Chapter 19
Beau
The nightmare came for me just before dawn.
I was back in the water. Dark and cold and moving too fast. The vehicle sinking ahead of me, the omega’s face pressed against the window, small hands beating against the glass.
I was swimming as hard as I could, but the current kept pushing me back.
Kept stealing precious seconds while the car settled deeper.
I reached the vehicle just as water covered the windows completely. Tried to break the glass, but my hands wouldn’t work right. Tried to pull open the door, but the pressure differential held it closed. Tried everything I’d been trained to do, but nothing worked.
And then the faces disappeared behind the dark water, and I knew I was too late.
Again.
I jerked awake gasping, my heart hammering against my ribs, the scent of river water so strong I could taste it. For a moment I couldn’t remember where I was. Not the fire station. Not my apartment. Somewhere warm and dark and safe.
Dane’s safe house.
The pack bonds.
Sable.
I felt her stir through the connection we now shared, felt her awareness spike as my distress bled through the bond. Within seconds, the bedroom door opened and she was there, wearing my shirt and looking sleep-rumpled and concerned.
“Beau?” Her voice was soft, careful. “I felt your panic. Are you okay?”
“Nightmare,” I managed, my voice rough. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Don’t apologize.” She crossed to where I’d apparently fallen asleep in the armchair by the window, too wired to go to one of the other bedrooms. “Can I sit with you?”
I nodded, and she settled onto the arm of the chair, close enough that I could smell her scent. Cedar smoke and autumn rain and pack. The scent that had been haunting me for weeks now lived permanent in my senses through the bond.
“The rescue that went wrong?” she asked quietly.
“Always that rescue.” I rubbed my face, trying to clear the images. “Three years, and it hasn’t gotten better. Some nights I don’t dream at all. Other nights I relive every second of being too slow.”
“You weren’t too slow. The current was too fast.”
“Captain Rhodes says the same thing. The accident report cleared me of any wrongdoing. Even the omega’s family sent me a letter saying they knew I’d done everything possible.” I looked up at her. “Doesn’t change the fact that I couldn’t save them.”
“No,” she agreed. “It doesn’t change that fact. But it also doesn’t change the fact that you saved three people yesterday. A mother and her two children who are alive because you didn’t let three-year-old trauma stop you from doing your job.”
“That was different. I had backup. Better equipment. And I had you telling me I could do it.”
“You could have had all that three years ago and still lost them to bad timing and physics.” She moved from the arm of the chair to my lap, settling in like she belonged there. Like pack was supposed to comfort each other through nightmares. “You’re carrying guilt that isn’t yours to carry, Beau.”
“I know that deep down. But, I’m still convinced that being faster, stronger, better would have made the difference.”
“Is that why you’ve been alone for so long?” she asked. “Punishing yourself by avoiding connection?”
The observation was too accurate. I’d thought I was being subtle about the isolation, but apparently the omega who coordinated emergency responses for a living could read people better than I’d given her credit for.
“Partially,” I admitted. “Also because I was convinced I didn’t deserve happiness when they were dead. That wanting pack was selfish when an omega and her kid would never have a pack because I’d failed them.”
“That’s not how life works, Beau. You can’t balance cosmic scales by making yourself miserable. Their deaths don’t become more meaningful if you suffer. They’re just gone, and you’re here, and you deserve to be happy despite the tragedy.”
“I want to believe that.” I wrapped my arms around her, needing the physical contact to ground me in present reality. “Some days I almost do. But then the nightmares come, and I’m back in the water, and I can feel myself failing again.”
She was quiet for a moment, and through the bond I could feel her thinking. Processing. Deciding how much honesty to risk.
“I have nightmares too,” she finally said. “About Nathan. About standing at that altar and hearing him tell two hundred people that I wasn’t enough. That I was too difficult, too strong-willed, more alpha than omega. That no pack would ever want someone like me.”
“He was wrong.”
“I know that now. But for five years, I believed him. Built my entire life around being independent because accepting that I needed people felt like proving he was right. That I was the problem.” She touched the claiming bite on my neck, her mark.
“You’re not the only one who’s been punishing yourself. ”
“What changed your mind?”
“You did. All three of you.” She pulled back enough to meet my eyes.
“You kept showing up. Kept proving that my independence didn’t threaten you.
Kept making it safe to be vulnerable without making me feel weak.
You taught me that needing people doesn’t make me less capable. It just makes me human.”
“I’m glad we could do that for you.” I tucked a strand of her short black curls behind her ear. “But I don’t know how to let you do the same for me.”
“Then let me start small.” She settled more firmly into my lap, her head against my chest. “Right now, you’re having a nightmare response.
Your body thinks you’re still in danger.
But you’re not in the water. You’re in a safe place with pack who love you.
With an omega who’s bonded to you. With people who will catch you if you fall. ”
“I’m supposed to be the one catching you.”
“Says who?” She looked up at me with those dark amber eyes that saw too much. “Pack means we catch each other. Sometimes you save me. Sometimes I save you. Sometimes we just hold each other through the nightmares and trust that morning will come.”
“Is that what we’re doing now?”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.” She yawned, exhaustion pulling at her despite the adrenaline from my nightmare. “I’m going to stay right here until you fall back asleep. And when you wake up, I’ll still be here. That’s what pack means, Beau. You’re never alone with the nightmares again.”
The simple promise hit harder than it should have. I’d spent three years convinced I needed to handle everything alone, that my guilt was mine to carry, that asking for help was weakness.
But through the bond, I could feel her certainty. Feel that she meant every word. Feel that staying with me through nightmares wasn’t obligation or pity, but genuine care.
“Thank you,” I managed.
“Don’t thank me. Just accept it.” She shifted slightly, getting comfortable. “We’re pack now. This is what we do.”
I held her while she dozed, feeling her warmth and her steady breathing and the bond that connected us permanently. The nightmare images were still there, lurking at the edges of my mind, waiting for the next time I let my guard down.
But they felt less overwhelming with her in my arms. Less like drowning and more like something I could survive.
Maybe that was enough to start with.
When Silas appeared in the doorway an hour later, he took one look at us and smiled. “Nightmares?”
“How did you know?”
“Your distress leaked through the bond. Woke me up too.” He moved into the room with quiet efficiency. “Dane’s making breakfast. Figured you could both use protein and carbs. Also possibly more coffee than is medically advisable.”
“Coffee sounds perfect,” Sable murmured without opening her eyes.
“Come on.” Silas offered me a hand. “Let’s get you both downstairs. Pack breakfast in the kitchen sounds better than brooding alone in the dark.”
He was right, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I stood carefully, keeping Sable in my arms because putting her down felt wrong. She didn’t protest, just wrapped her arms around my neck and let me carry her downstairs like she weighed nothing.
The kitchen smelled like bacon and coffee and the beginning of something that looked like home. Dane was at the stove, cooking with the same focused attention he brought to everything, while Silas poured coffee for everyone.
“Morning,” Dane said without turning around. “Eggs?”
“Yes,” Sable said, finally opening her eyes. “Everything. I’m starving.”
“Heat recovery requires serious calories,” Silas said, setting coffee mugs on the table. “Your body burned through a lot of energy last night. You need sustained nutrition for the next few days.”
I set Sable in a chair and took the seat next to her, watching Dane cook and Silas fuss with cream and sugar, and realized something profound.
This was pack.
Not the fantasy version where everything was perfect and no one had nightmares or trauma or complicated histories. The real version where four broken people were learning to function together despite their damage.
Where an omega who’d been publicly rejected was learning to trust again.
Where an alpha who’d lost his entire team was learning to forgive himself.
Where a scent-sensitive paramedic was learning to let people see past his performance.
Where a firefighter who’d failed a rescue was learning that failure didn’t define him.
“You’re staring,” Sable observed, bumping my shoulder with hers.
“Just thinking about how improbable this is. Four people who had no business forming a pack somehow stumbling into exactly what we all needed.”
“It’s not improbable if you believe in scent compatibility,” Silas said, settling at the table with his own coffee. “Biology knew what we needed before our conscious minds caught up.”
“Biology is smarter than we give it credit for,” Sable agreed. She reached over and took my hand, squeezing once. “I’m glad it brought us together. Even if the timing was terrible and the circumstances were chaotic and none of us were ready.”