Chapter 4
Dane
The community center’s multipurpose room smelled like sweat and floor wax, familiar scents that usually centered me.
Today they did nothing to ease the tension in my shoulders as I watched fifteen emergency responders attempt an active shooter scenario I’d designed specifically to break their assumptions about threat response.
Sable Wynn stood at the observation station, tablet in hand, evaluating each decision with the kind of clinical precision that reminded me of after-action debriefs.
She’d coordinated with the county sheriff’s department three days ago to schedule this training session for Hollow Haven’s emergency services, and I’d spent those three days trying very hard not to notice the way she moved through space with military efficiency, or how her scent cut through the room’s usual cocktail of alpha posturing and beta nervousness.
Running tactical training for rural emergency services was part of my job as county sheriff.
My military background, specifically the years I’d spent training special operations teams before everything went to hell, made me the logical choice for these scenarios.
Most small-town responders never got quality tactical training. I made sure they did.
Cedar smoke and autumn rain. Distinctive even through whatever suppressants she was using to mute her omega biology.
I’d noticed. Couldn’t help noticing, though I’d gotten very good at pretending I didn’t notice anything that might make me want things I’d given up the right to want three years ago.
“Team Two, your spacing is wrong,” Sable called out, her voice carrying without being raised. “You’re bunched up. One shooter with decent aim takes you all out. Spread your formation.”
The team adjusted, and I made a note on my own tablet.
She was right. She was right about a lot of things, which was both professionally impressive and personally unsettling.
I wasn’t used to civilians who understood tactical doctrine well enough to catch errors I’d deliberately planted in scenarios to test critical thinking.
“Better,” she said. “Now, suspect is barricaded in the northwest corner. What’s your approach?”
I watched Team Two move through the problem, evaluating their decision-making against the scenario parameters. Two made the right call. Three hesitated. The rest followed whoever seemed most confident, which was exactly the problem I was trying to address with this training.
Critical thinking under pressure. Independent assessment. Not following orders blindly just because someone had authority.
My team had followed orders. Had trusted their commander to make the right call. And I’d led them straight into an ambush that killed all six of them while I was the only one who walked out.
I shook my head sharply, forcing the memory back into the locked box where I kept it. Focus. The scenario. The training. The job I’d come to Hollow Haven to do specifically because it kept me occupied and didn’t require getting close to anyone.
“Time,” Sable called. “Scenario complete. Return to briefing positions.”
The teams filtered back to the main floor, some looking pleased with themselves, others clearly aware they’d made mistakes. Sable pulled up her evaluation matrix, and I prepared for the joint debrief we’d agreed to run together.
Except I made the mistake of glancing at where Team Three was gathering, and caught sight of Matthews, a young alpha trainee who’d been pushing boundaries all morning, crowding another trainee with aggressive body language that had nothing to do with the scenario we’d just run.
“Matthews,” I called out, my voice dropping to command register without conscious thought. “Personal space. Step back.”
He did, but the resentment in his scent was obvious. Problem trainee. The kind who thought being an alpha meant you could intimidate your way through situations instead of actually learning tactical doctrine.
I’d dealt with his type in the military. Usually they either learned or they got people killed.
We ran through the debrief, and I noted that Matthews participated minimally, his attention drifting to Sable more often than the tactical analysis we were discussing. Not professional interest. Something else. Something that made my alpha sit up and take notice in a way I really didn’t need it to.
“Next scenario,” Sable announced when we finished the debrief. “Active threat, close quarters, civilian present. Matthews, you’re primary responder.I will play the civilian role.”
I glanced at her sharply. That wasn’t in the training plan we’d agreed on.
She met my gaze steadily. “Problem, Hollow?”
“No ma’am.” But I moved closer to the observation position, something in my gut saying this scenario was going to go wrong before it even started.
The scenario setup was simple. Matthews was supposed to respond to an active threat report, locate the civilian, and execute proper verbal de-escalation and protective positioning. Standard protocol. Simple execution.
Except Matthews approached it like a dominance display instead of a rescue operation.
I watched him crowd Sable against the training wall, using his size to intimidate even though this was supposed to be about verbal de-escalation and protective positioning.
She was playing a frightened civilian, but I could see the moment his aggression crossed from scenario into something else.
Something that made her scent spike with adrenaline and her posture shift from acting to actual defensive tension.
The young alpha had Sable backed against the training wall, using his size to intimidate even though this was supposed to be a simulation.
I moved before I thought. Before I could remind myself that this wasn’t my team, wasn’t my responsibility, wasn’t my business to interfere.
One second I was across the room observing the active shooter scenario. The next I was between them, my hand locked around the trainee’s arm and my voice dropping to the register that made people’s hindbrain sit up and pay attention.
“Stand down.”
The kid couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. He went pale and stumbled back. The other trainees froze. The entire training scenario ground to a halt as fifteen people suddenly remembered that Dane Hollow didn’t raise his voice often, and when he did, smart people listened.
Sable’s scent spiked with adrenaline and something sharper. Fear, maybe, though it was gone so fast I almost missed it. But I’d caught it. Had felt it like a physical blow, and my alpha was screaming MINE with an intensity I hadn’t experienced since before my team died.
Which was a problem. A significant problem. Because I didn’t do this anymore. Didn’t let people matter enough to trigger protective instincts. Didn’t allow myself to care about anyone who might get hurt because of my failures.
She stepped out from behind me, and I could see the fury building in her dark amber eyes. Not directed at the trainee.
Directed at me.
“Hollow.” Her voice was dangerously calm, the kind of calm that preceded explosions. “A word. Outside. Now.”
I released the trainee and followed her out of the training facility, very aware that fifteen pairs of eyes were tracking our exit. The October air hit cold after the warmth of the building, and I watched her stalk ten paces away before whirling to face me.
“What the hell was that?”
“He was too aggressive. The scenario called for verbal intimidation, not physical.”
“I know what the scenario called for. I wrote it.” She crossed her arms, and I recognized the defensive posture for what it was. Walls going up. Distance being established. “I had it handled.”
“He had you backed against a wall.”
“That was part of the simulation. I was about to execute a defensive disarm when you decided to go all alpha protector and ruin my teaching moment.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. Because she was right. The scenario specs had specifically included a section on close-quarters defense tactics. The trainee was supposed to crowd her. She was supposed to demonstrate proper response.
And I’d just undermined her authority in front of her entire class because my alpha had decided she needed protection regardless of whether she actually did.
This was exactly why I didn’t do relationships.
Why I kept everyone at careful distance.
Because the moment someone mattered, the moment I cared whether they were safe, I stopped thinking tactically and started reacting emotionally.
And Sable wasn’t even someone I was in a relationship, which made her even more dangerous to get involved with.
Because emotional reactions got people killed.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “That was out of line.”
She blinked, clearly not expecting agreement.
“Damn right it was out of line. I don’t need a bodyguard, Hollow.
I’ve been doing this job for seven years, and I’ve handled aggressive alphas before.
What I can’t handle is someone stepping in and making me look incompetent in front of people I’m supposed to be training. ”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
“No?” She took a step closer, and I caught her scent more clearly now.
Cedar smoke and autumn rain, but underneath the suppressants, something complex and wounded that made my alpha sit up and insist she needed protection.
“Then what was your intention? Because from where I’m standing, it looked like you decided I couldn’t handle myself. ”
I wanted to explain that it wasn’t about her competence.
That watching that kid crowd her had triggered something primal and protective that I hadn’t felt in three years.
That for half a second, I’d forgotten she was the emergency coordinator and remembered only that she was an omega whose scent made every instinct I had scream MINE.
But I couldn’t say any of that. Didn’t have the right to say any of that. Had given up that right when I’d survived and my team hadn’t.