“Providing structure for pack integration. Making sure we’ve anticipated potential problems and have solutions ready. This is standard operational planning for any complex coordination effort.”
“This isn’t a military operation. This is a relationship.”
“Relationships benefit from clear expectations and defined boundaries.”
“Defined by you,” she said, her voice getting sharper. “Did you ask any of us what we wanted before you spent three hours planning our entire lives?”
I had not, I realized with uncomfortable clarity. I’d identified the problems, developed solutions, and built implementation plans without consulting the people those plans would affect most.
Because that was how I operated. Assess, plan, execute. The commander made the call after evaluating all variables.Consulting the team was for information gathering, not decision-making.
“I was trying to help,” I said, already knowing it sounded weak.
“By organizing my life without asking if I wanted it organized?” Sable stood, and through the bond I felt her anger mixing with hurt. “By making decisions about how we’ll structure pack dynamics and presenting them as established fact instead of opening discussion?”
“I thought having a framework would make the conversations easier. Give us a starting point.”
“A starting point would be asking what I need. What any of us need. Not telling us what you’ve decided we need.” She crossed her arms, the defensive posture I’d learned to recognize. “I didn’t bond you to have another alpha tell me what to do. I bonded you because I thought you understood that I need equality, not management.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Because she was right. I’d approached pack integration the same way I’d approach any tactical problem. Identify objectives, allocate resources, implement solutions. I’d treated her like a variable to be managed instead of a partner to be consulted.
“Sable,” I started.
“No.” She held up a hand. “I need space right now. I need to not be in a room with someone who thinks making a spreadsheet about my heat cycles is appropriate without asking first.”
She left, heading upstairs to the bedroom, and I sat there staring at my carefully organized spreadsheet with the uncomfortable awareness that I’d just made our first fight about exactly the thing she’d been afraid of. About being controlled instead of partnered. About being managed instead of respected.
“Well,” Silas said into the silence. “That went badly.”
“I was trying to help,” I repeated, like saying it again would make it true.
“You were trying to control,” Beau corrected, not unkindly. “Which is your instinct when you care about people. You organize and plan and try to protect them from every possible problem.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, if they’ve asked for it,” Silas said. “Everything, if they haven’t. Sable spent five years being told she was too much, too difficult, too independent. She bonded us because we accepted her strength, not in spite of it. And you just spent three hours trying to organize that strength into something more manageable.”
Through the bond, I could feel Sable upstairs. Hurt and angry and questioning whether she’d made a mistake. Wondering if I was just another alpha who’d say the right things until the reality of her personality became inconvenient.
I’d done that. I’d made her doubt us with my need to control and plan and manage everything into neat categories.
“I don’t know how to not do this,” I admitted. “I don’t know how to care about people without trying to protect them from everything, including themselves and their own choices.”
“Then you need to learn,” Beau said firmly. “Because Sable won’t tolerate being managed. None of us will. We’re partners, Dane. Equals. You don’t get to make unilateral decisions about our lives just because you think you’re protecting us.”
“Even when I’m right? Even when my plans would actually solve problems?”
“Especially then,” Silas said. “Because being right doesn’t give you the authority to make choices for other people. That’s just control dressed up as concern.”
I stared at the spreadsheet that had taken three hours to build and realized it represented everything Sable had been afraid of. An alpha who claimed to want partnership but defaulted tocommand when tested. Who said the right words about equality but built structures that required submission.
I’d become exactly what Nathan had been, just with better tactical justification.
The realization felt like failing my team all over again. Except this time, I was failing because I’d survived when they hadn’t, and I’d learned all the wrong lessons from that experience. Had learned that control prevented chaos, that planning prevented casualties, that protecting people meant making decisions for them.
But pack didn’t work like that. Pack required trust. Required believing your people could handle problems without you solving everything for them. Required accepting that sometimes the messy, unplanned approach was better than the organized one because it left room for autonomy and choice.
“I need to apologize,” I said.
