Kidd listened to Dorian only with half his attention.
The conversation about Fenrir moved steadily—calm, methodical. Marco was explaining something about the blood analysis, Levi asked a few precise questions, and the old alpha occasionally added a quiet remark that pushed the discussion forward.
It looked exactly like what it was supposed to be: a group of adults trying to solve a dangerous problem. And yet something kept tugging at the edge of Kidd's awareness.
A scent.
He had no intention of looking in that direction. Not consciously, at least. But his gaze slid across the room anyway—quick, instinctive.
And then he saw her.
Really saw her.
Ithilien sat on the couch, leaning slightly forward while Hayati knelt behind her with deep concentration, carefully braiding strands of her pale hair. Several thin braids already hung along Ithilien's shoulders, tied with small rubber bands that Byra kept handing over from her pocket.
Ithilien looked relaxed.
Her shoulders were loose, her head tilted slightly as she laughed at something Byra had just said. The sound was warm and natural—nothing like the cool politeness she had shown him the night before.
She looked...
The younger wolves were sitting around them in a loose circle.
Christian and Colton sat on the floor near the table, arguing loudly over the game. Carter narrated every move with exaggerated drama while Thiago occasionally threw a pillow at him to make him shut up. Zeke leaned against the back of the couch, watching the whole scene with an amused half-smile.
Laughter. Noise. The warmth of the fireplace.
And right in the middle of it all sat Ithilien.
For a brief moment it looked so natural that Kidd had the strange impression she had always been part of that picture.
As if she belonged there.
The thought came suddenly, unwelcome and it irritated him so he pushed it away immediately.
This was his pack. She was not his Luna. She did not belong here.
And she certainly did not belong to him.
Kidd turned his eyes away before anyone could notice he had been looking at all.
"If the virus is really active in such low concentration," he said calmly, refocusing on Marco, "then we should assume someone was testing reactions, not a full transformation."
His voice was steady. Controlled. He did not look toward the couch again.
He didn't step closer. He didn't join the younger wolves' conversation. He didn't even react when Hayati burst into laughter because one of the braids came out crooked.
To anyone watching, he appeared completely absorbed in the discussion about Fenrir, as if nothing else in the room mattered.
Only Levi, standing half a step beside him, noticed the moment Kidd's shoulders tightened just a little more than the conversation required. And when the faint scent of jasmine drifted through the room again, Levi hid the small smile that touched his lips.
Because he knew exactly what Kidd had just seen.
Lunch ended slowly, the way it always did in a house full of wolves—chairs scraping against the wooden floor, half-finished conversations drifting into new ones, the smell of food lingering in the warm air of the kitchen.
The younger wolves were the first to grow restless.
Christian stretched his arms over his head, nearly knocking over a chair in the process.
"Alright," he announced, "I'm going outside before I explode."
"You say that every time you eat," Colton muttered, already pulling on his jacket.
Zeke pushed himself up from the table and looked toward Ithilien.
"We're heading out" he said. "You coming?"
Thiago leaned back in his chair, grinning.
"Yeah, we need a rematch. Last time you outran half of us."
Carter added, "And I still say you cheated."
Ithilien smiled faintly but shook her head.
"Not today."
There were a few exaggerated groans, a couple of joking complaints, but none of them pressed the issue. Within moments they were already heading toward the door, voices rising again as they argued about who had actually won the last "race".
Cold air rushed in when the door opened and then they were gone.
The house grew quieter.
Not silent—never completely silent with a child present—but calmer, softer somehow.
Ithilien remained where she was, sitting near the edge of the room. For the first time that day, she wasn't answering questions or deflecting teasing comments. She simply watched.
Across the room, Hayati had climbed into Levi's lap with the effortless certainty children had about where they belonged. Levi sat comfortably in the armchair, one large hand resting across the child's back while she leaned against his chest and played absently with the buttons of his flannel shirt.
Byra stood nearby, laughing quietly at something the girl said, brushing a stray strand of hair away from Hayati's face.
It was such a small thing.
Ordinary.
The kind of moment most people barely noticed.
But Ithilien watched them with a stillness that had nothing to do with curiosity.
The warmth between them was effortless. Natural. Not dramatic or intense, not charged with the heavy pull of a bond.
Just… life.
A family.
Her chest tightened unexpectedly.
Is this what I'll miss?
The thought came uninvited. She had never allowed herself to linger on it before. The future had always been something distant, abstract—something she would figure out later. But now the image in front of her made the question unavoidable.
Is this what the bond really took from me?
Hayati laughed again, leaning back against Levi.
Ithilien's gaze lowered slightly.
Is this what he took from me?
The thought carried a sharp edge now. Somewhere deep inside her, the crack Kidd had forced into her certainty the night before widened a little further. Not enough to break but enough that she could feel the fracture spreading, quiet and relentless, beneath the surface.