The night air hits my face. Cold. Clean. Carrying the October emptiness of a Montana town that sleeps soundly because it doesn’t know what’s rotting beneath its postcard surface.
Somewhere behind that closed door, an Omega who commands rooms and threatens departments and holds herselftogether with nothing but willpower and icy blue hair is lying unconscious in a bed that’s too small, in an apartment that’s too empty, in a town that doesn’t deserve her, and the only people standing between her and whatever comes next are three Alphas she didn’t ask for and wouldn’t accept if she were awake to refuse.
The suppressants are killing her.
The same way they’re killing Omegas in every city, every department, every corner of a system that would rather manage the inconvenience of Omega biology with chemicals than address the structural failures that make the chemicals necessary.
And I don’t want to dare think of the possibilities of losing Officer Hazel when we just met the firecracker of an Omega…
CHAPTER 8
The Softest Thing In The Room
~OAKLEY~
“Why thefuckdo I have to stay outside while you attend to her, when I actually know her?”
Roman’s voice comes through the window like a controlled detonation—low enough to avoid waking the unconscious woman three feet from where I’m sitting, loud enough to communicate that his compliance with the current arrangement is hanging by a thread made of the thinnest material his patience has ever produced.
I smirk.
And roll my eyes.
Simultaneously, because Roman Kade has that effect on me—the ability to inspire amusement and exasperation in a single breath, a talent he’s cultivated through years of being the most aggressively stubborn man I’ve ever had the complicated privilege of serving under.
I don’t answer him immediately.
Instead, I focus on the task at hand—adjusting the button-up shirt I’d changed Hazel into, making sure the collar sits flat, thefabric aligned properly across her shoulders without bunching or riding in a way that would irritate skin that’s already running warmer than it should. The shirt is mine—a navy flannel from my go-bag, soft from years of washing cycles, large enough on her frame to provide coverage without clinging the way her soaked V-neck had. I’d handled the change with clinical efficiency and averted eyes, treating her body the way I’d treat any patient in the field: with respect, speed, and the deliberate absence of anything that could be mistaken for lingering.
Professional. You were completely professional.
The fact that your hands are still shaking has nothing to do with the curve of her waist under your fingers and everything to do with the adrenaline of a medical emergency.
That’s the story, Torres. Stick to it.
I tuck the fresh sheets around her—new ones I’d pulled from the narrow closet beside the bathroom, swapping out the damp, sweat-soaked bedding that had been twisted into evidence of whatever nightmare had driven her to that shower floor. The replacement set is thin but dry, smelling faintly of detergent and the peculiar staleness of linens that have been stored too long in a space that doesn’t get enough airflow.
The bathroom calls me next. I grab a clean towel from the rack, run it under the cold tap until the fabric is saturated, then wring it to the precise dampness that medical training says is optimal for fever management—wet enough to draw heat, dry enough not to drip.
When I lay it across her forehead, she sighs.
Quiet. Barely there. The unconscious, involuntary exhale of a body that has been burning and just received its first moment of relief. The sound is small enough to disappear into the ambient silence of the apartment, but it hits the inside of my chest with the specificity of a bullet finding its exact intended target.
A sigh of relief.
When’s the last time this woman felt relief? Genuine, unearned, given-to-her-without-conditions relief?
When’s the last time someone put a cold cloth on her forehead and she didn’t have to be unconscious to accept it?
I don’t answer Roman.
Not yet.
Instead, I sit back in the chair I’ve pulled beside the bed—a wooden thing with a woven seat that belongs at a kitchen table and protests my weight with a creak that I’ll have to manage if I want to avoid waking her—and take a moment to simply look at Hazel Martinez.
The fever is stabilizing. I can see it in the gradual return of color to her face—the olive complexion reasserting itself beneath the alarming pallor that had made her look like a photograph losing its saturation. The counter-agents Alaric had assembled are doing their work, the combination of antihistamines and electrolyte compounds pulling her body back from whatever biochemical cliff the suppressants had shoved it toward. Her breathing has evened out—deep, rhythmic, the measured respiration of genuine sleep rather than the shallow, rapid pattern of a system in crisis.
In dry clothes, with the damp towel cooling her forehead and the fresh sheets replacing the sweat-soaked ones, she looks…
