10. Calder #2
“Then we'll watch for cues,” Bo said. “Read your body, your scent, your responses. We're not going to hurt you, Noa. That's not who we are.”
“You say that now. But heat changes things. The hormones, the pheromones... people do things during heat that they'd never do otherwise. What if you lose control? What if I do?”
It was a valid concern. Heat was intense, overwhelming, a biological imperative that could override rational thought.
I'd seen alphas who were perfectly decent people turn into something else entirely when an omega's heat scent hit them.
I'd seen omegas make choices during heat that they regretted for years afterward.
But I'd also seen the opposite. Partners who treated each other with tenderness and care, who used the intensity to build something rather than destroy it. It didn't have to be dangerous. It just required the right people.
“We've all dealt with rut,” I said. “The alpha version of what you're about to experience. We know what it feels like to have our bodies demand things our minds aren't sure about. And we've learned how to manage it. How to stay in control even when every instinct is screaming at us to let go.”
“That's different.”
“Is it? The intensity is the same. The loss of control, the overwhelming need, the way your whole body becomes focused on one thing.” I met her eyes. “We've been through it. We know how to ride it out without losing ourselves. And we can help you learn how to do the same.”
She was quiet for a long time. The fire crackled. The clock on the wall ticked. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the windows.
“I don't have to decide right now,” she said finally. “Right?”
“Right.” I stood up, giving her space. “Take all the time you need. Think about it, ask questions, change your mind a hundred times if you have to. The only thing that matters is that whatever you decide, it's your choice. Nobody else's.”
She nodded slowly, some of the tension easing from her shoulders. “Okay. I'll think about it.”
“That's all we ask.”
The conversation wound down after that. Not resolved, exactly, but aired. The tension that had been building since the night before had dissipated into something more manageable. We knew where we stood. We knew what was coming. And we knew that when the time came, we'd face it together.
Whatever that looked like.
The rest of the day passed in something close to normal.
Bo went outside to check on the animals and came back with reports of the ice starting to melt.
Shepherd retreated to his reading nook, though I noticed he wasn't actually turning pages.
And Noa... Noa sat by the fire and stared into the flames, lost in thoughts she didn't share.
I kept busy. There was always work to do around the homestead, repairs that needed making, supplies that needed organizing.
Physical labor had always been my way of processing difficult emotions, and today was no exception.
I fixed the hinge on the pantry door that had been sticking for weeks.
I reorganized the tool shed. I chopped enough firewood to last us through another month of winter.
By the time evening fell, I was exhausted in a good way. The way that meant I might actually sleep tonight.
Dinner was simple. Soup from the pot that had been simmering all day, bread that Shepherd had baked that morning. We ate together, the four of us, and somehow the silence felt less heavy than it had that morning. Something had shifted. Not resolved, but shifted.
After the dishes were done, we gathered in the main room the way we'd started doing every evening. Shepherd with his book. Bo in his corner by the window. Me in my chair. And Noa in her nest of blankets by the fire, the ecology book open in her lap.
Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. The fire crackled, the wind howled, and the four of us existed in the same space without demanding anything from each other.
It was strange, I thought, how quickly this had become normal.
Ten days ago, we'd been three men living our quiet, isolated lives, content in our solitude.
Now there was an omega in our midst, and somehow she fit.
Not comfortably, not easily, but she fit.
Like a puzzle piece that had been missing without any of us realizing it.
I didn't know what that meant. Didn't know if it meant anything at all, or if I was reading too much into a situation that was purely circumstantial.
She was here because she had nowhere else to go.
She'd stay until she could leave. And then she'd be gone, back to her life in town, and we'd go back to being three men alone on a mountain.
That was the sensible outcome. The expected one. The one that didn't require any of us to change or grow or risk anything.
So why did the thought of it make my chest ache?
I watched her read, the firelight playing across her features, and tried not to think about what was coming. The heat. The choice she'd have to make. The possibility that she might choose us, might let us help her, might let us in.
And the possibility that she might not.
Either way, everything was about to change. I could feel it building, that sense of something on the horizon that couldn't be avoided. Like watching a storm roll in across the mountains. You couldn't stop it. You could only prepare for it and hope you were strong enough to weather what came.
I'd weathered a lot of storms in my life. Some of them had broken me. Some of them had made me stronger. I didn't know which category this one would fall into. Only time would tell.
But sitting there in the firelight, watching Noa read, feeling the strange peace of this makeshift family we'd accidentally created... I found myself hoping, for the first time in years, that I'd come out the other side of this storm with more than I'd started with.
That felt dangerous. Hope always did.
But I couldn't seem to make it stop.