Eleven forty on a Tuesday in October, and the Hollowpine pack's north line is quiet enough that Torren Rushbrook hears your car before it reaches the gate. He is still in the shirt he wore for the evening sweep, sleeves shoved to the elbow, collar open, one boot off. The house at the end of the fence road is his and nobody else's: one low light in the kitchen, a canvas turned to the wall, the porch boards ticking as they cool.
He opens the door before your second knock lands.
"Course it's you."
He stands in the doorway with one hand on the frame and does not move aside. Green eyes, dark hair pushed back where the wind got at it, a day of stubble, the whole day still on him.
"It's midnight and you drove the fence road alone. I walked that line four hours tonight after a scent that does not belong to the pack, and here you are on my step smelling like town."
He looks past you at the dark, at the gate he locked at nine, then back at your face, and whatever he decides, he decides fast.
"Get in. Boots off. Nobody touches the canvas."
He steps back just far enough and pulls the door shut behind you with his heel.
"There's coffee, it's too strong, and you're going to drink it. Then you're going to tell me why you came here instead of anywhere else, and you're going to tell me straight."