novelraw Chapter 99: Wolves At The Door
Chapter 99: Wolves At The Door
The door didn’t break so much as explode inward.
The cold outside air slammed into the living room with a spray of snow and splinters. Three men surged through the opening like they owned it, their rifles raised, and the black barrels trained on the five occupants of the cabin like it was just another day.
Their boots hammered the hardwood in a rhythm that was too practiced to be panic. They were prepared, they knew where to go, and they obviously believed that they held the upper hand in this situation.
It was just too bad that they didn’t know whose door they were knocking on.
"Where’s the food?" the lead man barked, his voice muffled under the shadow of a pulled-up hood and black balaclava. "All of it."
The room went still in the way prey does when the predator steps into the clearing.
Sera didn’t move.
The creature uncoiled inside her ribs, stretching just enough to make her skin prickle under her sweater. One of the men kept his weapon leveled on her while the other two split their attention between the rest of the room.
"Hands where I can see them," the leader ordered. "Everybody into the middle."
Alexei’s hands came up slowly, deliberately, his smirk somehow still in place. Zubair complied without hesitation, his eyes never leaving the intruders. Elias moved with the calm precision of a man who could put a bullet through your throat before you finished a breath.
Lachlan stayed close to Sera, not crowding her, but close enough that the shift of his weight was something she felt more than saw. His eyes flicked over her once—reading her, checking if she needed him to act—and then locked back on the men with the rifles.
Two more figures appeared in the doorway, younger, leaner. They slipped past the first three without a word, heading down the hall toward the pantry and kitchen.
Zubair’s eyes narrowed. His voice was quiet but carried. "They’re wolves."
Alexei arched a brow. "Funny. Don’t look all that furry. Maybe that’s why they are wearing that ridiculous face covering."
Elias didn’t take his gaze off the nearest gunman. "Not that kind of wolves," he replied. His tone was flat, clinical, like he was reading from a field manual. "These are organized raiders. Survivalists who stockpile by taking from others. They watch a target for days, sometimes weeks, depending on the situation. They strike when they believe that they have the best chance of getting the supplies they want, and they don’t leave any survivors who can identify them."
Sera’s eyes tracked the leader, committing his stature to memory. He was broad in the shoulders, the grey hair at the temples pointing to him being in his forties maybe, the sort of man who’d grown into authority in small, ugly rooms.
And still, his rifle didn’t waver.
"Move," he ordered, jerking his head toward the living room. "Sit."
No one argued.
They gathered near the coffee table, the fire snapping in the hearth like it hadn’t gotten the memo about the change in temperature. Snow whirled in through the open doorway, melting in silver streaks across the wood floor.
The leader stopped a few feet away, feet planted, rifle easy in his grip. "You’ve been living well. Firewood, power, meat. Takes a lot to keep that going in this weather."
Alexei leaned back against the couch arm, unruffled. "We have a system."
The man’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. "Your system’s mine now."
Boots thudded in the hallway—the younger wolves coming back from the pantry, their arms full of whatever they’d found. A sack of potatoes, canned goods, jars from the shelves. One of them dumped the load near the door, the other went back for more without being told.
Sera kept her breathing steady. The creature inside her pressed forward, tasting the air, measuring the rhythm of the intruders’ movements. They smelled like cold leather and gun oil and something faintly metallic, like blood dried too long in the air.
Zubair’s posture was calm, but Sera knew the way he was watching the door and the gun barrels. He wasn’t afraid. He was calculating.
Elias sat forward slightly, elbows on his knees, his expression almost bored. But Sera caught the way his eyes followed each intruder’s line of sight, marking who was watching what, who wasn’t.
Lachlan... Lachlan was still beside her, his weight canted just slightly toward her. His breathing was slow. If the signal came, she knew he’d move before the wolves knew the fight had started.
The leader’s eyes moved from one of them to the next, lingering on Sera just a fraction longer than the others. "You don’t look like you’ve missed a meal," he said.
She met his gaze, let a faint smile curve her mouth. "Neither do you."
One of the younger men reappeared, this time with a basket of root vegetables, a jar of honey, and the last of the onions from the pantry. The pile by the door grew.
"How many more?" the leader called.
"Kitchen’s half-empty," the young one replied. "Pantry’s stripped now."
"Check upstairs," the leader ordered.
The man disappeared again, his boots drumming on the stairs. The other stayed by the pile of food, rifle slung but hand still near the grip.
The leader looked back at the group. "You make this easy, we’ll be gone before the fire dies. You make it hard..." He let the sentence trail off, but his eyes told the rest.
Sera’s creature shifted again, the weight of it pressing against her skin like it wanted to peel itself forward. She kept it in check, her own pulse steady. There was no rush. Not yet.
The second younger man came back down the stairs empty-handed. "Nothing else. Bedrooms are clear."
The leader’s gaze sharpened, scanning them again. "This is it?" He didn’t sound convinced.
"Everything worth taking," Alexei said mildly.
The man’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe it—but he didn’t press. "Load it," he told the younger ones. "We’ll take the woodpile, too."
They moved to obey, their boots leaving wet tracks on the floor.
The leader stayed where he was, rifle steady, eyes on the group. "You’ve got about ten minutes to think about whether you’ve got anything you’re hiding. After that, we’ll search again. Less polite this time."
The fire cracked. Snow hissed against the open door. The creature’s breath was hot in Sera’s throat.
She was already making her choice.