Rafe was quiet for a moment. Then: “Thank you. For this. For...” He gestured vaguely. “Everything. Taking me in. Giving me a chance. Not treating me like a threat even when your pack had every reason to.”
“You're not a threat, Rafe. You're a survivor.”
“Sometimes those are the same thing.”
“Sometimes.” I stood, gathered the bloody gauze and the supplies. “But not tonight. Tonight you're just a wolf who needed stitches and couldn't sleep. Nothing more complicated than that.”
He smiled at that. Small, but real. The first genuine smile I'd seen from him since he arrived.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Depends.”
“Does it get easier? Being Alpha? Carrying everyone's problems, making all the decisions, being the one everyone looks to when things go wrong?”
I considered the question. Considered lying, telling him what he probably wanted to hear.
“No,” I said honestly. “It doesn't get easier. You just get better at carrying the weight. Learn which burdens you can set down and which ones you have to hold. Learn to let people help, even when your instincts say you should handle everything yourself.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is. But it's also...” I searched for the right word. “Meaningful. Knowing that you matter to people. That yourchoices protect them, keep them safe. There's a purpose in that. A reason to keep going even when it's hard.”
Rafe nodded slowly, like he was filing the information away. “I think I understand. Alpha Warren used to say something similar. That leadership wasn't about power, it was about responsibility. About being the one who stayed awake so everyone else could sleep.”
“Smart man.”
“He was.” Rafe's voice went soft. “I miss him. Miss all of them. But especially him.”
“That's okay. Missing people you've lost doesn't make you weak. It makes you human.”
“I'm not human.”
“Figure of speech.” I moved toward the door, then paused. “Get some rest. And Rafe? Next time you're bleeding, tell someone. Don't just sit here hoping it stops on its own.”
I left him there, wrapped in Evan's blanket with the fire burning low, and hoped that eventually the nightmares would fade for him the way they'd faded for others.
The way they'd mostly faded for me.
The pack house settled around me as I walked back to my room, old wood creaking and groaning in the wind. Somewhere outside, wolves were running patrol, keeping the borders safe. Somewhere inside, Rafe was trying to remember what it felt like to not be afraid.
That was the job. That was always the job.
Being the one who stayed awake so everyone else could sleep.
9
BLOOD RECOGNITION
MICHAEL
Cal was already elbow-deep in a Toyota’s engine bay when I walked in, singing along to something that sounded like Linkin Park turned up just loud enough to feel like a personal attack.
Mason stood at the adjacent workstation sanding a dented fender with the kind of focused precision that suggested he was actively pretending Cal didn’t exist.
“I’m telling you,” Cal said, not looking up, “this thing’s got at least another fifty thousand miles if the owner would just stop driving it like she’s auditioning for Fast and Furious.”
“You said that about the last three cars,” Mason replied, voice flat.
