Chapter Four
C oming too, I found that the world had disappeared under an avalanche of sound and pressure. Something massive... part of the stage set, perhaps, or a section of the ceiling had come down with crushing force, pinning my leg beneath a jumble of wood and plaster. A sharp burst of pain tore through me, searing-hot and blinding, like lightning ripping down my spine. My body crumpled on impact; the air punched from my lungs in a silent scream. I clawed at the floor, lungs spasming, dust curling into my mouth and nose. The gritty taste coated my tongue as I gulped at the thick, chalk-laced air, each breath scraping to be free.
Silence. For one terrifying second, the world just... stopped. No sound. No feeling. Like my brain had hit some kind of emergency switch and shut everything down.
Then it started creeping back in. Broken pieces of awareness slotting into place. A scream, thin and far away. The deep groan of the building settling overhead. Warmth trailing down my leg. Blood? God, that was blood.
I tried to move. My body twitched, useless and weak, and the pain came rushing in like a wave. Something heavy, too heavy, pressed across my hips, pinning me down. It wasn’t crushing me, not yet, but it felt like a promise. A warning. I gritted my teeth, and tried to twist out from under it, but the wood didn’t budge.
This can’t be real. Shit! I’m stuck!
All around me, splintered set pieces jutted out like jagged bones, boxing me in, trapping me under their weight. A crude little cave. Safe from falling debris, maybe, but not from being forgotten.
I sucked in a breath, and choked. Dust coated my tongue, my throat. My chest seized, and the coughs came fast and raw, tearing through me like glass.
My fingers clawed at the dirt, the broken wood, anything. But nothing gave me even an inch of movement. There was no escape. No help. Just me, sealed away under the wreckage, lungs burning, head spinning, and heart pounding like a freight train.
No. No, no, no—this couldn’t be happening. A hot, invisible current shot through me, sharp and instinctual, my body reacting before my mind could catch up.
I felt the flush under my skin, the sudden rush low in my gut. Damn it. The suppressants weren’t holding. I could smell it already, faint but growing stronger, my fear bleeding out into the air. My scent.
Adrenaline had torn right through the chemical wall I’d built that morning. Now it was spilling out of me, a silent scream, a signal I couldn’t hide. Anyone nearby would smell it, would know. I was exposed. Vulnerable. And I couldn’t stop it.
I tried to push the beam again, my breathing faltering, the air getting heavier. It was no use. I’d have to take my chances. I needed help, so I shouted for it.
“Help!” I yelled, but the word dissolved into another coughing fit. The air was thick with pulverized plaster and splinters of wood, each breath like swallowing sandpaper.
I pushed against the beam trapping me, succeeding only in sending fresh waves of pain up my injured leg. Something warm and wet was spreading beneath my hip, blood pooling perhaps. My blood. I shook my head, trying to keep myself in a state of consciousness. I tried to look down and check where I was bleeding from, but I couldn't tell in the dim emergency lights that had flickered on when the main power failed.
My hands scrabbled against the debris, finding purchase only to lose it again on dust-slick surfaces. The confined space grew smaller with each panicked breath, the weight on my chest more about fear than actual debris. Claustrophobia, never a problem before, wrapped around my throat like hands intent on silencing me. I was buried alive, screaming inside, clawing to fight my way out.
The building groaned again; an aftershock or just the wounded structure settling, I couldn't tell. Fresh dust sifted down from somewhere above, coating my sweat-damp skin. I squeezed my eyes shut against the grit, and that's when the world shifted in a different way.
The darkness behind my eyelids wasn't the darkness of the damaged theater. It was another darkness, older and more terrifying. The underside of our family sedan, metal against my back, the smell of oil and fear and my mother's blood-soaked clothes.
Now, I was back there. Pinned. Trapped. Helpless. The rubble wasn’t wood... it was the wreckage of my childhood. My body curled in instinctive defense as another aftershock rumbled through the city. Dust rained down, choking.
"Stay here, Summer. Don't make a sound. Don't come out until I come for you."
My mother's words were spoken with the desperate intensity of someone who knew they were lying. I was sixteen, small for my age, an omega whose first faint scent had drawn unwanted attention from a pack of alphas determined to claim fresh breeding stock.
My parents had fought to protect me, to give me time to run or hide. I'd scrambled beneath the car in our driveway, pressing myself against the cold ground as the sounds of struggle filled the night air. The smell of terror mixed with the metallic tang of spilled blood. The sound of my father's bones breaking, my mother's screams cut short.
"Don't make a sound," I whispered to myself, the words automatic, a desperate adherence to final instructions.
But I wasn't a child anymore, and this wasn't the night my parents were murdered. This was now, and I was trapped once again, as my omega scent spiraled outward with each terrified heartbeat. I forced my eyes open, fighting against the undertow of memory.
The emergency lights cast everything in a sickly red glow. Dust particles danced in the ray of light that penetrated my makeshift tomb, swirling with each labored breath I took. Outside my little pocket of space, I could hear shouting. Rescue efforts were beginning. People were calling out for survivors.
I should answer them. I knew this, but my body remained locked in the paralysis of two overlapping traumas. The taste in my mouth was the same; fear, dust and something metallic.
Because that was the other part of the memory, the part I tried hardest to forget. How the alphas had searched for me after killing my parents. How they'd called my name in honey-sweet voices, promising safety if I'd just come out. When they'd eventually caught my scent and dismantled my hiding place piece by piece.
I'd escaped that night by pure luck, a passing patrol car, a moment of opportunity, a desperate sprint through unfamiliar streets. But the lesson had branded itself into my DNA: vulnerability attracted predators. Trapped and bleeding, I would draw them like sharks to chum-filled waters.
This was not then. I was not sixteen. I was nineteen, a professional dancer, trapped after an earthquake, not hiding from murderous alphas.
Not yet, anyway.
Another aftershock rattled through the building, smaller than the first. The surrounding wreckage creaked and groaned, shifting just enough to press deeper into my leg.
A bolt of pain shot up through me, sharp and blinding. I couldn't stop the sound that ripped from my throat—half scream, half sob—too loud in the cramped, airless dark.
God, that hurt.
For a moment, the haze in my head thinned, anchoring me more firmly in the present. Pain burned away the shock, dragging me back into my body, whether I wanted to be here or not. I was awake; I was trapped, and I was hurting .
And I was still very much alive.
The voice of a man, both muffled and far away, sounded above me. Shit. I needed help, but from who? My scent would be detectable throughout the damaged theater now, impossible to hide or suppress.
Shaker City was supposed to be different... more progressive, with laws protecting omegas from forced bonding. But laws meant nothing in moments of crisis, when primal instincts kicked in.
I pushed again, gritting my teeth as pain flared through my ankle. The beam groaned but didn’t give, just shifted enough to send a fresh cascade of debris clattering around me. Sharp edges scraped my arms. I hissed through my teeth, trying not to cry out again.
My leotard was shredded now... filthy, torn, useless. Every breath scraped against grit. Every inch of me felt exposed, vulnerable, and raw.
My fingers found something smooth amid the wreckage. I dug through the rubble with trembling hands and pulled out a jagged shard of mirror, its edge sharp enough to cut if I wasn't careful.
Good.
I clutched it anyway. The cool mirror signified safety against my worst fear. If someone came... if it was an alpha, one who smelled the fear on me, who wanted that fear... I’d have something. A warning. A weapon.
I held it up, just enough to catch the faintest reflection.
What stared back almost stopped my heart. My face was streaked with grime and blood. Eyes too wide, too wild; with a fear that belonged to both the woman I had become and the child I'd once been.
I blinked hard, breath catching. That version of me, the little girl who couldn’t fight back, she wasn’t here. I was. I was bruised, trapped, bleeding... but I wasn’t helpless.
Not anymore.
The sight shocked me back to full awareness, the past receding just enough to let me think clearly.
"Hello?" I called out, my voice stronger now despite the dust coating my throat. "Is anyone there? I'm trapped!"
My words seemed to vanish into the surrounding debris, absorbed by splintered wood and crumbled plaster. I listened for a response, hearing only the distant sounds of emergency workers somewhere in the main auditorium.
The reality of my situation settled over me like another layer of dust. I was alone, trapped, and broadcasting omega distress pheromones powerful enough to cut through the acrid smells of disaster.
A new sound reached me then, closer than the rescue workers, more deliberate than falling debris. Footsteps. Someone picking their way through the wreckage, moving with purpose rather than panic.
"Help!" I called again, hope and fear tangling in my chest. "I'm here! I need help!"
The footsteps paused, then changed direction, heading toward my voice with renewed determination. Relief flooded through me, quickly followed by apprehension. Who had found me?
I tightened my grip on the mirror shard, ignoring the sting as its edge bit into my palm. The footsteps grew closer, accompanied now by the sound of debris being shifted aside. Whoever approached was strong enough to move obstacles that would have challenged most people.
Alpha. The realization came with certainty, a knowledge as old as my biology. The scent reached me a moment later. It was distinctly male, distinctly alpha, carrying notes of something clean and earthy, deep and alluring.
My panic spilled out in waves, saturating the air with the heady, primal scent of an omega in distress.
And it was strong. Too strong. I could feel the shift in the atmosphere, that unmistakable tension of being sensed.
Then, a voice. Hard. Firm. Alpha.
“Don’t move. I’ve got you.”
My heart hammered against my ribs, fight-or-flight instincts screaming in a body that could do neither. I was exposed in the most fundamental way possible, physically trapped, emotionally raw.
The debris above me shifted, light spilling into my confined space as someone began to clear a path. I blinked against the sudden brightness, the mirror shard trembling in my bloodied grip as I prepared to face whoever had found me in this moment of absolute vulnerability.
He heaved upward, a controlled surge of power that lifted the beam several crucial inches. Pain flared through my injured ankle as the pressure changed, but I bit back a cry and dragged myself backward as instructed.
Then he shifted his weight, using his shoulder to brace the beam higher. "Almost there," he grunted. "Need to... secure it..."
With one hand, he reached for a piece of broken scaffolding, wedging it beneath the beam to create a makeshift support. The beam settled onto it with a creak of protest but held. He exhaled hard, his breath stirring the dust between us as he turned his attention back to me.
"Who are you?" I asked. My voice sounded foreign to my own ears, thin and ragged.
"Blake Valensky," he answered without pausing his examination of the wreckage surrounding me. "I'm a doctor. I was walking by when the quake hit." His eyes met mine again, steady as stone. "What's your name?"
"Summer," I managed. "Summer Rayne."
Something flickered across his face. "The dancer. I was due to watch you perform tonight."
“Well, I’m kinda lacking a stage, so we may need to put that on hold.”
He smiled. “Ah, next time then.”
I groaned as debris shifted, falling on the beam that trapped my leg.
"I need to check your injuries before I move this," he said, voice steady. "May I touch your leg?"
The question, the request for permission, was so unexpected that I nodded before I could consider it. His hands were warm and certain as they gently probed around the beam, assessing the damage without causing additional pain.
He moved closer in the confined space. "You’re lucky,” he said. “It looks superficial.”
I scoffed. “It doesn’t feel superficial!”
He laughed and nodded.
Our proximity was unavoidable now. The pocket created by the fallen debris barely accommodated his body alongside mine, forcing a closeness that made my pulse quicken. He bent over my injured leg, and I could feel the heat radiating from him, cutting through the chill that shock had spread through my limbs.
His scent coiled around me, dancing with mine, soothing and protecting me. It reminded me of the forest back in Shaylan, when I was a child, walking with my mother and searching for wild flowers in the springtime. Those days lived amongst many beautiful memories I cherished with my mother.
"I need to stop the bleeding before I try to move you," he explained, searching the surrounding debris. His gaze settled on what looked like part of the stage curtain. "This will work."
As he gathered the materials, another small aftershock vibrated through the building. Instinctively, I reached out, my fingers catching the fabric of his shirt. He froze, his eyes meeting mine, something primal and protective flashing across his features.
"It's okay," he said, his voice dropping to a register that seemed to resonate directly within my bones. "I won't let anything happen to you."
The simple statement shouldn't have carried much weight, shouldn't have sent that warmth spreading through my chest and down between my legs. I bit my lower lip. I'd spent years learning not to trust such promises, especially from alphas. Yet in that moment, with dust still settling around us and the ground unsteady beneath, I believed him.
His face was inches from mine now as he leaned in, wrapping the bandage he had made around my leg and over the wound. I could see the individual flecks of darker blue in his irises, the way his jaw clenched when he concentrated.
"This will hurt," he warned, hands poised to tighten the bandage. "Try to stay still."
I nodded, bracing myself. When he tightened it, pain seared across my leg like lightning. I half gasped, half whimpered. His pupils dilated in response, the scent of alpha protectiveness surging around us.
“Almost done,” he murmured, voice rougher now, low and warm like velvet dragged over gravel.
I shouldn’t have reacted. It was just words. Just bandages. But the way he said it... like I mattered, it sent a ripple through my stomach that had nothing to do with pain. I forced myself not to look at him and failed.
Our eyes caught, and held. While his fingers moved with practiced care, brushing bare skin as he finished wrapping the bandage. Gentle. Too gentle. It made something deep inside me tighten.
I didn’t breathe. Neither did he.
The space between us felt too still, too heavy. Like the moment was waiting for something. I felt it in my blood. In that ancient, thrumming part of me that had nothing to do with logic.
No. Don’t name it. Don’t even think it.
But my body had already decided. That hum beneath my skin, that low ache of awareness... it knew him. My omega instincts stirred, greedy and alert.
And his scent! God, his scent! It wrapped around me before I could fight it. Earthy, clean, like forest rain. My nerves calmed and sparked all at once, soothed and set alight in the same breath.
I hated how much I wanted to lean into it.
His skin brushed mine, warm, solid, a little calloused at the edges. Real and alive. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until that touch sent a shiver racing through me.
"We need to get you out of here before another shock brings more down." His clinical tone didn't quite match the intensity in his eyes. "Can you put your arms around my neck? I'll carry you."
The thought of being that close, that dependent on him, sent a jolt of panic through me. "I can try to walk," I protested, already knowing it was impossible.
Before I could respond further, a more significant aftershock rumbled through the building. Debris shifted above us, and Blake moved with startling speed, shielding my body with his own as dust and small fragments rained down. His arms formed a protective cage around me, his broad back taking the brunt of the falling material.
The shock subsided after several seconds that felt like hours. Blake remained frozen above me, his face now only a breath away from mine. I could feel his heart hammering against my chest, his body tense with a readiness to protect.
"We need to move," he said, his voice a low rumble that I felt as much as heard. "Now."
Without waiting for further agreement, he slid one arm beneath my knees and the other around my shoulders, lifting me against his chest with careful strength. The movement brought fresh pain, but also an unexpected sense of security as he cradled me against him.
“I’ve got you now, sweetheart.” His voice was a low murmur against the chaos, steady in a way that made my chest ache. “You’re safe.”
Safe. The word shattered something inside me.
My throat clenched, and before I could stop it, a tear slipped free, soaking silently into his shirt. Just one, but it carried everything; pain, fear, exhaustion, all the pieces I hadn’t been able to name until now.
He held me steady, unshaken, as he carried me out of the dark.
Toward the light.
And for the first time in what felt like forever... I let him.