The safe house felt different with three other people in it.
I’d built this place three years ago, after I came back from overseas and couldn’t handle living in town where people wanted to talk about what happened. Where neighbors looked at me with pity or curiosity or that particular kind of discomfort that came from knowing someone had survived when others hadn’t. Where every conversation eventually circled back to the question I couldn’t answer.
What happened over there?
How did you make it out when your team didn’t?
Are you okay?
I wasn’t okay. Hadn’t been okay since the day I’d crawled out of that compound with shrapnel in my leg and six bodies behind me. Six men I’d led into that operation. Six brothers who’d trusted my tactical assessment, my judgment, my leadership.
Six ghosts who followed me everywhere I went.
So I’d bought this property and built this house and told myself it was temporary. Just a place to decompress, to process, to figure out how to live in a world where my entire team was dead and I wasn’t. The property was fifteen acres of mountain forest, isolated enough that I couldn’t hear traffic or neighbors or anything except wind and wildlife. Defensible, with clear sight lines in all directions and only one approach road that I could monitor from the house.
The structure itself was designed for extended isolation. Generator backup, well water, propane heating, communication equipment that could reach emergency services even without cell coverage. Reinforced construction that could weather everything from heavy snow to high winds. I’d built it with military precision, every detail calculated for security and self-sufficiency.
It was supposed to be temporary, or at least that was what I told myself. A safe place to heal, to work through the nightmares, to figure out how to be a person again instead of just a survivor.
Except I’d never figured that out. The nightmares didn’t stop. The guilt didn’t ease. And temporary became permanent because the safe house was the only place I felt like I could breathe without the weight of six deaths pressing on my chest.
Until today.
Today, it was full of people who mattered. Beau was in my office, setting up the communication equipment with the focused intensity he brought to everything. I could hear him moving around, muttering to himself as he ran diagnostics on the satellite link and tested the backup systems. Making sure Sable would have full coordination capability even from this remote location.
Silas was raiding my kitchen, and I could hear his running commentary even from the living room.
“Dane, your pantry is a thing of beauty. Military precision meets survivalist paranoia. I respect it, but also, have you heard of fresh vegetables? No judgment, just concerned about your scurvy prevention strategy.”
“There’s a root cellar,” I called back. “Carrots, potatoes, onions. And a freezer with meat.”
“Of course there is. Of course you have a root cellar. Why wouldn’t you have a root cellar in your mountain fortress of solitude?”
But there was affection in his voice, not mockery. Silas understood, better than most, why someone might need a place like this. A place to retreat when the world got too loud, too demanding, too much.
And upstairs, Sable was riding out the first waves of her heat in my bed.
The thought made my alpha roar with possessive satisfaction that I had to actively suppress. My bed. My blankets carrying my scent. My space that had never held anyone except me, now sheltering an omega who smelled like cedar smoke and autumn rain and everything I hadn’t known I was missing.
Except she wasn’t mine. Wasn’t ours. We hadn’t earned that yet.
She was here because she needed safety during her heat, not because she’d chosen us as a pack. And the difference mattered. I wouldn’t claim her, wouldn’t push for more than she was ready to give, wouldn’t let biology override her choice.
Even if every instinct I had was screaming at me to go to her, make sure she was safe, eliminate any threat to her wellbeing.
“Communication array is solid,” Beau said, appearing in the living room doorway. His hands were dirty from handling cables, and there was a smudge of dust on his cheek. He looked tired but satisfied, the way he always did after completing a task well. “Satellite link is stable, backup systems are tested, and I’veset up encrypted channels for emergency coordination. She can run the whole county from here if she needs to.”
“Good.” I was kneeling in front of the fireplace, building a fire even though the house was warm enough. Old habits. Fire meant security, meant warmth, meant survival. “Thanks for handling that.”
“You really built this place to withstand extended isolation.” Beau moved to the window, checking the perimeter like I’d taught him during one of our tactical training sessions. Scanning the tree line, noting sight lines, assessing approach vectors. Good habits, ones that might save his life someday.
“That was the idea.” I added wood to the fireplace, watching the flames catch and spread. “Never thought I’d be using it for this.”
“For what? Sheltering an omega during her heat, or admitting you actually want a pack?”
I shot him a look, but he was smiling slightly. Not mocking. Just observant.
“Both,” I admitted.
