2. Hero
Hero
I t's just past five a.m. when I start my rounds.
The house is quiet, still blanketed in the early-morning haze that always makes the skyline outside the windows look like a painting. The blurred edges, soft shadows, pastel smudges of pink, purple and blue across the sky is the calm before the yawn and stretch of a city waking for the day.
I move through the halls like I always do, silent, methodical, precise.
My footsteps make no sound against the hardwood; a habit ingrained from years of operations where noise meant failure.
I check the windows, tracing my fingers along each latch, feeling for imperfections.
I check the locks, testing each one with a gentle twist that wouldn't wake a light sleeper.
I review the security panel, eyes scanning the green indicators that tell me all is well.
Sweep for anything out of place, even though nothing ever is.
A shadow where it shouldn't be. A scent that doesn't belong.
Searching for the faintest trace of disturbance in a carefully arranged space.
It's muscle memory now. My routine. The same path every morning, the same careful attention to detail that my mother drilled into me before I could even tie my shoes.
There is no room for complacency, and regardless, my hyper vigilance isn't just a job.
Not anymore. Not since Brookes. Not since I started measuring my success not in missions completed but in nights where his nightmares don't come, in mornings where his smile reaches his eyes.
In the quiet moments when he doesn't flinch at sudden movements because he knows—he knows it's just me. Just us.
I pause outside Brookes’ room, my hand hovering near the door like a fool.
He's asleep. I know that. I watched his body finally settle just after midnight, listened to his breathing even out, the tremble in it softening.
I stayed longer than I should have, lingering just outside his door, counting his breaths until they became steady and deep.
The shadows under his eyes had been darker today.
Another rough day of flashbacks that left him hollow-eyed and jumpy.
He never asked me to stay until the other night.
Talk about a mind fuck. I haven't stopped thinking about it since.
Those words keep replaying in my head during security sweeps, during shift changes, during the quiet moments when I should be focused on potential threats instead of the curve of his jaw.
“Will you stay?”
Three little words and I almost forgot who I am supposed to be.
The way he looked at me, with wide uncertain eyes, vulnerable, a crack in that carefully constructed facade.
I've spent a year trying to keep things clean.
It is my job to remain professional and detached from those I'm trying to protect.
That's what they taught us in training. That's what keeps people alive in the field.
How do you guard someone like Brookes and not fall a little?
How do you watch him fight to reclaim himself every single day from the nightmares, the panic attacks, the way he sometimes stops mid-sentence when a memory blindsides him, and remain unmoved?
How do you spend months watching him unravel and rebuild himself in silence, holding all his pieces together like they're glass, without wanting to step in and hold some for him—without wanting to shoulder some of that weight that bends his shoulders when he thinks no one's watching?
He smells like roses, the real kind, petals and thorns, soft and sharp all at once.
Like a garden after rain, alive and complex and impossible to replicate.
The scent is stronger as he sleeps. Always.
The first time I got close enough to notice, I had to force myself not to react.
Not to breathe too deep. Not to feel too much.
Not to let my pupils dilate or my pulse quicken in a way that would betray me.
I failed in my endeavors. I think we all did. Brookes’ scent grabbed hold of all three of us from the moment Dez introduced us. Enraptured is more of an appropriate word. Captivated. Undone in ways none of us were prepared for.
I didn't know Levi or Dante before this assignment.
They were handpicked by Dez. Guys he trusted with his life and reputation.
I came in solo, former military, private sector, clean record.
I've had several high-profile clients, politicians, celebrities, business executives with lists of enemies longer than my arm.
I'm known for my quiet efficiency. Some might call me cold, if asked.
Detached. The kind of Alpha who does the job without getting emotionally involved.
Not to them, though. Not anymore.
A year in, and Levi feels like the brother I never had.
Soft around the edges but sharper than anyone gives him credit for.
He notices things even I miss sometimes; the way Brookes’ hands tremble before a panic attack, which foods comfort him on the bad days.
He's the heart of this team, even if he doesn't say it out loud.
The steady pulse that keeps us all grounded.
Dante is all walls and teeth and there's steel under the silence.
A protector's instinct that runs deep. The kind of loyalty you can't buy or teach.
We clash sometimes, both used to being in control, but we trust each other where it counts.
That's what matters. When Brookes needs us, we move as one, no hesitation, no ego.
Together, we've formed something that almost feels like. . .a pack.
We don't use that word. We don't have to. It's instinctual. Fate. Something ancient and undeniable that pulled the four of us together like gravity, despite all the reasons it shouldn't work.
It's in the way we move around each other. In how we guard Brookes without needing a plan. In the way we catch one another's glances across a crowded room and know what needs to be done.
Brookes didn't make it easy in the beginning.
He resisted all of us. Flinched from our presence.
Refused to be touched, even accidentally.
Gave attitude like it was armor. That sharp tongue and smart mouth, he used them like blades, slicing the space between us anytime we got too close.
He'd build walls with casual cruelty, constructing barriers of sarcasm and spite whenever one of us, especially me, tried to breach his defenses.
His eyes would flash with warning, those deep brown depths promising retribution for any perceived intrusion into his space.
He never scared me off. Quite the opposite happened. The bratty Omega fascinated me.
Every eye roll, every clipped comment, every time he refused to eat just to prove a point, even when I could see his hands trembling with hunger.
I saw past it. I saw the scared man underneath, the one who'd been taken and hurt, left to bleed on the floor of some godforsaken warehouse.
The one who still woke up screaming some nights, throat raw, eyes wild with remembered terror.
I saw the courage it took for him to exist in front of people. To step into sunlight. To breathe in crowded rooms without breaking apart. Yes, the beauty too. There is no denying Brookes’ allure. He's gorgeous.
Not the camera-ready kind. Not the runway god wrapped in silk and tailored couture that the world knows.
No, I see the raw kind. The kind that hits you in the chest when he's just woken up, hair mussed and eyes soft with sleep.
The kind when he forgets to perform and just exists.
The kind you don't recover from once it gets under your skin.
The kind that makes your hands ache to touch, to protect, to worship.
Try as I might, I can't lie and say he's not under mine, but rather burrowed deep like a splinter, one I have no intention of removing.
I finish my sweep and find myself back in the kitchen, hands wrapped around a mug of black coffee that I'm not really drinking.
The liquid has gone tepid, forgotten, like so many things I've learned to set aside.
My reflection stares back from the dark surface, distorted and incomplete.
The sky's turning gold beyond the windows, that vulnerable hour when night finally surrenders to day.
I wonder if he's dreaming. If the nightmare found him again.
If he's still clutching my shirt in his sleep like he did three nights ago.
His fingers had curled into the fabric with surprising strength, anchoring himself to me as if I were the only solid thing in the world.
I laid perfectly still until my muscles ached, afraid that any movement might wake him from the first peaceful sleep he'd had in days.
There are moments when I think I can do this. Keep things professional, as they should be. Keep the lines clear. When my training overtakes everything else, I scan exits, calculate risks, and maintain the proper distance. When I remember what I am to him: a shield, a service, a shadow.
Then there are moments like the other night, when I felt him shaking beside me, and all I wanted to do was pull him into my arms and promise him the world.
Promise that he'll never be hurt again. That no one will ever touch him without his consent.
That he's not alone. Not anymore. I wanted to ease the tension from his shoulders with my fingertips, to press my lips against his temple where fear pulses strongest, to let him feel my heartbeat as proof that someone is there.
I can't say any of that, as much as it burns me up inside not to claim him.
Fuck being his bodyguard. In my heart, I know Brookes is mine.
To say it out loud though. He's not ready to hear it.
Maybe not ever. The walls he's built aren't just high, they're necessary.
Each brick laid for survival. Who am I to tear them down before he's ready?
So, I stay. I guard. I hover near his orbit, grounding him, pretending it's enough.
I memorize his movements, anticipate his needs, stand close enough to catch him if he falls but never close enough to make him feel cornered.
I've learned to read the tension in his shoulders, the slight change in his scent when panic begins to rise, the way his eyes dart to exits when a room gets too crowded.
I don't know how much longer I can pretend.
Somewhere along the line, Brookes stopped being just a job and started feeling like mine.
Mine to protect. Mine to cherish. Mine to understand in ways others never could.
The realization settles in my chest, undeniable as sunrise.
This silent, fierce certainty that has nothing to do with Alpha instinct and everything to do with him, just him, exactly as he is.