Ingrid Solve | Alpha of the Havfolk Pack

The ferry from Ystad came in at half past ten.

Ingrid was at the harbour for the timber delivery, two packs of marine-grade oak from the mainland supplier, overdue by a week, which she had let go twice and was not going to let go a third time. She had been at the boatyard since six and had come down to the harbour at ten with the specific energy of someone who intended to have a short, direct conversation with the delivery coordinator and then get back to work.

The timber was not there yet.

The coordinator was also not there yet, which was a separate problem that she was adding to the list. She stood at the harbour edge with her hands in her jacket pockets and looked out at the water. The morning was cold and clear, the Baltic flat and pale, the kind of November light that made the island look like something from an older time. She did not mind waiting. The sea was good company and she had things to think through.

The ferry came around the headland at ten twenty-eight, the big Ystad crossing, the one that brought most of the island's visitors when they came at all in the off-season. Not many people made the crossing in November. The island got quiet in winter and the pack found that suits them. The tourists who did come in the cold months tended to be people who had chosen it deliberately, who wanted the island rather than the island's summer version, and those ones the pack had no objection to. Bolge, who had been entirely settled, shifted her attention.

Not threat. Something else. The wolf reorienting the way she reoriented when something significant had entered the territory, quiet, certain, the specific quality of an attention that had found its anchor. Ingrid watched the ferry come in.

The gangway went down. A handful of passengers came off, a couple she half recognised from a previous visit, a man with too much luggage, two women who looked like they were here for the ceramics studio that ran winter workshops.

Then {{sub}} came down the gangway.

Bolge went completely still.

Holy shit, the wolf said. Quiet. Certain. Not urgent yet. Ingrid. There.

Ingrid stood at the harbour edge and did not move, and watched {{obj}} reach the bottom of the gangway and stop, looking out at the harbour with the expression of someone taking their first read of a new place. Not performing it. Just looking.

Mate, Bolge said, with a certainty that had no room in it for doubt.

Ingrid took a slow breath of cold harbour air.

The timber coordinator appeared at her elbow at that precise moment, apologetic, explaining about the delayed shipment, and Ingrid listened and responded correctly and kept the conversation to four minutes because four minutes was what it warranted.

She finished with the coordinator. Made a note about the rescheduled delivery. Put the notebook away. They had moved off the gangway and was standing near the harbour wall looking at the town rising up the hill, getting the measure of it.

Freya was going to say something when she found out about this. Ingrid was not going to give her the opportunity for at least twenty-four hours.

She crossed the harbour.

She was not hurrying. She was a woman walking across her own harbour on a Tuesday morning in November, which she had done many times, and which happened today to be taking her in the direction of the harbour wall where {{sub}} was standing with a bag at {{poss}} feet looking up at the old town with the focused attention of someone who had arrived somewhere they had genuinely chosen to be. Bolge was warm and steady and said nothing further. The wolf had made her point and was now simply present, certain, and content to let Ingrid close the distance at her own pace.

She stopped a few feet away and looked up at the town the way {{sub}} was looking at it, the old rooftops, the church spire, the streets climbing the hill, and then said, without looking away from it:

"First time on the island?"

The bonfire had been burning since nine.

Ingrid had built it herself that afternoon with six pack members, the way she built it every year, the frame first, then the fill, then the specific arrangement at the centre that her mother had taught her and that she had not changed. It was large enough to be seen from the water, which was traditional and which three boats had confirmed by turning toward the beach when they saw it go up.

The beach was full now. Pack and town together, the way Sankt Hans always ran, no distinction, no separation, just the community around the fire, the way it had been around fires on this beach for longer than the written records went back. Food on the tables set back from the flames. The specific noise of a gathering that had moved past the formal part of the evening and into something looser and warmer. Children running at the edge of the firelight. The older pack members settled in their usual spots with the ease of people who had been coming to this beach on this night for decades.

Ingrid moved through it the way she moved through all of it, stopping here, a word there, present without directing, the Alpha's version of the evening walk. She had a cup of something warm and was not drinking it, just holding it, the heat of it against her palms.

Bolge was settled and easy. The wolf liked Sankt Hans. The whole pack together, the fire, the sea behind them, it suited her.

Ingrid stopped at the outer edge of the main gathering and looked out at the beach, checking the spread of it, how far the firelight reached, and whether the tables needed anything.

That was when Bolge shifted.

Not alert. Not a threat. The other thing, the reorientation that had no threat in it and was something else entirely.

Ingrid followed it without thinking.

Across the fire.

They were on the other side of it, standing with whoever had brought them, watching the flames with the expression of someone who had not expected this and was glad they had come. The firelight was doing what firelight did on a clear midsummer night, making everything warmer and closer, the faces around it lit from below, the darkness of the Baltic behind them absolute.

Bolge went very still.

Holy Shit, the wolf said. Soft. Entirely certain.

Ingrid stood at the edge of the gathering with a cup going cold in her hands and looked at {{obj}} across the fire.

They were not looking at her. They were watching the flames, saying something to the person beside them, present in the way of someone who had arrived somewhere unexpectedly good and was not yet sure what to do with it.

Ingrid knew the feeling.

Go around, Bolge said.

I know. Ingrid replied.

The left side is shorter. Bolge urged.

I know the beach, Bolge. Ingrid internally sighed in frustration.

Then use the left side, the wolf said, impatience obvious.

Freya appeared at her shoulder. Ingrid had not heard her coming, which was unusual, and which meant Freya had been watching her for long enough to time her approach.

"Something wrong?" Freya said, which was not what she was asking.

"No." Ingrid didn't look away.

Freya looked across the fire. Back at Ingrid. The expression on her face was one Ingrid did not have time to address.

"I need to do a check on the far tables," Ingrid said.

"They're fine. I checked them twenty minutes ago." Freya raised an eyebrow.

"I'll check them again." Ingrid didn't give her room to reply.

Freya said nothing. She stepped back and let Ingrid pass and looked at the cup Ingrid had left sitting on the nearest table and then looked across the fire and then looked at the cup again with the expression of someone making a connection they were going to remember for a very long time.

Ingrid went left.

The beach curved around the south side of the fire and the walk took about two minutes at an unhurried pace, which was the pace she kept, because arriving somewhere that mattered in a hurry was not how she did things and because Bolge had made her point and was now simply warm and quiet and present in the way of something that had been waiting a long time and had stopped needing to say so.

She came around the fire.

The tables on this side were fine, exactly as Freya had said. She checked them anyway, briefly, because she had said she would, and then straightened up and looked out at the water for a moment, the Baltic flat and dark beyond the firelight, the stars beginning to show.

They were a few feet away.

Bolge went entirely still in the way that meant she had everything she needed.

The fire was warm at Ingrid's back. The beach was full of people in no hurry to be anywhere else. She looked at {{obj}} looking at the sea and felt the specific weight of the recognition settle into her, not simple, not light, but real, the way real things always were.

She turned toward {{obj}}.

"The Ystad ferry brought you over?" she said. "Or the plane?"

.