Beau was quiet for a moment, still looking out the window. “She’s scared.”
“I know.”
“Not just about the heat. About us. About what happens after.” He turned from the window, his blue eyes serious. “She thinks we’re going to look at her when she’s vulnerable and decide she’s too much trouble. That we’ll do what Nathan did.”
“I know that too.” I fed another log into the fire, adjusting the placement with more attention than it required. Creating the perfect structure, the optimal airflow, the kind of fire that would burn steady and hot for hours. Control in small things when everything else felt uncertain.
“Are we?”
“What?”
“Going to reject her.” Beau crossed his arms, his posture shifting into something more confrontational. Not aggressive, but firm. Making sure I understood how serious he was. “Because if there’s any chance any of us is having second thoughts, we need to leave now. Before her heat hits full force. Before we take something we can’t give back.”
The question hung in the air between us, heavy with implication. Because he was right. Once we claimed her, once pack bonds formed, there was no walking away without causing damage. Omega biology was wired for permanent bonds, for the kind of connection that ran deeper than choice or logic.
If we bonded with her and then left, it would break something fundamental inside her.
Just like Nathan had.
I met Beau’s eyes directly. “I haven’t had second thoughts since the first day I saw her running that drill. Maybe before that, if I’m being honest. Watching her coordinate emergency response, seeing her command authority, the way she made hard decisions without hesitation.” I paused. “I just spent three years convincing myself I didn’t deserve a pack. That wanting connection was selfish when my team was dead.”
“And now?”
“Now I think maybe she’s right. Maybe we’re all disasters who can help each otherstopbeing disasters.” I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the tension that lived there permanently. “Maybe surviving doesn’t mean I have to punish myself forever.”
“Maybe,” Beau agreed quietly.
“What about you?” I asked. “You ready for this? Ready to commit to pack with an omega you’ve known for six weeks? Ready to deal with everything that comes with that?”
Beau was quiet for a long moment, and I saw him processing. Weighing the decision the way he weighed every decision, careful and thorough and aware of consequences.
“I saved three people last night,” he finally said. “An omega and two kids, trapped in a submerged vehicle. The exact scenario that’s haunted me for years.”
“I know. You did good work.”
“I saved them because Sable looked at me and told me I could. When I was frozen, when the panic was taking over, when I was about to let someone else handle it because I was convinced I’d fail again.” He turned to look at me fully. “She saw past the failure to the person I’d been before. Made me believe I was still that person.”
“Youarethat person.”
“I know that now. Because of her.” His jaw tightened slightly. “First time in three years I’ve done a water rescue without freezing. First time I’ve slept without nightmares. That was last night, Dane. One night of sleeping in the same building as her, knowing she was safe, knowing we were building something. And the nightmares didn’t come.”
The significance of that settled between us. Three years of nightmares, gone after one night of feeling like he had a pack.
“I’m not walking away from that,” Beau said firmly. “From her. If there’s a chance we can build something real, something that helps all of us heal, I’m taking it.”
Silas appeared from the kitchen carrying three coffee mugs, somehow balancing all of them despite the fact that they were full. He had that particular grace that came from years of emergency medicine, the ability to move quickly without spilling or dropping or causing unnecessary chaos.
“Who’s walking away from what?” he asked, handing us each a mug. “Because if someone’s planning an exit strategy, I need to know so I can talk them out of it or possibly tackle them. I’m light but I’m scrappy.”
“No one’s walking away,” I said. “We’re making sure we’re all committed before this goes further.”
“Oh, I’m committed.” Silas took a drink of his coffee, and I noticed his hands were completely steady despite the exhaustion that had to be dragging at him. “I’ve been committed since she figured out I was scent-sensitive without me saying a word. You know how rare that is?”
“Pretty rare,” Beau said.
“Unheard of,” Silas corrected. “I’ve been hiding it for eight years. Perfected the performance, kept everyone at exactly the right distance, made sure no one looked too close. And she took one lunch with me, had one conversation where I wasn’t performing quite as hard as usual, and just knew.”
He set down his coffee mug with more force than necessary. “She saw me. Actually saw me. Not the flirt, not the joker, not the guy who makes everything seem easy and fun. She saw that I was reading her, that I knew things I shouldn’t know, and instead of being uncomfortable or scared or weird about it, she just acknowledged it and moved on.”
