Chapter 2 #2
“Cassian.” Sheriff Decker’s voice rumbled through the speaker.
“You stocked up?” The bear shifter always cut to the chase, which I appreciated.
He’d been sheriff in Brimstone Valley way longer than I’d lived on the mountain, and there wasn’t much that happened up here he didn’t hear about.
We weren’t drinking buddies, and we didn’t exchange Christmas cards, but every storm, every fallen tree across the road, every lost hiker or stranded tourist would end up involving one or both of us.
Somewhere along the line, we’d settled into an easy understanding.
He kept trouble away from the people in the valley. I kept it away from the mountain above.
We accepted each other, and that was enough.
“Got four months’ worth of supplies.” From now, the second week of January, to the end of April at least. I set the coffee down. “What’s up?”
“Harrow Pass bridge is closing. Road crew called it an hour ago—damaged and shifted expansion joint, possible deck and support damage, closure pending inspection. We also have ice on the approach deck, too much weight, and the snow’s coming in heavier than anyone forecast. Twenty miles from you, give or take.
” A pause, and wind at his end, which meant he was outside.
“You’re on the wrong side of it to go anywhere once it shuts. ”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Same as every year.
“Wanted to make sure you knew. The storm system’s bigger than it looked. The road crew chief’s an alpha woman named Harris, says five or six weeks minimum for re-opening once it’s down, some version of failing road service, said it could be way more.”
“I’m good, Ray.”
“Right.” The radio clicked, and that was it.
I set it back on the desk.
Harrow Pass was closed along the only road a car could take, and the valley would be as cut off from me as if someone had drawn a wall across the map.
Most people would’ve called it being trapped, but after a few winters up there, I’d learned the mountain never felt like a prison to me.
I had food, generators, wood stacked shoulder-high beneath the lean-to, enough diesel to last until spring, and a mountain I’d spent three years learning one pawprint at a time.
My wolf stretched inside me, unhurried, because we couldn’t be trapped somewhere neither of us wanted to leave.
I sipped my coffee as I walked around the house. Same circuit every morning. Front parlor, dining room, library, the long hall with the stained glass. Some doors stayed closed, others always open, and not a single part of my routine changed the silence.
I could lock this house down tighter than most military safe houses because I’d had plenty of time to strip away every vulnerability the old place had been built on.
Reinforced doors hid behind the original oak, and laminated bulletproof glass sat inside century-old window frames.
Cameras covered every approach, backed by motion sensors and thermal imaging that fed into my office.
The panic room behind the ground-floor library had started life as a forgotten coal store beneath the house.
Now it had its own air supply, power, water, food, a medical kit, and an escape tunnel surfacing half a mile away in the forest. Nothing about this place resembled the home Raff and I’d first fallen in love with, but it had become the sanctuary Raff had dreamed of.
Piece by piece, I turned his sketches into reality because it seemed easier than killing myself to be with him.
Don’t you dare follow me, Cass.
Don’t you fucking dare!
I knew every floorboard that complained beneath too much weight, every blind angle from every window, every sightline through the trees, every place an intruder would instinctively choose to approach and every place they’d never think to look.
The mountain was my first line of defense.
The house was my second. Anyone foolish enough to come here was walking into the sanctuary Raff had imagined, and I’d spent three years making damn sure nobody could ever take it from the people who needed it most.
The house stood so nearly ready, just missing medical equipment and a fifth backup generator.
Empty.
Waiting.
Lonely. My wolf whispered.
He wasn’t wrong.
Once it was finished, I’d hand it over to Haven.
That had always been the plan. Building the sanctuary had been easy; letting strangers through the doors Raff and I had meant to call home was harder, so I kept finding one more thing that needed doing.
One more wall to reinforce. One more system to improve. One more reason to wait.
But eventually, there would be nothing left to fix.
Then I could finally be at peace. I’d curl up beside Raff’s grave and, when my time came, hope it would carry me wherever he’d gone.
My office was on the second floor with windows on two sides.
I locked the door behind me out of habit even though there was no one in the house to disturb me.
Setting the coffee on the coaster, I sat down and pulled the laptop out of the drawer where I kept it locked up.
I turned it on and scrolled to the to-do list Raff had made, a complete check-box action plan for how he was going to change this place.
“I’m nearly done here,” I told his photo, same as I’d done every morning, after most projects finished last summer.
The old Omega Rescue Team photograph didn’t talk back—I’d freak out if it did.
Raff was gone, the team had disbanded, and the corners of the frame were marked from being handled so often.
I stared at it for a long moment before picking it up.
It was a beautiful moment frozen in time. We’d been outside one of the ORT transports, bearing the scars of a rescue, and I remembered Raff arguing that the bullet holes added character.
Brec was on the left, smiling with the easy warmth that made him the best medic I’d ever worked beside. Next to him was Raff’s older brother Ronan, arms folded, looking as if he’d rather wrestle a bear than pose for a camera.
Raff stood in front of us, his omega build slighter than his three alpha teammates, leaning forward with the biggest grin I’d ever seen, both hands pointed at the camera in ridiculous finger guns, completely ignoring every ounce of professionalism the ORT tried to project in the official photos.
My thumb brushed across his face before I realized what I was doing.
“You were such an idiot,” I murmured.
He was frozen there at twenty-three. Healthy. Happy. Entirely convinced the four of us would grow old together, still arguing over coffee, still taking impossible missions, still coming home.
For one dangerous moment I could almost hear him laughing.
Then the office was quiet again.
I set the photograph beside the keyboard instead of putting it back in the drawer.
I hadn’t spoken to Ronan or Brec since Raff’s funeral.
There hadn’t been a fight. Nobody had blamed me out loud.
They hadn’t needed to. I carried enough blame for all of us.
I was Team Three’s leader. I should have stopped Raff going back into the warehouse.
I should have seen the second shooter. I should have brought every member of my team home.
The familiar ache tightened beneath my ribs.
Three years hadn’t dulled any of the pain.
Ronan had lost his little brother. I’d lost my mate.
Brec had been left to pick through what remained of Team Three while the rest of us drifted apart.
I came to the mountain, built a sanctuary that might never shelter anyone, and waited for death to catch up with me.
Some days I missed the terrible coffee after impossible missions. Brec’s awful jokes. Ronan’s dry sarcasm. The certainty that none of us ever fought alone.
Now all I had was the silence.