Knot the Firefighter Alphas’ Bookish Mate (Possessive Small Town Alpha Kings #27)

Chapter 1

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Mira

Smoke burned my throat before I was fully conscious.

My eyes opened to orange light crawling across the stockroom ceiling. I couldn’t understand why I was on the floor. My cheek was pressed against the cold tile and my thoughts kept sliding sideways, half-formed, dissolving before they could connect into anything useful.

I tried to sit up but the room tilted violently. Nausea rolled through me and I pressed my forehead to the tile, squeezing my eyes shut while my stomach tried to crawl out of my body.

This wasn’t normal. I’d been tired, sure. I’d even curled up in the stockroom for a nap after closing and I’d made tea, that bargain bin chamomile that tasted off, more bitter than usual. I figured it was probably just the cheap brand.

But this wasn’t simple tiredness. My body felt wrong, disconnected, my limbs responding on a three-second delay while my brain tried to push through a fog that didn’t belong there.

The tea tasted bitter.

Oh my god. The realization hit me like a slap in the face.

Someone had drugged me.

That’s when the heat registered. Actual heat, not a product of my groggy brain. Flames were eating through the poetry section, crawling toward fiction with an enthusiasm I wished my customers shared.

Shit.

Six months of building this place from nothing, of painting the walls myself at two in the morning because I couldn’t sleep, of turning a gutted storefront into the one space in this world that felt mine.

I’d never even named the damn shop. Too scared to put down roots and too paranoid that making anything permanent would be the thing that finally got me caught.

And now all of it was burning while I lay on the floor with the motor skills of a newborn deer.

I forced myself to my hands and knees. The room swam as I crawled toward the back exit, using a fallen shelf to drag myself upright. My legs shook under my weight, but they held, barely, and I stumbled toward the back door.

A wall of flame blocked the exit.

I could see the green EXIT sign glowing behind the fire, and there was no way through.

Okay, front door then.

I changed direction, dropping low and crawling. My hands found broken glass, bits of charred paper, the melted spine of what used to be a paperback. When I reached the front door and grabbed the handle with both hands, it didn’t budge.

It was locked… from the outside.

The bolt was jammed in a way that was definitely not an accident. Someone had locked this door while I was unconscious on the floor of a building they’d set on fire. My stomach twisted, anxiety and panic warring inside me, taking turns on which emotion knocked the air out of my lungs first.

So far, the smoke was winning.

Through the smoke-hazed window, a figure stood across the street. Hands in his pockets, watching the fire the way someone might watch a movie they were enjoying. He caught me looking and his head tilted. Then he mouthed two words through the glass.

‘Found you.’

I will forever recognize that horrifying face… that figure. A personification of my nightmares.

The very reason why I ran away.

Hudson.

He found me.

My fist slammed against the glass before I could think.

“HELP!” The word tore out of my throat, desperate, directed at anyone, the whole sleeping town. “Someone HELP ME!”

Hudson didn’t move and just smiled. That smile I knew from two years of small torments, telling me how much he enjoyed my suffering. He raised his hand in a wave, as if mocking me.

The flames surged between us.

One second I could see him clearly, that sinister smile burned into my vision. The next, a wall of fire roared up from the floor, driving me back from the window, and Hudson’s silhouette disappeared behind a curtain of orange and red.

I stumbled backward, coughing, my eyes streaming. The smoke was thicker now. I dropped low, remembering something about breathable air near the ground, and tried to think through the panic clawing at my chest.

Exits. I needed exits.

The front door was a wall of flames and the back door was somewhere behind the stockroom. The windows were bolted shut, reinforced, because I’d been so paranoid about break-ins that I’d paid extra for security locks on every single one.

Locks that now trapped me inside with the fire.

My own paranoia was going to kill me. That was almost funny, in the darkest possible way.

And then a memory surfaced.

It wasn’t mine. Or at least, not one I could access properly, the edges blurred and unfinished, filtered through the fog of whatever was in that tea.

Candlelight. Dozens of flames dancing in the darkness of my apartment, the power out, rain battering the windows. His face lit by firelight, all sharp angles and storm-gray eyes with gold flecks. The smell of smoke clinging to his jacket because he’d come straight from a call.

“You’re staring,” I said.

“I know.”

“That’s creepy.”

“I know that too.” His hand reached up, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers trailing down my jaw. “I can’t seem to stop.”

The way he looked at me, as if the fire could consume the whole building and he wouldn’t notice. As if I was the only thing in any room worth seeing.

Suddenly, the memory dissolved. I was back on the floor with smoke filling my lungs and a different, more tangible fire closing in on three sides.

Oh, I need therapy. So much therapy. If only I could afford it.

If only I wasn’t about to die in a burning bookshop because my psychotic ex couldn’t handle rejection and my brain was hallucinating romantic encounters with someone I’d never met.

“HELP!” I screamed again, slamming my palm against the floor because it was the only thing I could reach. “PLEASE! SOMEONE!”

Finally, the cruel world seemed to have heard me.

Sirens. Distant, but real, growing closer.

The ceiling groaned above me. I pressed my sleeve over my mouth and nose, but the smoke was taking over and my vision was tunneling now, going gray at the edges. My body was giving up the fight that my mind was still trying to win.

Without conscious thought, I closed my eyes, my body losing its strength…

Then the back door exploded inward.

Wood splintered across the floor in a wave, and through the smoke, a flashlight beam cut the dark. Then a voice, clear and commanding, crackling through what had to be a radio.

“I’ve got visual. She’s on the floor, northeast corner. Solomon, cut the gas line before the whole block goes up. Percy, you’re with me.”

A crackle of static follows. Then a second voice, clipped. “Gas line’s already compromised. You have four minutes before the structure fails.”

“Then we do it in two.” The first voice didn’t waver. “Move.”

A figure moved through the broken doorway in full turnout gear.

Helmet, coat, the works. But he moved through the flames with a confidence that didn’t match anything I’d ever seen from a firefighter, and I’d watched enough news coverage to know they didn’t usually walk through fire with that kind of ease.

Behind him, a second man climbed through, taller, broader, already pulling his mask down as he assessed the room with efficiency that said he’d done this a thousand times.

The first one reached me. He dropped to his knees, brownish auburn hair slipping from his helmet, messy and tangled. He had gorgeous freckles across his nose and bright hazel eyes that shifted between green and gold as they locked onto my face.

Despite the fire and the smoke, and the fact that I was about to pass out, his whole expression flashed with relief.

“Hey, look at me.” His gloved hand cupped the side of my face, tilting it toward him. “Mira. Can you hear me?”

I coughed and nodded. My brain caught the important thing a beat late.

“How do you know my name?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes scanned me. “Are you hurt anywhere? Can you feel your legs?”

“I can feel everything. Unfortunately.” I tried to push myself upright and my arms gave out. He caught me before I hit the tile.

“Okay. I’ve got you.” His voice shifted, the cocky edge replaced by a steadiness that felt professional.

Almost. If it weren’t for the way his hands were shaking as he checked my pulse, his fingers pressing against my wrist with familiarity.

“You’re okay. I’ll get you out of here.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You can yell at me outside. Right now we’re leaving.”

The man scooped me up, one arm under my knees, the other banding across my back.

The fabric of his gear was rough against my cheek, and underneath it his chest was solid, warm, not shaking even a little under my weight despite the fact that his hands had been trembling ten seconds ago.

His arms tightened around me, a reflexive pull that went beyond rescue protocol, as if letting go was the harder action.

For the record, I was not a small woman. I had hips and thighs and an ass that required its own zip code, and this man picked me up with the effort most people put into grabbing a bag of groceries.

God, it should not have been hot.

And I should not have been noticing how a firefighter smelled (brown sugar and autumn leaves, but I was definitely not checking) while being rescued from a burning building.

Yet here I was. Priorities in shambles. My survival instincts replaced by whatever part of my brain decided this was relevant information.

“Got her,” he said into his radio. “Coming out.”

The other man was already moving, pulling debris from their path with his gloved hands, throwing a shelf aside with one arm. I swear it should not have been physically possible.

He was enormous up close. Six and a half feet at least, dense with the kind of muscle that came from doing actual violent things over a long period of time.

His helmet was off, and I caught military-short black hair, pale silver eyes that were almost colorless, and a scar running from his temple to his jaw.

His expression never changed. Not even once. He cleared their exit with brutal efficiency and didn’t look at me until the path was open.