Chapter 84: Something to Hold

//Authors Note

Thank you all for hanging in there. I have had some really unexpected life things lately but I am feeling well enough to continue on this book. My goal - please hold me to this - is to publish every day through the end of 2025. I appreciate all of you so much and I am very glad you are enjoying the read.//

It began with a look.

Not a word, not a gesture—just a look from Dessa across the courtyard, sharp and unreadable. It was late morning, and the sun had barely warmed the stones under my feet. I was hauling buckets of washwater out of the kitchen door, Talon snug against my chest as always, when I caught her watching me from the shade near the outer wall.

She didn’t speak.

She just walked toward me, boots quiet on the stone, and stopped two paces away.

“Give him here,” she said.

I blinked, half-thinking I’d misheard. “What?”

Dessa just held out her arms. “You’ve been limping for two days. You’re working too many shifts. Your ribs aren’t healed. Give him.”

Her tone didn’t invite debate. It never did. Still, I hesitated. Talon stirred slightly in the sling, sensing the tension through my skin. His cheek brushed my collarbone.

I stepped back. “He’s fine.”

“You’re not.”

The words hit harder than they should have. I opened my mouth to argue, but her hands were already lifting—slowly, steadily—waiting. Waiting for me to decide whether to trust her.

And for some reason I couldn’t name, I did.

Carefully, I unwrapped the sling and passed Talon into her arms. Her hands were callused, firm, but she held him like she’d done it a thousand times—head cradled in the crook of her elbow, palm pressed against the small of his back. He blinked up at her, fussy for a heartbeat, and then… settled. Instantly.

Dessa looked down at him.

He looked back.

Then she adjusted her stance and said, “Go scrub your damn pots.”

And just like that, she turned and walked off with my son.

I stood there in stunned silence for a few seconds too long, my arms aching with the ghost of his weight.

Then I picked up the buckets and went back to work.

She didn’t give him back until dusk.

I’d just finished cleaning the hearth and was heading for the water pump when she reappeared at the rear entrance of the kitchen. Talon was still cradled against her, dozing with his hand curled into her jacket.

“I tried to return him earlier,” she said. “You were buried elbow-deep in flour and cursing at the dough.”

“I was not.”

“You were,” she said flatly. “He didn’t miss you.”

That should’ve stung. Somehow, it didn’t. I stepped forward to take him, but Dessa shook her head.

“He’s out. Let him sleep.”

I froze.

“You want to—?”

“I’ll keep him,” she said simply. “Just for tonight. So you can rest.”

I stared at her.

Her expression didn’t change. Neither did her grip. But there was something softer in her shoulders now. Something less rigid.

“He has nightmares sometimes,” I said, quiet. “He might wake.”

“So do I.”

She turned without waiting for an answer and walked off with my son like it was the most natural thing in the world.

That night I slept.

Truly slept.

No half-conscious jerks awake at distant cries, no phantom weight across my chest, no creeping fear clawing at my spine. Just sleep.

I woke with the sunrise for the first time in months and didn’t immediately reach for a blade.

For ten seconds, I didn’t even remember where Talon was.

And when I did, I didn’t panic.

I just dressed, pulled my hair into a knot, and went searching.

I found them in the lounge. Talon lay swaddled in a thick gray blanket, his cheeks flushed and peaceful, a faint line of drool trailing from one side of his mouth. He was curled against Dessa’s thigh like a wolf pup.

She was seated on the stone bench beside him, sharpening a blade in slow, methodical strokes. She didn’t look up when I entered.

“He wake?”

“Twice,” she said. “Took milk, went back down.”

I crossed the room and crouched beside him. Brushed a thumb across his cheek. He stirred but didn’t wake.

Dessa watched me from the corner of her eye. “You sleep?”

“Like the dead.”

“Good.”

She returned to her blade.

There was a long silence.

Then I said, quietly, “You knew what to do with him. From the start. You didn’t even hesitate.”

Dessa didn’t answer for a beat. Then: “I had one.”

I looked at her.

“A boy,” she said. Her voice didn’t change. “Dark hair. Born just after frostbite season. Name was Revan.”

“What happened?”

“Raid. Small pack out of the ice flats came south too hungry to think. They didn’t want to kill us. Just wanted something to bargain with. My mate died trying to stop them. I was on patrol. Came back to a burning lodge and an empty crib.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Dessa turned her blade over and began sharpening the other edge. “No one tells you what to do with the sound your body makes when you lose a child. It’s not crying. It’s... something else.”

“I know.”

She looked at me, truly looked. “You do.”

“I lost my mate,” I said. “And almost lost my son in the same breath. I carried him through blood, frost, sickness, and war. And every day since, I wonder if I’ve done enough.”

Dessa’s throat moved. Her fingers flexed around the blade. “You have.”

Another silence.

I straightened slowly and reached into the fold of my tunic. Drew out a small, knitted blanket—the only soft thing Talon had ever had that wasn’t scavenged.

“I was saving this for winter,” I said. “But he’ll sleep better if you use it.”

She took it without speaking.

Folded it once.

Laid it over him gently.

And in that moment, something shifted.

Not friendship. Not yet.

But understanding.

A tether formed, thin and fragile—but real.

A shared ache. A shared purpose.

A reason to keep going.

Over the next days, Talon began to expect her.

He’d twist in the sling when he heard her boots in the hall. Reach for her hand when she passed by my prep station. Cry until she hummed the same four-note tune into his ear, low and guttural like a wolf’s growl turned lullaby.

I could’ve been jealous.

Instead, I was grateful.

He had someone.

We had someone.

One night, I returned to my small room to find a bundle on my cot.

Fresh diapers. A jar of balm. A pair of tiny wool socks that didn’t belong to us.

There was no note.

Didn’t need one.

I looked down the hall, toward the Beta quarters, and let my hand rest over my heart.

Then I picked up Talon, wrapped him in the soft blanket she’d folded days ago, and whispered into his ear:

“She was carved from stone, little wolf. But I think she might be the safest thing we’ve ever known.”

He blinked at me.

Then smiled.

And I knew—without question—that Iron Hollow might just hold more than survival.

It might, one day, hold family too.