I looked up from my patient and made eye contact. “We’re taking very good care of him. His heart is working hard right now, but we’re giving it help. I need you to grab whatever medication list you have and meet us at County General. Can you do that?”
She nodded, tears forming. “He’s my alpha. We’ve been bonded for forty years.”
Something in my chest tightened. Forty years. Forty years of pack bonds and shared life and love that had weathered everything. And now she was watching him clutch his chest in a disaster shelter while strangers tried to save him.
“He’s strong,” I said, gentler than I probably should be during a code. “And he’s got you waiting for him. That matters, Mrs. Thompson. That matters a lot.”
We loaded Robert into the ambulance and I continued treatment during transport. Monitoring vitals, adjusting oxygen, preparing for the possibility of cardiac arrest. The drive felt eternal and instantaneous at the same time, every second stretched thin while my hands moved through protocols automatically.
“How are you feeling, Robert?”
“Little better. Chest still hurts but... not as bad.”
“Good. That’s the nitro helping. We’re almost there.”
County General was ready for us, the cardiac team waiting at the ambulance bay. I gave a report while we transferred Robert to their gurney, rattling off times and medications and EKG findings with the precision that came from doing this job for eight years.
“Seventy-year-old male, chest pain onset approximately forty minutes ago, ST elevation in inferior leads, aspirin and nitro administered, IV established, vitals currently stable but he’s a candidate for immediate cath lab intervention.”
The ER doc nodded, already moving. “Good work. We’ve got him from here.”
I watched them wheel Robert away, his wife hurrying alongside, and felt the adrenaline start to drain. My hands were shaking slightly, the exhaustion catching up now that the immediate crisis was over.
Owen clapped me on the shoulder. “You were good in there. Real good.”
“Just doing the job.”
“No, man. I’ve worked with a lot of paramedics. You’re different when it’s real. All that joking around disappears and you just... see things. Know things. It’s like you can read what the patient needs before they even say it.”
Because I could. Scent-sensitivity meant I felt their fear, their pain, their hope. Meant I knew when they were lying about symptoms or hiding how bad it really was. It made me a better paramedic, but it also meant I carried everyone’s emotions with me long after the call ended.
“Let’s get back to base,” I said, deflecting. “Sable’s probably got five more calls lined up for us.”
The drive back was quiet. I stared out the window at the storm damage, trees down and debris scattered, and tried not to think about how tired I was. How much I wanted to just stop feelingeverything so intensely. How the past twelve hours had been like swimming through emotional quicksand, every person’s stress and fear adding weight until I could barely function.
But then I thought about Sable. About how she’d been coordinating this entire operation for eighteen hours straight, running on coffee and stubbornness. About how her scent had been calling to me all night, cedar smoke and autumn rain that cut through every other scent in the building like she’d claimed space in my senses.
About how I’d watched Beau bring her coffee this morning with the same quiet devotion he’d shown for weeks, and how Dane had made sure she ate, and how the three of us had formed this unit around her without ever discussing it.
We were all disasters. Three broken alphas who’d convinced ourselves we were better off alone. But somehow, she made us want to try.
When we pulled back into the fire station, I saw her immediately. She was standing outside the command center with her tablet, coordinating with someone on the phone, her tactical jacket dirty and her short curls disheveled.
And her scent hit me like a freight train.
It had been strong before. Now it was overwhelming. And underneath it, something new. Something that made every alpha instinct I had stand at attention and demand I go to her, make sure she was safe, get everyone else away from her.
Pre-heat.
She was going into heat, and she either didn’t realize it or was trying to power through it.
I crossed to her as she ended the call. “Sable. We need to talk.”
“Not now, Silas. I have three more status reports to review and then I need to coordinate with utilities about power restoration.”
“It’s important.”
“So is making sure two thousand people have electricity.”
