My Panther Mate & Our Little Cub novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The New Den

The mallets stopped all at once.

A dozen hunters on the frame froze with beams in their hands.

One of them dropped a hammer, and it rang off the stone a long way down.

Darek turned his head and found me standing on the path with his sleeping son on my shoulder.

"Corina."

"Hello," I said.

"I was going to show you in two days."

"It looks done enough."

"It isn't."

"Then show me what it's going to be."

The hunters melted away along the ridge without a word, grinning into their collars.

The last one clapped Darek on his good shoulder as he passed.

Darek took Tuck from me, gently, and settled the boy against his chest.

"Come inside," he said.

It was a den built half of timber and half of cut stone.

It sat on the lip of the east ridge with the whole valley spread out beneath it.

The door was wide enough for a bear.

Inside, the first thing I saw was a hearth.

It was a proper one, deep and square, with a stone hob at the height of my hip.

An iron hook hung ready for the pot, and a smaller hearth beside it held a kettle.

A long table ran down the middle of the room, scrubbed pale, with benches along both sides.

"Twelve places," Darek said, a little hoarsely.

"For Hesper, and whoever you can't send away."

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