Levi's house stood along Camp Creek Road, set back slightly from the asphalt behind a line of spruce trees that, in winter, resembled a dark, silent guard. It was larger than Marco's place, expanded over the years with an added wing and a wide driveway where several cars belonging to pack families were parked that evening. Smoke rose from the chimney, and the light from the windows spilled onto the snow in a thin, golden glow.
Inside, it was loud and warm.
The scent of roasted meat blended with herbs and the steady aroma of wood burning in the fireplace. Children ran between the living room and the kitchen, someone laughed at the table, someone else raised their voice in a playful argument about who had burned the first batch of bread. This was not a pack built on fear. It was a pack built on bond.
Levi stood by the kitchen island, carving meat with the precision of both a seasoned hunter and a father who knew he would soon have to divide the portions fairly. Byra moved between the table and the oven, adjusting plates and gently shushing their six-year-old daughter, Hayati, who was attempting to convince the twins to start another round of chasing each other up the stairs.
Colton and Christian resembled each other like twin reflections in a mirror, though their expressions set them apart. Colton carried more impatience in his eyes, Christian more observation. Both were tall, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, and possessed that particular kind of restless energy that made it feel as though there was always a little too much of them in any room.
Kidd entered without hurry, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it over the back of a chair. The winter air clung to his shoulders for a moment before the warmth of the house absorbed it. He greeted Levi with a brief nod, clapped Zane on the shoulder, and allowed Hayati to wrap her arms around his waist before lifting her easily with one hand, as though she weighed nothing.
"Careful, Alpha," Levi laughed. "She'll take you down."
"Not this year," Kidd replied with a grin, setting the girl gently back on the floor.
In the corner of the living room, seated in an armchair placed close to the fireplace, was Dorian.
The former alpha.
Silver hair fell at his temples, fine lines traced his face, yet his gaze remained sharp, bright, fully aware of everything unfolding around him. Even seated, he carried the quiet authority of a leader who had held the pack together not through force, but through presence.
Kidd approached him first.
"Good to see you, Dorian."
"I was beginning to wonder whether the young alpha had forgotten about the old wolf," Dorian replied with a faint smile.
Kidd took a seat opposite him, elbows resting on his knees in a posture that was relaxed but attentive.
"I heard you've been speaking with the south."
Dorian did not answer immediately. For a moment he watched the flames in the fireplace as if weighing his words.
"I have. They have a daughter of the right age. Well raised. Prepared."
"Prepared to be a Luna?" Kidd asked evenly.
"Prepared to stand beside an alpha," Dorian corrected, studying him closely. "That is not always the same thing."
From across the room came the sound of laughter; apparently the twins had caught enough of the conversation to grow interested.
Colton leaned against the doorway.
"So it's true?" he asked bluntly. "We've got a new she-wolf in the area and a potential Luna from the south?"
Christian lifted a brow.
"Two scents in one season. That should make for an interesting winter."
Kidd shot them a warning look, though amusement flickered briefly in his eyes.
"Don't you have anything better to do than count other people's scents?"
"We're just looking out for pack security," Colton replied with exaggerated seriousness.
"Then make sure you're not circling neutral ground more often than you should," Kidd replied, and his tone shifted—firmer now, unmistakably alpha. "Marco reported her presence according to the pact. That's not a reason to treat her like a threat. Or entertainment."
The twins exchanged a glance.
"We're not stepping onto neutral ground," Christian said, his voice calmer.
"See that you don't," Kidd added. "Unless there's a reason."
Dorian had watched the exchange in silence.
"And you?" he asked at last. "Do you have a reason?"
Kidd leaned back more comfortably in his chair and let his gaze settle on the fire.
"No," he said after a moment. "And for now, I don't intend to go looking for one."
There was something in his voice—subtle, almost imperceptible—that Dorian caught, though he chose not to comment.
Plates clinked against the table as Levi called everyone to dinner, and the pack took their seats with no visible chaos, only the natural hierarchy that required no commands to function.
Kidd sat between Zane and Levi, allowing the conversations to flow around him. He laughed, responded to teasing, joined in the jokes, yet his senses never dulled. He was young, relaxed, confident—but he never stopped being alpha.
The house slowly quieted.
The twins left first, pulling on their jackets and half-arguing over who would start the engine. Carter, wearing an expression slightly too serious for his nineteen years, helped Dorian up from the armchair and escorted him home, supporting him more out of respect than necessity. Zane walked Crystal to her car, promising to call once she got home, though everyone knew he would stand in the driveway several minutes longer before letting her drive off.
Byra dimmed part of the lights and lifted Hayati into her arms when the girl began to yawn.
"Good night, Alpha," she said softly to Kidd before heading upstairs.
Levi stopped her midway, resting a hand at her waist and pulling her close with the natural ease of someone who had done it a thousand times. He kissed her temple, then her mouth—briefly, but with warmth that was neither a display nor a performance, just something settled and certain, deeply rooted.
Byra smiled at him as if the gesture were the most ordinary thing in the world, then disappeared up the stairs.
Kidd watched in silence.
There was no jealousy in him. Only curiosity, which had been stirring for some time and now took clearer shape.
Levi dropped onto the couch with a heavier exhale, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt. He stood a head shorter than Kidd, solidly built, black-haired, with green eyes that usually regarded the world with steady pragmatism. A long pale scar ran down his right cheek, and the twins claimed the one on his left shoulder was worse—a souvenir from old "antics" with Zane that had escalated further than either had intended. Within the pack, Levi was the voice of reason, the one who did not react impulsively and rarely allowed emotion to override judgment.
"Silence," he muttered. "Best part of the day."
Kidd took the seat opposite him, elbows resting on his knees. For a moment he stared into the dying fire.
"What's it like?" he asked finally.
Levi lifted a brow.
"What?"
"The bond."
There was no humor in Kidd's voice. Levi studied him more closely.
"What do you mean?"
Kidd hesitated only briefly.
"What does it actually mean to have a partner. Not someone you're seeing. Someone you're… bound to."
Levi leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, hands clasped together. For a long moment he watched the embers in the fireplace as if searching for language capable of translating something instinctive and ancient into words that would not sound naïve.
Kidd watched him closely.
For years he had observed his pack mature. First Levi had found Byra. Then Zane had met Crystal, and suddenly his sharp edges had taken on a different quality; he no longer seemed like a wolf fighting for position, but like someone building something that would last. Even the younger ones had begun glancing around, testing the air for partners of their own. And he, the alpha, remained the last of the eldest wolves without a Luna.
Not because he couldn't choose.
Because he refused to choose wrong.
His respect for the ancient bond ran deep, almost instinctive. He understood that it was more than emotion. It was the axis around which the balance of the pack turned. As alpha, he could not afford impulse. His Luna could not be merely a woman he desired. She had to be someone the pack would accept, someone the wolves would recognize, someone whose energy would reinforce the foundation rather than crack it.
Levi turned an empty glass slowly in his hands, as if deciding whether he truly wanted to translate instinct into language. At last he exhaled and gave a crooked smile.
"This is going to sound a little pathetic," he said with a short laugh, "but I don't have a better way to describe it. It feels like the world explodes and the ground disappears beneath your feet. You know life is still happening—people, nature, responsibilities, all of it—but suddenly it's secondary."
Kidd lifted a brow but didn't interrupt.
"Your wolf knows first," Levi continued. "They recognize it before you have time to think it through. Before you can name the feeling, reject it, or rationalize it away. And then you start having… not bad thoughts, exactly. Just uncomfortable ones."
He shot Kidd a half-smile.
"You want everything," he said, emphasizing the words. "Her closeness, her scent, her touch. You feel like howling, running, jumping all at once." For a moment disbelief flickered across his face as memory took hold. "I barely ate for a week. Couldn't sleep. At times I thought it was obsession, but then I realized it was more like a fever."
Kidd tilted his head slightly.
"A fever."
"Yeah." Levi chuckled. "The first time, I literally jumped into the river to cool off. Thought I'd lost my mind. The next time I found myself sitting outside her house like an idiot, waiting for her to come out. Not because I couldn't function—I could. But everything else felt… less important."
He dragged a hand across the back of his neck.
"God, Kidd, if you knew the things I wanted to do. I felt leashed. And at the same time, it felt like the most natural state in the world."
Kidd let out a short laugh.
"That sounds incredibly toxic."
Levi laughed with him.
"It kind of is. There's this very male urge to claim her. You go half-crazy if you catch someone else's scent on her. Any foreign trace makes your skin crawl, even when your rational mind knows it's ridiculous. Instinct grabs the wheel faster than you'd like."
Kidd's smile faded slightly.
"What do you mean by fever?" he asked more seriously.
Levi arched a brow.
"You're kidding."
Kidd exhaled through his nose in amusement.
"Oh. That."
"Yeah. That." Levi nodded. "Wolves are wolves. Once the bond is accepted on both sides—once it's clear that it's real—the tension finds release. Closeness. Physical confirmation. That's when the wolf settles. You settle."
His expression softened.
"But the world stays different. Even after the first rush fades, everything without her feels empty. Less sharp. Like someone turned down the color."
He leaned back against the couch.
"I can't imagine life without my girls. Not a single day without Byra. It's not dependence. It's… structure. If she's gone, the whole thing tilts."
Kidd kept his eyes on the fire, though he was no longer seeing it.
Levi's words hadn't sounded like a romantic fantasy. They had sounded like the description of a mechanism—something that, once set in motion, could not be halted. As alpha, Kidd understood dominance. He understood the instinct to protect, the weight of responsibility, the constant awareness that every decision rippled outward through the pack. But what Levi had described was something else entirely—not authority, not duty, but biology asserting itself without consulting plans or politics.
An image surfaced uninvited in his mind: a damp December evening, pale hair braided tightly, a figure standing still against the cold.
He didn't like how naturally the memory slipped into the space Levi's words had created.
"And what if it comes at the wrong time?" he asked quietly.
Levi studied him for a long moment, no humor left in his expression, then gave a slight shrug.
"It never comes at the right time," he said evenly. "It comes when it's meant to. All you get to decide is whether you fight it or accept it."
Silence settled again in the living room, not heavy, but thoughtful. The last of the fire shifted in the hearth, embers collapsing inward with a soft crackle.
Kidd leaned back slowly, jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. He had built his life on control—on choosing carefully, on weighing consequences before acting. The idea of something bypassing that discipline unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
Across from him, Levi watched without pressing further. He knew better than to push an alpha who was thinking.
Outside, wind moved through the trees along Camp Creek Road, low and steady, as if the forest itself were breathing in and out.
Kidd listened to it, and for the first time that evening, he wondered not whether he would recognize the bond if it came—
—but whether he would have the strength to refuse it.