“Sable.” I waited until she met my eyes. “I’m not going to push you. None of us are. But I need you to know something.”
“What?”
“I always know where you are. I’ve known since that first day at the drill. I know when you get to work in the morning, when you leave at night, what route you take home. I know which coffee shop you stop at on Wednesdays and which grocery store you use.” I paused. “I’m telling you this because you deserve to know, and because you deserve to decide if that’s something you can accept.”
She stared at me. “That should be creepy.”
“I know.”
“It should feel controlling or invasive or like you’re stalking me.”
“I know.”
“But it doesn’t.” Her voice was soft, almost wondering. “It just feels like someone cares whether I make it home safely. Like I’m not alone in this town anymore.”
“You’renotalone.”
The moment stretched between us, heavy with things neither of us was ready to say. Her scent was stronger now, cedar smoke and autumn rain wrapping around me like she was claiming space in my senses.
My phone buzzed, breaking the moment. Message from Beau in the group text.
Cardiac patient stabilized. Heading back to base. ETA twenty minutes.
I showed Sable the message and watched relief cross her face.
“I should get back to the command center,” she said.
“Five minutes isn’t up yet.”
“Yes it is.”
“Then five more minutes. Finish the soup.”
She gave me a look but picked up the mug again. I counted it as a victory.
When she finished, we walked back to the command center together. The rain was still hammering the roof, the storm showing no signs of letting up. It was going to be a long night.
But as I took my position at the security station and watched Sable return to coordinating emergency response, I felt something settle in my chest. Purpose. Direction. The certainty that I was exactly where I needed to be.
Protecting her. Supporting her. Making sure she knew that whatever happened next, she wasn’t facing it alone.
When Beau and Silas returned twenty minutes later, soaked and exhausted but mission successful, I saw them both look immediately for Sable. Saw the same relief I’d felt when we’d gotten them home safely.
We were all disasters, like Silas had said. Three broken alphas circling an omega who thought she didn’t need anyone.
But maybe we were the kind of disasters who could piece each other back together.
Maybe that was enough to start with.
Chapter 11
Beau
The radio crackled at twenty-one hundred hours, cutting through the relative quiet that had settled over the command center after Silas and I returned from Creek Hollow.
“Command, this is Fire Two. We have a report of a vehicle in water, Creek Road near the Riverside Bridge. Single occupant visible, requesting immediate water rescue response.”
I was moving before the message finished, years of training taking over. But then the next part came through, and my blood turned to ice.
