I stopped at the corner of the barn and looked back at the farmhouse. The kitchen light was still on, its yellow glow spilling across the back porch and into the yard.
Through the window, I could make out Jasper’s silhouette—moving slowly between counter and table, probably making tea the way he had the previous night, methodical movements that suggested he was thinking about something else entirely.
Gerald Hughs was somewhere in this state tonight—patient and funded and certain he was owed something. He had people looking. He had resources most civilians couldn’t begin to access. And he was closer to finding Jasper than he had been twelve hours ago.
I turned back toward the house, boots quiet on the wet grass, and started making a list of what needed to happen tomorrow. More calls. Better security on the property’s perimeter. But underneath the tactical thinking—the careful assessment of threats and countermeasures—a different kind of calculation was happening. One that had nothing to do with operations or security protocols and everything to do with what had already been done and what might still come.
I’d seen it before—the cruelty that was reserved for omegas in certain contexts, the way certain men felt entitled to bodies that weren’t theirs. But knowing it existed and carrying the weight of its potential impact on Jasper were different things entirely.
The kitchen light went out as I reached the porch steps, leaving just the dim glow from the living room windows. I stood for a moment in the darkness, hand on the railing, and made a decision that had nothing to do with tactical assessment or professional obligation: whatever came next, Jasper wouldn’t face it alone.
Chapter Seven
~ Jasper ~
I clawed up out of the nightmare mid-scream, some sound still trapped in my throat as my back hit the headboard. The farmhouse bedroom was pitch black around me, my chest heaving, hands fisted in the quilt. Nebraska. The side yard. The fence at my back. The low, ugly voices of the men, the first crack of a boot against my ribs.
The dream clung to me like a second skin. I couldn’t shake it—couldn’t breathe past it—my body still caught in the moment of impact.
I pressed myself against the headboard, knees drawn up, breath coming in shallow pulls that didn’t quite reach the bottom of my lungs. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, drowning out the night sounds of the ranch—the creak of the house settling, the soft tick of the baseboard heater kicking on. The only light came from the thin strip under the door—yellow and artificial, not the dawn I’d been expecting.
The door swung open with a soft click that sounded like thunder in the quiet room. A figure moved through it—fast and quiet, body already angled toward threat before his eyes found me.
Decker. His shoulders filled the doorway for a split second before he was inside, eyes scanning the room in a methodical sweep that took in the corners, the window, the closet—looking for an intruder, a reason for the scream, anything that needed neutralizing before turning his attention to me.
He moved the way he had in the side yard. There was no wasted energy, no hesitation, just the direct line from problem to solution. In the thin light from the hall, his expression was unreadable—not concern, just assessing the situation and deciding what came next.
The door hadn’t fully closed behind him when Rawley appeared in the opening—taller than Decker, broader through the shoulders, with a gun held low at his side. His eyes did a quick inventory of the room—shaking man, no intruder—and something in his face shifted.
“I’ll check the house,” he said, voice level, eyes on Decker rather than me. “You’re good?”
Decker nodded once, not turning. “We’re good.”
Rawley pulled the door shut behind him with a careful click that somehow managed to make the room feel smaller despite the solidity of it. I was still shaking, hands still fisted in the quilt, breath still coming in pulls that didn’t reach all the way down.
I hadn’t expected this—the vividness of the dream, the way my body had carried it forward into waking life. I’d had nightmares before—who hadn’t?—but never ones that stuck to me like this, that made it hard to tell where the dream ended and actual memory began.
Decker stood by the bed for a long moment, eyes on my face, then sat down on the edge of the mattress—not close enough to crowd, not far enough to signal indifference. Just a presence. A thing that existed in the same physical space.
“It’s okay,” he said, voice in the low, even register he’d used in the truck on the first night. Not calm, just offering the thing itself—the steadiness that seemed built into his bones. “You’re safe. You’re at Black Butte Ranch. Nobody’s getting to you here.”
The words were simple—almost stupid in their directness—but something in me responded to them anyway, the shaking starting to slow, breath finding its way back to a rhythm that didn’t leave me light-headed.
“Just a dream,” I said, the words coming out with a breathlessness I hadn’t intended. “I’m sorry I woke everyone up.”
Decker shook his head once—a short, definitive movement. “Not a problem,” he said. “Rawley’s up anyway. Gets insomnia. Jojo says it’s from the military. Your body learns to sleep in shifts, it never really unlearns it.”
The practical observation—the simple statement of fact rather than concern—settled something in my chest that reassurance wouldn’t have reached. I nodded, accepting what he’d offered, and let my hands uncurl from the quilt.
The room was coming back into focus around me—the window with its thin curtains, the dresser with my duffel on top of it, the closet door half-open where I’d hung the shirt Carter had loaned me. The farmhouse at night, not Nebraska. Now, not then.
Decker stood up, one hand coming to rest briefly on my shoulder—not a gesture, just a point of contact. “Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll be in the next room if you need anything.”
He’d already turned toward the door, was halfway across the room, when my hand shot out and grabbed his arm before the decision to do it had fully formed. The words came right behind the grip: “Don’t go.”
I hadn’t meant to say it. Hadn’t meant to reach for him. Hadn’t meant to do anything except get through the night without falling back into the dream. But the words were out now, hanging in the space between us, my fingers wrapped around his forearm with more force than I’d intended.
Decker went perfectly still. The tension in his arm was readable under my fingers—a man holding himself in check, muscles tight beneath the skin—but he didn’t pull away. Didn’t shake me off or step back or do any of the things he had every right to do.
