novelraw Chapter 183: The Pup In The Pack
Chapter 183: The Pup In The Pack
Sera crossed the last stair without a sound, the dire wolf pup tucked under one arm, her hair still faintly damp from the quick wash that she had done to wake herself up.
The smell from the kitchen drifted through the penthouse. Rice and meat, herbs crushed between careful fingers... it reminder her of Sunday dinner before everything went to shit.
Zubair stood over the stove like a wall that had learned to breathe.
Alexei lounged sideways on a couch, one ankle hooked over the other, grin too easy for the hour.
Lachlan pushed up on an elbow, blinking at the light.
And Elias watched from the arm of a chair, glasses low on his nose as if the morning itself were a problem to solve.
Sera did not address the heavy mood. Instead, she stepped onto the rug and lowered the pup to the floor.
"This is Luci," she introduced, voice even. "Short for Lucifer. He stays."
Luci planted his paws wide like a prince accepting a crown.
His dark nose tested the air—rice, iron from old weapons oil, leather, woodsmoke, four men, one woman who felt like home—and then he looked up to confirm she was watching.
Sera’s hand hovered above his head, not touching, not needed. Permission lived in the distance between them.
Alexei was already on his feet, crouching with a careless ease that made the couch whisper. "Well, hello there," he greeted, palm low, fingers loose. "We finally meet."
Luci sniffed the offered hand, considered the man’s bright eyes, and chose caution.
A soft growl of sound warned that the wolf demanded boundaries between him and the males. He stepped back to Sera’s boot and rested his chin on her laces, ownership declared without drama.
"Fair," Alexei chuckled, palms lifted in surrender. "We’ll renegotiate later."
Lachlan swung his legs to the floor, sleep falling away at the sight of small ears and oversized paws.
"He’s perfect," he breathed, warmth spreading across his face. "Look at that head. You’re going to be a monster when you grow up, aren’t you?"
Luci’s tail considered the compliment, then granted two dignified thumps.
Elias leaned forward, curiosity shading caution. "Age estimate?" he wondered, tone gentle. "Four months? Five?"
"Not that old," Sera answered. "He’s hungry every hour, loud when ignored, quiet when carried. He knows how to be invisible when I ask."
Zubair turned from the stove long enough to meet her eyes.
A question lived there, wrapped in something harder to name.
He reached for a bowl without speaking and ladled out the first portion, steam rising in clean ribbons. The spoon tapped the rim once: ready.
Sera took the bowl from his hand and set it on the counter for the heat to settle.
Zubair returned to the pot. "He will need food and water," he reminded, voice rough as stone under snow. "We didn’t think to bring pet food when we were hunting for supplies."
"I’ll handle it," Sera assured. "Besides... he’s not a pet. Soon enough, he will be able to hunt on his own."
Luci left her boot long enough to sign his approval on the kitchen with a slow, confident circuit.
He sniffed a chair leg, the corner of the rug, the cold edge of the fireplace tools. He paused in front of Zubair’s boots and lifted his gaze up, up, to the man’s guarded face.
For a breath the room held still.
Zubair did not crouch. He simply angled one palm outward, offering it like a shield turned into a welcome. "Morning, little king," he rumbled.
Luci pressed his nose to the broad hand, exhaled once as if stamping something official, and moved on—back to Sera, back to the anchor that told him where the world began.
Sera slid onto a stool and pulled the bowl closer.
Luci curled under the overhang of the counter, body touching the toe of her boot, safe and content.
Zubair set a cup of water within her reach, then another near the pup’s paws. No one commented on the way his hand lingered a heartbeat longer than necessary near her wrist.
Lachlan dragged a second stool over with his foot, still eyeing the pup like sunshine had walked inside. "You could have warned us," he teased, keeping it light. "I would’ve knitted something ridiculous."
"Do not knit him clothes," Sera returned without a smile, though the line of her mouth softened. "He will eat your yarn."
"Worth it," Lachlan grinned.
Elias tapped a finger on his knee, thoughtful. "Diet?" he asked. "Milk replacer won’t help at his age. We can soak meat. Bone later, not now."
"Meat soaked and broken small," Sera agreed. "He takes water by hand. He prefers to sleep on my bed. The crate is a polite fiction Zubair enforces to keep our habits tidy."
Alexei leaned his elbows on the back of the couch, eyes flicking from Sera to the pup to Zubair at the stove and back again. "Where does he sit in the order?" he wondered, tone almost idle.
Sera lifted her spoon and tasted the broth, considering whether to answer the question or punish it with silence. "Above strangers," she decided. "Below me. Equal to doors and weather."
"Doors and weather," Alexei echoed, amused. "That feels right."
Zubair slid a second bowl across the counter. "Eat," he instructed, the word carrying more care than command.
Sera met his gaze and inclined her head. "Thank you."
The first spoonful steadied her ribs.
The second let her shoulders drop the half-inch she had been holding against the morning.
Luci watched her mouth like a worshipper at a ceremony, and when she set the bowl down to cool he rested his chin on her boot again, an oath renewed.
Lachlan reached for cups, poured hot water over tea leaves with the caution of a man defusing a bomb.
"He can learn hand signals," he offered. "Simple ones at first. Stop. Come. Hide. I can work with him in the afternoons."
"You can try," Sera allowed. "He will decide when the lesson ends."
Elias’s focus turned clinical again. "I can check joints as he grows," he added. "Make sure nothing binds. Cold can be hard on young ligaments. Not to mention, we have no idea what we are facing when it comes with dire wolves. They have been extinct since..."
"Since the last ice age?" Sera purred, a soft smile on her face. "I appreciate you looking out for him like that."
"So you are okay with me checking him over?"
Sera nodded once, a quiet concession to expertise she trusted when it wore his face. "Do so without making him fear you."
"I’ll earn the right," Elias promised.
Alexei collected the empty ladle and spun it on his palm like a coin. "And my role?" he asked, eyes bright. "Besides learning to take a hint when he looks at me like I stole his pillow."
"You can stop provoking Zubair before breakfast," Sera replied, tone mild enough to make Lachlan snort into his tea.
Alexei laughed and drifted back to the couch, palms lifted as if to show he carried no knives. "Working on it."
The pot murmured; the windows breathed frost; the tower settled its bones around them. Sera finished half the bowl, pushed the rest toward the pup, then pulled it back before he could reach.
"Not yet," she warned. "You are learning patience."
Luci sat. The choice was not perfect. His back end slid a little. His ears argued with the concept. But he held. Sera’s palm hovered again, a promise of contact that would arrive when he earned it.
Zubair watched the small battle and the calmer victory that followed. Something eased in his face, not enough for anyone but Sera to notice.
"Good," she approved, finally dropping her hand to ruffle the soft fur between Luci’s ears. "You can have three bites. Then you wait."
Three bites came and went. The pup obeyed the pause as if the word had weight.
"Doors and weather," Alexei murmured again, not mocking this time. "Right."