2. Calder #2
“It won't.” I said it like a promise, like I had any right to make promises about this woman I'd never met. “She made it this far. She's a fighter.”
I didn't know why I was so sure of that.
Maybe it was the set of her jaw, stubborn even in unconsciousness.
Maybe it was the fact that she'd survived a trek through that storm with no gear, no supplies, nothing but sheer determination.
Maybe it was just hope, desperate and unfamiliar, clawing its way up from somewhere I'd thought was dead.
We lay there in the firelight, two alphas wrapped around a dying omega while the third kept watch. The storm howled outside, throwing snow against the windows and making the walls creak. Inside, the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the too-slow rhythm of her breathing.
I didn't know how long we stayed like that.
Long enough for my own body heat to start making a difference.
Long enough for the gray tinge to fade from her skin and something closer to a rosy tint to return.
Long enough for her breathing to deepen, just slightly, from the dangerous shallows of severe hypothermia to something that sounded more like sleep.
She stirred once, maybe an hour in. A small movement, her body shifting against mine, and then a sound that might have been a word. I couldn't make it out, but the tone was clear. Protest. Resistance. Even unconscious, she was fighting.
“Shh.” I kept my voice low, a rumble in my chest that I hoped she could feel even if she couldn't hear. “You're safe. Just rest.”
She stilled, but her hand found my arm where it was wrapped around her waist and gripped tight. Like she was holding on. Like she'd found something she didn't want to let go of.
Her fingers were still cold, but the touch burned through me anyway. Something primal stirred in my chest, something that wanted to pull her closer, to wrap myself around her and never let go.
I tried not to think about how that made me feel. Tried not to notice how perfectly she fit against me, how right it felt to have her in my arms. She was a stranger. She was unconscious. And I was having thoughts that had no place in a medical emergency.
But I couldn't make them stop.
“She's warming up,” Bo said eventually. His voice was a low murmur, barely louder than the fire. “Can feel her scent coming back. Rain and flowers. Something sharp underneath, like pine.”
“Any idea who she is?” Shepherd had pulled a chair close, a book open in his lap but clearly unread. His eyes kept drifting to the bundle of blankets between us. “She said something before she collapsed. Something about Wes.”
Wes. The name was familiar. One of the wildlife officers who worked the territory below us.
We'd crossed paths a few times over the years, usually when Bo's trapping routes overlapped with conservation concerns.
He was decent enough, for someone who worked for the government.
Kept to himself, didn't ask too many questions.
“She said Wes sent her.” I remembered now, the slurred words that had barely made it past her frozen lips. “Storm. Couldn't make it back.”
“So she's someone who works with the wildlife service,” Shepherd reasoned. “Caught out in the storm and directed here for shelter.”
“Doesn't explain why she showed up half-dead with no gear.” Bo's voice had an edge to it. “No pack, no supplies, nothing. Just wet clothes and a compass. What happened to the rest of it?”
I'd wondered the same thing. Nobody went into backcountry in weather like this without proper equipment. Not unless they'd lost it somehow. Lost it, or had it taken from them.
“We'll ask her when she wakes up.” If she woke up. But her color was better now, and her breathing had steadied, and when I pressed my fingers to her throat, her pulse was stronger than it had been. Not out of danger yet, but closer. “For now, we focus on keeping her alive.”
Shepherd nodded, but his expression was troubled.
I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it too.
An omega in our cabin. An omega in our arms, pressed between us, sharing our heat.
None of us had been this close to an omega in years.
We had our reasons, all three of us, for keeping our distance from that particular complication.
And now here she was, dropped on our doorstep by a storm that showed no signs of stopping.
The universe had a hell of a sense of humor.
Hours passed. The storm kept raging. The fire kept burning. And slowly, gradually, the omega in our arms came back to life.
She started shivering again around midnight. Great, wracking convulsions that shook her whole body and made her whimper in her sleep. It was a good sign, Shepherd assured us. It meant her body was trying to warm itself again. It meant she was fighting her way back.
I held her through it, keeping her pressed against my chest while Bo added more blankets and Shepherd prepared warm broth in case she woke enough to drink it.
Her shivering gradually eased, replaced by the deep, even breathing of true sleep rather than unconsciousness.
Her skin felt warmer now, almost normal, and when I touched her forehead, there was no fever.
She was going to live.
The relief that washed through me was staggering. Out of proportion to the situation, to the stranger I'd known for only a few hours. But I couldn't help it. Couldn't stop the way my arms tightened around her, couldn't stop the rough exhale that escaped my chest.
“She's through the worst of it,” I said, my voice strange even to my own ears. “She should be okay.”
Bo made a sound of agreement, but his eyes were fixed on her face with an intensity that made me uneasy. He'd scented something earlier, something wrong or missing. I wanted to ask him about it, but this wasn't the time.
Shepherd was the one who finally voiced what we were all thinking.
“What do we do now?”
It was a good question. The storm would last at least another day, probably two. The roads would be impassable for longer than that. We couldn't send her on her way even if she was fit to travel, which she wasn't. Her ankle needed time to heal. Her body needed time to recover from the hypothermia.
She was stuck here. With us.
“We take care of her,” I said, because there wasn't any other answer. “We give her a bed and food and whatever else she needs until the storm breaks and the roads clear, then she can get back to wherever she came from.”
“And if she doesn't want to be taken care of?” Shepherd's voice was mild, but his eyes were sharp. “She fought us even unconscious, Calder. She grabbed your arm like she was trying to push you away even while she was holding on.”
I'd noticed that too. The contradiction of it. The way she'd resisted our touch even as her body sought our warmth. Like she wanted help and hated that she needed it. Like accepting care went against every instinct she had.
“Then we give her space.” I started the slow process of extracting myself from the blanket nest without disturbing her. “We let her come to us when she's ready. We don't push.”
“Since when do we know anything about taking care of an omega?” Bo's question was blunt, the way all his questions were. “We don't exactly have a great track record.”
He wasn't wrong. Shepherd had come to us four years ago, half-frozen and barely alive, and we'd managed not to kill him. But that was different. Shepherd was an alpha. Shepherd understood our particular brand of damaged without needing it explained.
This omega was something else entirely. A puzzle we didn't have the pieces to solve. A complication none of us needed.
But she was here now, and she was alive, and the snow was still falling.
“We figure it out,” I said, because there wasn't any other choice. “Same as we always do.”
I stood up, my joints protesting after hours on the floor, and looked down at the woman sleeping by our fire.
In the warm light, with color back in her cheeks and her breathing steady, she looked different than she had on my porch.
Younger. Softer. Beautiful, in a fierce kind of way that caught me off guard.
High cheekbones, full lips, that stubborn jaw even in sleep.
The kind of face that would haunt a man if he let it.
I wasn't going to let it. I'd spent seven years not letting anything haunt me except the things that already did.
But I couldn't stop looking at her. Couldn't stop remembering the feel of her body against mine, the way she'd gripped my arm like I was the only solid thing in her world.
Couldn't stop wanting things I had no right to want.
“Get some sleep,” I told the others, my voice rougher than I intended. “I'll take first watch.”
Shepherd nodded, already retreating to his reading nook with one last look at our unexpected guest. Bo stayed where he was a moment longer, his gaze fixed on her face, before he finally rose and disappeared into the shadows at the edge of the room.
I pulled a chair close to the fire and settled in to wait.
Outside, the storm howled on. Inside, the omega slept, and I watched her breathe, and tried not to think about the last time I'd held someone that close. The last time I'd felt so desperate to keep someone alive.
It had been seven years since the fire. Seven years since I'd led my team into an inferno and come out alone. Seven years of building walls and keeping distance and telling myself that I didn't need anyone, didn't deserve anyone, was better off alone.
And now there was an omega in my cabin, and my arms still felt the ghost of her weight, and something I'd thought was dead was stirring in my chest.
I watched her sleep, and I wondered what the hell I was going to do about it.