several children shouted. Caldwell appeared in the doorway with his hands covering his ears. His face had gone pale, and he was breathing too fast. Julie hurried to him, but three other people also turned, and the sudden attention seemed to make everything worse.
Caldwell backed into the wall.
I recognized that look. Not the cause, exactly, but the need to escape a room when everyone thought asking questions would help. It was the exact brand of quiet paralysis my parents used to inflict on me in our pristine, silent house, though I doubted Caldwell’s family had any ill intent.
Growing up, my mistakes had never been met with shouting. They were met with a barrage of highly analytical, well-meaning inquiries designed to dissect my failures. If I struggled to explain my exam results in a way they approved, they would sit me down at the dining table and conduct a polite, clinical investigation. They believed they were helping, when in fact, they were turning my private struggles into a postmortem report.
Every question became another heavy brick piled onto my chest, a constant reminder that I had failed to meet their standards. I had spent my entire life trying to avoid those polite interrogations, convincing myself that if I wasn’t completely assured and on solid ground at all times, I would inevitably mess up and disappoint everyone. The last thing I wanted was to turn into the same cold, distant roommate my parents had always been to me.
Looking at Caldwell, I saw a fellow casualty of a well-meaning interrogation.
I approached him slowly. “Can I sit here?”
He looked at me. I pointed to the floor several feet away, leaving space between us.
No answer.
I sat anyway. The floor was clean enough, and my jeans would survive.
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