But they felt less overwhelming with her in my arms. Less like drowning and more like something I could survive.
Maybe that was enough to start with.
When Silas appeared in the doorway an hour later, he took one look at us and smiled. “Nightmares?”
“How did you know?”
“Your distress leaked through the bond. Woke me up too.” He moved into the room with quiet efficiency. “Dane’s making breakfast. Figured you could both use protein and carbs. Also possibly more coffee than is medically advisable.”
“Coffee sounds perfect,” Sable murmured without opening her eyes.
“Come on.” Silas offered me a hand. “Let’s get you both downstairs. Pack breakfast in the kitchen sounds better than brooding alone in the dark.”
He was right, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I stood carefully, keeping Sable in my arms because putting her down felt wrong.She didn’t protest, just wrapped her arms around my neck and let me carry her downstairs like she weighed nothing.
The kitchen smelled like bacon and coffee and the beginning of something that looked like home. Dane was at the stove, cooking with the same focused attention he brought to everything, while Silas poured coffee for everyone.
“Morning,” Dane said without turning around. “Eggs?”
“Yes,” Sable said, finally opening her eyes. “Everything. I’m starving.”
“Heat recovery requires serious calories,” Silas said, setting coffee mugs on the table. “Your body burned through a lot of energy last night. You need sustained nutrition for the next few days.”
I set Sable in a chair and took the seat next to her, watching Dane cook and Silas fuss with cream and sugar, and realized something profound.
This was pack.
Not the fantasy version where everything was perfect and no one had nightmares or trauma or complicated histories. The real version where four broken people were learning to function together despite their damage.
Where an omega who’d been publicly rejected was learning to trust again. Where an alpha who’d lost his entire team was learning to forgive himself. Where a scent-sensitive paramedic was learning to let people see past his performance. Where a firefighter who’d failed a rescue was learning that failure didn’t define him.
“You’re staring,” Sable observed, bumping my shoulder with hers.
“Just thinking about how improbable this is. Four people who had no business forming a pack somehow stumbling into exactly what we all needed.”
“It’s not improbable if you believe in scent compatibility,” Silas said, settling at the table with his own coffee. “Biology knew what we needed before our conscious minds caught up.”
“Biology is smarter than we give it credit for,” Sable agreed. She reached over and took my hand, squeezing once. “I’m glad it brought us together. Even if the timing was terrible and the circumstances were chaotic and none of us were ready.”
“Sometimes the best things happen when you’re not ready,” Dane said, setting plates of food in front of us. “When you’re too busy surviving to overthink whether you deserve happiness.”
“Is that permission to stop overthinking?” I asked.
“That’s an order.” He sat down with his own plate. “From your pack alpha.”
“You’re not pack alpha,” Sable said immediately. “We don’t have hierarchy like that.”
“We don’t?” Dane looked genuinely surprised. “I assumed given my military background and experience with command structures...”
“No hierarchy,” Sable repeated firmly. “We’re equals. Partners. The whole point of this pack is that no one has to submit or defer or follow orders from anyone else. We make decisions together.”
“That’s going to be complicated during emergencies,” Dane observed.
“During emergencies, whoever has the most relevant expertise makes the call. But in daily life, in pack dynamics, in personal decisions, we’re equal.” She looked around the table, making sure we all understood. “That’s non-negotiable. I won’t be in a pack with hierarchy.”
“Equal partners,” I said, testing the words. “I like that better anyway. Means I can call Dane out when he’s being too controlling.”
“I’m not too controlling,” Dane protested.
