“That remains to be seen.” I slant a look at him. He winks.
The compound is bigger than it looked from the road. The main house anchors the center, old stone and timber, two stories, the wraparound porch. Outbuildings radiating in arcs: bunkhouses, barns, a large open-sided pavilion where the food tables are set up. The meeting hall beyond that. I count wolves as we walk: forty, maybe fifty, adults. Plus children. A significant pack.
The smell is overwhelming. Wolf scent layered so thick it’s like walking through fog. Pack bonds everywhere, the invisible connections between wolves who’ve lived together for generations, woven so tightly the whole compound hums. I take it all in automatically: strong alpha at the center, ranked wolves in the inner ring, family groups extending outward. Healthy. Stable. Deeply bonded.
Beautiful, if I didn’t know what they believe about wolves like me.
“So,” I say, keeping my voice light. “Give me the tour. What am I looking at?”
“The pavilion’s where the food is. My mother’s been cooking since yesterday. Don’t tell her I said that, she’ll insist it was no trouble. The meeting hall’s where the music is. The band’s local: Tommy Reeves on guitar. He’s a ranch hand during the week and thinks he’s Willie Nelson on Saturdays.”
“Is he?”
“He’s more Garth Brooks with a head cold. But nobody tells him that.”
I laugh before I can stop it. He glances at me, catching it, and his eyes warm.
“That building on the left is the original barn,” he says. “My grandfather put it up first… before the house, before anything. He said you shelter the animals before you shelter yourself, because the animals don’t have a choice about being here.”
“I like your grandfather.”
“You’d have hated him. He was a mean old bastard who didn’t trust anyone who wasn’t born on this land. But he was right about the barn.”
A woman approaches: fifties, weathered, kind face, carrying a plate of cornbread. “You must be Willow! I’m Beth. Conner mentioned you were coming.”
“Thank you. This looks wonderful.”
“Oh, it’s tradition. Four times a year, rain or shine. Here, take some cornbread. I’ll be offended if you don’t.”
I take the cornbread. Beth smiles at Conner with the warmth of a woman who’s known him since he was small, and moves on. The exchange is simple, genuine, and it makes my chest ache because this is a pack that loves its people. I know what that looks like. I had it once.
Conner steers me toward the food table. “Brisket’s the main event. My mother brines it for two days. It’s the only thing in this town that’s actually worth driving here for.”
“Not Dutch’s coffee?”
“That coffee is an acquired taste. Like Stockholm syndrome.”
We load plates. He introduces me to people as we move through the crowd, casual, easy, his hand gesturing but never quite landing on me. I meet Clyde from the feed store, who nods like he’s already heard about me. A woman named Jessie, who trains the younger wolves and looks at me with open curiosity. An older couple, the Macauleys, who’ve been on the land since before Conner was born, and want to tell me about the flood of ‘97 in detail that suggests they’ll still be telling the story when the next flood comes.
I listen. Ask questions. Play the newcomer. And underneath the performance, I’m analyzing: layout, positions, the hierarchy visible in who sits where, and who defers to whom.
Then the toast.
A man I don’t recognize—older, thick through the middle, a voice that carries—stands on the pavilion steps with a beer raised. “To the Forresters. To the land. And to keeping what’s ours pure and strong.”
“Pure and strong,” the crowd echoes. Easy. Familiar. A phrase they’ve said a hundred times.
Pure.The word makes my gut twist.
I keep my face neutral. Take a sip of beer. Conner glances at me—reading, always reading—and I give him nothing.
After the toast, it’s in everything. Two women near the food table: “Did you hear about the Dawson pack up in Oklahoma? Took in a mixed family.Mixed.” The disgust is casual, conversational. “Their alpha’s lost his mind.” The other woman shakes her head. “Standards slipping everywhere. Thank God for Garrett.”
A man near the grills, talking to a younger wolf: “The bloodlines matter. That’s what the old families understood. You let contamination in, and it doesn’t stop. Look at what happened to the Ravenclaws.”
I freeze.
The Ravenclaws. My pack. A cautionary tale at a barbecue.